About

Drop the X. It's Cleaner is an exploitable meme and phrasal template that typically features a screen capture of Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) from the 2010 biographical drama film The Social Network. Memes using the format typically substitute "X" with various words or letters to drop from a variety of names or expressions that arguably sound better or make something more impressive, among other uses.

Origin

On October 1st, 2010, the The Social Network, a dramatization of the founding of the social media platform Facebook, was released in theaters. In the film, Parker tells Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) to "drop the 'the.' It's cleaner," when referring to Facebook. The scene was uploaded on April 14th, 2017, by the YouTube channel "Movieclips"^[1] at the 2:56 timestamp (seen below).

The earliest known use of a screengrab from the scene in conjunction with the phrasal template, "Drop the X, it's cleaner," was a July 15th, 2015, post by the Instagram^[2] page @libertymadison, which gathered over 30 likes in seven years (seen below, left). The earliest known notable use of the phrase and image was a March 14th, 2019, tweet by @ben_rosen,^[3] which read, "drop the o. just beto rourke. it's cleaner," and gathered over 900 likes in three years (seen below, right).

Spread

On February 10th, 2021, the Instagram^[7] page @medschoolhq posted a meme using the phrasal template "drop the X, it's cleaner," in conjunction with an image of Justin Timberlake playing Sean Parker, gathering over 3,000 likes in two years (seen below, left). On October 4th, 2021, the Instagram^[8] page @somemorenews posted a similar meme, gathering over 1,300 likes in a year (seen below, right).

On October 20th, 2021, Twitter^[4] user @Atrioc posted a tweet that read, "drop the 'facebook' … it's cleaner," in response to Facebook's parent company changing its name to Meta, gathering over 3,000 likes in a year (seen below, left). On November 18th, 2021, Twitter^[5] user @SotoP_23 posted a tweet using the image of Justin Timberlake and the phrasal template, saying, "Drop the 'Los Angeles of Anaheim.' Just 'Anaheim Angels.' It’s cleaner." The tweet gathered over 800 likes in a year (seen below, right).

On February 20th, 2022, Twitter^[6] user @FilmMomatic posted a tweet using the meme format, saying "Drop the 'the.' / Just TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. / It's cleaner," gathering over 1,800 likes in a year (seen below, left). On November 17th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @FrankTJMackay replied to a longer thread using the meme template, saying, "Hollywood Exec:- Drop the ‘of the Lambs,’ it’s cleaner," accumulating over 6,000 likes in three months (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References