Excuse Me Brah (Zoolander)

About

Excuse Me Brah, continued You're Excused, And You're Not My Brah and alternatively written Excuse Me Bruh, refers to a scene from the comedy movie Zoolander in which Ben Stiller's character Derek Zoolander bumps into Owen Wilson's character Hansel in the club. The two then make comebacks back and forth about who's excused and who is whose "brah" (as in "bro" or "bruh"). The scene trended as a meme on TikTok in late 2022 amid the spike in Zoolander memes on TikTok, such as the Zoolander Stare and Hansel Getting Photographed. TikTokers reenacted the scene with many of them lip-dubbing the words over the Zoolander TikTok song "Party party" by Waq1ux and yally ("If you see us in the club we'll be acting real nice").

Origin

The comedy movie Zoolander was released in American theaters on September 28th, 2001.^[1] In the first half of the movie, there's a scene when Derek Zoolander (played by Ben Stiller) is at a nightclub and bumps into his rival Hansel (played by Owen Wilson) when walking by him. Hansel then says, "Excuse me brah," to which Zoolander replies, "You're excused … And you're not my brah" (YouTube^[2] upload shown below).

In December 2022, Zoolander Stare memes first surfaced on TikTok due to the Lightskin Stare memes that surfaced in November 2022. Then, another Zoolander meme surfaced showing Hansel getting photographed and riding a scooter. The "Hansel Getting Photographed" memes used the song "Party party" by Waq1ux and yally^[3] (known for the lyrics "if you see us in the club we'll be acting real nice") as the primary sound.

Stemming from the "Hansel Getting Photographed" memes and their use of the song "Party party," TikTokers began exploiting the aforementioned Zoolander scene in which Zoolander and Hansel bump into each other at the club. The first creator to do so was TikToker^[4] eddlicious on December 13th, 2022, who wrote in text overlay, "When your younger siblings are old enough to actually come up with a comeback instead of just crying," and earned roughly 18.4 million plays and 4.1 million likes in one week (shown below).

Spread

Following TikToker^[4] eddlicious' video, multiple creators started exploiting the new format. For instance, on December 14th, 2022, TikToker^[5] thefragrancegod posted an iteration with text overlay about men with competing colognes, gaining roughly 4 million plays and 481,700 likes in six days (shown below, left). On December 15th, TikToker^[6] 710ftbl posted an iteration about Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé bumping into each other before the 2022 World Cup Final, gaining roughly 4.1 million plays and 498,100 likes in five days (shown below, right).

On December 17th, 2022, two TikTokers posted videos in which they used the "Party party" sound but instead of using the Zoolander scene they reenacted it and lip-dubbed it. For instance, on December 17th, TikToker^[7] _cjkilla_ posted a video of him and his daughter recreating the scene, gaining roughly 35.6 million plays and 6. 4 million likes in three days (shown below, left). Also on December 17th, TikToker^[8] jhuxhold posted a similar video with his model friend, gaining roughly 18.5 million plays and 4.1 million likes in three days (shown below, right). It is unknown which TikToker posted their video first on that day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References