Freud Is Right

About

Freud Is Right refers to a series of memes about the Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, best known for his theory of dreams, repression and the Oedipus complex. The meme began to trend on TikTok in September 2022 with deepfakes of Freud dueting videos on the platform that seem to confirm his psychoanalysis theories, particularly involving the relationship between an individual and their mother or father.

History

On September 19th, 2022, the page @freud.is.right^[1] was created on TikTok to react to a video of a 31-year-old man drinking a baby bottle^[2]. The duet shows a deepfake animated Sigmund Freud staring at the camera without saying a word, receiving 21.000 views and 746 likes in three weeks.

Spread

Prior to the @freud.is.right page being created, people were already referencing the neurologist on other viral videos that would align with Freud's theories. The hashtag #freudisright accumulates 10 million views and #freudwasright has 8.8 million views on TikTok. For example, this TikTok^[6] by @whoaanellyy from August 9th, 2021, in which she describes the things she deserves from a partner, then realizes all of them are dad-related characteristics. The post earned 83,000 views and 12,000 likes in one year.

The page @freud.is.right would go viral after dueting a video of a couple lip dubbing the kid's song "My Name Is"^[3] by Nick and Poli. The duet post on September 23rd, 2022, has 7 million views and 1.2 million likes in two weeks. Users commented that the behavior the couple had in the video confirms Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex^[4], which refers to a child's supposed desire for sexual involvement with the opposite sex parent.

Another common mention about the neurologist is that he "would've loved TikTok"^[5] for the amount of content posted on the app that can be compared to one of his many theories about human behavior, like this viral TikTok^[7] posted by @sagerecluse on December 19th, 2021, in which he is speaking over an image from a video about people who treat their partner as a son/daughter. He says that Freud could've done so much research about on the platform, but "it wasn't your time." The video has 847,000 views, 169,000 likes and 169 other posts using the sound on TikTok in almost a year since it was uploaded.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References