About

Friendly Fade is a TikTok trend and meme in which mostly male creators promote a self-organized "friendly fade" that involves fighting each other followed by doing something casual like hanging out and getting food. The slang term "fade" is an AAVE term for "fight." The videos included a lot of text outlining absurd parameters like wide age ranges and obscure locations. Friendly Fade videos and memes surfaced en masse in early 2024.

Origin

Currently, the earliest known usage of the term "friendly fade" was a video posted by TikToker^[1] @dezz_916 on January 4th, 2023, who showed a friendly fade at Target, gaining over 19,900 plays and 470 likes in a year.

"Friendly fade" wasn't used again online until March 2024, when a new TikToker coined the term on his own page, popularizing it going forward. The post was a one-photo slideshow from Houston-based TikToker^[2] @hibraydn shared on March 6th, 2024, gaining over 818,300 plays and 143,700 likes in six days (shown below).

Anyone in Houston want to fight? (Friendly fades)
1v1s
1v2s (optional)
2v2s
No jumping!
Free fades
We get food after bring your friends

Spread

A screenshot of @hibraydn's photo was reposted by Instagram^[5] user @oiaflol on March 7th, 2024, gaining over 91,500 likes in five days.

Going into March 2024, various TikTokers posted similar videos for their cities in which the parameters became increasingly absurd. For instance, on March 7th, TikToker^[3] @.wokkyyy posted an iteration for the New York area, gaining over 2.7 million plays and 423,100 likes in five days (shown below, left).

On March 10th, 2024, TikToker^[4] @jheneaikolover00 posted an iteration that discussed getting McDonald's afterward, receiving over 4.6 million plays and 817,200 likes in two days (shown below, right).

On March 6th, X^[6] user @EyesoXyn shared a screenshot of a since-deleted Friendly Fade slideshow posted by TikToker^[7] @tricky.km (koke💥) around the same time as @hibraydn's slideshow.^[2] @EyesoXyn captioned the screenshot, "Ngga hosting a fade and feast 😭," gaining over 60,000 likes in six days (shown below, left).

Viral quotes then surfaced, like one shared by X^[8] user @NotKhary on March 7th, 2024, who said, "modern men yearn for the gladiator era" (referencing The Children Yearn For the Mines), earning over 110,000 likes in four days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References