About

God Forbid Women Have Hobbies is a catchphrase used in memes that humorously excuse behavior that is normally considered criminal or socially unacceptable, such as cheating, stealing and committing murder, downplaying these deeds as "hobbies." Spawned by a viral tweet, the phrase first achieved virality in the spring of 2023, with the male counterpart God Forbid Men Have Hobbies also seeing use online.

Origin

On January 29th, 2023, Twitter user @fordholden made a quote tweet of the Euphoria character Jules captioned "all she did was cry and cheat," writing, "god forbid women have hobbies" (tweet has since been deleted). On January 31st, Instagram^[1] account dropmycroissants made the earliest repost of the tweet, with the post gaining over 41,000 likes in six months (shown below).

Spread

The catchphrase did not see further spread until March 3rd, 2023, when Twitter^[2] user @paulswhtn captioned a post about Succesion character Siobhan Roy with the phrase. The post gained over 680 reposts and 6,900 likes in five months.

Following the post by @paulswhtn, the phrase achieved virality on Twitter where it was used in quote tweets about women, both real and fictional, displaying behavior that is either criminal or generally frowned upon.

For example, on March 8th, Twitter^[3] user @1ux1isbon posted a tweet that received over 2,800 reposts and 45,000 likes in five months (shown below, left). On March 19th, Twitter^[4] user @meradceu captioned a tweet accusing Marvel character Scarlet Witch of murder, torture and kidnapping with the phrase. The post (shown below, right) received over 5,800 reposts and 44,100 likes in five months.

The catchphrase maintained a notable presence on Twitter^[5] through the following months, with multiple tweets using it going viral (example shown below, left). Starting on July 2nd, 2023, a male counterpart of the catchphrase, "god forbid men have hobbies" achieved popularity following a tweet^[6] about Hunter Biden that gained over 1,500 retweets and 18,600 likes in one month (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References