About

Gonna Tell My Kids or Telling My Kids is a Twitter phrasal template in which Twitter users say they will tell their kids the image they posted is of a certain celebrity. Although the image is never actually the celebrity, many of the images share some characteristics with the celebrity or historical figure mentioned. Gonna Tell My Kids tweets became popular in November 2019.

Origin

On July 2nd, 2019, Twitter^[7] user @rodtheslayer posted the earliest known version of the meme. They posted an image of rapper Juelz Santana with the caption "Ima tell my kids in 2045 that this was Obama." The tweet received more than 105,000 likes and 33,000 retweets (shown below).

Spread

On September 19th, 2019, Twitter user @Wake_n_Bacon^[1] uploaded another version that read "I gonna tell my kids in 2055 that this was Justin Trudeau" showing a cartoon which refers to Trudeau's Brownface Controversy (shown below).

On November 12th, 2019, Twitter user @_MTGBayBee^[5] posted a photo of Lil Wayne with the caption "Im telling my kids this is Bill Gates" (shown below, left). The next day, Twitter user @lowendfury^[2] tweeted a picture from Breaking Bad with the caption "gonna tell my kids this was obama" (shown below, right). The tweet gained over 61,600 likes and 16,800 shares in six days.

On November 17th, Twitter user @ThyArtIsMemes^[3] posted a picture of Brendon Urie with the caption "Gonna tell my kids this was Abraham Lincoln" which received over 176,100 likes and 43,000 shares in three two days (shown below, left). The next day, Twitter user @godvfwine^[4] posted a picture of Kyle Bell in All That with the caption "Gonna tell my kids this is Kurt Cobain" (shown below, right). The tweet accumulated 32,200 likes and 9,100 retweets in a day. On November 19th, Cheezburger^[6] published a list of the best Gonna Tell My Kids memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References