Gracie Cunningham's "Math Isn't Real" Video

About

Gracie Cunningham's "Math Isn't Real" Video went viral on TikTok and Twitter in August 2020. The video features Cunningham musing on the creation of math, particularly algebra, questioning why and how the system was created. The video inspired debate among internet users about the validity of the question.

Origin

On August 23rd, 2020, TikToker^[1] @gracie.ham (Cunningham) posted the video discussing the creation of math. In the post, she says:

I know it’s real because we all learned it in school or whatever. But who came up with this concept? And you'll be like 'Pythagoras.' But how? How did he come up with this? He was living in the, I don't know whenever he was living, but it was not now, where you can have, like technology and stuff, you know. I get an addition. Like hey, if you take two apples and add three, it's five. But how would you come up with the concept of, like, algebra? What would you need it for?

The post received more than 1.2 million views, 301,000 likes and 8,100 comments in less than two weeks (shown below).

Spread

Two days later, Twitter user @aleturner tweeted the video, captioning the clip "this is the dumbest video ive ever seen." The post received more than 13 million views, 111,000 likes and 42,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

this is the dumbest video ive ever seen pic.twitter.com/cq3pEisHBR

— ela (@aIeturner) August 25, 2020

Some defended Cunningham online, posting in the hashtag #mathisntreal. On August 27th, Twitter user @billdotmu tweeted a video of himself reciting Cunningham's video. He wrote, "Testing a theory. I don't think the original video was dumb at all, I think when an American teenage girl says something people interpret it differently to the same words coming from a British man in his thirties. What do you think?" The post received more than 3,000 likes and 850 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Testing a theory. I don't think the original video was dumb at all, I think when an American teenage girl says something people interpret it differently to the same words coming from a British man in his thirties. What do you think? #mathisntreal @graciegcunning https://t.co/BxCIjDifCx pic.twitter.com/DiC9VX5gyD

— Bill Hayes (@billdotmu) August 27, 2020

On TikTok, some used the video to create duets. For example, on August 27th, dragqueen Kyne posted the first of two duets in which she attempts to answer the question, defending Cunningham and explaining the concept of "is math real?" Each received more than 25,000 likes each (shown below, left and right, respectively).

That day, Cunningham published a duet that reads, "Can yall stop dragging me now? All the people from my school found it and everyone on Twitter is insulting me and being really hurtful for no reason. This didn't cause any harm. Do you feel smart? Did it give you a god complex? I'm literally 16." The post received more than 316,000 views, 52,000 likes and 1,600 comments in less than one week (shown below, right).

On August 28th, Junkee^[2] published the article "This TikTok User Asked If Numbers Are Real, And Accidentally Started 2020’s Biggest Argument."

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References