Hayasaka's "Hey, Hey!"

About

"Hey, Hey!" refers to a close-up shot of the Kaguya-Sama: Love is War character Ai Hayasaka's face, often paired with the caption "Hey, hey!" In early May 2020, the image gained significant popularity in the anime community as a reaction and an exploitable.

Origin

On May 2nd, 2020, episode four of the season two of the anime series Kaguya-Sama: Love is War (jap. Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai – Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunōsen) premiered.^[1] In one scene of the episode, character Ai Hayasaka enters a classroom to tell Kaguya Shinomiya that Miyuki Shirogane wants to talk to her (scene shown below).

Hey, hey! Shinomiya!

On May 2nd, Redditor^[2] PastaThePasta posted the first known meme based on the close-up of Hayasaka from the episode, with the post gaining over 26,000 upvotes in the /r/Animemes subreddit in two days (shown below, left). On the same day, Redditor^[3] Legendosh posted the closeup, paired with "Hey, hey!" caption, gaining over 8,400 upvotes in the same period (shown below, right).

Spread

Starting on May 3rd, the format saw rapid spread in the /r/Animemes subreddit. For example, on that day Redditor^[4] minii-chan posted an edit that received over 10,600 upvotes in one day (shown below, left). Also on May 3rd, Redditor^[5] I_love_racists posted a slightly altered version of the format, with the post receiving over 18,900 upvotes in one day (shown below, right).

In addition to being used as a reaction image, the format saw use as an exploitable and as source material for redraws.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References