Hey Are You Listening / Yeh

About

Hey Are You Listening / Yeh is an exploitable meme format in which one stick figure says to another, "Hey are you listening," the other figure says, "yeh" and a phrase or image is shown in a thought bubble aboe their head, suggesting they are not listening. The meme was posted to Tumblr in 2021 and became the subject of photoshops over the following years, with the thought bubble being used to represent something the person thinks about often.

Origin

On January 25th, 2021, Tumblr^[1] user no-pain posted a meme in which one stick figure asks another if he's listening and he insists he is while thinking, "I really hate myself, I'm disgusting," garnering over 2,200 notes in three years (shown below). This is the earliest public version of the meme, which has a watermark that appears to read @galuxann, although the account no longer seems to exist.

Spread

The meme gained viral spread over the following years. On March 11th, 2021, Instagram^[2] user toad_images_ posted a version of the meme that gained over 16,200 likes in three years (shown below, left). On April 13th, Instagram^[3] user softnlovesome posted a version that gained over 16,000 likes in the same rough span of time (shown below, right).

On December 13th, Facebook^[4] page Sad texts for sad people. posted a version of the meme that gained over 2,300 shares and 5,300 reactions in just over two years. On January 27th, 2022, u/KnYchan2 posted a version of the meme to /r/JuJutsuKaisen^[5] that garnered over 2,300 upvotes in two years (shown below).

On August 21st, 2022, X^[6] user @tighnariluvbot posted a version of the meme where the figure is thinking of Tighnari's ears from Genshin Impact, garnering over 6,700 likes in just over a year (shown below, left). On October 29th, Instagram^[7] user mangomangoj posted a version of the meme about The Owl House that gained over 73,000 likes in around a year (shown below, right).

On October 15th, 2023, Instagram^[8] user kribymutual posted a meme referencing Kirby, garnering over 12,300 likes in four months (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References