About

How The Genie Looks at Me, also known as The Genie Looking at Me or How the Genie Be Looking at Me, refers to a phrasal template in which meme creators outline an objectively evil wish that they'd tell a genie, used to caption videos of staring characters made to resemble the genie's serious and worried reaction. The concept trended as a TikTok meme in late 2023, predominantly paired with the song "Intervallo II" by Ennio Morricone and a scene from the movie American Assassin in which actor Dylan O'Brien as Mitch Rapp is staring into the camera. In December 2023, lots of the Kurt Angle Staring memes used the snowclone.

Origin

The trend started on September 30th, 2023, when TikToker^[1] @mdri25 posted a scene from the movie American Assassin in which actor Dylan O'Brien as Mitch Rapp is staring into the camera.^[6] The video's audio was the song "Intervallo II" by Ennio Morricone.^[7] The video's text read, "How the genie be lookin at me after I told him my first wish is to triple world hunger," and over the course of 19 days, the video received roughly 5.3 million plays and 1.2 million likes (shown below).

Spread

Going into October 2023, various creators replicated the format, using the same audio and phrasal template. For instance, on October 2nd, 2023, TikToker^[2] @buutardd posted an iteration that used a Dragon Ball clip and referenced Throwing Bricks at Homeless People, gaining roughly 472,100 plays and 103,200 likes in 17 days (shown below, left). On October 13th, TikToker^[3] @gluqq posted a version about making cancer contagious, gaining roughly 1.6 million plays and 377,400 likes in six days (shown below, right).

Viral iterations persisted on TikTok^[4] in October 2023. Reposts also started to surface on YouTube^[4] during the same timeframe. Original iterations also surfaced on Instagram, such as a Reel posted by Instagram^[5] user @subparliftingmemes on October 17th, 2023, which received roughly 22,100 views and 1,600 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References