About

I Wish I Had Enough Followers for People to Reply "Real" refers to a phrasal template meme that involves a person stating they wish they had enough followers so they could give a shoutout to a certain band, person or character and 100 people would reply "real" to the post. The format commonly involves a user posting a picture or a video of the person or character together with the caption.

Origin

The phrasal format achieved initial spread within the Taylor Swift fandom in late May 2024. On May 22nd, 2024, X^[1] / Twitter user @hansalchemy made the earliest discovered example using the format, writing, "I wish I had enough followers where I could just be like 'I love the alchemy' and theres like 20 people just being like 'real.'" The post (shown below) gained over 80 reposts and 1,000 likes in four months, with multiple users replying "real."

More similar posts were made by other Taylor Swift fans on X / Twitter in the following days. For example, on May 23rd, 2024, X^[2] user @ofthemisery made a post about the song "The Bolter" that received over 100 reposts and 1,000 likes in four months (shown below).

Spread

In late May 2024, similar posts about other celebrities and characters were shared on X. Notably, on May 25th, 2024, X^[3] user @LifeonWheels95 posted one referencing controversies involving British writer J.K. Rowling that gained over 4,000 reposts and 44,000 likes in three months. On May 27th, X^[4] user @dailymalerover made a post about Wuthering Waves character Rover that gained over 690 reposts and 9,000 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below).

On July 29th, 2024, X^[5] user @Brendanthebombe made a post about OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes character Dendy that received over 230 reposts and 1,500 likes in two weeks (shown below).

The post by @Brendanthebombe was followed by a chain of posts in which users quoted the previous post with a new meme about another character that lasted for several weeks. For example, on August 5th, 2024, X^[6] user @paranoid_ghosts made a Hatsune Miku meme that received over 1,900 reposts and 24,000 likes in one week (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References