About

Ian Hawke is a character played by actor David Cross in the Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action film series. In the movies, Hawke is a record executive and the main antagonist for the Chipmunks to overcome. Photoshop memes featuring Hawke existed shortly after the release of the first movie in 2007, but numerous memes resurfaced en masse on TikTok in April 2024 via Ian Hawke edits and photo slideshows that humorously portrayed him as an alpha. The slideshows were typically seen as two photos that split Hawke's face, using the Hunger Games song "The Hanging Tree" ("Are you, are you, coming to the tree?"). Many of the memes center on Hawke's catchphrase "I never lose."

Origin

On December 14th, 2007, the first live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks film was released in American theaters. The movie's main antagonist is Ian Hawke (played by David Cross), an executive at JETT Records who canonically went to college with Dave Seville. Hawke is also a character in both Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011). ^[1][2]

In the early 2010s, clips of Ian Hawke from the film series were posted to YouTube.^[3] Non-viral posts about Ian Hawke started to surface in the late 2010s on websites like Twitter / X. ^[4] In 2019, Know Your Meme user IanHawkeFan1 posted several Ian Hawke photoshops with unmarked origins (examples shown below).

As of late April 2024, the first discovered viral Ian Hawke meme was a video posted by YouTuber^[5] Over Hyped on June 7th, 2019, titled, "Uncle Ian goes Sicko Mode," which referenced the Travis Scott song, receiving over 17,000 views in five years (shown below).

Spread

Going into the 2020s, Ian Hawke memes became increasingly commonplace and viral, such as one shared by a deleted Redditor^[6] to /r/OkBuddyPersona on May 31st, 2020, gaining over 600 upvotes in four years (shown below, left).

On December 19th, 2023, X^[7] user @slvppy posted a tweet, reading, "this mf was really the suge knight of the chipmunks 😭," gaining over 123,000 likes in four months (shown below, right).

On TikTok

Viral usage of Ian Hawke surfaced on TikTok in 2022, evident in a video posted by TikToker^[8] @literallythegosling on December 19th, 2022, in which Hawke says, "I told you, Dave. I never lose," with text reading a joke about being a virgin, earning over 1.5 million plays and 272,100 likes in two years (shown below, left).

On September 4th, 2023, TikToker^[9] @josephpostingstuff posted a similar meme using the same clip, receiving over 2.7 million plays and 299,800 likes in seven months (shown below, right).

Slideshow Trend

In April 2024, a slideshow trend emerged using Ian Hawke and the song "The Hanging Tree"^[10] from the Hunger Games film series. The Ian Hawke slideshows were a variant of a sports slideshow trend (predominantly made by football fans) under a "The Hanging Tree" TikTok sound.^[11] The original sports trend involved slideshows with two photos that swiped through a split-screen of an athlete's face. The second photo, with the left side of the person's face, was often in black-and-white and relayed in text a more impressive accolade achieved by the person or one of their competitors.

The Ian Hawke variation of the trend used the same split-screen format but portrayed Ian Hawke as the superior character, similar to powerscaling edits. Currently, the first discovered Ian Hawke slideshow to follow the format was posted by TikToker^[12] @ianhawkesigma on April 20th, 2024, gaining over 6.8 million plays and 492,800 likes in six days (photos shown below).

The format went viral across multiple slideshows posted by TikTokers^[13][14] in late April 2024, leading to viral fan edits and memes as well.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References