It's Not a Trend, It's a Tradition is a catchphrase pertaining to the "Wake Up It's The First of The Month" meme. It's commonly used in parody edits of the movie Barnyard on TikTok. As of March 2026, the original creator of the meme, Onytitned, has created an edit for every month since June 2025, with each video gaining a consistent amount of virality.

Origin

The first use of this phrase was in a comment from TikTok user Trulytheguy on May 31st, 2025, which states, "It’s not even a trend anymore it’s tradition 😭." The video the comment is on starts with a clip from Barnyard, with the audio replaced with AI voices of the characters and the intro to "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. In this clip, Ben tells his son Otis that It's the first of the month and that Otis is still unemployed, with Otis expressing his surprise that it's already June. The beat then drops and it becomes an edit of the video "Funny Cow Dance 4," with the song becoming a mashup with Playboi Carty's "Sky." The comment received 712.7k likes and the video received 8.6M.

On September 1st, 2025, Onytitned began to add worldbuilding to the edits, implying that the cows in Barnyard ceremoniously dance together every first of the month. This also marked the beginning of the idea that the meme is a tradition being used in edits, with Bud correcting Igg when he claims it's a trend. The video garnered 9.6M likes.

Spread

As the monthly meme spread, the videos started to include reflections on upcoming and previous events. Users also started to make their own versions of the edits, such as Zrst4_voiceovers' for December 2025, which garnered 54.9k likes.

Since the release of Sora 2, some videos, including ones by the original creator, started to use AI imagery. Onytitned's most recent one as of March 2026 used an AI generated video with a reference to Punch the Monkey. The video received 12.2M likes the day after it was posted.