About

Journey of the Overthinking Hooper is a catchphrase (meant to read like the title of a chapter in a book) that references the "overthinking hooper," a basketball player who overthinks while playing the game, causing them to perform poorly. The phrase became popularized on TikTok as a spam comment in May 2023 after a user commented with it under a video asking, "If your life was a book, what chapter would this be called."

Origin

Videos about the "overthinking hooper" character type, meaning a basketball player who overthinks their play during a game, causing them to play poorly, started to grow in virality on TikTok^[1] throughout late 2022 and early 2023. For example, on August 30th, 2022, TkToker^[2] @shimisora posted a video about the overthinking hooper, garnering over 459,000 views in nine months (shown below, left).

On or around April 29th, 2023, a TikToker commented "Journey of the Overthinking Hooper" in response to a now-deleted video by TikToker @hsmq asking, "If your life was a book, what chapter would this be called." On May 15th, TikToker^[2] @zayadrey posted a video in which he reads comments under the video, reading the hooper comment, garnering over 2.8 million views in two weeks (shown below, right).

Spread

Following the virality of @zayadrey's video, TikTokers^[3] began using "Journey of the Overthinking Hooper" as a spam comment, also commenting it under videos making what you would call the current chapter of your life. TikTokers also began making videos using the phrase. On May 26th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @the_1_and_only_jman posted a video using the phrase, garnering over 447,000 views in five days (shown below).

Around the same time, Twitter^[5][6] users also began posting the phrase and using it as their display name.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References