About

Just a Little Something To Take the Edge Off, also known as Something To Take the Edge Off, is a catchphrase usually about smoking a cigarette or joint and is often used in caption memes and image macros depicting a hand holding a cigarette or an object like a cigarette, which is commonly held with two fingers, pinched between the index finger and middle finger. The catchphrase originates from a 2016 trend on Twitter / X. In 2025, Just a Little Something To Take the Edge Off trended in memes on TikTok. The TikTok trend predominantly used the jazz song "deep in it" by berlioz as its audio.

Origin

On October 6th, 2016, X^[7] user @gossipgriII shared a tweet that captioned an image, "It's a gross habit, but it helps me take the edge off 😴."

The tweet was reported on by outlets like the Daily Dot,^[5] Intelligencer^[6] and BuzzFeed^[8] at the time in listicles that covered the then-budding trend. However, the tweet has since been deleted, and its URL wasn't properly saved on the Internet Archive. The tweet is also not viewable in the article URLs. A reposted screenshot of the tweet has also not yet been discovered.

However, some early iterations of the trend are still viewable on X. For instance, on October 17th, 2016, X^[1] user @AngelaHilt26 tweeted a photo of a hand holding a fried food stick like a cigarette out of a car window, captioned, "Just something to take the edge off." The tweet received over 36,000 likes in nine years (shown below).

Spread

The catchphrase gained more use on X heading into late 2016, like on October 19th, X^[2] user @steamedfruit tweeted a photo of a dog holding a treat like a cigarette, captioned, "Somethin' to take the edge off," receiving over 3,300 likes in nine years (shown below).

On July 16th, 2019, X^[3] user @orionvanessa tweeted a photo of a hand holding a packet of Smarties candy like a cigarette, captioned, "Me in the 5th grade: just a little something to take the edge off." Over six years, the tweet gained over 10,000 likes (shown below).

On March 13th, 2024, X^[12] user @notnoe_ tweeted a screenshot of the App Store apps iBeer Free and iCig Lite, captioned, "Need to take the edge off," gaining over 15,000 likes in a year (shown below).

On August 27th, iFunny ^[4] user @majicalnarwhal56 shared a Snapchat Story post, showing a hand holding a pickle like a cigarette, gaining over 1,600 smiles in 11 months (shown below).

TikTok Trend

On April 17th, 2025, TikToker^[9] @brenda.mellado posted a video of a hand holding a piece of toast from Raising Cane's like a cigarette out of a car window, captioned, "A little something to take the edge off." The video was set to the jazz song "deep in it" by berlioz.^[10] Over two months, the video received over 604,400 likes (shown below).

On May 28th, TikToker^[11] @lifeisgueno used the same sound as the abovementioned video, showing a hand holding a half-eaten burrito like a cigarette, captioned, "Something to take the edge off." Over one month, the video received roughly 1.1 million likes (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References