About

"Just the Two of Us" is a 1981 R&B song by Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers. In 2022, the song achieved viral popularity on YouTube as it was used as a melody for images of unlikely couples, usually a sigma male character and an anime girl.

Origin

On May 3rd, 2022, YouTube^[1] user KILTLE posted an edited image of Chika Fujiwara from the anime series Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War standing next to Thomas Shelby from the crime drama series Peaky Blinders, set to the 1981 R&B song "Just the Two of Us" by Grover Washington Jr and Bull Withers.The image used in the video was originally posted by a now-defunct Facebook page shitpostdeanime. The video accumulated over 14.3 million views in seven months (shown below).

The song saw minor use in memes before: for example, on May 3rd, 2020, YouTube^[2] user chungie44 posted a Little Grey Cat meme set to the song which garnered over 1.9 million views in two years.

Spread

The Fujiwara and Shelby video inspired other users to create similar videos, with the earliest derivative versions appearing in June 2022. For example, on June 3rd, 2022, VTuber Rye Project posted a version that gained over 14,000 views on YouTube^[3] in six months (shown below, left). On June 29th, YouTube^[4] user holychipmunk posted a Snoop Dogg and Inugami Korone version which garnered over 1.1 million views in the same period (shown below, right).

The format saw a massive uptick in popularity in late September and October 2022, when multiple memes based on it were posted on YouTube. For example, on October 4, YouTube^[5] user INoxx posted a James Bond and Yor Forger version which received over 279,000 views in two months (shown below, left). On October 15th, YouTube^[6] user ぐーす posted a John Wick and Chisato Nishikigi version which received over 251,000 views in two months (shown below, right).

YouTube user Tabes Tabes created a playlist^[7] to gather "Just the Two of Us" memes which, as of December 21st, 2022, had over 371 videos in it.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References