Keep It Lemon

About

Keep It Lemon is a British, slang catchphrase that roughly translates to "keep it cool" or "keep it fresh." The origin of the phrase has been likened to the album cover for The Stone Roses, however, it has also been likened to the football video game FIFA, specifically the game's "Pro Clubs" sector. Overall, the phrase was seemingly coined by a since-deleted TikToker named Jayjay Brooke (@jayjaybrooke1) who started posting "keep it lemon" content in early 2022. The phrase gained popularity on TikTok going into 2023, associated with the slang term Charva and the charva stereotype of British men. In the TikTok memes and videos, "keep it lemon" was often paired with the lemon emoji (🍋) and men parodying charvas by doing a one finger point, wearing charva clothes (like Nike and Stone Island) and listening to charva music (like drum & bass and UK garage, among other techno genres specific to Great Britain).

Origin

Sometime in early 2022, since-deleted TikToker @jayjaybrooke1 (also known as Jay Jay or Jayjay Brooke) started positng content related to the catchphrase "keep it lemon," often using the lemon emoji (🍋) as well. Evidence of his presence date back as early as February 22nd, 2022, in a TikTok^[1] video that tagged him. Currently, the earliest known "keep it lemon" video was posted by TikToker^[2] @lilfleming on February 19th, 2023, gaining roughly 23,300 plays and 2,500 likes in one year (shown below).

The sound of the aforementioned video was the techno song "Give Me All Your Love" by Schwing which was seemingly associated with since-deleted TikToker @jayjaybrooke1, evident in TikToks^[3][4] tagging him posted in March and April 2022 which also used the song, showing a since-deleted sound that was named after his username. For instance, one video posted by TikToker^[4] @ministryofsound on April 1st, 2023, used the song and showed the cameraman running into @jayjaybrooke1 in public, gaining roughly 226,800 plays and 13,400 likes in a year (shown below).

Spread

In early 2022, various users followed the "keep it lemon" trend, using the song "Give Me All Your Love" by Schwing^[5] as their TikTok sound and signifying the charva stereotype in their outfits and mannerisms. For instance, on March 21st, 2022, TikToker^[3] @jakecook234 posted a "keeping it lemon 🍋" video with the song, ironically writing "Stone Island" in text to make it appear like the clothing brand's sleeve badge, gaining roughly 440,500 plays and 32,700 likes in a year (shown below, left). On May 10th, TikToker^[6] @jjadeboyle posted a video with "keeping it lemon on a tuesday🍋🍋🍋" in the caption, gaining roughly 1.9 million plays and 270,600 likes in one year (shown below, right).

Going into 2023, the phrase's usage continued to rise on TikTok, especially towards late 2023. For instance, on September 11th, 2023, TikToker^[7] @iamdavyd posted a video with the phrase, gaining roughly 440,000 plays and 68,200 likes in nine days (shown below).

By September 20th, 2023, the hashtags #keepitlemon and #keepitlemon🍋 had amassed over 121.1 million and 515.5 million views, respectively, on TikTok.^[8][9]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References