About

Kyle Rittenhouse Crying refers to screenshots and a video of the 2020 Kenosha, Wisconsin shooter Kyle Rittenhouse crying during his defense testimony in November 2021. After the video was shared to Twitter, people began using screenshots of him crying as reaction images and GIFs as an exploitable, typically to express sadness in a humorous context.

Origin

On November 10th, 2021, Kyle Rittenhouse was called to the stand to testify during his trial for the 2020 Kenosha shooting where two people were killed. He was asked to describe the events leading up to the fatal shooting he'd been accused of. As he began to detail how the first man he shot, Joseph Rosenbaum, had screamed threats at him the night of the shooting, Rittenhouse began to sob and struggled to get the words out of his mouth. The judge asked the courtroom to go on a break in response to Rittenhouse's emotions.

The video inside the courtroom was taken by the Law&Crime Network, which uploaded the video to its Twitter^[1] account that same day. However, a different tweet went more viral, receiving further attention, posted by Twitter^[2] user @cathyrusson on November 10th, 2021. Her tweet received roughly 11,300 likes in less than 24 hours. The full clip (shown below) was also uploaded to YouTube ^[3] on November 10th by The Washington Post, and received roughly 37,000 views in less than 24 hours.

After Twitter^[2] user @cathyrusson's tweet received attention, Twitter^[4] user @msgfreestripper was the first known on the platform to use an image of Rittenhouse crying as a reaction image. Her tweet (shown below) received roughly 48,100 likes in less than 24 hours, captioning the image, "When she posts her outfit in a hotel room."

Spread

The format continued to spread on November 10th, 2021, following the initial tweet from @msgfreestripper. For example, Twitter^[5] user @avgmeat also used a screenshot in their own tweet posted nine minutes after @msgfreestripper. Their tweet (shown below, left) received 532 likes in less than 24 hours. Memes also came in the form of quote tweets of @cathyrusson's tweet. Twitter^[6] user @sammajammaz was the first to do so with her tweet (shown below, right), receiving roughly 14,800 likes in less than 24 hours and captioning the video, "This is the exact same way my ex responded when I confronted him about cheating on me."

Twitter users started photoshopping Rittenhouse crying into other meme formats as an exploitable. For instance, Twitter^[7] user @Liv_Agar photoshopped Rittenhouse into the Who's Getting The Best Head? template. The image (shown below) received roughly 12,800 likes in less than 24 hours.

More Twitter users used Rittenhouse crying in meme formats like I'm Literally Neurodivergent And A Minor, among others.^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References