About

Major Bag Alert refers to a viral sound and audio trend taken from a DJ Khaled and Migos song recorded in mid-2017. The catchphrase became the subject of memes primarily on TikTok in 2022 where creators used the snippet to ironically emphasize activities that resulted in getting "a bag" as in receiving a lot of money or clout. The memes, in general, referenced well-known stereotypes that could result in a third-party profiting off the cliché. Additionally, as a precursor, the sound received primary usage in a Wendy's commercial from 2021.

Origin

On June 23rd, 2017, DJ Khaled released a song called, "Major Bag Alert," which featured Atlanta rap group Migos. The audio for the track was uploaded to YouTube the same day as DJ Khaled's album Grateful was released, earning roughly 3 million views and 34,000 likes over the course of five years (shown below).

Spread

Wendy's "Biggie Bag" Commercial

In March 2021, the fast-food chain Wendy's aired a commercial for their newest promotion: the five-dollar "Biggie Bag." The commercial featured a pop-up "Bag Alert" that interrupted billboards and TV programming within the imagined universe. Accompanying the pop-up ad was the Migos singing, "Bag alert, major bag alert (Major!)" acting as a jingle for the new deal. The commercial was uploaded to YouTube on March 20th, 2021, by the channel robercik101, who over the course of 11 months, earned roughly 178,800 views (shown below).

Prevalence in Memes

After the commercial aired during TV programming in March 2021, meme creators started referencing the jingle. For instance, Redditor SwagMoney_420 posted a meme to /r/whothefuckup^[1] on March 18th, 2021, exploiting an image of Oliver Tree. The meme (shown below, left) earned over 380 upvotes in 11 months. iFunnyer^[2] Marvelous7 also made an image macro referencing the jingle on March 22nd, earning over 150 likes in eleven months (shown below, right).

Major Bag Alert TikToks

On January 30th, 2022, TikToker^[3] damickey.lillard posted a video that made a joke about NBA player Damien Lillard's career and used the Migos' verse from the DJ Khaled song and prevalent in the Wendy's commercial. The TikTok (shown below) earned roughly 2.7 million plays and 244,000 likes over the course of three weeks.

More TikTokers started using the sound for their own videos, portraying their own situations deemed worthy for an ironic Major Bag Alert. This influx of TikToks started most notably on February 4th, 2022, when multiple TikTokers received mass engagement for their videos using the sound. For instance, TikToker^[4] hummuswh0ree posted a video on the 4th that gained roughly 1.8 million plays in two weeks (shown below, left). TikToker^[5] osmanreborn also posted on the 4th, receiving roughly 1.3 million plays in the same amount of time (shown below, right).

Verified TikToker^[6] poloboy posted a video using the sound on February 5th, earning roughly 1.3 million likes over the course of two weeks (shown below, left). More verified users like Jojo Siwa exploited the audio going into the rest of February. She posted her TikTok^[7] on February 13th, earning roughly 1.1 million likes over the course of four days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References