Me As Three Years Old vs. Me Now

About

Me As Three Years Old vs. Me Now is an image macro meme depicting a girl at three-years-old in a princess costume expressing her love of Strawberry Shortcake compared to the same girl "now" in a hoodie asking, "where is my vibrater?" The meme was originally posted online as early as September 2019 and was purportedly created by now-deleted Instagram user aliyah_lover22, aka cupidlungss. It became the subject of edits as an exploitable meme format throughout the 2020s, seeing a significant resurgence on X / Twitter in October 2024.

Origin

On September 6th, 2019, u/Tearfulmod posted an image macro to /r/MakeMeSuffer^[1] titled, "I found this on r/cringetopia and i don't know what to say," garnering over 300 upvotes in five years. The meme compares a three-year-old girl to her modern day self. The three-year-old expresses her love of Strawberry Shortcake and the modern-day girl asks, "Where is my vibrater?" Allegedly, the image macro was created by now-deleted Instagram user aliya_lover22, who also had the account cupidlungss, although neither account exists any longer and the origin is unconfirmed.

Spread

The meme garnered viral spread over the following years as the subject of reposts. For example, on May 14th, 2023, X^[2] user @tweyen posted it, garnering over 11,000 likes in a year. On May 21st, X^[3] user @kittydogcrystal posted a redraw of the meme, garnering over 1,100 likes in the same rough span of time.

On December 21st, X^[4] user @IHARTKELLYANN reposted the original meme, writing, "This image is so funny to me WHAT DOES THIS MEAN," garnering over 39,000 likes in 10 months. The post inspired numerous redraws and edits in the quote-reposts.^[5]

On December 30th, an edit of the meme was posted to /r/distressingmemes,^[6] garnering over 370 upvotes in 10 months. On October 22nd, 2024, X^[7] user @the_angler_mann posted a new version of the meme in which the modern day version of the person in the meme can't find their inhaler, writing, "i imagined it'd be funnier," garnering over 58,000 likes in two days.

The post inspired an increase in edits over the following days. On October 23rd, X^[8] user @Sgtroebuckfeels posted an edit referencing Call of Duty, garnering over 1,000 likes in a day. Later that day, X^[9] user @tgirl_fangs posted a version referencing content creator Dream, garnering over 21,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References