About

MET Gala Stairs 2022 or MET Gala Dirty Red Carpet refers to an image macro of the MET Gala 2022 red carpet and staircase with no one on it. The empty photograph led to multiple photoshops from meme creators who added in their own characters and meme references. It was originally posted to Twitter, later becoming an exploitable across other platforms following the event.

Origin

On May 2nd, 2022, the Twitter^[1] account 21metgala tweeted a photograph taken at the event, being of the empty staircase. Over the course of three days, the image received roughly 7,400 likes (shown below).

Spread

On May 2nd, 2022, Twitter^[2] user keyon quote retweeted the aforementioned tweet, captioning it, "They gone have a field day with this picture," in reference to the amount of memes projected to be made with it. Over the course of three days, the QT received roughly 82,400 likes (shown below).

Inspired by the engagement that keyon's QT received, the photo started to be exploited across Twitter. For instance, on May 2nd, 2022, Twitter^[3] user lilbrowntwists photoshopped the High-Heeled Woman Stepping Into The New Year into the image, earning roughly 18,000 likes in three days (shown below, left). On May 3rd, 2022, Twitter^[4] user rceezus photoshopped a dapper little Pikachu with a bow-tie into the image, earning roughly 156,200 likes in two days (shown below, right).

On May 4th, 2022, Anthony "Spice" Adams posted a meme to Instagram^[5] of himself within the template, earning roughly 12,400 likes in one day (shown below, left). Additionally, the image started to receive more meta iterations. For instance, on May 2nd, 2022, Twitter^[6] user zachsilberberg photoshopped the image into the image, captioning it, "the jpeg of the empty #metgala stairs that people are using for memes has arrived at the #metgala," earning over 470 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References