About

Minion Staring in the Forest, also known as the Scary Minion or simply Staring Minion, refers to a seemingly AI-generated image of a Minion standing in a dark forest, staring at the viewer. It was described as creepy and unsettling by many. The image went viral on TikTok in early 2025 and spawned an image macro series with captions mostly relating to anger, discontent or frustration. Many of the memes were shared as TikTok photo slideshows. A majority of the memes used the phrasal template "How I look at X" or "How I stare at X" with the Minion representing the meme creator glaring at someone after committing a transgression. Many of the memes were from the perspective of women looking at their boyfriends, sometimes akin to the I Hate My BF trend. The image's earliest known upload was in January 2024.

Origin

On January 5th, 2024, a seemingly AI-generated image of a Minion standing in a dark forest was posted to a Russian War Thunder forum.^[1] It is currently the first known upload of the image.

On February 8th, 2024, a higher quality and wider cropped version of the image was shared by Redditor^[2] Bl4z932 to /r/deepwoken, gaining 39 upvotes in 11 months (shown below).

Spread

Heading into 2024, the image was used in Reddit^[3] comments and gained viral reposts on other social media platforms. For instance, on November 3rd, 2024, Instagram^[4] user @reactionpiccs reposted it, receiving over 19,500 likes in two months.

On January 20th, 2025, TikToker^[5] @user197429037 posted the image in a one-photo slideshow, receiving over 3.5 million likes in nine days. The viral post sparked viral usage in the following days as users added captions. For instance, on January 22nd, TikToker^[6] @mysglare_ posted an iteration, captioning it, "IK where you live," receiving over 2.5 million likes in a week (shown below).

Both of the aforementioned TikTok^[5][6] posts used a TikTok sound^[7] that was called "Old Roblox horror music." Going forward, meme creators continued to use the sound when posting their Minion memes. For instance, on January 26th, 2025, TikToker^[8] @ihatemydumbbf captioned it, "How I look at my boyfriend as soon as he takes his hands off of me," receiving over 491,200 likes in three days (shown below).

Some of the memes used a different TikTok sound^[9] of a bell toll. For instance, on January 27th, TikToker^[10] @thats.sojayden used the alternate sound, captioning the image, "You make me laugh so much. I'm going to crawl into your bed tonight while you sleep." The photo received over 1.3 million likes in two days (shown below).

The trend then spread across social media in late January 2025. For instance, on January 27th, Instagram^[11] user @motormia.co posted a Reel with the image, joking about, "How I look at bro when he says it should be a 'quick 30-minute job' (it took us 5 hours)," receiving over 2,300 likes in two days (shown below).

Also on January 27th, Instagram^[12] user @gio.temple posted a screenshot of his own tweet,^[13] captioning the image, "How I look at bro after I've repeated what I said for the third time and he still dint hear me." On Instagram, the post gained over 22,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On January 27th, 2025, Twitter / X ^[14] user @northstardoll posted an iteration with a captioned read, "Do you hate me be honest," amassing over 258,000 in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References