Mitski's Q Is For Quiet

About

Mitski's Q Is For Quiet is a catchphrase and lip dub audio format that became popularized on TikTok in late 2022 and early 2023 for use in introducing different objects. The audio, stemming from a 2020 interview with Mitski, has to do with liking something so much that you wish it was around you all of the time, causing it to become viral on TikTok as a versatile audio format useful for showing things off.

Origin

On February 2nd, 2020, Dazed uploaded an interview with Mitski to its YouTube^[1] channel that showcased Mitski going over some letters and what they mean to her, with "Q" being for "quiet." Describing it as a nice type of quiet that she wishes was all the time, the interview itself obtained over 250,000 views in one year while introducing the internet to several usable Mitski sound clips (shown below).

On November 20th, 2022, the "Q is for Quiet" snippet was first uploaded to TikTok by TikToker qkvichi,^[2] who uploaded it as part of a montage of various Mitski clips, as well as having some of the audio represented as text on screen, earning over 405,000 likes in two months (shown below).

Spread

The audio quickly began to spread on TikTok over the following months, with people using it to show off their favorite things that they would use as part of the "alphabet" referenced by Mitski. On January 14th, 2023, the TikToker iluvgiv3on^[3] uploaded a TikTok in which they used text on the screen to showcase "V is for Vaseline" and explained how much they love it, earning over 1.4 million likes in three weeks (shown below).

On January 24th, before the Conference Finals Playoff game, the NFL official TikTok^[4] account uploaded a version in which "J is for Joe" was used as a way of signaling support for the player Joe Burrow, which received over 870,000 likes in two weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References