About

Mom Would Be Sad refers to a group of phrasal templates often used in jokes and memes about suicide and depression. In these memes, "mom would be sad", "dog wouldn't know why I'm gone" and similar statements are portrayed as primary reasons why the author of the post chooses not to commit suicide.

Origin

Before "Mom Would Be Sad" emerged as a phrasal meme format, threads in which users admitted that unwillingness to inflict pain on their parents was a major reason in their decision not to commit suicide became a recurring trope on 4chan.^[1][2]

On December 9th, 2018, Twitter^[3] user @pant_leg posted a joke in which she listed "man wanting to die vs mom would be sad" among classic conflicts. The tweet gained over 15,500 retweets and 71,000 likes within a month.

Spread

On the same day, Redditor^[4] Leethorne posted the screenshot of the tweet to /r/2meirl4meirl subreddit, where it gained over 28,500 upvotes in a month. Another repost of the tweet made by Redditor^[5] Mark_dawsom on January 6th, 2019, gained over 38,400 upvotes within 4 days.

The post inspired object-labeling memes utilizing the phrasal template. On December 13th, 2019 Redditor^[6] dragonkiller_CZ posted one of the earliest known posts to /r/2meirl4meirl subreddit. The posts gained over 34,900 upvotes within a month.

In the following month, more examples of the memes using the caption followed, particularly in /r/2meirl4meirl^[7], /r/dankmemes^[8] and /r/memes^[9] subreddits. In several examples, phrases like "dog wouldn't understand" were used instead.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References