About

My Chinese Spy, also known as Me Saying Goodbye to My Chinese Spy, refers to a catchphrase and meme trend on TikTok in which users post satirical videos and memes saying goodbye to the fictional Chinese spy that was monitoring their social media after hearing the news that the U.S. government might ban the video-sharing app TikTok on January 19th, 2025. Posts showing Americans joking about their affection and fondness for their Chinese spy, which is based on national security concerns over the app that notably spurred the ban by the government, began making the rounds online in mid-January 2025.

Origin

On January 11th, 2025, TikTok^[1] user @claxmcb posted the earliest mention of the My Chinese Spy meme. In the video (seen below), he speaks directly to his "Chinese spy," thanking him for introducing several celebrities, memes and events that occurred on the platform, such as Addison Rae and the "crossed-eye Filipino girl." The video amassed over 3 million plays and 748,000 likes in three days.

Spread

The My Chinese Spy meme gained viral attention on social media over the following days as users began to create their own humorous farewells to their fictional spy companions in anticipation of TikTok getting banned in the United States on the deadline of January 19th, 2025.

For instance, on January 12th, 2025, TikTok user @saltyjimmy^[2] posted a video pretending to be a Chinese spy watching over users' For You pages, which garnered over 4 million plays and 840,000 likes in just two days (seen below).

Additionally, on January 13th, 2025, Redditor u/SenorNerd718^[3] shared an evocative image of a Chinese soldier crying while looking through a window, captioned "me and my Chinese spy on January 18th at 11:59 pm," to the subreddit /r/PeterExplainsTheJoke. This post, which inquired about the meaning behind the meme, received approximately 17,000 upvotes and 350 comments in one day, further fueling the trend's popularity online (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References