About

Never Forget Who Was There for You at Your Lowest, also known as Never Forget Who Was There for You When No One Else Was, refers to a series of image macros of people holding hands captioned with the quote. Since 2015, the image macros have been a subject of parodies, with users replacing one of the people in the image with a certain object that helped one through tough times, such as a music album or a medication.

Origin

Prior to 2015, various image macros captioned with inspirational quotes, such as "Never forget who was there for you when no one else was" and "Never forget who was there for you at your lowest," were circulated online (example^[1] shown below).

On June 20th, 2015, Redditor HospitalOnGuerroSt reposted the earliest found meme parodying this type of inspirational macro in which a bud of marijuana was edited in. The post (shown below) garnered 50 upvotes in the /r/im14andthisisdeep^[2] subreddit in nine years.

Spread

While the parody format did not achieve virality prior to November 2023, several memes based on it were circulated online in the years before. For example, prior to December 15th, 2019, Instagram^[3] user @madbomr reposted an edit by user @slide.ub.ck that garnered over 640 likes in four years (shown below, left). On December 27th, 2022, iFunny^[4] user ZazaGod made a post that gained over 3,900 smiles in one year (shown below, right).

On November 19th, 2023, iFunny^[5] user CrystalKeel posted a remake of the meme using an AI-generated image of a man walking hand-in-hand with a marijuana plant cola. The post (shown below, left) garnered over 7,000 smiles on the app in three months. On November 23rd, iFunny^[6] user Moskau posted the earliest found edit of the image, editing a pack of Marlboro cigarettes into it. The post (shown below, right) gained over 3,100 smiles in three months.

On January 11th, 2024, X^[7] user @millerIowlife edited a cigarette into a stock image of a couple walking down a beach at sunset, pairing it with the caption "never forget who was there for u at ur lowest." The image garnered over 1,000 reposts and 5,600 likes in three weeks (shown below).

Both this and the AI-generated image saw more use as meme templates in the following month.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References