About

No I Didn't Drop It In Dirt, Grow Up refers to a series of TikTok Duets reacting to a video of TikToker Chef Cuso searing a tomahawk ribeye steak in which he says about the meat's color, "no, I didn't drop it in dirt, grow up," as if anticipating criticism over the steak's color. The duets see users ask if the meat has been dropped in dirt, followed by Cuso's response and a cut to an edited image of the reactor as an old person, as if suddenly grown up. The trend began in May 2020, remaining popular over a year later. The trend is similar to That Looks Like The Battlepass.

Origin

On May 29th, 2020, TikToker^[1] Chef Cuso, who mainly posts videos cooking from his backyard grill, posted a video searing a ribeye steak (shown below). The video gained over 4.8 million views in a year.

As the video went viral, TikTokers^[2][3] began a duet trend with it in which they film themselves saying "ew did you drop that in dirt?," followed by Cuso saying, "No, I didn't drop it in dirt, grow up," and a cut to an edited image of the TikToker looking much older (examples shown below, left and right). The TikToker returns to normal, asks, "is that burnt?" after which Cuso says, "no it's not burnt, black rub, remember from the beginning, grow up," followed by the image of the old TikToker again.

Spread

The trend continued over the course of the year, with occasional new variations continuing to go viral on TikTok^[4][5] in mid-2021 (examples shown below from May, June 2021).

Around mid-2021 the phrase began to see life outside of TikTok as a catchphrase and in ironic posts and image macros, often lacking full context and presented as an IYKYK post.

For example, on March 29th, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @who_is_sumi posted "no i didn't drop it in dirt, grow up," along with two side-by-side images of the Kitten in a towel next to a grown cat, garnering over 34,000 likes and 4,100 retweets in two months (shown below).

On April 14th, 2021, Instagram^[6] user @c_o_c_o_n_u_t_s_ posted an image macro featuring the phrase as top text over a video of a sad clip from the Angry Birds movie, garnering over 46,000 views and 9,000 likes in two months (shown below, left). This is the earliest known version of the post, although it is unlikely it is the original. On April 17th, Instagram^[8] user @sora.gif.v2 posted a similar meme using footage from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, garnering over 10,000 views and 3,100 likes in a comparable span of time.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References