About

Out Here Living My Best Life or Steve Is Drowning refers to a series of redraws based on a viral Instagram post showing a man, Kylann Clayborn, in a pool, captioned, "out here living my best life" as someone seemingly drowns in the background, inspiring one person to comment, "Steve is drowning," and the poster to respond, "This ain't about him." A screenshot of the post was shared on Twitter in January 2019 and inspired redraws that month, often replacing the people in the photo with characters who are rivals, becoming increasingly popularized in the following years.

Origin

On January 10th, 2019, Twitter^[1] user @hanan_elkathiri posted a screenshot of a post by Instagram user Kylann Clayborn captioned "out here living my best life" where Clayborn is shown in a swimming pool as someone seemingly drowns behind him. In a second screenshot, an Instagram user Kay Lauren comments, "Steve is drowning," Clayborn responding, "This ain't about him." The post gained over 126,000 likes and 48,000 retweets in three years.

Spread

The post inspired redraws shortly after going viral. For example, on January 19th, 2019, Deviant Art^[2] user n-shrio posted a redraw of the meme, gaining over 180 favorites in three years (shown below, left). On January 29th, Twitter^[3] user @chips_n_cookies posted a recreation of the meme with Pokemon characters, gaining over 90 likes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On August 14th, Twitter^[4] user @scenik8 posted a redraw of the meme using characters from Neon Genesis Evangelion, gaining over 1,600 likes in three years (shown below).

On June 30th, 2021, Twitter^[5] user @Hayde_Ink posted a version of the meme drawn to reference Lady Dimitrescu, gaining over 1,200 likes in a year (shown below, left). On July 16th, Instagram^[6] user tomholland_944 posted a recreation of the meme where actress Zendaya is in the pool as Tom Holland drown in the back, crediting it to now-deleted user sweetshland. On July 18th, Instagram^[7] user memequeen reposted it, gaining over 400,000 likes in a year (shown below, right). Several media outlets, including Seventeen,^[8] reported on the image as it gained viral spread, claiming it was a real-but-deleted tweet from the actress, however, this does not appear to be true.

On November 6th, Redditor xianikaeni posted a version of the meme referencing Animal Crossing to /r/AnimalCrossing,^[9] gaining over 12,300 upvotes in seven months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References