About

Rehab Was Supposed To Be a Fresh Start refers to a copypasta from the animated series BoJack Horseman in which the main character BoJack (a horse) is saying that rehab failed him. The scene and BoJack's monologue became the subject of sad and depressing edits on TikTok and YouTube in 2022 and 2023, mostly a part of the Sad Slideshow Audio trend. The memes and edits mostly used horse videos and photos. In turn, usage of the "Rehab Was Supposed To Be a Fresh Start" copypasta became commonplace.

Origin

On January 31st, 2020, season six, episode 11 of BoJack Horseman titled "Sunk Cost and All That" released on Netflix. ^[1] In one scene, the protagonist BoJack is sitting at his desk, telling the character Princess Carolyn that "Rehab was supposed to be a fresh start" (YouTube^[2] upload shown below).

Copypasta

This place was supposed to be a fresh start for me. Rehab was supposed to be a fresh start but no matter how many starts I get, there's always the same ending. Everything falls apart and I end up alone.

On TikTok

On September 12th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @bojackvids posted an edit with the scene, adding the song "Sea, Swallow Me" by Cocteau Twins.^[4] Over the course of one year, the video received roughly 1.3 million plays and 169,400 likes (shown below). The video started the trend's primary TikTok sound.^[5]

Spread

Soon after the aforementioned video's upload, users on TikTok began using its sound.^[5] For instance, an early viral example was posted by TikToker^[6] @chemical.inbalance who posted a video in which she lip-dubbed the audio, gaining roughly 668,300 plays and 157,100 likes in one year (shown below, left). On October 14th, TikToker^[7] @_musicluvr_ posted a video that showed someone in a horse mask at Spirit Halloween, gaining roughly 1.7 million plays and 529,000 likes in one year (shown below, right).

Usage of the sound and references to the BoJack Horseman scene continued to surface in 2023. For instance, on September 3rd, 2023, TikToker^[8] @.ruby.sapphire used the Horse Sitting On a Porch image in a video that gained roughly 7.7 million plays and 1.8 million likes in one month (shown below).

During the same timeframe, iterations of the meme surfaced on YouTube. For instance, on October 8th, 2023, YouTuber^[9] Pooty Tang posted a video that used the audio and footage from Red Dead Redemption 2, earning over 10,000 views and 450 likes in three weeks (shown below).

By October 24th, 2023, the trend's primary TikTok sound^[5] had amassed over 35,100 posts.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References