About

RIP, They Would've Loved refers to a snowclone in which a person says Rest In Peace to a deceased famous person and adds that the deceased "would have loved" something humorous, oftentimes an album or video game that is somewhat related to their life or work.

Origin

Though the meme began growing widely popular in March of 2021, iterations were being posted several months prior, often with Princess Diana as the subject. One of the earliest known posts was made by Twitter^[1] user @fanofcashews, who on November 23rd, 2020, posted "rip princess diana. it's a shame she never got to play "total war: warhammer 2." i think she would have loved it," gaining 6 retweets and 23 likes (shown below).

Spread

While similar posts appeared from November of 2020 to March of 2021, the format did not start becoming more popular until the second half of March 2021. On March 19th, Twitter user @s0methingsweet tweeted,^[2] "RIP Princess Diana, I know you would have loved 3 shots for a fiver at The Key Club," gaining over 20 retweets and 220 likes (shown below, left). The same day, user @dvvidmurray^[3] tweeted, "RIP Princess Diana I know you would’ve loved pornstar martinis," gaining over 90 retweets and 2,000 likes (shown below, right).

Over the following several days, multiple tweets grew popular as people altered the format to include other famous deceased celebrities and tying the punchline to something related to their life's work. For example, on March 22nd, user @mygfreal^[4] tweeted, "RIP edgar allen poe i know he woud've loved that's so raven," gaining over 51,000 retweets and 368,000 likes (shown below, left). The same day, user t3rriaxo^[5] tweeted, "RIP Freud you would’ve loved the term mommy milkers," gaining over 240 retweets and 1,500 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References