Rowley Waves Then Looks Down

About

Rowley Waves Then Looks Down refers to a scene from the 2011 film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules in which character Rowley greets his friend Greg with a wave before noticing a bizarre garment covering his stained pants and looking down at it with an expression of concern. Starting in July 2023, the scene achieved popularity as a GIF and video caption format on iFunny and later on TikTok.

Origin

On March 25th, 2011, comedy film Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, based on a book of the same name, premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the film, main protagonist Greg Heffley enters a church with his stained pants covered by his mother's bright pink shawl. His friend Rowley Jefferson greets Greg with a wave before lowering his gaze with an expression of concern (video shown below).

On September 22nd, 2022, Tenor^[2] user girejorenh uploaded a GIF based on the scene.

On July 23rd, 2023, iFunny^[3] user MrnoonMyself posted a GIF caption meme based on it, captioning the GIF, "saying hi to a friend but their nuts are hanging out." The post (shown below) received over 2,300 smiles in two months.

Spread

Apart from reposts,^[4] the GIF did not see further use in memes until mid-August 2023. On August 15th, 2023, X user @AwestruckVox posted a Chainsaw Man meme based on the format which received over 2,600 reposts and 19,600 likes in one month (shown below, left). On September 5th, 2023, X^[5] user @foxtoad posted a meme about stumbling on a friend's alternative account that received over 3,800 reposts and 45,200 likes in three weeks (shown below, right).

In mid-September 2023, the format also achieved popularity on TikTok. For example, on September 20th, 2023, TikTok^[6] user @theonlydmarcco posted a meme that garnered over 1.7 million views 340,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7279869009426730271

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7281321148514618667

Template

Search Interest

External References