Sad Johnny (Hotel Transylvania)

About

Sad Johnny (Hotel Transylvania) refers to a black-and-white image of the Hotel Transylvania character Jonathan "Johnny" Loughran looking sadly out of a window with earbuds in. The image macro became a popular reaction image on TikTok and Twitter / X in 2024 to portray sadness and longing in memes. On TikTok, Sad Johnny memes were mostly shared in photo slideshows and used a sound of a guy singing, "What the, what the, what the hell?"

Origin

In 2012, the original Hotel Transylvania movie was released in American theaters.^[1] In one scene, the character Jonathan "Johnny" Loughran is on a plane headed back home after getting his heartbroken. He's seen sadly looking out of the plane window with wired earbuds (YouTube^[2] upload shown below).

Years later, on March 10th, 2019, Amino Apps^[3] user Ꭻ᥆ℍᥒᥒყ shared a long-form blog post about Jonathan Loughran, including a black-and-white GIF of the abovementioned scene. The post is currently the first discovered instance of the black-and-white Sad Johnny photo (shown below).

Currently, the first-known memes to use the abovementioned Sad Johnny image were shared on TikTok^[4][5] on May 9th, 2024. Both were Spanish-speaking users and it's unclear which post was shared first on the day. One was shared by TikToker^[4] @zingaro.2, gaining over 2.8 million plays and 595,100 likes in four months (shown below).

The other was a Slow Fade-In meme shared by TikToker^[5] @elqesos4, gaining over 599,900 plays and 72,600 likes in four months (shown below).

Spread

In the weeks following the abovementioned TikToks, other Spanish-speaking meme creators shared Sad Johnny memes using the same TikTok sound.^[6] For instance, on May 17th, 2024, TikToker^[7] @diego_martt shared an iteration about Minecraft in a photo slideshow, receiving roughly 2.7 million plays and 436,400 likes in four months (shown below).

Later, in September 2024, English-speaking users adopted the Sad Johnny meme en masse. For instance, on September 23rd, TikToker^[8] @foodfattie76 posted a photo that captioned Sad Johnny, "me when i find something crunchy in a soft food," gaining over 2.6 million plays and 607,300 likes in a week (shown below).

In the following weeks, many Sad Johnny memes used the same TikTok sound^[9] of a man singing, "What the, what the, what the hell?"

During the same timeframe, Sad Johnny memes spread on X, evident in a post shared by X^[10] user @yummybeefcakee on September 26th, which was captioned, "found out oomf goes to my school," and received roughly 53,000 likes in four days (shown below).

Redraws of Sad Johnny also began appearing in late September 2024. For instance, on September 28th, TikToker^[11] @tobzyzx shared a drawing of Sonic as Sad Johnny, gaining over 18,500 plays and 5,400 likes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

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Search Interest

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External References