About

S[he] Be[lie]ve[d] is a variation of the phrase "she believed," which uses brackets or parentheses to highlight the words "he lied." While posts mocking the phrase and similar quotes first appeared in February 2018 on Twitter, the alternate hidden word Sbeve was circulated on Reddit in late March 2019.

Origin

The earliest known variation of the phrase was submitted in a comment to a blog post titled "Great Usernames are Usually Puns or Plays on Words," originally published on the blog EvanMarcKatz.com^[18] on November 15th, 2008. In the comments section of the post, a user identified as Rach responded with "S(he) be(lie)ve(d)" using parentheses to highlight "he lied" (shown below).

Spread

On November 5th, 2009, Blogspot^[9] blogger Eloquenthearts published a blog post which contained "s(he) be(lie)ve(d)," using parentheses to highlight "he "lied."

On January 1st, 2010, Urban Dictionary user nonbiased1234 uploaded a definition for the phrase "s[he] be[lie]ve[d]".^[1] With the words "he lied" put in brackets, the phrase can be read both as "she believed" and "he lied" at the same time. On March 18th, 2011, user mydria added a definition for the phrase "s[he's] br[ok]en",^[2] interpreted both as "she's broken" and "he's ok".

On April 28th, 2015, Twitter user @Miguelixto_ tweeted "s(he) be(lie)ve(d) (sbeve)".^[3] The tweet did not gain significant recognition until on April 9th, 2019, a screenshot of it was posted to /r/me_irl subreddit^[4] and on Twitter^[5]. The tweet accumulated over 480 retweets and 1,100 likes within 24 hours since its rediscovery.

On February 10th, 2018, Twitter user @Scarlet4UrMa posted "some relatable quote account in 2009: s(he) be(lie)ve(d) my 13 yr old ass:", attaching a reaction GIF. ^[6] The post gained over 89,000 retweets and 229,000 likes, with some comments highlighting the fact that the phrases could be interpreted as "sbeve" and "sbren" instead.^[7][8] On February 18th, 2018, Redditor ohsopoor posted the screenshot of the tweet in /r/im14andthisisdeep subreddit, with the highest-upvoted comment being the word "sbeve".^[10]

On January 26th, 2019, Reddit user ILikeMultipleThings posted a screenshot of a chat conversation in which a person replied to the quote with the word "sbeve" in /r/comedyheaven subreddit,^[11] where it gained over 25,700 upvotes in two months (shown below, left). A repost in /r/TooMeIrlForMeIrl subreddit gained over 7,400 upvotes in the same period.^[12] On February 12th, Redditor theprince_627 combined the image with a Skyrim Skill Tree reaction, gaining over 13,800 upvotes in /r/dankmemes subreddit (shown below, right).^[17]

On February 28th, 2019, Twitter user @curledbitch made a post similar to @Scarlet4UrMa's tweet, which gained over 41,000 retweets and 119,000 likes in one month.^[13] On March 23rd, Redditor romanziske made a similar post with a Crying Cat reaction image in /r/dankmemes subreddit, where it gained over 80,500 upvotes in two days (shown below).^[14]

In the following days, multiple posts making fun of "s[he] be[lie]ve[d]", "s[he's] br[ok]en" and other similar quotes and image macros appeared in various subreddits, including /r/dankmemes^[15] and /r/im14andthisisdeep.^[16]

Tik Tok

Tik Tok user @fitmebit uploaded the sound "I made this sound in 2016" which is a remix of "Little Do You Know" by Alex & Sierra. The sound has been used in over 246,000 videos as of April 3rd 2019.

On January 30th, 2019, TikTok user @cassiekelly_ uploaded a video in which she highlights "he's ok cause he always lied" in the handwritten text "She's broken because she always believed" (shown below). The clip has gained over 314,200 likes in two months.

Tik Tok users began mocking @cassiekelly_'s post with their own reditions using the same sound. On March 31st, @charlie posted a video that accumulated over 120,000 likes in a week (shown below, left). The same day @gmoney upload another clip which has garnered over 81,200 likes in a week (shown below, center). The next day, @neil posted the most popular rendition which gained over 146,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Billie Eilish "sHE's brOKen"

On August 1st, 2015, recording artist Billie Eilish posted the song "sHE's brOKen" on SoundCloud. Within four years, the song has recevied more than 2.4 million plays, 57,000 favorites and 2,000 reblogs (shown below).

Four years later, after the resurgence of the S[he] Be[lie]ve[d] meme, on March 30th, 2019, Twitter^[19] user @neverhadit99 posted a screen capture of the YouTube page for the song, showcasing the comments to the song in which commenters marveled at the title. The post received more tahn 11,000 retweets and 62,000 likes in less than two weeks (shown below, left).

The following day, Twitter^[20] user @pusangalat shared the post and tweeted, "did they not discover she believed s(he) be(lie)ve(d) in 2012????" The post received more than 5,600 retweets and 29,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References