She Was The Baddest, He Was The Realest

About

She Was The Baddest, He Was The Realest refers to a series of memes comparing two images, one representing the "realest" person in a relationship and the other the "baddest." The catchphrase is often used ironically in memes, applying the phrase to two funny images. It is based on the lyrics "She was the baddest, I was the realest" from Meek Mill's 2015 song "All Eyes on You" and saw a peak in virality in late 2021.

Origin

On June 26th, 2015, Meek Mill^[1] released the song "All Eyes on You" featuring Chris Brown and Nicki Minaj, which includes the lyrics "she was the baddest, I was the realest" (shown below).

She was the baddest, I was the realest
We was the flyest, up in the building

The lyrics inspired memes, most often image macros, that show comedic representations of the "realest" and "baddest" roles in a relationship over the following years. For example, on September 4th, 2016, iFunny^[2] user Ayyeitsme1_2016 posted an image macro of two kids posing coolly with sunglasses captioned "when she the baddest and you the realest," gaining over 105,000 smiles in five years (shown below).

Spread

On August 3rd, 2020, Twitter^[3] user @505jas posted two side-by-side images of cats, the left with heart patterns in its fur and the right with a Punisher skull pattern in its fur captioned "they r dating." On the same day, Twitter^[4] user @iambrattyb quote-retweeted the post with the caption "she was the baddest, he was the realest," gaining over 190,300 likes and 27,000 retweets in a year (shown below). A screenshot of the post received viral spread on sites including Facebook^[5] and Instagram^[6] via reposts over the following year, inspiring variations.

On December 10th, 2021, Twitter^[12] user @mitscunt posted an image macro of Mindy Kaling and B.J. Novak, who played Kelly and Ryan in The Office respectively, along with the caption, gaining over 192,000 likes and 19,000 retweets in 10 days (shown below). On December 12th, Facebook^[7] page The Office Feeds posted the meme, gaining over 970 shares and 11,000 reactions in a week (shown below). It was notably reposted by Instagram^[8][9] pages jokezar and memezar that day, gaining hundreds of thousands of likes on each. On December 19th, Mindy Kaling acknowledged the meme and reposted it to Instagram^[10] captioned "I had to call @bjnovak to have him explain this to me, but once he did, I really enjoyed this meme!" gaining over 416,000 likes in a day.

The trend saw a peak in popularity that month, particularly on Twitter. For example, on the same date Kaling reposted the meme, Twitter^[11] user @siyat_99 posted a version using side-by-side images of a female Muslim Spider-Man and a male Muslim Spider-Man, gaining over 1,000 likes and 200 retweets in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References