About

Sickly Skinny White Men refers to a cliché in pop culture of sickly looking, skinny, white men having an advantage over other men when attracting beautiful women. The phrase was first used on Twitter in late 2017, becoming more widespread in the late 2010s. The cliché gained prominence going into 2021 due to the embodiment of it within celebrity couples, most notably Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande in 2018 and Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox in 2021. The cliché evolved to encompass more traits like cigarette smoking and Big Dick Energy, among others.

Origin

The origin of the sickly, skinny, white boy archetype in modern, male beauty standards can be traced back to notable pop culture icons of the 1960s-2000s. These pop culture icons are predominantly musicians like Mick Jagger and Kurt Cobain, among others.

As zoomers grew up during the 2000s, sickly, skinny, white boys became more of a heartthrob archetype in movies, television and other forms of pop culture. A notable, primary example of this is Robert Pattinson's character Edward Cullen in the Twilight trilogy, which was released in 2008. A secondary addition to this trend in television was Evan Peters' character Tate Langdon in American Horror Story that was released in 2011.

The first, genuine mentioning of the term "sickly, skinny, white boy" on social media, however, was posted in December 2017. On December 23rd, 2017, Twitter^[1] user @rihannasgayson posted a tweet that included photographs of male model Hugh Laughton-Scott with the caption, "Sickly skinny white boys kinda won with this one." The tweet (shown below) received roughly 7,700 likes over the course of four years.

Spread

The term and cliché began to pick up traction in December 2017 sparked from the above tweet. For instance, on December 26th, 2017, Twitter^[2] user @nopoweradeinusa referenced "sickly little computer boy" in a tweet he posted. The tweet (shown below) received roughly 1,200 likes over the course of four years.

In May 2018, the concept of Pete Davison Dating Up was first brought into the meme spotlight when the comedian started dating Ariana Grande and eventually became engaged to her. Twitter users began to identify the sickly, skinny male archetype with Pete Davidson. On June 26th, 2018, Twitter^[3] user @heavenbrat posted a tweet referencing Davidson as, "a corpse that could literally demolish my heart." The tweet (shown below) received roughly 2,000 likes over the course of three years.

In 2019, more Twitter^[4][5] users latched onto the cliché for their own comedic purposes.

By 2021, the cliché received more attention when Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox began dating. In late October 2021, Pete Davidson was seen with Kim Kardashian holding hands on a roller coaster. These two couples became the subject of multiple "sickly, skinny, white boy" references on Twitter. For example, on October 31st, 2021, Twitter^[6] user @mattxiv posted photos of the two couples with the caption, "can someone explain to me what it is about this type of man." The tweet (shown below, left) received roughly 11,800 likes over the course of 10 days. The next day, on November 1st, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @jonmeIo somewhat offered a rebuttal in his own, separate tweet. His tweet (shown below, right) received roughly 2,300 likes over the course of nine days.

Overall, memes and tweets made about sickly, skinny, white boys revolve around the strangeness of their pairing with oftentimes beautiful women perceivably out-of-their-league. Meme creators who use the cliché are often baffled by why women find this type of man more attractive than others. The optics of these celebrity couples who demonstrate the cliché are often considered too odd to not receive meme attention by meme creators.

Other notable celebrities who fit this cliché are actor Timothée Chalamet and rapper Lil Peep, among others.

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References