Skull Face Army Guy / Skull Trooper IRL

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About

Skull Face Army Guy, also known as Skull Trooper IRL refers to a viral TikTok video featuring an army man wearing skull-shaped face paint. The video shows the difference between the same person when he was in school at the start of 2020, and him in the year 2022. After going viral, the video was stitched and duetted by people reacting to the supposed loss of childhood and innocence felt by those going into adulthood during the COVID-19 pandemic, and by people comparing him to the Fornite Skulltrooper skin.

Origin

On August 22nd, 2022, TikToker^[1] @mulgogifresh posted their first video, gathering over 70,000 plays and 1,000 likes in nearly three months (seen below, left). On October 12th, the TikToker^[2] posted a video set to the song "Where'd All The Time Go" by Dr. Dog. The video featured a clip of the user at the start of 2020 with a text overlay that read, "School got canceled, hop on Fornite." The next video clip was one of the user in an army jet with skull-shaped face paint and military gear. The video gathered over 15,000 plays and 2 million views in nearly a month (seen below).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7134721809789865259

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7153761579790568747

Spread

The video soon went viral and was duetted and stitched by people reacting to it. On October 13th, TikToker^[3] @thedripking40 posted a video complimenting @mulgogifresh's "drip," gathering over 50,000 plays and 6,000 likes in nearly a month (seen below, left). Also on October 13th TikToker^[4] @iyosiasstanaccount posted a video joking about how enlisting in the army was @mulgogifresh's choice by saying, "Shit, y'all comfortable? I be mad comfortable in my bed. I be eating pizza." The video gathered over 200,000 plays and 60,000 likes in nearly a month (seen below, right).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7154039649403555118

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7154164192445123886

On October 15h, TikToker^[5] @alien.face dueted @mulgogifresh's video, making a joke about how he switched from playing Fornite to playing Warzone, and gathering over 50,000 plays and 5,000 likes in three weeks (seen below, left). On October 28th, TikToker^[6] @thehootiedude posted a video lamenting about how the pandemic robbed children of their childhood, gathering over 190,000 plays and 35,000 likes in two weeks (seen below, right).