Sleep Paralysis But The Demon Keeps Asking If Things Are Pop Punk

About

Sleep Paralysis But The Demon Keeps Asking If Things Are Pop Punk is the phrase attached to an image macro showing a demon on top of a sleeping woman asking, "Are bananas pop punk?" In early 2021, people began exploiting the phrase and image macro, replacing "pop punk" and the demon's speech text to reference other genres of music. The image of the demon is an 1810 engraving by J.P. Simon titled "Nightmare."

Origin

On February 28th, 2021, Facebook^[1] page Skinwalker Tapes posted an image macro using J.P. Simon's 1810 engraving "Nightmare,"^[4] showing a small black demon with a mustache sitting on top of a distressed-looking sleeping woman, with the top text reading, "Sleep paralysis but the demon keeps asking if things are pop punk" (shown below). The image also has an added line of text coming from the demon's mouth reading, "Are bananas pop punk?" This is the earliest known upload of the image (8:58 a.m. EST), although it was also shared on iFunny^[2] and Tumblr^[3] that same day at unknown times.

Spread

The meme spread quickly across Facebook and Instagram over the course of March as an exploitable, particularly with music-themed meme pages. On March 1st, Facebook^[6] and Instagram^[7] page Captain Graveyard posted a version of the meme replacing "pop punk" with "crabcore," gaining over 883 shares on the former and 1,300 likes on the latter in six months (shown below, left). On March 2nd, Facebook^[5] page Visceral Memes: Instruments of Shitpost posted a version of the meme with the demon asking if Limp Bizkit is brutal death metal, gaining over 2,400 shares in six months (shown below, right).

On September 4th, Instagram^[8] page @badmusicmemes shared a version of the meme about shoegaze music, gaining over 3,700 likes in three days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References