About

Square Up is a slang term used to issue a challenge and initiate a fight. The phrase itself is quite old, predating its use on the internet, and the meaning behind it has been the same for over 300 years. Online, it's used in meme templates to show aggression and is said often in videos as a phrase similar to WorldStar in that shouting it indicates that an altercation is soon to take place. It's also associated with a reaction image of a Black man wearing a red shirt in a proper fighting position.

Origin

According to Dictionary.com,^[1] the phrase and act of "squaring up" has been associated with fisticuffs outside of a boxing ring since the 1700s, making it one of the oldest slang uses to still be in circulation today.^[1] Though used colloquially in this sense, on September 10th, 2005, the website Urban Dictionary obtained its first definition for the word, created by the user^[2] johnny boi (shown below).

Spread

The phrase continued to spread in memes, comment sections and videos over the years. Though not explicitly using the term "square up" at first, the meme posted to Tumblr^[5] by Mare-Bear-Stare on February 5th, 2015, is one of the first examples of the squared up fighting position (shown below).

The most notable usage of square up as a phrase within memes can be found in the reaction image of a Black man in a red shirt crouched in a proper fighting position while standing on a sidewalk. The image was posted to Twitter on November 18th, 2015, by Twitter^[3] user @ShannSharpe2, but has since been deleted. However, the templated image still exists online (seen below).

The meme template was quickly picked up and used for trending topics at the time. For example, when the United Airlines Passenger Removal became a national story, a square up meme was made in response and posted to memegenerator.net (shown below).

The meme Square TF Up, Thots is similar in meaning but is an object-labeling version whereas square up implies the subject is actively about to fight. This can be further seen in the evolution of the template, which uses math logic to go one step further from squaring up, which is "cube up," as posted on Reddit^[4] by Redditor ObjectAll in /r/memes on March 11th, 2017 (shown below).

The Pewdiepie quote, "Square Up Thot" also inspired several images have been created with the phrase, including a mural drawn by artist Lushux. On December 23rd, 2017, he tweeted to Pewdiepie a video of his mural of Buffsuki saying "Square Up Thot," gaining 770 retweets and 3,500 likes in roughly four years (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References