About

Talking Bella is a gender-swapped version of Talking Ben the Dog created by animator Rotten Strawberry in April 2022. A video of the character talking on the phone and answering questions like Talking Ben went viral on YouTube that month in video edits where creators use her responses to comedically react to various images, similar to the Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny formats.

Origin

On April 4th, Russian animator and YouTuber^[7] Rotten Strawberry posted a video announcing the creation of Talking Bella and showing off an animation of the character, a gender-swapped version of Talking Ben, talking on the phone and answering her various questions (shown below). The video gained over 303,000 views in 10 days.

On April 7th, 2022, YouTuber^[1] Rotten Strawberry posted a video titled "Calling Talking Bella – parody of Talking Ben (original)." The video shows the animation of the gender-swapped version of Talking Ben, Talking Bella, laying on a red couch. The phone rings and she answers, saying, "Bella" when she picks up, followed by, "No," "Bruh," laughing, and finally, "Yes." The video gained over 557,000 views in a week.

Spread

In the following days, YouTubers began posting videos using the original as an exploitable where Bella reacts to various images using the given responses. For example, on April 9th, YouTuber^[2] Floppa Memes posted a video where Bella reacts to images of various dogs, gaining over 1.1 million views in five days (shown below).

On April 10th, YouTuber^[3] Angry Apple posted a video where Talking Bella speaks with Talking Ben, gaining over 1.3 million views in four days (shown below, left). On the same date, the same YouTuber^[4] posted a video where she reacts to various computer mouses, gaining over 66,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

The character also became popular on TikTok. On April 10th, TikToker^[10] @ardub92 posted a video showcasing a Talking Bella bot they created for Discord, gaining over 300,000 views in four days (shown below).

On the same day, YouTuber SuperRayman Adventure posted a video of iShowSpeed reacting to Bella during a stream, saying it creeps him out but also turns him on a little bit, gaining over 14,000 views in five days (shown below).

On April 11th, Rotten Strawberry posted a new animation to YouTube^[8] featuring Talking Bella where she sits on the couch and dances to a song mashing up Talking Bella's audio clips and a song from Subway Surfers by YouTuber^[9] Rando, gaining over 369,000 views in three days (shown below).

On April 12th, YouTuber^[6] pandus posted a video where Bella reacts to various cows, including characters in cow costumes, gaining over 84,000 views in two days (shown below, left). On April 14th, YouTuber^[5] Lessons In Meme Culture posted a video discussing the meme, gaining over 100,000 views in under a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References