The Driving Crooner

About

The Driving Crooner refers to a sketch from season 3, episode 1 of Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave in which Robinson plays a driver who has decals on his window that make it look like, to other drivers, that he's wearing a top hat and smoking a cigar, resembling an old-timey crooner. The sketch and the character gained popularity on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, among other platforms, where Driving Crooner memes surfaced en masse. Many referenced The Driving Crooner's website in the episode "TheDrivingCrooner.com" which was written on the side of his car.

Origin

On May 30th, 2023, season 3, episode 1 of Tim Robinson's show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson titled, "That Was the Earth Telling Me I'm Supposed to Do Something Great," released for streaming on Netflix. ^[1] The last sketch in the episode involved Robinson playing a driver who called himself The Driving Crooner. The character had decals on his window that made it look like, to other drivers, he was wearing a top hat and smoking a cigar, resembling an old-timey crooner. The sketch was uploaded to YouTube^[2] on May 31st, 2023, by the channel Topflix Boss, gaining roughly 25,100 views in six days (shown below).

The first-discovered viral post inserting The Driver Crooner into a meme context was tweeted by a I Think You Should Leave gimmick account on Twitter^[3] called @ITYSLKids at around 3:40 p.m. EST on May 30th, 2023. The tweet used a GIF of Robinson's character "crooning" with a caption reading, "Bet you didn’t know you were driving with The Driving Crooner, did you?" The tweet gained over 1,000 likes in one week (shown below).

Spread

Later on May 30th, 2023, more Twitter users uploaded viral tweets referencing The Driving Crooner. For instance, on May 30th, Twitter^[4] user @thewarnerwest used the George Bush Learning About 9/11 template, gaining roughly 1,600 likes in one week (shown below, left). Also on May 30th, Twitter^[5] user @MikeMcCabeSad made a Twin Peaks meme, showing the decals on Dale Cooper's car window, gaining roughly 1,000 likes in one week (shown below, right).

Going into June 2023, Driving Crooner memes continued to go viral on Twitter.^[6] The memes also spread to Instagram^[7] and TikTok^[8] in June 2023. For instance, on June 3rd, 2023, TikToker^[9] @smgloss posted a meme about being The Driving Crooner, using the Nirvana song "Something In the Way." The video gained roughly 272,000 plays and 22,200 likes in three days (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

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External References