The iPod Brothers / The Fuck You Brothers / Sniff and Whimper

About

The iPod Brothers and The Fuck You Brothers, also known as Sniff and Whimper, refer to a series of exploitable redraw memes depicting two characters positioned over a banner reading either "the iPod brothers" or "the fuck you brothers." Each character has a speech bubble, the left reading, "I'm VolumeUp" and the right reading "and I'm PlayButton" in the case of the "iPod brothers" memes and "I'm eat shit" and "I'm die" in the case of the "fuck you brothers" memes. The meme series are inspired by an image macro of twin babies saying "I'm sniff" and "I'm whimper" over a banner reading "the cigarette company," and was popularized on Tumblr in August 2023 as a redraw series, spreading to sites like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) that month.

Origin

Sniff and Whimper

On March 28th, 2021, Tumblr^[1] user cigarettebrands posted a stylized image macro of two twin babies laying together, featuring top text reading, "Twin Boys" and bottom text reading, "the cigarette company." The babies have speech bubbles, the left saying, "I'm sniff" and the right saying, "and I'm whimper." The post gained over 85,000 notes in two years (shown below).

On October 16th, 2022, Tumblr^[2] user funkyfunderberker made a post revealing that he allegedly met the actual twins from the "sniff and whimper" meme, sharing what appears to be current-day photographs of them (shown below).

fished through my tumblr over dinner tonight to find this post bc i quote it all the time and i wanted to show my pal who's a twin. his face fell. "that's us"

his eyes were bloodshot and his mouth agape. i think he's just in awe at how funny it is and i go "lol who's sniff and who's whimper" and he goes. "no. THAT'S US."

called his brother to get here asap with the hard drives of the day they were born, spent the next hour doing a deep dive to find the source of this image and analyzing the video. the only differences are the sheet and crib they're in but we think they may have been moved to a secondary location between the video and this image because their features are identical and the hats are the EXACT same down to how they're resting on their heads, and they were not provided by the hospital.

i quote sniff and whimper every day. i show everybody i know this gif i think it is that funny. my friend and i were laying on the ground like two hours before dinner going "i'm sniff.." "i'm whimper!" in little voices.

i fucking know sniff and whimper. i've known sniff and whimper all along.

The iPod Brothers

On July 14th, 2023, Tumblr^[3] user 092421 posted an image macro inspired by the sniff and whimper meme showing two ducks over a banner reading "the iPod brothers" with speech bubbles reading "I'm VolumeUp" and "and I'm PlayButton," garnering over 17,000 notes in a month (shown below). The meme inspired several redraws and variants over the following weeks and was reposted numerous times, including by X^[4] user @enchiladas666 on July 15th, garnering over 11,900 likes in the same span of time.

The Fuck You Brothers

On August 15th, 2023, Tumblr^[5] user toilethumor made a text post reading, "the fuck you brothers I’m eat shit And I’m die," garnering over 16,900 notes in two weeks. On August 16th, Tumblr^[6] user sugarnsaffron replied to the text post, adding a photoshop of two ducks with speech bubbles saying "I'm eat shit" and "I'm die" over a fiery banner reading "the fuck you brothers" (shown below, left). That same day, the same Tumblr^[7] user added another response adding middle fingers to the ducks (shown below, right).

The meme was reposted to /r/CuratedTumblr^[8] that day, garnering over 200 upvotes in two weeks. That day, Tumblr users began redrawing the meme. The earliest known example was posted by Tumblr^[9] user mikiruma on August 16th, garnering around 15 notes in two weeks (shown below).

Spread

The memes spread over the following weeks, inspiring further redraws, with the "fuck you brothers" variant seemingly becoming the most popular. On August 21st, 2023, Tumblr^[10] user greelin reposted the original meme alongside the sniff and whimper meme, writing, "love this. genre. of images" garnering over 16,000 notes in 10 days. Also that day, Tumblr^[11] user lemonlurkrr posted a Metal Gear redraw of the meme, garnering over 1,800 notes in 10 days (shown below, left).

On August 25th, Tumblr^[12] user roromiie206 posted an Undertale redraw of the meme, garnering over 1,200 notes in six days (shown below, right).

On August 26th, Tumblr^[13] user theelectricbloodred posted a redraw of the meme referencing One Piece, garnering over 1,400 notes in five days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References