Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Tokyo Ghoul; read at your own caution.

About

The State I Found Bro In and The State Bro Found Me In are catchphrases popularized by an exploitable image macro meme format depicting a man carrying his unconscious friend down a snow-covered street, captioned, "the state I found bro in after X," with "X" being the thing that put the person being carried into their current state. The original meme, which reads, "the state I found bro in after the Lana Del Rey girl," was posted to TikTok sometime in mid-to-late February 2024 and reposted to X / Twitter, becoming the subject of memes that year on sites including Reddit, Instagram and X. The meme is used to share something that tends to cause a devastating reaction in people. The video is inspired by a scene from the anime series Tokyo Ghoul involving the characters Kaneki and Hide.

Origin

In Tokyo Ghoul season two, episode 12, the character Hide sustains a fatal injury. Kaneki is seen carrying his body through the snow.

The phrase "the state I found bro in" became increasingly popularized in meme culture starting in late 2023. For example, on December 29th, 2023, TikToker^[1] @spookycito posted a video of a Dark Souls character wandering through a wasteland under the caption, "The state I found bro in after dating a Hello Kitty goth girl," garnering over 2 million views in just over a year.

Around February 2024, now-deleted TikToker @vuwumy posted a video of a man carrying his unconscious friend down a snowy street. It is unclear how many interactions it received before it was deleted.

On February 20th, 2024, X^[2] user @LDRcoven posted a screenshot of a reupload of the video on TikTok, which has also seemingly been deleted, with the added caption, "the state I found bro in after the Lana Del Rey girl," referencing the type of girl who is obsessed with pop artist Lana Del Rey, writing, "she was never meant for this commodification," garnering around 10 likes in a year.

Spread

The screenshot and video became the subject of memes over the following months. On June 11th, 2024, X^[3] user @stinkeyfish posted a redraw of the meme depicting the men as Disco Elysium characters, captioned, "The state bro found me in after I read Damaged Ledger," garnering over 2,200 likes in seven months.

On July 7th, X^[4] user @mtisuna posted the original video under the caption, "what it feels like to constantly be a fan of the most overhated and mischaracterized characters," garnering over 37,000 likes in six months. On November 7th, Redditor u/yitty posted a version of the meme to the subreddit /r/yakuzagames^[5] about finishing Yakuza 0, garnering over 1,900 upvotes in two months.

On November 11th, a version of the meme was posted to /r/Kagurabachi^[6] about reading Kagurabachi chapter 57, garnering over 2,400 upvotes in two months. On December 2nd, Instagram^[7] user thefilmmemes shared a version of the meme about finishing Arcane that gained over 13,000 likes in a month.

On December 31st, a version of the meme was posted to the subreddit /r/shittydarksouls^[8] about playing through the game with a "fextralife build," garnering over 14,000 upvotes in three weeks.

On January 4th, 2025, TikToker^[9] @ozindoye posted a video recreating the walking scene from Tokyo Ghoul captioned, "The state I found bro in after his first talking stage," garnering over 4.4 million views in two weeks.

On January 20th, 2025, Instagram^[10] user new.incognito.tab posted a version of the meme about beating Ace Combat 4, garnering over 3,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References