About

"The Struggle is Real" an expression used to emphasize the gravity of a frustrating circumstance or hardship, which is often used ironically online in a similar manner to first world problems.

Origin

Although the exact origin of the phrase "the struggle is real" is unknown, the phrase itself is commonly used in rap music to depict hardships the artist has faced. The phrase likely predates the internet. On September 27th, 2011, the hip hop group DTMD released the album Makin' Dollas, which featured a track titled "The Struggle is Real" (shown below).

Spread

On July 25th, 2013, YouTuber DashieXP uploaded a video titled "Struggle is Real!", featuring two men performing a comedy sketch in which a man harasses and extorts his friend for simple favors (shown below).

On October 11th, Urban Dictionary user nobranknerms^[1] submitted an entry for "the struggle is real," defining it as an "ironic saying often used in place of the saying 'first world problems'". On October 16th, a Facebook^[2] page titled "The Struggle is REAL" was launched, garnering upwards of 159,000 likes over the next two years. On February 14th, 2014, BuzzFeed^[3] published a listicle of animated GIFs titled "28 Times The Struggle Was Real." On August 8th, Redditor HeathenBarbie submitted a photograph of a man flipping through a compact disc folder titled "Back in my day the struggle was real" to /r/funny (shown below, left).^[5] On October 23rd, Redditor brendan1018 submitted a photograph of a young woman filling a milk container at a university cafeteria titled "The college student struggle is real" to /r/funny (shown below, right).^[4] Prior to being archived, the posts gained over 4,800 votes (96% upvoted) and 4,600 votes (96% upvoted) respectively.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References