They Lifted The Masc Mandate RIP Emily

About

They Lifted The Masc Mandate RIP Emily refers to an ironic viral video on TikTok captioned, "they lifted the masc mandate💔💔rip emily," showing a group of friends disowning their masculine lesbian, aka "masc," friend Emily. The caption is a play on the term "mask mandate," referring to the COVID-19 mask mandate. The video was uploaded in March 2022 and became the subject of redraws in the following months, particularly on Tumblr and Twitter.

Origin

On March 15th, 2022, TikToker^[1] @tova.weerakkody posted a video captioned, "they lifted the masc mandate💔💔rip emily" set to Phoebe Bridgers' cover of the song "The Gold." In the video, a group of friends stands in a hallway and says goodbye to their masculine lesbian friend Emily, joking that because the "masc mandate" has been lifted, they're no longer required to hang out with her (shown below). The video gained over 4.4 million views in four months.

Spread

The video inspired redraws and similar memes on Twitter and Tumblr. On March 17th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user @sanayeoni posted a photo of South Korean singer Jihyo using the caption, gaining over 1,800 likes in four months. On March 17th, Twitter^[3] user @jasperbonus posted a redraw of the video replacing the people with characters from Turning Red, gaining over 24,000 likes and 2,600 retweets in a similar span of time (shown below).

On March 20th, Instagram^[4] user joan.of.arca posted a screenshot from the original video, gaining over 28,000 likes in four months. On March 30th, Tumblr^[5] user chalkeater posted a redraw of the video using Deltarune characters, gaining over 5,600 notes in four months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References