About

Thomas Shelby is a main protagonist from the 2013 UK TV series Peaky Blinders, known as the leader of the Birmingham Criminal Gang. Starting in 2022, Shelby gained fame as Literally Me character in Indonesia under the nickname Thomas Slebew and was frequently related with the cold face 🥶 emoji, referring to his outfits being "cool."

Origin

On September 12th, 2013, the first episode of Peaky Blinders premiered on BBC,^[1] including Thomas Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy. Prior to November 6th, 2021, an unknown TikTok user uploaded a video replying to @adeskrttt's comment reading "setidaknya cuci muka bg" (Eng. at least wash your face dude) by saying "I want to wash my face if only my face can change to look like Thomas Slebew" instead of Thomas Shelby. On November 6th, 2021, Facebook^[2] page Mengrandom man reposted the video, with the latter upload only receiving 68 reactions and 75 shares (shown below).

Spread

Both the nickname and character didn't get popular until the middle of 2022. It became a part of "Literally Me Guys" and people who reacting by using the cold face emoji to express approval of his "cool" outfits. For example, on June 13th, 2022, TikTok^[3] user @ratherbebaby uploaded an edited clip of Thomas Shelby titled "Ngeditnya sampe menggigil🥶" (Eng. I'm shivering while editing this). The video received more than 1.6 million views in four months (shown below, left). On June 29th, 2022, TikTok^[4] user @iahxog uploaded asimilar edit that received more than 2.6 million views in four months (shown below, right).

On May 16th, 2022, YouTube^[5] user Ya Begitulah uploaded a "Babe please stop" edit that received more than 244,000 views in five months (shown below, left). On May 25th, 2022, YouTube^[6] user LWAN 01 uploaded a video editing Thomas Shelby into a comparison video featuring the former president of Indonesia, Suharto. The video received more than 488,000 views in five months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References