About

Usher's "Watch This" is a video of pop singer Usher at his 2022 NPR Tiny Desk concert saying "watch this" before singing his track "Confessions Part II." The clip quickly saw use on Twitter as a reaction GIF in June and July 2022 where it's usually paired with captions describing people about to do something impressive or unwise.

Origin

On June 30th, 2022, NPR Tiny Desk uploaded Usher's performance to its YouTube channel, gaining over 4.6 million views in five days. As the beat for his song "Confessions Part II" began, Usher made a gesture at the camera and said "watch this" before the song (shown below).

The clip was quickly used as a reaction video on Twitter in various GIF caption memes. The same day the concert was posted, Twitter user @ThatZoeJames^[2] posted it along with a caption reading "Her: Don’t go out there entertaining these other hoes. Me…" The tweet gained over 16,000 retweets and 72,000 likes in five days (shown below).

Her: Don’t go out there entertaining these other hoes.

Me: pic.twitter.com/2WjmycMjcj

— Bearded King (@ThatZoeJames) June 30, 2022

Spread

In the following days, @ThatZoeJames' post of the video proved to be one of the most viral examples on Twitter, as it racked up over 48 million views in five days where it was then used in several other viral examples of the meme. Another high engagement example, posted July 1st, 2022, by Twitter user @DataDaveTV,^[3] gained over 600 retweets and 2,800 likes in four days (shown below).

Cat Owners: “Don’t knock anything off the table.”

Cats:
pic.twitter.com/v2d97vUoBP

— DataDaveTV (@DataDaveTV) July 1, 2022

As more tweets with the meme spread, several users, particularly on Black Twitter, voiced their appreciation for the meme. For example, on July 3rd, Twitter user @alamanecer posted a video expressing that they were still enjoying the meme despite implied oversaturation, gaining over 4,300 retweets and 21,000 likes in three days (shown below, top). Similarly, user @qveenkiara posted a meme of laughing Squidward about how they still enjoyed the meme after seeing it often, gaining over 14,000 retweets and 122,000 likes in three days (shown below, bottom).

Yall not tired of using Usher on every single tweet??

Black Twitter: pic.twitter.com/n2u43dM3se

— Nicole Nichelle (@alamanecer) July 3, 2022

me hearing usher say “watch this” for the 50000th time pic.twitter.com/GwQbYCRW3C

— swan 🌞 (@qveenkiarra) July 3, 2022

The meme was also covered in an article by Complex^[1] on July 4th, 2022.

Various Examples

Drake: I’m bout to show people how turnt House music is.

Beyoncé:pic.twitter.com/eKLBpxwHzn

— Johnny Johnson, Jr. (@_johnnyjohnson) July 3, 2022

Parents: “don’t act up”

A little kid:pic.twitter.com/yU5Z1kMquf

— Joi Childs (@jumpedforjoi) July 1, 2022

When they say Uno but you got a draw 4 for they ass pic.twitter.com/yu5KXi9V9D

— hσtєl nírvαnα 🌹 ® (@fcckjulius) July 2, 2022

Search Interest

External References