Watch Me Grow Out Of My Phase / WatchMeGrow

About

Watch Me Grow Out Of My Phase / WatchMeGrow refers to a trend on TikTok in which TikTokers make videos showing photographs taken of them while they were going through a "phase" specified at the start of the video, usually through an on-screen caption. Videos following the trend are collected under the hashtag #WatchMeGrow,^[1] and typically set to the original sound "wasted potential"^[2] by TikToker chillytunees, which consists of a slowed and revered section of Tyler, The Creator's "GONE, GONE / THANK YOU."^[3]

Origin

It's unknown who posted the first "Watch Me Grow Out Of My Phase" video, but the trend began to catch on around November 19th, 2020, with multiple examples of the trend uploaded on that date. Two of the earliest examples, uploaded to TikTok^[4][5] on November 19th, begin with the on-screen caption, "Watch me grow out of my hot cheeto girl phase" followed by a slideshow of photographs, garnering over 620,000 and 638,000 views respectively (shown below, left and right, respectively).

Spread

Some time prior to November 30th, 2020, TikTok added the hashtag #WatchMeGrow to their trending page, increasing interest in the trend. On November 23rd, killljoyy uploaded a video to TikTok^[6] captioned, "watch me grow out of my HORSE GIRL phase (but like actual horse girl):" garnering over 10.8 million views in 1 week (shown below, left). On November 25th, veondre^[7] uploaded a video captioned, "Watch find out I'm in the wrong body…" followed by photographs representing her transition, garnering over 9.8 million views in 5 days (shown below, right). These are the two most popular videos following the trend as of November 30th, 2020.

As of November 30th, videos using the hashtag #watchmegrow have been viewed over 2.7 billion times. The sound "wasted potential" has been used in over 140,000 videos.

Various Examples

Search Interest

N/A

External References