About

Well Done For Maintaining Masculinity While Being Carried By a Woman is a catchphrase based on a Variety interview between actors Jonathan Bailey and David Corenswet in which the two realize that the characters they played in Wicked: For Good and Superman, respectively, were both kissed while levitating in the air, Corenswet praising Bailey for maintaining his masculinity while being carried by Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in his scene. The interview was posted online on December 7th, 2025, and inspired memes over the following days on X / Twitter, in which the phrase "Well done for maintaining masculinity while being carried by a woman" is applied to images of characters being "carried" by women to create image caption memes.

Origin

On December 7th, 2025, Variety published an interview on YouTube^[1] between actor Jonathan Bailey, who played Fiyero in Wicked and Wicked: For Good, and David Corenswet, who played Superman in the 2025 Superman film, garnering over 510,000 views in four days.

Later that day, the @Variety X^[2] account posted a clip from the interview where Corenswet praises Bailey for maintaining his masculinity during a kissing scene in Wicked: For Good where Elphaba levitates Fiyero and kisses him, noting that in both of their respective 2025 movies, they are kissed while levitating.^[3][4]

The post gained over 10,000 likes in four days and was reposted by X^[5] user @FilmUpdates shortly after, garnering over 90,000 likes and 13,000 reposts in the same span of time.

Also on December 7th, X^[6] user @michaelcollado posted an image of Dragon kissing Donkey from Shrek under the caption, "Well done for maintaining masculinity while being carried by a woman," garnering over 91,000 likes and 5,400 reposts in four days. This is the earliest known, notable use of the phrase.

Spread

The meme started to spread the same day the Variety interview was shared online, proving significantly popular on X / Twitter and spreading to sites like Instagram and Reddit through reposts.

On December 7th, 2025, X^[7] user @BIBlBIB posted an image of the X-Men character Rogue carrying Gambit under the caption, garnering over 19,000 likes and 1,200 reposts in four days.

On December 8th, Instagram^[8] user didyoujustsaywig reposted the Shrek version of the meme, garnering over 24,000 likes in three days.

That day, X^[9] user @jancysscars posted a version of the meme using a scene from Stranger Things where Nancy hugs Jonathan from behind, garnering over 11,000 likes in three days. On the same day, the @AmazonMGMStudio X^[10] page posted a version of the meme using a scene from Invincible that gained over 5,500 likes in three days.

On December 10th, 2025, a screenshot of the Invincible version of the meme was reposted to the /r/okbuddycinephile^[11] subreddit, titled, "Favorite character who maintains his masculinity while being carried by a woman?" garnering over 880 upvotes and 70 comments in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References