About

Werewolf Ripping Shirt, also known as Wolf Ripping Shirt or Werewolf Tearing Shirt, refers to a series of image macros that use artwork of a werewolf ripping his shirt off and screaming under a full moon. The artwork was first used as a meme on Twitter in July 2022 and became increasingly popular over the course of the year. The image is similar to the Emo Wolf meme by artist WolfRoad. It is unclear who created the wolf ripping shirt art. In late 2024, the image gained association with the song Animals by Maroon 5, and has since been used in Marvel Rivals memes about the character Wolverine.

Origin

The image of the wolf ripping its shirt was drawn by now-deleted DeviantArt user Endlen sometime during or before 2019. It was posted to /r/werewolves^[9] on May 10th, 2019, with the title, "'Howl of the Beast' by Endlen."

On July 25th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @de4dname posted the lyrics to "Clarity" by Zedd over a drawing of a wolfman on his knees ripping his shirt in half while howling or screaming at a full moon, garnering over 123,000 likes in five months (shown below). The post was screenshotted and reposted by Tumblr^[2] user gxkv on July 26th, garnering over 4,100 notes in the same rough span of time.

Spread

The image began to spread over the following days. On July 27th, 2022, Tumblr^[3] user longseasons posted the image under an audio embed for Paramore's "Decode," writing the lyrics in all caps similar to Twitter user @de4dname's use of the meme, garnering over 11,600 notes in five months. On August 24th, Twitter^[4] user @dirtybird0_o posted, "Who got the meme of the wolf ripping his shirt off I need it so bad rn." On September 5th, Tumblr^[5] user micro-usb posted a version of the meme with a caption reading, "I couldn't out pizza the hut," garnering over 2,300 notes in three months (shown below).

On October 21st, Twitter^[6] user @XEXEEZY posted the image under the caption, "I’m. Want BOYS I need BOYS with COMICALLY WIDE HIPS GRAHHH," garnering over 1,600 likes in two months. On November 7th, Tumblr^[7] user djorkus posted a version of the meme with the caption "I love effeminate men," garnering over 44,000 notes in a month. Two Tumblr users posted edits of the meme under the original, reading, "I love masculine women" and "I hate this shirt" (shown below, left to right).

On December 20th, Instagram^[8] meme page new.incognito.tab posted a recaptioned version of @XEXEEZY's tweet, garnering over 23,500 likes in under a day (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References