About

What My Friends Send Me at 3am is a caption used on TikTok videos consisting of re-uploaded, out of context absurd videos from across the web. The phrase went viral on the platform in early December of 2020 as users began attaching it via on-screen caption to reuploads of absurd animated videos for massive views. These videos are typically set to Grandayy's "Lil Globglogabgalab."^[1] The format is similar to What Sort of Pics Usually Get Sent at 3am but with videos instead of images.

Origin

On November 11th, 2020, fs.in.the.chat_ reuploaded Grandayy's video "Lil Globglogabgalab" to TikTok^[2] garnering over 12 million views in a month (shown below, left). On November 28th, aviation_person uploaded a video to TikTok,^[3] featuring the on-screen caption, "What my friends send me at 3am" and a re-upload of Cool 3D World's animation "bicycle"^[4] set to fs.in.the.chat_'s original sound, garnering over 21.9 million views and 4 million likes in just under 2 weeks (shown below, right). This is the first video to use the caption over this style of video.

Spread

The trend spread quickly, with other users finding success uploading absurd videos under the same caption and original sound. On December 1st, 2020, l3nny2000 reuploaded a video using the caption over the Cool 3D World video "Chefs"^[5] to TikTok,^[6] garnering over 19 million views in 9 days (shown below, left). On December 4th, kokdiemm reuploaded Animation Domination High Def's video "SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE™: CATDOG"^[7] with a similar caption to TikTok^[8] garnering over 26 million views in 6 days (shown below, right).

As of December 10th, the original sound associated with these videos has been used in over 99,600 videos on the platform.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References