About

When Water Gets On Your Phone is a TikTok trend in which people simulate the scenario of water accidentally falling on your phone's touchscreen, making it unable to fully respond to your touch, which leads to mis-inputs or other errors. However, within the social media trend, it instead causes your smartphone to act wildly erratic and out of pocket, with the most common thing being for it to pronounce that the person is gay or trying to get back with their ex.

Origin

The trend started on TikTok in mid-2022, with different TikTokers trying to do the same setup for slightly different punchlines, each revolving around one's touchscreen being wet and working incorrectly.

One of the first recorded instances of the trend was uploaded on July 19th, 2022, by TikToker _giovannipaolo7,^[1] which quickly gained over 1.2 million likes in two years and helped popularize the trend (shown below).

Spread

The trend started to quickly gain in virality over the following months with people regularly showing themselves washing their hands in the bathroom or kitchen before having the water accidentally get on their phone and it beginning to act wildly.

On November 17th, 2022, the most viral example of this trend was uploaded by TikToker issaoffiziell^[2] in which he cut to show his different reactions to the phone's actions and earned over 10.5 million likes in two years (shown below).

In 2024, the meme started to change, with people instead filming themselves outside on their phones and having the water that starts making it act out being the rain.

This evolution is seen in the TikTok uploaded by TikToker islc.pendejadas^[3] on February 6th, 2024, which earned over 80,000 likes in seven months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References