About

When You're Happy, You Enjoy the Music, When You're Sad, You Understand the Lyrics refers to a series of memes in which the lyrics of various songs, usually non-sensical, humorous or upbeat, are paired with an image of Withered Wojak as if a person listening to them would normally experience feelings of sadness. The image is typically accompanied by an image macro with the catchphrase overlaid on top. The format gained popularity online in early March 2021 across Reddit, Facebook and other social media platforms.

Origin

On March 6th, 2021, Redditor^[1] Fabs74 posted a two-panel meme consisting of a variation of the previously trendy image macro "When you're happy, you enjoy the music, when you're sad, you understand the lyrics" and an image of Withered Wojak paired with the lyrics of the song "Baby Shark". The meme received over 131,000 upvotes in three days (shown below).

Spread

Starting the same day as the initial post, the meme received viral spread online through multiple reposts on other platforms. For example, a March 6th repost by Instagram^[2] account mightyfinememe received over 52,300 likes in three days. A same-day repost by Facebook^[3] group Hey Admin, Sauce Please received over 20,000 reactions and 12,000 shares in three days.

In the following days, the meme format gained popularity on social media, primarily on Reddit and Facebook. For example, on March 7th, 2021, Redditor^[4] Jgkling855 posted a Big Chungus meme that received over 1,600 upvotes prior to being removed (shown below, left). That same day, Facebook^[5] group Weeb Kyodai posted a Nya, Arigato meme that gained over 8,700 reactions and 4,700 shares in two days (shown below, right).

The format maintained moderate prominence in the following days with several viral versions posted on Reddit, Facebook and other online platforms.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References