About

Who Are You I Am From Ancient Greece is a catchphrase derived from a viral animated video originally posted to Instagram in early May 2020. The video, featuring the song Caramelldansen ,^[6] includes an illustration of a cat girl with a trans pride shirt saying "I don't deserve you, you deserve a real girl" and then cuts to an illustration of a Greek man in profile who says "Who are you I am from ancient Greece." The Greek man's response was edited into various videos, with the audio becoming popular in lip syncs and edits in late May 2020.

Origin

On May 4th, 2020, Instagram user @Wilmakesmemes^[3] posted a short animation video in collaboration with @voice_over_shil^[4]l and @asmrbuttcheekclaps^[5] in which Neko says "I don't deserve you. You deserve a real girl" and then an illustration of a greek man says "Who are you I am from ancient Greece" (shown below). The video, which also features the song Carmelladansen^[6], gained over 2,950 likes in a month.

Precursor

On December 2nd, 2016, an anonymous 4chan user posted an image of people of Nordic and Mediterranian subraces meant to demonstrate the superiority of the latter over the former to /pol/ board (shown below).^[1] In the following days, the image was reused in a number of threads on the /pol/.^[2]On May 28th, 2018, Twitter user and artist @paxiti^[7] posted her illustration of a Neko girl (shown below, right). The tweet received over 9,900 likes and 2,200 retweets in two years.

Spread

On May 12th, 2020, YouTuber Murat Ardar Aslan reposted the original video without the watermarks and garnered over 14,800 views and 776 likes in a month (shown below, left). On May 21st, YouTuber Palpamemes uploaded an edit adding the sound and animation from the Greek character (shown below, right). The video accumulated over 16,700 views and 900 likes in two weeks.

On May 29th, Twitter user @thetornuproad^[8] quoted the meme by saying, "random person who has a crush on me: omg … we could go on picnics … listen to sufjan stevens togetber / me: WHO ARE YOU I AM FROM ANCIENT GREECE" (shown below).

The sound clip was uploaded to TikTok by m33mmachine and became used in various videos typically unrelated to the Neko girl. On May 28th, TikToker @wydbbg1400 uploaded a video using the sound and added text with the response "Who are you I am from ancient Greece" (shown below, left). The video gained over 345,800 likes in two weeks. On May 31st, TikToker @big.ero uploaded another popular video using the sound clip that received over 300,100 likes in 11 days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References