About

Whose Mans Is This? is a slang expression that people use to express disapproval of someone who is acting out in a public situation. The question sarcastically asks someone to claim the offender and remove them. It is frequently used online as the title of threads or the captions of images to call attention to the behavior of a public individual.

Origin

While it was likely used offline before, the earliest usage of the phrase online was posted by Twitter ^[1] @JeffJSays on April 20th, 2009 (shown below). They tweeted, "BAWSE move = hittin the label like "whose mans is this?" walkn past security and goin str8 2 da penthouse! lol."

Spread

Urban Dictionary ^[2]user grenadianking3 on June 12th, 2009. They defined the expression, "to call out someone who is killing the moment or situation. / also to shut down the C in an A and B conversation." The definition (shown below, left) received more than 595 upvotes in nearly 10 years.

The phrase has been used as caption for impact-style image macros. On January 23rd, 2012, an anonymous MemeCrunch.com^[3] user posted the Forever Alone rage comic with the caption "Whose mans is this no one looks" (shown below, center).

The following year, on November 20th, 2013, another Memecrunch^[4] user posted an image of professional basketball player Russell Westbrook making a seemingly disgusted face with the caption "Whose mans is this? (shown below, right).

On July 5th, 2016, Redditor^[6] TheIronButt asked the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit "Where did 'Whose mans is this' come from." Redditor NotEazyHB responsed, "it is from the hood in new york where it was a way of either making fun of somebody or punking them. whenever someone says it you dont want to answer even if it is your mans."

On October 26h, Twitter^[7] user @Herring_NBA tweeted a video of basketball player Russell Westbrook pointing at a fan who raised their middle finger to him. They captioned the video "Westbrook's expression literally says: 'Whose man is this?'" The post (shown below) received more than 13,000 retweets and 13,000 likes in two years.

Westbrook's expression literally says: "Whose man is this?" https://t.co/W2ufb9xEQw

— Chris Herring (@Herring_NBA) October 27, 2016

On February 13th, 2017, Redditor ^[5] breadnbutter shared a tweet of CeeLo Green's Grammys Outfit in the /r/BlackPeopleTwitter with the subject title "Whose mans is this." The post (shown below) received more than 3,700 points (97% upvoted) in one year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References