About

Woman Lighting a Cigarette and Exploding is a reaction meme using a scene from the British soap opera EastEnders in which the character May "Mad May" Wright (portrayed by Amanda Drew), shaking and distraught, kills herself by lighting up a cigarette in a room filled with gas. Starting in 2023, the clip has been used as a video and GIF caption format, particularly in memes about stressful situations.

Origin

On June 18th, 2008, episodes 3597-3598 of the British soap opera EastEnders premiered on BBC One.^[1] In the episode, the character May "Mad May" Wright (Amanda Drew) kills herself by turning on a gas stove and lighting a cigarette after the room fills with gas, causing an explosion (scene shown below).

Spread

The clip has been used as a caption meme on social media since at least November 2023. On November 14th, 2023, the X^[2] account @TheMemesArchive archived the clip of Mad May lighting up a cigarette and causing an explosion, which received over 40 reposts and 320 likes in nine months.

On July 26th, 2024, the X^[3] account @allreactionvids archived the clip (shown below), with the upload gaining over 680 reposts and 4,700 likes in one month.

A woman crying and lighting a cigarette in the kitchen then the entire house explodes orrr EastEnders reaction video pic.twitter.com/oaTJOet74O

— all reaction videos (@allreactionvids) July 27, 2024

On November 19th, 2023, X^[4] user @brockomole posted one of the earliest found viral memes based on the format, pairing it with a caption about discovering that their work crush was married. The post (shown below) received over 2,100 reposts and 37,000 likes in nine months.

Nevermind she’s married pic.twitter.com/QCLrKJwTeQ https://t.co/Mn643oeE92

— Brock (@brockomole) November 20, 2023

The format achieved more prominence in July and August 2024 when multiple video caption memes based on it were circulated. For example, on August 25th, 2024, X^[5] user @DlRTYSHlRT made a post about the 2025 Oasis Reunion tour that garnered over 3,800 reposts and 17,000 likes in five days (shown below).

oasis reunion but im half the world away pic.twitter.com/pJAdYa7uVT

— lenaᡣ𐭩 (@DlRTYSHlRT) August 25, 2024

Various Examples

how it feels when you double bias but people only associate you with one member and not the other pic.twitter.com/v9eTAhbku9

— sora.99 🍒 ia (priv active) (@cherrysungho) August 3, 2024

attempting to smoke in a pub garden and getting taken out by a starmer aerial attack pic.twitter.com/arw2xPSEU9

— alasdair 🪿 (@alasdair_gbs) August 29, 2024

Search Interest

External References