Editor's Note: This entry is not to be mistaken for Mr. Krab's "World's Smallest Violin."

About

"World's Smallest Violin" is a song by the band AJR. It has been paired with various videos about improving over time at skills such as drawing, often as a part of the "art improvement" trend.

Origin

On March 26th, 2021, American indie pop group AJR uploaded a music video titled "World's Smallest Violin" to their official YouTube^[1] channel. The video received more than 54 million views in one year (shown below).

Spread

Starting May 2022, the song was used in videos, mostly about drawing improvement on YouTube. For example on May 4th, 2022, YouTube^[2] user TeaCaku uploaded a video of various things they'd drawn, showing their progression as an artist from 2010-2022. The video received more than 470,000 views in three months (shown below, left). The following day, YouTube^[3] user CrazedCake uploaded a similar video. It received more than 470,000 views in three months (shown below, right).

On May 2nd, 2022, YouTube^[4] user Bloody Cat uploaded a video paired with the song about their drawing improvement from 2018-2022. The video received more than 5.8 million views (shown below, left). On July 24th, 2022, YouTube^[5] user 퍼런안경_BLAS uploaded a similar video that received more than 3.1 million views in one month (shown below, right).

TikTok Trend

On June 15th, 2022, TikTok user @geometry_floof uploaded a clip playing the game Geometry Dash with the song World's Smallest Violin following the game's rhythm. The post would later be used as sound for 31,600 other videos on the platform, in which people share videos or memes that went viral on social media, like @armandorozados0 video, uploaded on August 29th, 2022, about his 50-million-view video of a sinking boat. The video has 26 million views and 2.4 million likes in two months.

Another example of the trend is shown in this post by @datzmylife on August 8th, 2022, in which she remembers the moment a crane fell on her house. She uses the song's lyrics "I Blow Up" to share a screenshot of the original viral video that had over 17 million views at the time. The new post accumulated 798,000 views and 31,000 likes in two months.

Some people also used the trend to share how some memes got popular over time, like this compilation video of the "Have you seen this woman?" meme about the K-Pop singer Chuu. The video, posted by @_ljjr_ on September 14th, 2022, has 496,000 views and 119.000 likes in one month.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References