Worst She Can Say Is No

About

Worst she can say is no is a catchphrase frequently used in snowclone memes. It depicts a scenario where a person is preparing to ask a girl out and is encouraged by the thought that the worst answer that they can receive is rejection, whereupon the girl's response is much worse than just plain rejection, often containing an insult or other derogatory term.
The girl's answer, which is the punchline, is often portrayed as an image, but is sometimes given in text with the image being a reaction to it.

Origin

The first known instance of the meme was posted to the subreddit r/memes on November 22nd, 2020, by Redditor^[1] u/King_Anodim. It features the popular object labeling template of a train hitting a bus, and the post gained 29,900 points in six months (shown below).

Six days later, on November 28, 2020, a similar version was posted to the /r/dankmemes/ subreddit by Redditor^[2] /u/Armouredbobcat, getting 114,000 upvotes in six months. This meme took the same one as before, but extended it by a panel where an additional reaction was added (shown below).

Spread

The meme gained increased popularity throughout the following weeks, with several users posting texting conversation that seemed to be real-life examples of the phenomenon. On December 11th, 2020, Redditor^[3] /u/powerX21 uploaded a version of the meme using a text conversation and Kermit the Frog, earning 54,800 upvotes in six months (shown below).

Later on December 21st, 2020, Redditor^[4] /u/Kchronis/ posted a version that used a text conversation as the labeling text, gaining 49,100 upvotes in five months on the /r/memes subreddit (shown below).

Examples

Search interest

References