About

You Lose. Continue? refers to a series of memes that parody the "Continue?" screens of fighting games, which ask the player to confirm that they wish to continue playing after losing. Spawned by a viral TikTok, the format was popularized on the app in October 2021, becoming a trend that used the song "Kitsch" from Tekken 4 as a sound effect.

Origin

In arcade fighting games such as Street Fighter and Tekken, upon loss, the game would offer the player to insert additional coins or an input request to continue playing, with a countdown from 10 to 0 taking place. The countdown screen still appears in some modern fighting videogames such as the Tekken series (example videos shown below).

On September 25th and 27th, TikToker^[1][2][3] @supashek posted five videos in which he, wearing different outfits, portrayed various archetypes of fighting game opponents, mocking the viewer over their loss. The TikToks, which used the song "Kitsch" from Tekken 4 soundtrack, received from 250,000 to 1.6 million views in one month (examples shown below).

Spread

Starting in late September 2021, other TikTokers started creating similar videos, dressing as fighting game characters and mocking the viewer or making jokes about fighting game tropes. For example, on September 27th, TikToker^[4] babamadethis posted a video that gained over 115,200 views and 15,300 likes in one month (shown below, left). On September 29th, TikToker^[5] posted a video that gained over 1.8 million views and 443,500 likes in the same period (shown below, right).

In October 2021, multiple viral versions of the meme were posted on the app, with over 4,300 videos using "Kitsch" posted. Some versions were also reposted to other platforms. For example, on November 3rd, 2021, Twitter^[6] user @Freddie_PowPow reposted their own TikTok, with the video gaining over 106,200 views, 2,800 retweets and 10,500 likes in one day (shown below).

Hopped on this TikTok trend for what I've found to be the most universal Tekken experience pic.twitter.com/gVuVfB49Zt

— Freddie Powers (@Freddie_PowPow) November 3, 2021

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References