You Wake Up as X. What's the First Thing You Do?

About

You Wake Up as X. What's the First Thing You Do? refers to a phrasal template question meant to bait engagement via answers. The format started in 2022 on Twitter / X, based on the prompt "You wake up as Taylor Swift. What's the first thing you do?" In late 2023, the snowclone continued to trend en masse in Taylor Swift-related discourse, eventually involving other characters, celebrities and influencers, namely Beyoncé and Ian Miles Cheong. The discourse ultimately led to parodies.

Origin

On March 18th, 2022, X^[1] user @tayspetsch tweeted, "you wake up as taylor swift, what's the first thing you do?" along with a picture of the singer and celebrity, gaining roughly 13,400 likes in one year (shown below). The post is currently the first-known, viral instance of the phrasal template.

Spread

The aforementioned post gained much of its engagement due to viral quote retweets in which users gave humorous answers, such as X^[2] user @toxnik on March 18th, 2022, who wrote, "kiII like 3 people," gaining roughly 181,500 likes in one year (shown below, left). On March 19th, X^[3] user @jackkirby wrote, "I mean probably still the Wordle," receiving roughly 1,800 likes in a year (shown below, right).

On October 30th, 2022, the format was replicated by X^[4] user @driftyfilm who asked, "you wake up as the head of DC Studios, what do you do?" receiving roughly 6,200 likes in one year.

On March 16th, 2023, X^[5] user @DragonBallBLK posted one of the first-known parodies of the format, referencing what people would "do" as Goku, gaining roughly 10,600 likes in seven months (shown below, left). On July 18th, 2023, X^[6] user @endahiggins88 posted a viral quote of a Christian Bumstead post, writing, "Change my second name." The quote received roughly 18,100 likes in three months (shown below, right).

The format gained predominant usage following a post from X^[7] user @_mattt4 on September 29th, 2023, which referenced Taylor Swift again, gaining over 23 million views due to viral quotes,^[8][9] such as one posted by X^[8] user @soggystyrofoam on September 30th reading, "they/them in bio turn off phone," gaining roughly 92,300 likes in three days (shown below, left). The discourse inspired controversial X^[10] user Ian Miles Cheong to tweet on October 1st, "You wake up as AOC. What’s the first thing you’re doing?" gaining roughly 3,200 likes in two days (shown below, right).

In turn, many on the app made fun of Ian Miles Cheong using parodies of the format, such as X^[11] user @GranTorinoDSA on October 2nd, 2023, who tweeted, "You wake up as Ian Miles Cheong. What's the first thing you're doing? Hard mode: You're not allowed to kill yourself," receiving roughly 10,400 likes in a day (shown below).

During the same timeframe, memes and discourse surfaced about waking up as Beyoncé due to a viral post shared by X^[12] user @beyoncegarden on September 30th, 2023, receiving roughly 12.9 million views and 7,000 likes in three days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References