About

As A Former Street Nigga Myself refers to a viral tweet made by Twitter / X user @chickenjorhe in January 2022 in which he commented on American rapper Lil Durk deleting his social media, writing, "As a former street nigga myself, I know what dat means." The catchphrase was later picked up by X user @Toriquex1 and paired with a picture of a kid doing a prayer hand gesture. In May 2024, TikTok user @charleybournetruecrime revealed that the kid featured in the meme was Ethan Crumbley, the shooter of the Oxford High School who killed four Michigan students in 2021.

Origin

On January 13th, 2022, X^[1] user @chickenjorhe tweeted that the American rapper Lil Durk had deleted all his social media accounts, writing that "As a former street nigga myself, I know what dat means." User @Toriquex1 then replied to the tweet with a picture of a kid appearing to pray, copying the original tweet's phrase "As a former street nigga myself" (shown below), which received over 7,000 likes and 611 reposts in two years.

Spread

The tweet became a viral reaction image on X and Reddit over the following years, mainly used to make fun of white people who use the N-word on social media. For example, on November 27th, 2023, X^[2] user @Koma_Swirlious posted a screenshot of the "as a former street myself" in response to a tweet that used the N-word (shown below, left), which received roughly 460 likes and 47 reposts in a year.

On April 28th, 2024, Redditor^[3] attentionseeker69420 posted the kid's image paired with the image macro caption "as a former street myself" (shown below, right), which garnered just two upvotes.

"As A Former Street Myself" Is The Oxford High School Shooter

On May 9th, 2024, TikToker^[4] @charleybournetruecrime posted a video about the Oxford High School shooting that occurred in November 2021. In one frame of the video, the creator used the same picture featured in the "as a former street myself" meme, revealing that Ethan Crumbley, the teen gunman who killed four students, is the young boy used in the meme. The video (shown below) amassed over 774,000 plays and 88,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References