Explaining the Hawk Tuah meme phenomenon and why it’s still trending

Representational Image of Internet: Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Representational Image of Internet: Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The Hawk Tuah meme phenomenon sparks from an old TikTok video shot in 2024. In this video, she was asked which move men like the most while in bed. She had an unexpectedly shocking and funny response to this. When this video went viral, memers took it up upon themselves to create funny laughter laughter-worthy memes from it.

This is what she said,

Oh, you gotta give him that hawk tuah and s**t on that thang

The video got so famous that the girl who was interviewed on the street by YouTubers Tim and Dee TV later became known as the hawk tuah girl.


The Hawk Tuah Girl

The Hawk Tuah girl is originally known as Haley Welch. Haley would never have thought that a casual and spontaneous interview shot in the streets of Nashville would earn her so much fame. Starting from her voice to the image of her face, everything is now remixed by netizens and memers to create funny internet memes.

Later, capitalizing on the popularity, Haley started her podcast channel named 'Tawk Tuah.' In this, Whitney Cummings was featured as one of the first guests. Her sudden popularity can be perfectly measured through the tagline of one of her podcast episodes - I Said Hawk Tuah and Now I'm Here w/ Whitney Cummings


Meaning

The meaning of this two-worded catchy meme tag is a s**ually intended sound effect. The sound is used to tease out humor from other situations. Among many versions, the green screen one is the most widely shared and used.

After the unexpected success of the viral hawk tuah tiktok post, many other videos started being published with similar content.

The phenomenon makes us think how an honest, quirky, and spontaneous response can steer into a viral trend. This acts as a commentary on viral content that goes viral in no time.

Netizens also use hawk tuah words as captions to turn any post into humorous memes and jokes.


The popularity of the Hawk Tuah phenomenon

The phrase got so famous amongst netizens, members, and chatrooms that brands started launching products and taglines featuring the hawk tuah word.

The reason the words caught attention so quickly has to do with her typical accent with which she spells out the viral phrase.

The viral phrase is often used to induce humor in dating scenarios or relationships. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The virality of any internet content/video depends on how it is reused. In this case, the catchphrase was not only reused by online entities but also turned into merchandise for people to buy.

This is a fine commentary on today's meme culture and how it is now merging with almost all walks of life. A classic example of this is the hawk tuah printed t-shirts and tattoos that went popular in 2024.

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Edited by Debanjana