The Queen Never Cry has taken the internet’s meme throne with some ridiculousness (and cuteness). While it may have started from a comical moment in the webtoon, The Ki Sisters, it has grown into a phenomenon of comedy, and tragedy with the perfect sprinkling of relatable madness.
This brings us to the question of how this one-liner about stoicism from, well, a baby (literally), became the internet’s go-to coping mechanism. Let’s unpack this royal phenomenon.
Birth of Queen Never Cry
Said phrase was taken from Chapter 34 of the webtoon The Ki Sisters by Bumbae, and hence the origin of the Queen Never Cry meme. The series often deals with aspects such as family, strength, and a lot of emotional ones.
In the now-famous chapter, a brand-new mum rocking her crying baby in a hospital room addresses her baby, saying: “Queen never cry.” The baby’s reaction? Immediate and oddly calm composure, a near carbon copy of his mother’s expression, was both amusing and adorable.
Released on November 22, 2024, this moment struck a chord with readers for its absurd juxtaposition: a mother passing on her knowledge to her baby, when she is still just in the swaddling blanket.
The viral explosion
The meme originated on Reddit when a user with the username u/OriginalAlberto posted a screenshot of the scene with the caption “Parenting, but make it iconic.” In a few hours, the post became very popular, with people commenting with their vision of the meaning or creating memes.
From Reddit, it went to others, specifically TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram, where it was transformed into short videos, GIFs as well as image macro. Fans overlaid the scenes of normal life adversities such as spilling coffee or struggling to open a jar and followed that with the line: Queen Never Cry. Users paired the meme with captions reflecting ironic stoicism, such as:
When your professor assigns a 20-page essay due tomorrow: “Queen never cry.”
Realizing your skincare routine has failed: “Queen never cry.”
Why does Queen Never Cry work?
The phrase Queen Never Cry has all the ingredients of a viral catchphrase: it is concise, easy to remember, and infused with symbolism. It’s both powerful and silly, meaning that it fits anywhere from coping with loss to dealing with Wi-Fi issues.
What is farcical about the meme is its ironic expectation of stoicism. To imagine that a newborn carries herself like a queen is ridiculous. It takes a jab at culture’s expectations of strength in difficult situations, effectively poking fun at the idea of hiding emotions.
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The meme’s evolution
We know that memes usually evolve, and Queen Never Cry is not an exception. People have recut the original panel, editing the child’s face by replacing it with other well-known emotionless characters like Batman adding internet memes to it for extra laughs.
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