There were a lot of memes in 2024, but somehow memers are still hung up on one that debuted all the way back in January. Users went from imagining Ninja with a low taper fade to not having to imagine, to accusing ninja of dragging the meme, spawning fan art and parodies along the way.
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00:00You know what's crazy is that that low taper fade like meme is dude it is still massive.
00:05There were a great many memes debuted in 2024, but only one had the staying power to stay relevant
00:10throughout the entire year. The low taper fade meme emerged in January and absolutely refused
00:15to fade from memers minds. But why is it that the meme is so massive and what gave it that
00:20staying power? The origin of the meme dates back to the very beginning of 2024, January 5th to be
00:25exact, when hyperpop artist Eric DOA went live on Twitch freestyling for about an hour. At one
00:31point in the stream, he sings the line, imagine if ninja got a low taper fade. The stream was
00:35uploaded to Eric DOA's YouTube channel the following day, and the clip of that particular
00:39line was posted to his TikTok account on January 11th, garnering over a million views in a day.
00:44But this was just the very beginning of what would turn into a major internet phenomenon.
00:48Imagine if ninja got a low taper fade.
00:51The audio gained viral spread on TikTok soon after, inspiring all kinds of reactions and memes.
00:56It got to be so viral so quickly, in fact, that on January 12th, Ninja himself posted a clip to TikTok
01:02reacting to a low taper fade meme. On January 13th, inspired by the meme, Ninja actually got
01:08a low taper fade. That day he posted a video to TikTok showing off his haircut to Eric DOA's
01:13original sound, garnering over 5.4 million views in three days. TikTokers no longer needed to
01:18imagine. You'd think this would be the peak of the meme, which would die out shortly after,
01:22but you'd be wrong. Ninja would continue to reference the meme throughout the month of
01:26January, leading some TikTokers to start memeing on him for attempting to keep it relevant after
01:30its apparent peak. For example, on January 30th, TikToker OblivionCactus posted a clip from a then
01:36recent Ninja stream, with text overlays saying Ninja is dragging the low taper fade at this point.
01:41In the clip, Ninja sings low taper fade and then claims the meme is still massive. Over four months,
01:46the video received roughly 4.3 million views.
01:49You know what's crazy is that that low taper fade like meme is, dude, it is still massive.
01:54A repost of this TikTok from April also garnered millions of views and spurred a number of parodies,
01:59including a copypasta quoting the Ninja clip where he says it's still massive,
02:03which trolls started spamming in comment sections across the platform. Meanwhile,
02:06the low taper fade meme was also inspiring other sorts of meme trends. For example,
02:10the phrase started to be paired with this Jujutsu Kaisen fan art posted back in 2021.
02:15In February 2024, one ex-user quote retweeted the art referencing the low taper fade meme,
02:20writing, Imagine if Junpei got a low taper fade.
02:22Many other artists would jump on the trend across all different fandoms online,
02:26recreating their favorite characters in the process of acquiring a low taper fade.
02:29Then in June, TikToker HPfan posted a video of an image macro set to the
02:34Imagine if Ninja got a low taper fade song, captioned Imagine if Tfue got a high taper fade,
02:40a variation on the low taper fade meme involving a different YouTuber and a
02:43slightly different hairstyle. The same user later posted an edit of Tfue with a new version
02:48of the original Eric Dioe melody, replacing the low taper fade lyrics with lyrics about
02:52Tfue getting a high taper fade. HPfan would continue to use this format to parody the
03:03trajectory of the Ninja low taper fade meme, even posting a clip claiming Tfue is dragging
03:07his high taper fade meme, garnering over 2.3 million views in two days. The memes would
03:12only continue over the following months, fueling discussion and use of the phrase on social media,
03:16ranging from referencing the original meme to referencing Ninja dragging it or posting
03:21fan art or parody versions. Ninja even started selling official merch on his website referencing
03:25the meme. What do you think? Will the low taper fade meme stay relevant in 2025,
03:30or will we finally see this one fade to irrelevance? Let us know in the comments,
03:34and make sure to like and subscribe for the latest in internet culture.