How Diddy memes broke the Internet

From arrest of Sean Combs in September, you couldn’t scroll far on Twitter, TikTok or Instagram without coming across a macabre joke about the rapper and entrepreneur better known as Diddy. Everything from his alleged lunatics to the bottles of baby oil confiscated by authorities from Combs’ home became fodder for teen pranks online. IN recent report in the online game Roblox, which is particularly popular among children, researchers found more than 600 “Diddy”-themed games, including “Survive Diddy” and various “Diddy Party” simulators.

Most of these children likely had limited knowledge of Combs before his arrest last month in New York, where he faces charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation for the purpose of prostitution. For those born after 2000, Diddy’s cultural ubiquity peaked when they were still toddlers. Now details about disgraced hip-hop mogulincluding the seizure of the now infamous “thousands” of bottles of baby oil from his home, as well as reports of video recordings of his so-called “freaks” in which Diddy allegedly drugged guests and engaged in sexual acts shape his perspective. It seems today’s growing generation has turned it into an abbreviation for boogeyman.

The trend has become so widespread that teachers have taken to TikTok to lament the prevalence of Diddy’s jokes in the classroom. Teacher it went viral last month after a list of “banned” words in their classroom began circulating online. Alongside Generation Alpha stalwarts like skibidi toilet and rizz, Diddy’s name was there. Many teachers on the so-called #teachertok have shared similar videos. Riaan duRand, a teacher from South Africa, went viral on TikTok earlier this month after calling Diddy a threat to his high school class. “The next person to talk to is on Diddy’s list,” he announces to the noisy class, which immediately falls silent.

“They don’t say ‘no homo’ anymore. At our school it’s changed to ‘no, Diddy’ now,” he tells me over the phone. “When Diddy’s story just came out, the school was completely fascinated by it, and this was before we knew it involved minors. So it was just bottles of baby oil, it was tunnels and everyone was talking about it.

DuRand says he was inspired by another inevitable “English or Spanish” viral trend, first popularized by TikToker @alfonsopinpon_, who would approach people and ask them “English or Spanish?” and reply in any language of your choice: “Whoever moves first is gay.” In response, clips of men standing like stone quickly went viral. “English or Spanish was very popular. And I thought, well, I’ll do a new English or Spanish. And I said, “Well, if you don’t keep quiet now, you’re going to be on Diddy’s list.” And the whole class just went silent.

After the video went viral, duRand said he went back and asked his students if Diddy even was: “I thought, ‘Guys, how many of you actually knew who Diddy was before this story came out?’ ». And there were about five or six who claimed to know who he was, but that really put him in the spotlight among the younger generation.”

Of course, not everyone thinks jokes are funny. Diddy’s alleged crimes are horrific, and duRand says he has faced a lot of backlash for seeming to make light of a serious situation. “It definitely stimulated discussion in the class and discussion about what’s funny about it and what’s not,” he says. “But I don’t think teenagers think beyond a bottle of baby oil. They don’t think beyond the meme.”

Ryan Broderick, who runs Substack Garbage Day cultural bulletinpoints to teenagers’ penchant for dark humor as the reason why Diddy seems to memes they took over the internet. “There are people who still wear T-shirts that say, ‘Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.’ I think if you’re dealing with an age group that’s as young as the average TikTok user, they’re both interested in current events and they kind of love edgy humor. I think this applies to every group of young people on the Internet,” he says. “It’s kind of a classic thing.”

Today’s young people, infinitely more inclusive than previous generations, interpret the world around them in familiar, if accelerated, ways. Broderick, who is a millennial, says there is a direct outgrowth of Michael Jackson, who was the butt of many jokes in high school when he was younger. “Maybe it’s just that these things are moving faster because the media is moving faster. I remember all kinds of Michael Jackson jokes from high school and middle school, but the culture wasn’t growing that fast and there wasn’t room to create content in the same way,” he says. “Now it’s much easier to find out what everyone is talking about. Whereas 20 years ago you couldn’t just Google a new meme or a new piece of slang or a new story that everyone was talking about in class or whatever. There’s a lot more access to these types of things now, which I think means they’re also moving faster.”

That’s why duRand started his TikTok channel in the first place. “I need to stay up to date with what’s going on so I can connect with my children,” she explains. “You have to be able to connect with your kids on their level. So I use TikTok and try to find out what’s going on.” And for anyone who worries that teenagers’ fascination with Diddy is a sign of a greater moral decline, even kids seem to know when a joke is dead. says DuRand new revelations from this week stories about a 10-year-old aspiring rapper whom Diddy allegedly drugged and raped in a New York hotel during a 2005 audition soured the mood among the jokes. “I think especially the emergence of (new) allegations has spoiled the atmosphere a lot.”