The Story Of The “Hey Girls, Did You Know…” Meme

It all began with an image that took Tumblr by storm. It was originally posted to Instagram by OfficialSabrina_XO as a rebuke to the girls of Instagram and Tumblr who had been posting shots of their cleavage online.

The rebuttals soon followed, mainly from guys and girls defending girls’ rights to do whatever they wanted with their bodies.

Soon, the rebuttals became so plentiful that people began responding to those:

Soon, guys and girls were giving each other advice via this meme, and the responses were getting longer and longer, as guys and girls were responded to each other’s posts.

As with all memes, the meme began to spin off into absurdity.

Finally, the meme became so ubiquitous that its inevitable backlash arrived.

And this is the masterpiece that it left us with.

It began just a little over two months ago, June 18, 2012, but the meme has already run its course. Images are still being created and disseminated, mostly on Tumblr where the meme lived, but it’s clearly at the end of its life cycle. If you’d like to see more, this page has the most recent Hey Girls that have been posted to Tumblr.