A Headpat and A Cheek Pinch

Submission 1,058

Part of a series on デデチ (Dedechi) / @dEi_pft. [View Related Entries]

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About

A Headpat and A Cheek Pinch is an exploitable transparent PNG POV meme template by Japanese artist Dedechi in which one hand is shown patting an invisible head while the other pinches a cheek. Posted in late June 2024, the format achieved virality on X / Twitter in the following week as people edited the image into other pictures.

Origin

On June 25th, 2024, Japanese artist and X user Dedechi (@dEi_pft) posted an exploitable template showing two hands from the first-person perspective with one patting an invisible head and the other pinching a cheek belonging to the same head. The template (shown below) garnered over 23,000 reposts and 99,000 likes on X^[1] in two weeks.

Spread

Starting on the same day, users on X^[2] posted both fan art and memes using the provided template. For example, on June 25th, 2024, X user @rouninnminarai posted an image that applied the template to a frame from the music video "Perfect Human" by RADIO FISH and garnered over 10,000 reposts and 120,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, left).

On June 26th, 2024, X^[3] user @risenoooo used the exploitable in a fan art of J-pop singer Ado that garnered over 2,700 reposts and 46,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, right).

The template maintained popularity through late June 2024.

Cheek Grabbing Material

Cheek Grabbing Material refers to a transparent PNG made by artist Dedechi showing a hand reaching out to pinch someone's cheeks. The exploitable image caption is translated from Japanese to read, "Here's some cheek-grabbing material." The PNG came to be edited onto different drawings soon after it was posted in May 2024, becoming a redraw format with various characters being grabbed.