About

Goku Drip refers to a series of fan art depicting Dragon Ball characters wearing Hypebeast clothing, and most notably an artwork of character Goku wearing a Supreme shirt and a jacket with "By Any Means Necessary" print. Starting in October 2020, the images gained popularity in bait-and-switch videos.

Origin

Prior to June 13th, 2017, artist No Sply posted two^[1][2] artworks of Dragon Ball character Goku wearing a black branded Supreme shirt and a black The North Face jacket with the words "By Any Means Necessary" in repeating print (shown below, left and right). On June 13th, 2017, No Sply^[10] posted an image of a framed poster based on the image on Facebook.

This image of Goku is related to a series of fan art depicting anime and cartoon characters in streetwear that dates to at least 2012.^[5]

Spread

On June 13th, 2017, Twitter^[1] user @MacheteBlack made the earliest viral repost of one of the front-view artworks, gaining over 370 retweets and 1,400 likes in three years. On December 9th, 2017, Instagram^[3] account hypedstreets posted a photograph of a canvas featuring Goku Drip by no.sply, with the post gaining over 7,600 likes in three years (shown below, left). At an unidentified point in 2017 or 2018, Zedge^[4] user Eking1897 posted a smartphone wallpaper featuring the art which was downloaded over 125,000 times in the following years (shown below, right).

On June 12th, 2018, YouTuber apandah uploaded^[6] a video to YouTube discussing the phenomena of combining streetwear aesthetic with anime and cartoon characters which featured the artwork (shown below). The video received over 750,000 views in two years.

Prior to October 21st, 2020, an unknown user posted the presumably first bait-and-switch meme within the trend, based on the viral My Little PogChamp dub by @gothmei and featuring a similarly-styled Dragon Ball fanart. On October 21st, iFunny^[7] user AddictedToZQuil made the earliest found repost of the video. An October 22nd repost by Instagram^[8] user nitro_if gained over 46,900 views and 10,300 likes (shown below, left).

Following the viral spread of the video, on November 17th, 2020, Instagram^[9] user asmr_jose posted the earliest found bait-and-switch video featuring the most popular Goku Drip (shown below, right). The post received over 5,300 views and 1,700 likes and was widely circulated in the following weeks.

Starting in mid-November 2020, the format gained notable presence on Instagram, later spreading to Discord and Twitter. The bait-and-switch Goku Drip videos sometimes feature the Ultra Instinct theme from Dragon Ball Super (shown below).

On January 6th, 2021, Ebaumsworld^[11] published an article titled "How Goku Drip Memes Began and the Top 10 Funniest."

Related Memes

Among Drip

Among Drip refers to a viral 3D render of three crewmates from the 2018 video game Among Us wearing Nike Jordan shoes. In December 2020, memes based on the render gained significant popularity online as an ironic Among Us meme, similar to When the Imposter Is Sus.

Gangster SpongeBob

Gangster SpongeBob or Gangsta SpongeBob refers to a series of fan art that depict cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants as a gangster. Originally a series of independently created fan art, in 2019 and 2020, the artworks gained meme recognition, being used as source material for ironic memes.

Various Examples

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External References