About

"Hurt" is a song written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails for the 1994 album The Downward Spiral. The song was later covered by Johnny Cash shortly before his death, propelling its popularity. This version arguably became the more well-known version of the song, and a screenshot of the cover's music video appeared in reaction image memes and parodies in the late 2010s and 2020s.

Origin

"Hurt" is the closing track on the Nine Inch Nails album The Downward Spiral, released on March 8th, 1994. A year later, the track was released as a promotional single.^[1] The song peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Alternative Music chart.

Spread

In 2002, the song was then notably covered by Johnny Cash for his album American IV: The Man Comes Around. In 2017, a music video was released and quickly gained virality. The video (shown below) was uploaded to YouTube^[4] by Cash's channel on September 19th, 2017, and within five years, it had earned over 237,000,00 views.

The video was recorded seven months prior to Cash's death in 2003. It won the Grammy for "Best Music Video of the Year" in 2011 and has been recognized as one of the best music videos of all time by several music publications.

It has also notably been used in pop culture, appearing in the trailer for the 2017 film Logan, several television shows, and by WWE in a tribute to the late Eddie Guerrero.

Parodies

Online, the song has been used in a variety of parodies and memes. In November 2016, a compilation of videos using the track with footage of people hurting themselves was posted by TemBro on YouTube^[5] gaining over 18,000 views within a year (shown below, left). A video posted by Mayor Wertz to Vimeo^[6] pairing the track with footage of Guy Fieri gained over 600,000 views in a year (shown below, right).

A still from the video has also been used as a reaction image in numerous posts on Reddit.^[7][8] Some prominent examples include a post to the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit posted by /u/BillCipher1738 on July 8th, 2018, which gained over 12,000 points in a year (shown below, left).

Soon after, on July 12th, an /r/dankmemes post by /u/TittenTatten using text blackout or recaptions gained over 6,900 points within a year (shown below, right).

2024 Resurgence

In early January 2024, "Hurt" gained renewed meme interest again on X (formerly Twitter). This time, users would typically use an image of Johnny Cash playing the guitar, also taken from the same music video that spawned the previous image macro of Cash's face. The image would then be accompanied by a humorous phrase intended to be read or sung to the tune of "Hurt."

For instance, on January 4th, 2024, X^[2] user @TheJaegerB0mber posted a version of the meme with a phrase that read, "I cranked my hog, today," which received 38,000 likes in under a day (seen below, left). The same day, X^[3] user @uncledoomer posted a version reading " a shrimp fried rice today," receiving 280 likes in less than 12 hours (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References