If Looks Could Kill Baby I’m The Fashion Demon

About

If Looks Could Kill Baby I’m The Fashion Demon are the lyrics in a leaked snippet of a Destroy Lonely song that became notable on TikTok in early 2023 via its use in videos that primarily used a clip of Final Fantasy character Prince Noctis in the backseat of a speeding car, looking solemnly out of the window at the cityscape. The song, which became a trending TikTok sound, was also paired with other videos that portrayed romantic solitude and masculine energy, such as one of Spider-Man and Batman. The videos were then paired with humorous captions that contrasted the serious tone.

Origin

On October 19th, 2022, Destroy Lonely played an unreleased snippet for his followers, most likely on Instagram Live. The video of him playing the snippet was screen-recorded and posted to YouTube on October 19th by YouTuber^[1] hades 𖤐, gaining roughly 71,600 views and 3,100 likes in three months (shown below). Also on October 19th, 2022, the video was posted to TikTok by TikToker^[2][3] bleeckem in two parts.

If looks could kill,
Baby, I'm the fashion demon,
Riding down Candler road, and I'm speedin'.
I got hella hoes tryna fuck me and my bros…

Spread

On October 25th, 2022, YouTuber^[4] and producer phasewave posted a remastered version of the snippet, gaining roughly 497,900 views and 16,000 likes in three months (shown below).

Sometime before late November 2022, a since-deleted TikToker named Iopium posted a video of the snippet. Although TikToker Iopium's video has since been deleted, the TikTok's sound^[5] remained usable, inspiring usage such as by TikToker^[6] fawn.xyz on November 30th, 2022. TikToker^[6] fawn.xyz's video is the first known to use the sound, earning roughly 21,400 plays and 2,600 likes in two months. The sound^[5] would inspire the most meme usage later on.

On November 13th, 2022, TikToker^[7] thisisnotcaiden posted the first-known meme using the Destroy Lonely snippet, showing an alien creature riding a motorcycle. The video received roughly 300,100 plays and 64,000 likes in two months (shown below, left). On December 8th, 2022, TikToker^[8] mont9na used Iopium's sound^[5] for a video showing Batman standing on a skyscraper, gaining roughly 454,200 plays and 79,900 likes in one month (shown below, right).

Going into January 2023, TikTokers continued to make memes with the song, predominantly portraying romantic, masculine solitude. For instance, on January 18th, 2023, TikToker^[9] joewoah3y used the sound^[5] for a video of Final Fantasy character Pince Noctis looking out of a car window with the caption, "me on the way to school seeing all these couples happy and smiling (if i can't be happy no one can.)" The video received roughly 13,200 plays and 2,300 likes in one week (shown below, left). Thereafter, many TikTokers used the same format and gained more engagement. For instance, on January 21st, 2023, TikToker^[10] pluck_v posted a similar video with text overlay reading, "Me omw home after a long day of being mysterious and nonchalant (everyone thinks I'm autistic)," gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 321,500 likes in four days (shown below, right).

The video of Prince Noctis looking out of the car window is originally from the 2008 trailer for the Final Fantasy game Final Fantasy Versus XIII. An HD version of the trailer was uploaded to YouTube^[11] on December 13th, 2008, by the channel kiefer23, gaining roughly 5.4 million views and 38,000 likes in 13 years (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References