Mareux's "The Perfect Girl"

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About

"The Perfect Girl" is a 2015 song by artist Mareux that is a cover of a 1987 song by The Cure. In 2021, the song and its sped-up version gained major virality on TikTok, regaining popularity in early 2022 in video caption memes, particularly those using scenes from "based" films such as American Psycho and Nightcrawler.

Origin

On April 21st, 2015, LA-based music producer Mareux (Aryan Ashtiani) released his single "The Perfect Girl," a coldwave cover of a 1987 song by The Cure. The song accumulated over 3.5 million views on Soundcloud^[1] and 433,000 views on YouTube^[2] in seven years. In 2021, Mareux released the song on Spotify,^[3] where it accumulated over 30 million streams in one year.

𝙈𝘼𝙍𝙀𝙐𝙓 · The Perfect Girl

The song did not achieve massive virality until July 23rd, 2021, when TikToker^[4] @electraviolence.c used the song in a fancam of actress Nikki Reed, which gained over 256,400 views and 22,900 likes in six months (shown below). For example, a tutorial video by TikToker^[6] jannestwelve received over 1.6 million views and 231,000 likes in three months (shown below, center).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6988178944595856645

Spread

The upload by @elctraviolence.c gained further prominence in late October 2021 after several TikToks^[5]^[6]^[7] using it went viral (examples shown below).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7021792876946328833

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7023291677464988934

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7024718347224812846

In the following months, more viral TikToks^[7] using the song were uploaded to the app. On January 7th, 2021, a Vibing Cat gimmick Twitter^[8] account @cadancingg posted the song, with the meme gaining over 50,200 views, 760 retweets and 2,500 likes (shown below).

Mareux – The Perfect Girl pic.twitter.com/ow0pMeMu8B

— cat vibing postpunk indie shoegaze dark wave synth (@catdancingg) January 7, 2022

On January 16th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @asimbawe posted a Patrick Bateman video caption meme based on the scene that gained over 296,000 views, 5,100 retweets and 30,700 likes in three weeks (shown below).

pic.twitter.com/0Un0ZVhQEY

— Bibawen (@asimbawe) January 16, 2022

Starting in mid-January, @asimbawe and other Twitter users posted video caption memes based on the song and its sped-up version, both reusing the clip from American Psycho and using other clips from this and other "based" films.

Music Video

On April 20th, 2022, following the massive popularity of the song online, a music video for the song was released, gaining over 350,000 views on YouTube^[10] in one month (shown below).