About

Oil Up and Oiled Up refer to a series of memes in which someone is asked to or asks someone to "oil up," meaning to apply oil to their bodies, often with a sexual connotation. Memes about oiling up were first popularized online as early as 2014 with Ainsley Harriott memes about oiling up appearing on 4chan, becoming further popularized in late 2023 and early 2024 on sites like TikTok after a clip of someone asking Dana White if they can oil him up went viral online. In memes, "oil up" and "oiled up" are often used as copypastas and catchphrases.

Origin

In 2010, images of celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott started going viral as memes on 4chan. One prevalent image shows Harriott pouring oil on a salad. Users began using the phrases "oil up" and "it's time to oil up" in association with this image around early 2010.

On March 10th, 2010, an anonymous user of 4chan's /tg/^[1] (or "Traditional Games") board posted "It's Time to OIL UP," marking the earliest known use of the meme (shown below). The meme was used numerous additional times on 4chan^[2][3] that year as it spread.

On June 25th, 2011, Know Your Meme^[4] user OCtaPuS posted an image macro of Harriott featuring the same caption (shown below, right, next to original). This is the earliest known archive of the meme, however, it is unclear where it was originally posted as the original site may have since become inactive.

Spread

Memes about oiling up became increasingly popularized throughout the 2010s, often referencing the Ainsley Harriott picture, including redraws of the image and memes using the Good Heavens Look at The Time format (examples shown below).

On January 4th, 2014, Imgur^[5] user saturnjosh posted a collection of Harriott oil up memes that gained over 100,000 views in 10 years.

Dana White "I Want to Oil You Up" Video / 2024 Resurgence

As early as December 7th, 2023, a clip taken from one of Dana White's TikTok LIVE streams in which he reads the chat comment, "I want to oil you up" and asks what that means, began going viral. For example, the clip was uploaded by TikToker^[6] @fightcasuals that day, garnering over 800,000 views in seven months (YouTube reupload shown below).

The clip inspired memes throughout late 2023 and 2024, causing the phrases "oil up" and "oiled up" to go viral further on TikTok and other social media sites. On TikTok, "oil up" and "X oiled up," "X" being a character or person, became a prevalent spam comment throughout 2024, often used towards characters or people the commenter finds attractive.

On January 10th, 2024, TikToker^[7] @mmacomedyy posted a video of White responding to another "oil up" comment on his livestream, garnering over 1.1 million views in six months (shown below, left). On January 23rd, TikToker^[8] @thebestclips333 posted a meme using the original clip that gained over 2.3 million views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On January 31st, YouTuber^[9] Meme Zee posted a video meme using "oil up" as the central joke, garnering over 45,000 views in six months (shown below).

On March 4th, 2024, the official @duolingo TikTok^[10] account posted a video in which someone in a Duolingo costume pours oil all over themselves, captioned, "Duolingo oiled up," garnering over 18 million views in four months (shown below, left). On July 5th, TikToker^[11] @s0ph1er0ss posted a video encouraging users to send it to people they want to see "oil up," garnering over 1.3 million views in three weeks (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Related Memes

Naked and Covered In Oil

Both Are Naked and Covered in Oil, Who's Winning the Twerk-off? refers to a series of Who Would Win? memes in which the viewer is asked to decide which of two people or characters would win in a twerk-off below the catchphrase. The meme format gained virality on Twitter and Instagram in early May 2022.

Search Interest

External References