About

"They Ask You How You Are and You Say That You're Fine" is a quote from pop singer Katy Perry that has been popularly used in Vine and Youtube videos over sad or pathetic footage for humorous effect.

Origin

In November of 2014, Katy Perry appeared on The Project to discuss her new album and her divorce from Russell Brand. While talking about her struggles with depression, she described a scenario where people ask her how she is and she says "fine" when she isn't really fine.

Spread

Shortly after the broadcast, the quote was spread sincerely by Katy Perry fans and artists on Whisper.^[1] One popular Vine post, shown below, appeared a month after the Katy Perry interview, and has gained over 500 revines and 1,200 likes as of October 18th, 2016.

For the next year, the audio was used sincerely in videos with emo aesthetics. In early 2016, the audio began to be used humorously in Vines. For example, one of the earliest known joke uses of the audio finds it playing over a man dropping his smartphone on his face in a Vine posted by JakeWithTheJeep on March 17th (shown below).

The quote started getting more popular in the summer of 2016 as dozens of remix videos appeared using the quote. Traditionally, these videos start out in color but turn to black and white and move in slow motion as Perry's quote plays. One compilation video posted on the Dank Compilations^[3] Youtube channel gained over 550,000 views.

On August 18th, 2016, Pewdiepie used the quote frequently in his video "RAGDOLL GAMES,"^[2] causing a spike in popularity.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References