“That Will Haunt Me Till The Day I Die”: 30 Embarrassing Life Moments These People Can’t Forget

Pepe the King Prawn (full name Pepino Rodrigo Serrano Gonzales) first appeared in the Muppets in 1996, winning fan’s hearts with his snarky wit and heavy Spanish accent. Every time he would be called a shrimp, he would take offense and respond, "I am not a shrimp! I am a king prawn, okay?

His expressive face and blank stare, similar to a thousand-yard stare, made him a perfect candidate for a relatable meme format.

All that was missing for it to go viral was a person who would bring people’s attention to it. That person was TikToker caitycline21, who kicked off the trend on November 30 by posting a series of memes with Pepe and his blank, shocked stare. Her first post was captioned, “Sometimes I’m late because I’m spending too much time like this.” 

This TikTok currently has 174k views and is known as the original Pepe the King Prawn meme. But it was her third post with the caption “The face I make when I’m trying to maintain great customer service while getting screamed at” that went viral, garnering 4 million views in 10 days. Others promptly joined in, making it, as some claim, the best internet trend of the year.

Some examples are on the more tame side, like “When someone starts explaining the rules to a card game I’ve never played before” and “My face when I daze out during a meeting and someone says my name,” while others are more intense, like “The girl was in the year for a year and when she got out, she said she is going to come after me,” and “My face when I pull the sock of diabetic patient and their pinky toe goes flying across the room.”

The trend doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon, as users continue to share their embarrassing stories and rack up millions of views. At the time of writing, the hashtag #pepethekingprawn has 22.1K posts, with one of the most popular remaining to be the original author’s. 

Looking at this popular trend, there seems to be no limit to what people share online. This is especially true for young people. “In the past, we used to think about our online lives and our offline lives as being two separate things. Whereas for young people, it’s just their life,” says mental health expert Dr. Louise La Sala to VICE.

Young people might feel enticed to share traumatic experiences online because it can validate the experiences they have. “From that perspective, posting on social media can be a very helpful part of a young person’s mental health journey,” says Sala.

However, they are treading thin ice, as any information can be misconstrued or minimized. “I think if you see something that’s unsafe, or you see something that might be potentially distressing to others, when you like, or share, that content you’re teaching the algorithms that other young people might want to see more content like that.”