Shirt Cut meme explained as viral trend resurfaces in 2022
Andrew Walker
Updated on March 24, 2026
New memes pop up on the internet all the time, but it’s often the old ones that remain the most popular.
Disaster Girl, Distracted Boyfriend and Woman Yelling At Cat are just a few of the viral memes that continue to be shared online.
This week, Shirt Cut memes are taking over Twitter again. They first went viral back in 2012 and have been popular ever since – but what actually are they?
Read on for a full explanation…
What is a Shirt Cut meme?
A Shirt Cut meme is a comic strip style meme in which a character is drawn wearing five different outfits, all of which expose their upper body in some way.
The first image has the caption ‘sideboob’ which goes on to ‘inner sideboob’ then ‘boob window’, ‘underboob’ and ‘free space’.
People are supposed to draw or create their own raunchy character in five different poses, fitting each of the five labels.
In the free space, you can use your imagination and draw anything you want, but most people usually follow the provocative theme.
doing shirt cut meme but boatem. 3 done, 2 to go. (I have all the ones I want but, just showing off the template lol)
— M1CROPHONE/M1C!!!! 🎤 (@booberry_b1e) July 12, 2022
Origin of the viral meme
As per Know Your Meme, the format went viral in June 2021 when a Twitter user called @druzsea posted the five-panel template.
The template was completely empty, allowing internet users to fill it in using their own drawings, and the tweet went viral – gaining almost 15,000 likes.
Over the next few weeks, the template continued gaining traction and people began filling it in with their own characters.
Some people made non-explicit versions, with others creating raunchy characters to fill in the boxes.
The trend continued floating around Twitter for the rest of 2021, and it now seems to have resurfaced again in 2022, especially on TikTok.
Videos with the hashtag #shirtcutmeme have had over 42.1 million views and that number continues growing every day.
Nathaniel B meme is also going viral
Another meme going viral on the internet right now is the Nathaniel B trend.
The funny meme is a clip of a boy, called Prince Maj, saying to another boy: “That s*** was trash. You can’t handle me. Hold up, ain’t you Nathaniel B?”
In the full clip, the group of high school boys are taking part in a freestyle rap battle. Then, he references his opponents younger brother Nathaniel.
Instead of calling him Nathaniel’s brother, which would have been too long, he opted for the shorter nickname Nathaniel B.
The ‘B’ in his famous rap stands for brother and the video, which was taken at their high school football club, has gone viral online.
Everyone is obsessed with the brilliant one-liner and people can’t stop saying “aint you Nathaniel B?” as they go about their daily life.
