In the year 2024, there’s never not some sort of viral social media sensation or meme that’s breaking the internet. However, the latest social trend may be breaking many people’s brains as well (mine included). Yes, I’m talking about the “look between on your keyboard” trend that has taken over X and TikTok in April 2024.
Basically here’s how the trend works: Someone posts a prompt and then encourages people to find the answer to the prompt in the letters on their keyboards. Sometimes they’re clever (if a little silly), like when the Guinness World Records account told its followers to get some more sleep by tweeting, “Applicant: ‘I want to break the record for the longest time without sleep!!’ Us: Look between T and U on your keyboard.” (The letter between T and U is Y — aka “Why?”) However, many of the memes being posted have no meaning behind them, besides the intention to cause confusion with nonsensical letters.
Ironically, while the “look between on your keyboard” memes began popping up after April Fools Day this year, it reportedly originated back in May 2021 on 4Chan, a website where people anonymously share memes. According to News 18, one user posted a meme featuring a character from K-On, a Japanese manga, with the caption, “look between T and O on your key bored (sic).” In looking between T and O on your keyboard, viewers would find Y, U, and I, spelling out Yui, one of the main characters from the series. X user @KeionDaisuki_01 recently reposted this meme, showing the world how this trend took off and stating, “They will never beat the original.”
But many social media users are in fact trying to beat the original. Here are some of their contributions:
Not everyone is on board with the trend though.
Ultimately, despite the “look between on your keyboard” trend really testing our brains, people are having fun with it. At to that I say, look between J and L on your keyboard to sum up my feelings about it all.