The hawk tuah dad meme is a new twist on the June 2024 phenomenon that speculates on how the "spit on that thing" girl's father is coping.
This early summer trend has become so popular that it has already inspired spinoff memes, and her face is spreading so fast across the internet that people are assuming her family must be aware by now.
This latest version is a simple one using various reaction images of fatherhood-age men and can mostly be found on Twitter.
In case you missed it, the hawk tuah girl, also known as the "spit on that thing" girl, is a young woman by the name of Hailey Welsh who became an online sensation after giving an amusing answer to a street interviewer.
One of the creators from Tim & Dee TV, a YouTube channel and Instagram account, approached her and a friend in public while they were partying in Nashville, Tennessee and asked them a classic dating question.
“What’s one move in bed that makes a man go crazy every time?” the interviewer queried.
"Oh, you gotta give him that ‘hawk tuah’ and spit on that thang," Welsh replied with a hearty laugh.
The use of the onomatopoeia for the spitting sound combined with her charming Southern accent made her into a viral meme almost overnight. Internet sleuths soon identified her as Welsh after finding the VSCO account of her friend, Chelsea Bradford.
A Facebook account for merchandising company Fathead Threads further confirmed her identity by announcing a partnership with Welsh.
Both the virulence of the hawk tuah girl meme and its sexual connotations soon resulted in speculation over how Welsh's father might be feeling about it. The general consensus is that his reaction is likely negative, leaving him feeling angry, annoyed, ashamed, or staring blank-eyed into the void.
The meme itself primarily consists of simple reaction images from popular media, including previous memes like the depressed Ben Affleck photo or shots from TV shows or films, with text saying some version of "hawk tuah girl's dad right now."
The actual identity of Welsh's dad has not been discovered (yet) and his actual opinion of the meme in unknown.
The hawk tuah phenomenon became so popular in such a short time that it has already spawned multiple variations of the original. It started with green screen versions of the original video that inserted Welsh into a wide range of funny situations as she spoke her iconic line.
As it spread to Twitter, users Photoshopped her into various films and video game characters or paired her with reaction images, and later referenced her in other meme formats.
Not long after the first TikTok memes featuring Welsh appeared, she got mixed into an emerging meme around "Indian Outlaw," a hit 1994 single by country singer Tim McGraw.
The original version of this trend used the misheard lyrics format to change the chorus from "I'm an Indian outlaw, half Cherokee and Choctaw" to "I’m an Indian outlaw, half parakeet and hot dog."
Welsh's viral video changed that misheard lyric to "half Cherokee and Choctaw."
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
The post The hawk tuah dad meme: How’s that guy doing? appeared first on The Daily Dot.
