Miranda Cosgrove memes surround the American actress who starred in the Nickelodeon series iCarly and appeared in School of Rock. Her sweet and warm demeanor combined with her unproblematic history had made her into something of a meme queen, appearing in a long list of TikTok trends and image macros dating back to the early 2010s.
She is most well known for the “interesting” and “I actually do cuss a little” memes and has recently seen a resurgence of interest in a photo from her School of Rock days using the iconic hand sign.
One of the earlier memes using an image of Cosgrove was the popular screenshot or gif of her iCarly character Megan Parker sitting in front of a computer screen holding a can of soda with pursed lips and the caption “interesting.”
People began to utilize this as a reaction image or gif starting in 2015, when Tumblr user commongayboy posted it on December 30 with the top caption “seeing your friend tweet someone they ‘hate.’”
This format quickly spread to become a very popular way to express suspicion or vindication, especially from something spotted on the internet.
Cosgrove's "I actually do cuss a little" meme comes from an interview on the "Good for You" podcast by Whitney Cummings held on August 14, 2020. The actress was promoting the iCarly reboot that launched in 2021.
An hour and a half into the interview, Cosgrove admits to not using perfectly clean language all the time by saying "I actually do cuss a little." Cummings follows up by asking for her favorite cuss word, which turns out to be (probably) "f---."
@clint_stafford90 she ate ???????????? #icarly #mirandacosgrove #cusswords #carlyshay #cussword #sheate #yasqueen #hilarious #fyp ♬ original sound - ????
TikTok user @clint_stafford90 posted this moment from the interview as a clip on March 7, 2022, sparking a flood of lip sync and skit videos using the original sound.
Cosgrove's first film role was as Summer Hathaway in School of Rock in 2003. Not yet 10 years old at the time of filming, she learned the devil's horns rock hand sign during this experience and, according to multiple interview confessions, became enamored with the gesture.
A photo of a young Cosgrove posing outdoors with her iconic smile and making this sign in a casual, sideways manner took off in the 2010s as an image macro with captions like "When they finally play Sum 41 — 'Fat Lip' at the house party."
Interest in this particular meme saw a resurgence in early July 2024 following a WIRED video in which the actress reveals some of the most common search terms about her. One of these is "Miranda Cosgrove rock meme," and she again explains that she started making the rock sign in nearly every photo she was in after she began filming for School of Rock.
"I've paid for it a little bit my entire life," she laughs.
Cosgrove has consistently been a good sport when it comes to the subject of how thoroughly she's been meme'd, doing numerous interviews on the subject and patiently explaining the context behind each. She spoke on the topic for BuzzFeed UK in July 2023 and did a segment on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon about it in August 2021.
In May 2022, she joked about concern that her "I actually do cuss a little" meme could "mess up anyone's childhood" to PEOPLE, then commented about the fascinating nature of the meme.
"It's just so funny how the internet works," she said. "Like, you never know what's going to catch on or what's going to happen."
In 2021, Cosgrove even recreated the "interesting" meme as an adult as part of the new iCarly opening sequence for the reboot. Comparing the old meme to the new version side by side soon became a meme in and of itself.
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