About

The Rock's Eyebrow Raise refers to a series of reaction videos of actor and former professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson raising his eyebrow accompanied by the Vine Thud. The memes first gained popularity in March 2021, achieving a major surge in September 2021 as users paired the reactions, used to convey suspicion, with various "suspect" videos, and created 21st-century humor memes.

Origin

During his wrestling career, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would often make a facial expression of raising one eyebrow, lowering the other and tilting his head. After 1998 when The Rock started calling himself "The People's Champ" in honor of Mohammed Ali,^[1][2] Johnson began referring to the expression as "The People's Eyebrow" by extension of that. Johnson often did the expression through his wrestling and movie career (example photographs and video shown below).

On October 9th, 2019, Johnson posted an Instagram^[3] video addressed to rapper DaBaby at the end of which he did the expression. The video received over 6.3 million views and 1.5 million likes in two years (shown below, left). On February 19th, 2021, Johnson posted a TikTok^[4] video set to "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice in which he does the expression. The video received over 10.2 million views and 1.8 million likes in nine months (shown below, right).

In late 2019, the Instagram video briefly gained virality on Instagram as a video reaction format. For example, on November 28th, 2019, Instagram^[16] user pepetheprofessional reposted a meme created by user kloutgoated (original post unavailable; shown below, left) that gained over 7,600 views and 1,600 likes in two years. On December 6th, Instagram^[17] user rustraint reposted a meme created by user siimpstars (original post unavailable; shown below, right).

In March 2021, the Instagram and TikTok videos both gained prominence in edits on TikTok. On March 14th, 2021, YouTuber^[5] FAERKING reposted the earliest known edit of the Instagram video, with the post gaining over 41,800 views on YouTube.

The author of the edits that paired the videos with the Vine Thud sound is currently unknown. On March 25th, 2021, the earliest discovered reuploads of the videos were made on Reddit^[6] and YouTube^{[7][8][9][10]} (shown below). An upload in which a filter was applied to Johnson's face to give him a similar appearance to Sus Jerma was also made. During that period, the videos were being referred to as "Sus Rock" due to the virality of ironic Among Us memes and his expression conveying suspicion.

Spread

In March and April 2021, the three videos received viral spread online, being reposted multiple times on YouTube,^[11] Instagram, TikTok and iFunny.^[12][13][14] On May 3rd, 2021, iFunny^[15] user InternalCancer posted an additional edit of an old interview clip featuring Johnson created by an unknown user (shown below, left).

Prior to August 2021, the reaction videos appeared in a limited number of 21st Century Humor edits. For example, on May 25th, 2021, Instagram^[18] user stdabbers posted a meme that gained over 77,800 views and 15,700 likes in five months. Starting in late July 2021, several TikTok^[19][20][21] videos combining the reactions together were posted (shown below). On August 23rd, 2021, YouTube^[22] user Memes For Days posted a video that combined the reaction videos together (author unknown, shown above, right).

On August 10th, 2021, YouTuber^[23] WiseTinedManatee posted a video in which the 2019 video was combined with Thicc Omni-man. The post received over 181,300 views in three months (shown below, left). On September 4th, YouTuber^[24] Will AFS posted a Dee's Big Nuts meme that gained over 4.9 million views in two months (shown below, right).

In September 2021, the videos, particularly the Vine Thud edit of the February 2021 TikTok, achieved prominence on TikTok as a reaction format for "suspect" videos, with several gimmick accounts^[25][26][27] dedicated to the reactions being created, most notably @rock.and.football. For example, on September 10th, 2021, TikTok^[28] account @rock.and.footbal posted a video that gained nearly 415,000 views and 68,000 likes in two months (shown below, left). On September 14th, TikTok^[29] account @the_rockreaction a video that received over 7.1 million views and 930,000 likes (shown below, center). On September 15th, TikTok^[30] account @r0ckreaction (@r0ckreacts_) posted an edit that gained over 6.6 million views and 649,000 likes (shown below, right).

The format maintained major widespread on TikTok and YouTube in September and October 2021.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References