Put on a Shirt / Empowering

About

Put on a Shirt Nigga / Empowering is a comparison meme format based on nude photographs of rappers Rick Ross and Lizzo, both of them obese, with two captions praising Lizzo but fat-shaming Rick Ross. The format first achieved popularity in May 2022, with users captioning both parts of the image in order to juxtapose two things that are similar but are perceived drastically different.

Origin

On February 5th, 2022, rapper Lizzo posted a nude video to Instagram,^[1] where it received over 3.7 million views and 729,000 likes in in two years.

Prior to May 23rd, 2022, an unknown user juxtaposed the nude photograph against a nude photograph of rapper Rick Ross, captioning them "Empowering" and "Put on a shirt nigga," commenting on a double standard in public's approach to fat-shaming (shown below). On May 23rd, 2022, Facebook^[2] page All Gas No Breaks Podcast made the earliest found repost of the image. On May 24th, 2023, Facebook^[3] page aight reposted the image, with the post gaining over 230 reactions and 60 shares. On May 25th, X^[4] / Twitter user @Acidi_ shared the image on X / Twitter.

Spread

On June 2nd, 2022, X^[5] user @MiciMikesDiary captioned the image "Eminem being white vs Mac Miller being white," with the post gaining over 11,000 reposts and 161,000 likes in one year (shown below, left). On June 6th, 2022, X^[6] user @TrollFootball posted a version of the meme that gained over 2,700 reposts and 24,000 likes in the same period.

The comparison format maintained popularity on X through 2022 and 2023, with the caption also being used separately from the image. For example, on October 27th, 2022, X^[7] user @chainedtosel posted a version that received over 590 reposts and 5,300 likes in one year (shown below, left). On October 23rd, 2023, X^[8] meme account @RealYouTubeKids posted a version that gained over 5,200 reposts and 79,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References