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I am a Chinese student who studies linguistics. My BA thesis is about the usage of "be like" (non-finite form of "be") followed by a meme. E.g.,

"Boys be like XD" showing a pic of a man easily carrying a 60kg woman and another pic of a man struggling to carry a 30kg canister
(image source)

such "be like" structure is used commonly between Chinese young people, too. I have seen some relevant discussions in this website, and I know the "be" here has something to do with AAE (American African English). But I wonder how does this usage become popular——I mean, the invibrant "be like" is used before a meme, while finite "is/was like" and so on are more commonly used as quotative markers. Or, can "be like" replace "is/was" like in spoken English? Does that happen in daily conversation? I am searching for papers about it, only to find them scarce. I will be delighted if you can give me some help.

Heartspring
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Chessa
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    Interesting topic :) Right now, some of the questions in your body are seemingly covered by "Be like" usage; your titular question, however, is distinct and not really answered there. I suggest that you take a look at that post and remove some of the extra parts here, because questions on this site are expected to be focused. – Heartspring Jan 08 '24 at 06:38
  • Thanks! I have read the link before and it helps me figure out the origin of "be like". But I am still confused about the usage of it before memes. – Chessa Jan 08 '24 at 06:42
  • I suggest you delete your question here and repost it on SE Linguistics, see here: https://linguistics.stackexchange.com/ – BillJ Jan 08 '24 at 09:38
  • Know your meme traces "bitches be like" to lyrics in 1998, though the meme is much more recent; they list "N*ggaz be like" as later; not sure if there's an earlier variant. – Stuart F Jan 08 '24 at 09:44
  • No, don't post on Linguistics (unfortunately, OP already did) – tripleee Jan 08 '24 at 12:18
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    The reason such "ungrammatical" usages (cf *Got milk?, Eat fresh, I'm lovin' it, We don't need no XXX,...) become popular is because the "invalid" syntax is subversive. People who use them think they're sticking two fingers up to "The Man" (authority in general). But most of the time, these superficially subversive usages actually come* from the established order (the advertising departments of now-globalized companies). They get paid the big bucks because they know what appeals to their target audience. – FumbleFingers Jan 08 '24 at 12:54
  • To my mind the most frequent usage of the be like... meme is Be Like Michael Jordan, the legendary basketball player. – DJohnson Jan 08 '24 at 13:02
  • @DJohnson Is OP's example actually an imperative (missing a comma after the vocative), or an AAVE version of 'Boys typically take after ...'? – Edwin Ashworth Jan 08 '24 at 13:29
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    Before it was a meme, the "be like" construction was frequently used in parodies of African-American stand-up comedy, in which the behavior of white people was compared to the behavior of Black people, with the white people being generally portrayed as uptight and constrained, while the Black people were comparatively loose, relaxed, and/or forthright in a similar situation. – Doug Warren Jan 08 '24 at 14:03
  • @EdwinAshworth Tbh, I have no idea. – DJohnson Jan 08 '24 at 16:26
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    @EdwinAshworth I've generally interpreted the "X be like Y" memes as the latter. I thought it was AAVE of "X are like Y" – Barmar Jan 08 '24 at 18:34
  • Me too. I thought "X be like" was AAVE for "X acts like this: ...." or "Here's how X acts: ..." – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 12:18
  • @FumbleFingers "Got milk?" is idiomatic in AmE. Do you have milk? – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 12:21
  • @TimR: By the same token, the single word "Milk?" is idiomatic for asking whether someone has (or wants) some milk. Google Bard says The iconic "Got milk?" slogan originated in 1993 from the minds of the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, working for the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB). While it seems like a simple question, it was born out of a unique creative process and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Obviously it wasn't "idiomatic" before then, and it's still not "grammatical" by any normal definitions. – FumbleFingers Jan 09 '24 at 14:51
  • @FumbleFingers Not true at all about it not being idiomatic before the ad agency's campaign. Let's say you were visiting a college buddy. He meets you at the train station and you stop off at the supemarket on the way back to his apartment as he's not one to keep a stocked fridge or pantry. So you buy some things to make sandwiches, a couple of pastries, and a pound of coffee. You might ask "Got milk?" That scenario could have easily have taken place in the 1980s or 1970s. – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 15:26
  • @TimR: Google Books isn't case-sensitive, so I can't search for instances of Got milk with that initial capital letter. But I think you'd struggle to find more than a handful of instances before the ad campaign Relatively speaking, it had no prior currency, and I see no reason to disagree with Bard's it was born out of a unique creative process* and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Those ad-men didn't just ask themselves "What are people already saying?"* – FumbleFingers Jan 09 '24 at 15:54
  • @FumbleFingers 1. I don't need to find sentences using Google Bard because here in the States, at least here in the East, we have been asking each other that question ever since the advent of convenience stores in the 1960s. The ad slogan piggybacks on how easy it became to buy milk. We even have drive-thru establishments that sell predominantly milk. 2. This kind of curt colloquialism doesn't tend to find its way into print. https://farmstores.com/ (The coffee and ice-cream shown there are fairly recent phenomena at such stores. Until quite recently it was mostly milk.) – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 17:37
  • @TimR: I think you're completely missing the point of such slogans. They're intended to be "memorable" precisely because they're "not quite right". If you personally were accustomed to hearing/using just "Got milk?" as completely natural phrasing back in the 70s and 80s, I can hardly argue with you. But it's an absolute certainty that most people wouldn't be in that position. If everyone had been like you back in 1993, I'm sure the ad-men would have come up with a different slogan! – FumbleFingers Jan 09 '24 at 17:58
  • @FumbleFingers I'm not talking about the point of the slogan at all. I'm just telling you, since you were obviously unaware of it, that "Got milk?" is a perfectly idiomatic AmE colloquial question that predated the advertizing slogan by decades. The ad slogan was novel and inventive in its simplicity, but not in its language. Like the billboard ad for the reincarnated VW Beetle: Suddenly the glass is half full again. – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 18:09
  • @TimR: Well, this is obviously going nowhere. So far as I'm concerned, *Got milk?, Eat fresh, I'm lovin' it, Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should,...* (which are all specifically intended to be remembered and repeated) at least partly owe their existence to the fact that they play fast and loose with standard grammar. If the forms were already in common use before the relevant ad campaign, they wouldn't be "memorable", so they wouldn't be chosen in the first place. But obviously we have different attitudes here. – FumbleFingers Jan 09 '24 at 18:46
  • @FumbleFingers Why you keep insisting the expression Got milk? could not have been in use in the States before the ad campaign is a mystery to me. You're basing that solely on your sense of how "memorability" works: If the forms were already in common use before the relevant ad campaign, they wouldn't be "memorable" I remember when that campaign hit the billboards.The phrase "Got milk?" was not coined by the ad campaign. Speakers of AmE had been asking that question (and questions like it) for quite a long time. "Got milk?" "Got the time?" "Got any matches?" "Got any questions?" – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 19:03
  • Questions in that form are standard colloquial Americanisms. Nobody's playing fast and loose with standard grammar. It's how we talk. – TimR Jan 09 '24 at 19:07

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The 'X be like Y' meme may well originate from "They Don't Think It Be Like It Is, But It Do" which a quote attributed to the former Major League Baseball player Oscar Gamble, which became a popular phrase in various messageboards online.

Gamble's phrase later most likely evolves into "It Really Do Be Like That Sometimes" which is a catchphrase based on a tweet and video in which the phrase serves as the caption to an image of the Dr. Phil Green M&M.

Memes containing an image plus "It Really Do Be Like That Sometimes" likely evolved into the "X be like Y" memes that are popular today.

I have found much of this information from knowyourmeme.com which you might be able to use as a reference, here is the URL: https://www.knowyourmeme.com/memes/it-really-do-be-like-that-sometimes

Unfortunately due to the organic nature of how memes change and evolve, you might have difficulty finding bona fide academic references to support your dissertation when it comes to the subject of memes.

LandAhoy9
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  • Perhaps "be like" memes could also originate from a shortened form of " I/ it/ X would be like..." as " would be like" is a grammatically correct phrase containing "be like". This is purely my opinion / speculation however. – LandAhoy9 Jan 08 '24 at 23:08
  • Including some dates would be useful, to compare it to other related memes like "bitches be like", lyrics, and other usages. – Stuart F Jan 09 '24 at 09:26