People online are fessing up to their unconventional childhood crushes and I, for one, am happier because of it. A new TikTok trend has people making videos about their early love interests — like Diego from the Ice Age movies or The Man with the Yellow Hat from Curious George — with the top videos getting around 9 million views.
The trend really picked up around late September when user d3spond3lara made a viral TikTok about The Man with the Yellow Hat. The videos work more or less like this: A person draws a childhood caricature of themselves in a simple comic-book-like art style. In each video, the childhood version of the person meets themselves as an adult when they’re married or dating someone. The child meets their future partner, but then expresses dismay that it’s not a specific fictional character. All the videos use a TikTok audio clip where the adult version tells their childhood self to “be nice” to their partner.
As with most memes, it’s better to just watch one rather than explain it. This video, created by TikTok user Graphicsbygab, has more than 291,000 views. In it, you see a child confront the fact that they did not end up marrying Beast Boy from Teen Titans — sad!
You can scroll on to see plenty of other adorable videos that are part of the trend. The one below is about Diego, the anthropomorphized sabertooth tiger from the Ice Age movies.
An innocent crush is an everyday joy that can come from loving a certain movie, show, or game. Fanfic, art, and trends like these allow people to find a way to connect with others via shared interests. So whenever people make cute videos like these, I can’t help but giggle at how silly — and relatable — the posts can be.
