"I'm Just a Chill Guy" — The Viral "Chill Guy" Dog Meme, Explained

TikTok is a hot bed of viral stories and trends that come and go like the tide. What's popular and "must do" one day could be ancient history tomorrow. Nonetheless, it's important to keep up with what the most recent trends are if you want to be able to have conversations with anyone under the age of 30.

One current trend taking over TikTok is casually called the "I'm just a chill guy" meme. It involves a dog and probably doesn't make a lot of sense if you're not a member of Gen Z. But we're breaking it down to help you understand where the "chill guy" meme came from.

To understand where the trend came from, you have to take a brief jaunt to X (formerly Twitter) and a user known as @PhillipBankss. Although their account is currently set to private, it was the source of the entire "chill guy" trend.

In October 2023, @PhillipBankss shared some art to his account, captioning it, "My new character. His whole deal is he's a chill guy that lowkey doesn't give a f--k." The artwork showed a human-like dog wearing jeans, a sweater, and some red tennis shoes. Smirking confidently at the camera, hands (or paws?) in his pockets, the dog epitomizes "chill." But it wasn't until TikTok got ahold of the chill dog that the trend blew up.

Originally called the "My New Character" trend, it took off when TikTok user @abnormalpenguin2 created a video of the Chill Guy set to music with a voiceover that sounds suspiciously like Family Guy's Brian Griffin (also a dog), saying "I know I'm supposed to be a chill guy …". TikTok immediately ran away with it. In the viral trend, the Chill Guy is often placed in different situations against the backdrop of @abnormalpenguin2's sound, as they explain different scenarios.

These scenarios cover anything from, "My girlfriend thinks I'm cheating on her, but I'm just a chill guy" set against a backdrop of video gaming to "When she yells at you for forgetting what she told you earlier today, but I'm just a chill guy." And everything in between. It's a tongue-in-cheek way of highlighting a situation where people might ascribe a motive to you that isn't real.

Men's mental health advocates have pointed out that, while witty, the trend highlights a major problem in today's society. According to some, men's motivations are often misinterpreted and misunderstood as being malicious when in fact the person behind the curtain is really just a "chill guy" trying to live his life.

There's also a copypasta and voiceover used with the trend that reads, "I know I'm supposed to be a chill guy and lowkey not really care about anything, but I'm tired of trying to be someone that I'm not. I want you to think of something right now that makes you happy. That thing you see, the thing that lights you up, chase that. With all of your soul, chase it. 'Cause it's easy to brush off life's potential. And I'm not trying to say that life is easy.

"In fact, I'd argue that the only way that something is meant to be is if you're willing to commit to the difficulty of bringing it to life. Otherwise, it wasn't meant to be anything but just a missed opportunity. It will be a difficult road but here's what we come to learn —
everything of value is difficult. Think about that."

And in true form, the internet has taken it a step further with the creation of memecoins. $CHILLGUY is a cryptocurrency meme coin that harnesses the energy of the trend. By October 2024, the coin's overall value had soared to $47.3 million. Which, to us, sounds the opposite of chill.