23 Year Old Pompeii Volcano Eruption Girl
Also known as: Pompeii Girl · Thicc Pompeii Girl
The 23-Year-Old Pompeii Volcano Eruption Girl is a viral TikTok video from June 2022 that shows a plaster cast of a young woman who died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, preserved at the Museum of Pompeii in Italy. The video blew up because viewers couldn't stop commenting on the woman's figure, turning a nearly 2,000-year-old archaeological artifact into the internet's unlikely new crush.
Overview
The meme centers on a TikTok video that slowly pans across a plaster cast of a woman who perished in the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii in 79 AD. The cast, displayed in a glass case at the Museum of Pompeii, shows the woman lying face-down with her hands covering her face. What made the video go viral wasn't the historical tragedy but the shape of the cast, specifically the woman's prominent backside, which sent TikTok's comment section into a frenzy of thirsty jokes and ironic simping2.
The meme tapped into a well-established internet tradition of "hear me out" posts, where users jokingly express attraction to unlikely or absurd subjects. In this case, the subject happened to be someone who died in a volcanic eruption roughly 1,943 years ago.
On June 28, 2022, TikToker @mackienicole uploaded a video captioned "This is a 23 year old girl that was caught in the volcano eruption in pomepii in 79AD"2. The video showed the plaster cast from multiple angles, scanning up and down the preserved figure in its display case. Within three days, the video had racked up over 11.4 million views2.
The comment section quickly became the main event. The top comment, pulling in over 89,000 likes, simply read "Hear me out." Another popular comment with 27,000+ likes went with "lord have mercy we must stay focused brothers"2. Both comments set the tone for the entire discourse around the video: an absurd, horny appreciation of a volcanic disaster victim's physique.
Origin & Background
How It Spread
How to Use This Meme
The format is straightforward:
Share or reference the image/video of the Pompeii plaster cast
Add a thirsty or conflicted comment, typically along the lines of "hear me out" or "stay focused brothers"
The humor comes from the absurd contrast between genuine historical tragedy and horniness
Cultural Impact
Fun Facts
The plaster casts at Pompeii were created using a technique developed by archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1863, who poured plaster into the voids left by decomposed bodies in the volcanic ash.
The "hear me out" comment format used in the Pompeii Girl video became one of TikTok's signature thirst-comment styles throughout 2022 and 2023.
Ricky Berwick, who posted one of the most popular Twitter reactions, is known for making deliberately absurd thirst content as part of his comedic brand2.
The original TikTok had a typo in the caption, spelling it "pomepii" instead of "Pompeii"2.
Frequently Asked Questions
References (2)
- 1Théâtre Lyriqueencyclopedia
- 2