# A Secret Third Thing A Secret Third Thing is a catchphrase and phrasal template that took off on Twitter in the summer of 2022, built around the format "I am neither X nor Y but a secret third thing." It started as a doctored dog image macro and grew into a widely used absurdist joke structure, with a longer variant reading "a secret, more complex third thing." ## Overview A Secret Third Thing is a phrasal template in which the speaker rejects two obvious options and claims a mysterious, unnamed alternative. The core format reads "I am neither X nor Y but a secret third thing," and a longer riff, "a secret, more complex third thing," runs alongside it[3]. The joke works by refusing to complete the setup. Users pair opposing states or identities in the X and Y slots (joking and serious, hungry and full, girl and woman) and leave the punchline as a comedic void[2]. Its short-form structure fit Twitter's surreal humor style of 2022, where the absurdist reveal did the heavy lifting. ## How It Spread Over the next few months, Twitter users kept the sentence structure and swapped in new adjective pairs. On August 2, 2022, @sillymonkey tweeted "im not horny or scared anymore but a secret third thing," collecting over 2,700 retweets and 19,000 likes inside a month[2]. Two weeks later, on August 16, @rundizzy posted "not hungry or full but a secret third thing," a smaller but still visible hit[6]. Starting August 28, 2022, Twitter user @daughter_ion began writing jokes that used "secret, more complex third thing" as the punchline, including a pickup-line tweet about a couple looking for one at a bar[4]. The longer phrasing caught on fast. On August 31, @nicolerichle flipped the Britney Spears lyric with "i'm not a girl, not yet a woman but a secret more complex third thing," earning over 30 retweets and 300 likes in a day[5]. ## How to Use The template typically opens by naming two opposites or expected states, then breaks the pattern with the "secret third thing" reveal. A common convention is to pair feelings (hungry and full, joking and serious), identities (girl and woman), or moods (horny and scared). The longer "secret, more complex third thing" version often gets used when the setup is a quote, lyric, or dating-app style line. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is A Secret Third Thing? It's a Twitter catchphrase and phrasal template from 2022 based on the line "I am neither X nor Y but a secret third thing," where users pair opposites and leave the punchline mysterious[3]. ### Where did A Secret Third Thing come from? The earliest known post is a doctored dog image macro shared by Twitter user @snafuqd on May 25, 2022, which reached over 3,200 retweets and 13,000 likes[1]. ### What does A Secret Third Thing mean? It's a joke about refusing a binary. The speaker names two expected options, then claims a hidden, unspecified alternative for comedic effect[2]. ### How do you use A Secret Third Thing? Take any pair of opposites (hungry and full, joking and serious) and drop them into "I am neither X nor Y but a secret third thing," or use the longer "secret, more complex third thing" variant popularized by @daughter_ion[4]. ### Is A Secret Third Thing still popular? The template peaked on Twitter in the summer of 2022 with viral posts from @sillymonkey, @daughter_ion, and @nicolerichle, and the phrasing became a recognizable joke format from that period[5]. ## References 1. [https://twitter.com/snafuqd]() 2. [https://twitter.com/sillymonkey]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/a-secret-third-thing]() 4. [https://twitter.com/daughter_ion]() 5. [https://twitter.com/nicolerichle]() 6. [https://twitter.com/rundizzy]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/a-secret-third-thing Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library