Ariana Grande Licking A Lollipop

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Ariana Grande Licking A Lollipop is an object labeling meme built from a June 2018 paparazzi shot of the pop singer walking through New York City with then-fiancé Pete Davidson. In the picture Grande looks giddy with a red lollipop while a hooded Davidson stares at the pavement, and edits cast her as innocent hopes and him as looming bad decisions.

Overview

Ariana Grande Licking A Lollipop is an object labeling meme drawn from a paparazzi shot of the pop singer strolling through New York City with her then-fiancé Pete Davidson in June 20181. In the picture Grande wears a bright yellow sweatshirt and stares happily at Davidson while licking a red lollipop, and Davidson trudges alongside her in a black hoodie with his face pointed at the pavement5.

The visual contrast between the two figures gave meme makers a ready-made template. Grande's smiling, sugar-in-hand pose was labeled with hopeful, wholesome, or oblivious ideas, while the gloomy Davidson stood in for whatever bad decision or looming consequence was about to catch up with her3.

How It Spread

BuzzFeed ran a joke deep-dive on the photograph in late June 2018, pretending to give the composition serious visual analysis and fixating on the apartment building behind the couple2. Around the same time, the Instagram account @notallgeminis started dropping astrology object-labeling versions that cast Grande as the naive zodiac sign and Davidson as the toxic one it dates, and Cheezburger later rounded up fifteen of those posts in a listicle3.

The template kept moving on Instagram through summer 2018. A repost by @girlwithnojob passed 51,000 likes, and a Game of Thrones fan account version cleared 830 likes, both flagged by Clevver in its own roundup of the format4.

How to Use This Meme

The template treats Grande as the smiling character heading into a situation and Davidson as the ugly outcome waiting on the other side. Users typically pair a wholesome label on Grande, such as 'me' or 'my hopes,' with a darker label on Davidson, often a chore, hangover, or self-inflicted problem3.

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