Back to School 2023 — Two-panel meme with yellow school bus and train in desert with collision visual absurdism.

Back to School 2023

2023Video / TikTok trenddeclining

Published March 10, 2026 · Updated March 23, 2026

Also known as: Edging in the Back of Class · Edging in Class

Back to School 2023, better known online as "Edging in the Back of Class," is a TikTok meme trend from fall 2023 centered on the joke premise of someone "edging" (a sexual slang term for bringing oneself to the brink of orgasm repeatedly without finishing) while sitting in a school classroom. The trend exploded in October 2023 as part of a wider wave of TikTok content riffing on sexual slang terms like "edging" and "gooning," using dramatic movie and video game clips to sell the absurdity.

sexual slang memes 2023 memes looksmaxxing memes fnaf memes pov format memes

Overview

The meme follows a simple formula: a dramatic or intense video clip (often from movies, games, or TV shows) paired with a text overlay describing the absurd scenario of someone "edging" during class, usually framed as "me when" or "POV" captions. The humor comes from the collision of an extremely inappropriate sexual act with the mundane setting of a school classroom, with the exaggerated visuals (astronaut training, Shrek characters, horror game footage) standing in for the supposed intensity of the act. The trend rode a late-2023 wave of TikTok content that turned niche sexual terminology into mainstream joke material2.

Origin & Background

Platform
TikTok
Key People
@mine_craft37_, @chakajoey505
Date
2023

The earliest known post about edging in a classroom context appeared on September 10, 2023, when TikToker @mine_craft37_ uploaded a looksmaxxing-style video referencing the concept. That post pulled in around 21,300 plays and 1,000 likes over two months, a modest start that planted the seed without breaking through to wider audiences2.

How It Spread

The real breakout came on October 13, 2023, when TikToker @chakajoey505 posted a clip of Rumpelstiltskin from *Shrek* with the caption "me when im edging to bro in class." That video racked up roughly 4.8 million plays and 656,400 likes within a month2.

Four days later, on October 17, @slideshows4eva added fuel with a video of an astronaut in a training centrifuge, captioned "Pov: that one kid edging at the back of the class." It hit approximately 3.2 million plays and 689,600 likes in three weeks2.

By late October, the format was fully viral. On October 29, @thetruedumbass used a Five Nights at Freddy's greenscreen template with the text "Me edging in the back of class trying not to let it out," pulling about 1.1 million plays and 240,700 likes in just nine days2. The trend picked up speed heading into November and December 2023, running alongside related TikTok trends about "gooning" and other sexual slang that had entered the platform's mainstream joke vocabulary.

Platforms

TikTokTwitterReddit

Timeline

2023-01-15

First appears

2023-06-01

Goes viral

2024-01-01

Continues in use

2025-01-01

Back to School 2023 is still actively used and shared across platforms

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

Creating a Back to School 2023 / Edging in Class meme typically involves:

1

Pick a dramatic, intense, or visually over-the-top video clip (movie scenes, video game footage, astronaut training, sports clips, and animated characters all work)

2

Add a text overlay with a caption like "me edging in the back of class," "POV: that one kid edging at the back of the class," or similar phrasing

3

The joke lands when the visual intensity of the clip contrasts with how absurd the scenario is

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The Edging in Class trend was one piece of a larger late-2023 TikTok moment where sexual slang terms (edging, gooning, bricked up) crossed over from niche online communities into mainstream joke formats. What made these memes spread so fast was the deliberate absurdity: nobody actually thought the scenarios were real, and the humor depended on everyone understanding the terms while also recognizing how ridiculous the premise was. The trend also fit into a broader pattern of Gen Z and Gen Alpha TikTok humor that thrives on pushing boundaries with sexual content while wrapping it in layers of irony and meme formatting.

Fun Facts

The very first edging-in-class video came from a looksmaxxing account, tying two late-2023 TikTok trends together from the start2.

Rumpelstiltskin from *Shrek Forever After* was the unlikely breakout character of the trend, with the @chakajoey505 video becoming the format's biggest single hit2.

The Five Nights at Freddy's greenscreen template, already popular for other TikTok trends in 2023, found yet another use case as an edging-in-class reaction clip2.

The trend peaked during October-November 2023, coinciding with back-to-school season in the United States, which added another layer to the classroom setting jokes.

Frequently Asked Questions