Beast Boy / Guy Holding Up Four Fingers is a captioned image macro based on a photo of Instagram user freebandtez doing the 4's Up gesture, often edited to look like the Teen Titans character Beast Boy.

Where did Beast Boy come from?

freebandtez's 4's Up photos spread as a joke format from October 2021, and @isiswolfson's March 8, 2022 Teen Titans edit set off the viral run.

What does Beast Boy mean?

The four raised fingers answer the number asked in the caption, with most jokes aimed at the number four or Teen Titans references.

How do you use Beast Boy?

Caption the photo with a question or situation where the punchline involves the number four or a Teen Titans joke, or edit the hand to answer other counts.

Is Beast Boy still popular?

Its biggest viral runs came in April and June 2022 through Twitter captions and TikTok number-answer skits.

Beast Boy

2021image macroclassic

Published October 27, 2026

Beast Boy / Guy Holding Up Four Fingers started with photographs of Instagram user freebandtez throwing the 4's Up hand gesture. On March 8, 2022, Twitter user @isiswolfson edited the photo so freebandtez looked like the Teen Titans character Beast Boy2, and a repost by @suuunx5 the same day collected over 5,500 likes within a month1. By June 2022, TikTokers were running classroom skits that used the picture to answer any question involving the number four.

hand gesture memes two panel memes photoshop memes number memes classroom memes

Overview

Each post works as a two-panel caption gag: a setup asks about or implies a number, and freebandtez's four raised fingers deliver the answer. The earliest documented caption, from Instagram user @cdk_tezz before October 24, 2021, answered the question 'what is 2+2' and set the template for later math-class gags4. @izzyegi's March 10, 2022 tweet applied the same logic to a Teen Titans question and also collected reposts in the weeks after7.

Another riff from @Fuzzy_Cactus added digits to the hand so the character held up more than four fingers, letting the gesture answer larger counts8. By mid-April 2022, caption posts had settled on seven as a second favored punchline number, as in a tweet from @wrxghxul on April 12 that gathered over 800 retweets and 4,600 likes within a week9.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Instagram (source photo) / Twitter (viral Beast Boy edit)

Date

2021

Instagram user freebandtez posted a run of photos of himself doing the 4's Up hand gesture before October 2021, and those pictures gave the meme its base image. Prior to October 24, 2021, Instagram user @cdk_tezz posted a now-deleted joke captioned 'me after i'm asked what 2+2 is', which is the earliest known caption gag using the photo4.

On October 24, 2021, Instagram users yungtibetsoulja and sssnark published the two earliest surviving reposts of the format3 5. Those early uses stayed small until the Beast Boy edit arrived.

How It Spread

Reddit user PowerfulMasterOz carried the image to /r/antimeme on November 3, 2021, where the post collected over 100 upvotes across six months6. TikToker @y7nko slotted the picture into a meme compilation on November 12, 2021 that gathered more than 259,000 views and 60,000 likes within five months13.

The viral break came on March 8, 2022, when Twitter user @isiswolfson photoshopped freebandtez into the Teen Titans character Beast Boy with green skin, pointy ears, and the signature purple outfit2. Later the same day, @suuunx5 posted a joke using the edit that gathered over 790 retweets and 5,500 likes within a month1. Instagram user squidysgalaxy reshared the image on March 10, 2022, picking up over 42,600 likes in one month14.

TikTok carried the image into June 2022 through number-answer skits. On June 15, 2022, @dontknowhatiname's video using the picture collected over 474,000 views in a day10, while @kaiizuuu__ posted a similar skit that gathered over 684,000 views in under 24 hours11. @wackaballz filmed a classroom-style sketch the same day where a teacher asks Beast Boy what 2+2 is, with the image standing in for the answer, gathering over 282,000 views12.

Timeline

2021-10-24

Instagram users yungtibetsoulja and sssnark publish the earliest surviving reposts of freebandtez's 4's Up photo as a joke format.

2021-11-03

Reddit user PowerfulMasterOz posts the image to /r/antimeme, where it collects over 100 upvotes.

2021-11-12

TikToker @y7nko includes the picture in a meme compilation that reaches over 259,000 views.

2022-03-08

Twitter user @isiswolfson posts the first Beast Boy edit; @suuunx5 reshares with a joke that goes viral.

2022-03-10

@izzyegi posts another Teen Titans joke that spreads in the following weeks, and squidysgalaxy's Instagram repost picks up over 42,600 likes.

2022-03-16

Twitter user @Fuzzy_Cactus posts an edit that adds extra fingers to the hand.

2022-04-12

Twitter user @wrxghxul posts a caption meme that gathers over 4,600 likes within a week, part of a mid-April image macro run.

2022-06-15

TikTokers @dontknowhatiname, @kaiizuuu__, and @wackaballz all post number-answer skits the same day, each gathering hundreds of thousands of views.

How to Use This Meme

To make a Beast Boy caption, combine a photo of freebandtez (plain or edited into the Teen Titans character) with a text setup that asks about a number. Common caption conventions include math questions where the answer is four, or Teen Titans references that line up with the character edit1. Variations often add fingers or digits to the hand to answer other counts8.