What is Canon Events Spider Verse?

A meme from June 2023 that lifts Spider-Man 2099's line about unavoidable Spider-history from Across the Spider-Verse and uses it to reframe personal bad memories as unskippable fate.

Where did Canon Events Spider Verse come from?

The concept comes from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, released June 2, 2023, where Miguel O'Hara explains it to Miles Morales. The first viral meme was a TikTok by @greekos_nikos posted the same day.

What does Canon Events Spider Verse mean?

In the film, a canon event is a tragedy that must happen to any given Spider-Man, like a father figure dying, or their universe risks being destroyed. Online it just means an embarrassing or painful moment you couldn't have avoided.

How do you use Canon Events Spider Verse?

Typically as a TikTok clip over the Miguel O'Hara theme with text reframing a cringe or sad memory as a canon event, or as a still image of an alternate Spider-Man with the caption asking what his canon event was.

Is Canon Events Spider Verse still popular?

The phrase peaked in the weeks after the film's June 2023 release, with individual posts pulling millions of views on TikTok and tens of thousands of likes on Instagram and Twitter. It settled in as a recurring reference tied to the movie.

Canon Events Spider Verse

2023catchphraseclassic

Published August 12, 2026

Canon Events is a concept from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (June 2023) referring to fixed tragedies every Spider-Man must experience or risk their universe collapsing. TikTok and Instagram users turned it into a joke framework for reframing personal bad luck, breakups, and cringe memories as unavoidable plot beats.

spider man memes movie quote memes catchphrase memes self deprecating memes 2023 memes

Overview

Canon Events is a meme built around a plot device from Sony's animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, released June 2, 20231. In the movie, Spider-Man 2099 aka Miguel O'Hara tells Miles Morales that every Spider-Man across the multiverse has to live through certain fixed tragedies, dying uncle, dead police captain father, radioactive spider bite, or the whole universe unravels1.

TikTok

Online, the phrase got yanked out of the film and applied to normal-person misery. Missing a bus, getting dumped, embarrassing texts at 3am, all of it reframed as a Canon Event you couldn't have skipped without collapsing your own timeline2. The joke usually lives on TikTok and Instagram Reels, often layered over the moody Miguel O'Hara theme from the movie's score2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (film) / TikTok (viral spread)

Date

2023

The source material is Across the Spider-Verse, which hit theaters June 2, 2023, with Oscar Isaac's Miguel O'Hara delivering the exposition dump about canon events being non-negotiable spider-history1. GamesRadar's breakdown of the film notes the concept covers moments like Uncle Ben's death, the spider bite, and, for Miles and Gwen specifically, their police-captain fathers dying protecting a child from Spider-Man's nemesis1.

Memes started the same day the film opened. One of the earliest viral posts was a TikTok from user @greekos_nikos on June 2, 2023, captioned about realizing something was never trauma, just a canon event, which cleared 2 million views inside a week2. On June 3, Instagram account amazing_webheads reposted a screenshot of the video and pulled in over 7,400 likes in five days2.

How It Spread

The format spread fast across platforms. On June 4, Instagram user codependent_papi posted an image macro of Miguel O'Hara wall-crawling captioned about fumbling a baddie being a canon event, and a repost by hoodniggademiks the same day cleared 19,000 likes in four days2. Twitter picked it up on June 5, when @B00K0FTRIBE tweeted a picture of the alternate-universe Spider-Cat asking what his canon event even was, hitting around 42,000 likes in three days2.

A parallel joke branch focused on the more absurd Spider-People shown in the film. On June 6, @banditocarly did the same setup for Widow, the Spider-Horse from an alternate Earth2. On June 7, @DatChaosGuy paired Spider-Horse with Mori Calliope in a crossover with the Mori Calliope Horse Audio meme, pulling 17,000 likes in a day2.

On TikTok, the original audio labeled Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O'Hara), lifted from the movie's score, turned into the dominant sound for canon event edits2. TikToker @0verth0se's June 6 video using the sound hit over 5.1 million views in two days2. The format stuck around after opening week because it doubled as a way to laugh off personal regret without saying you regretted anything.

How to Use This Meme

The format is typically a short TikTok or Instagram Reel over the Miguel O'Hara theme, with on-screen text describing an embarrassing or painful memory reframed as a canon event that had to happen. Common conventions include the phrasing "realizing it was never [X], just a canon event" or "[thing you did] was a canon event bro," often paired with the Miguel O'Hara wall-crawling image on static posts2. Twitter versions tend to skip the sound and just tag a picture of an alternate Spider-Man with a question about what their canon event was2.