Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey

Q: What is Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey?

It's a group of English slang words that online users apply as fake technical labels to strange machines, hand-made guns and viral Chinese factory videos, especially on Twitter and TikTok from 2019 onward.

Q: Where did Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey come from?

The earliest viral use came from a September 8, 2019 tweet by @Wes10 joking about a wife saying "doohickey", and the device-captioning version followed in a June 2021 reply from @sukimelt999.

Q: What does Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey mean?

Each word is an actual Merriam-Webster entry for an object whose name you can't recall; in meme form, users apply them to unfamiliar machines in viral videos as if that were the real name.

Q: How do you use Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey?

Pick a clip of an odd device, often a Chinese short-form video of a bouncing machine or homemade vehicle, and caption it with one of the slang words as its supposed proper name.

Q: Is Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey still popular?

The format peaked on TikTok and iFunny in late 2022 and early 2023 with posts like "the thingamabob convention," though active use has quieted since.

2019catchphrasesemi-active

Published October 28, 2026

Doodad, Thingamajig, Thingamabob, Whatchamacallit, Doohickey is a cluster of silly English slang words that online posters started attaching to strange gadgets, hand-made guns and bouncing factory machines in viral clips starting in 2019. By early 2023, TikTok videos of "the thingamabob convention" and iFunny jokes about overseeing bizarre contraptions turned the words into a running caption format on Twitter, Instagram and Reddit.

slang memes catchphrase memes reaction memes snowclone memes absurdist humor memes

Overview

Posts in this format put footage of an unfamiliar device, often from Chinese short-video uploads like The Design Is Very Human, next to a caption that treats one of the slang words as if it were the item's technical name6. A man flying a backyard aircraft becomes "the thingamabob," a bouncing industrial machine is a job someone "oversees," and a janky hand-made firearm is a "doohickey"7 3. The humor comes from the gap between the serious footage and the deliberately vague vocabulary.

TikTok

Variations include invented strings of near-nonsense words alongside the five dictionary ones, as in a June 2021 reply from @sukimelt999 that read "That's a bing bop, a doodad, and a shlippy wop"2. By 2023 the words were commonly applied as reaction captions on short videos of odd machinery, especially on TikTok10.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter (origin) / TikTok, iFunny (viral spread)

Date

2019

All five words appear in Merriam-Webster as English slang for an unnamed object. Their memeification started with a September 8, 2019 tweet by @Wes10 joking about divorcing his imagined wife the moment she said "doohickey," which collected roughly 6,200 likes over four years1.

Use of the slang to label actual machines showed up on June 20, 2021, when @sukimelt999 replied to a thread with "That's a bing bop, a doodad, and a shlippy wop," getting about 7,100 likes within two years2. Later that fall, on October 17, 2021, @ClutchLikeRomo captioned a photo near Beyoncé with "I thought dude behind her had the DOOHICKEY out," collecting around 18,100 likes3.

How It Spread

The format broke bigger on January 3, 2022, when @eastblessed quote-tweeted a TikTok of a man flying a homemade contraption, writing "bro said f--- it let me fly the thingamabob," which earned around 61,700 likes4. A repost on the Instagram account @jokezar on January 5, 2022 reached roughly 6 million views and 500,000 likes5.

iFunny user @Aristotelian uploaded "me at work (I oversee the thingamabob)" on January 14, 2022, set over a clip of a metal machine thumping up and down, and the post gathered about 32,800 smiles over a year7. After the assassination of Shinzo Abe in July 2022, the words got attached to the assassin's hand-made gun. A @PsychoCutNess tweet from September 3, 2022 captioned "The virgin CIA pistol versus the chad Doohickey" earned over 14,000 likes in a day8, and Redditor ObjectiveCup7924 shared an ironic Doge version to /r/dogelore on December 9, 2022 that got around 4,400 upvotes9.

On January 28, 2023, TikToker @2005.vauxhall_monaro_vxr posted a clip billed as "the thingamabob convention," showing men gathered around their contraptions. The video reached about 1 million plays and 132,900 likes within two months10.

Timeline

2019-09-08

@Wes10 tweets about divorcing an imagined wife for saying "doohickey," the earliest known viral meme using one of the slang words[1].

2021-06-20

@sukimelt999 replies to a thread with "That's a bing bop, a doodad, and a shlippy wop," launching the device-labeling version of the format[2].

2021-10-17

@ClutchLikeRomo captions a photo near Beyoncé with "I thought dude behind her had the DOOHICKEY out"[3].

2022-01-03

@eastblessed quote-tweets a flying-contraption video with "bro said f--- it let me fly the thingamabob," earning around 61,700 likes[4].

2022-01-14

IFunny user @Aristotelian posts "me at work (I oversee the thingamabob)" over a bouncing-machine clip[7].

2022-09-03

@PsychoCutNess posts "The virgin CIA pistol versus the chad Doohickey" tied to the Abe assassination gun[8].

2022-12-09

Redditor ObjectiveCup7924 shares an ironic Doge version on /r/dogelore about the Abe gun, getting around 4,400 upvotes[9].

2023-01-28

TikToker @2005.vauxhall_monaro_vxr posts "the thingamabob convention," reaching about 1 million plays[10].

How to Use This Meme

Pick a video of an unfamiliar machine, especially a Chinese factory contraption or a homemade vehicle, and caption it using "thingamabob," "doohickey," "doodad," "thingamajig," or "whatchamacallit" as if that were its real name10. Common convention also includes faux-professional framings like "me at work (I oversee the thingamabob)," where the user plays a serious operator of something clearly ridiculous7.