What is Ellie and Mason House?

It is a viral screenshot of a 2021 text exchange in which Mercedes Dorman sent her mum two crying selfies and the message 'Please can I got to Ellie and Mason house,' asking to visit her friends.

Where did Ellie and Mason House come from?

The exchange was posted on July 12, 2021 by Scottish X user @katyldorman and later covered by The Sun on August 29, 2021.

What does Ellie and Mason House mean?

The phrase works as a punchline for a desperate, tearful plea for permission, with the stray second-bubble 'house' adding to the comedy.

How do you use Ellie and Mason House?

Users caption unrelated images with the line, or edit the original screenshot by altering Mercedes' expression, as Instagram user senorlennon did with a smiling version on May 8, 2024.

Is Ellie and Mason House still popular?

The format saw its biggest surge in 2024, with remixes from Instagram accounts like quirkyandrelatable69 and a TikTok by @chrissyxsnow that reached 105,000 views.

Ellie and Mason House

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Published October 23, 2026

Ellie and Mason House refers to a Scottish text-message screenshot in which a tween named Mercedes Dorman sent her mum two sobbing selfies asking to go to her friends' house. Her mother Katy posted the exchange to X in July 2021, where it picked up roughly 200,000 likes, and by 2024 Instagram and TikTok users were building photoshops around it, including a widely shared edit by senorlennon that put a grin on Mercedes' face.

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Overview

Katy Dorman's screenshot shows two near-identical crying selfies from her daughter Mercedes, paired with the broken-up plea 'Please can I got to Ellie and Mason' and then just 'house'1. Her mother's firm reply listed exactly why Mercedes could not go: she had been out most of the day, she was up at 3 a.m., and she was going straight to bed3. Humor comes from the gap between Mercedes' theatrical sadness in the photos and the mundane household refusal that follows.

TikTok

By 2024, remixers were lifting the screenshot and replacing Mercedes' tearful face with a grinning one, or captioning unrelated images with the 'Ellie and Mason house' line to channel an over-the-top childish plea8. Instagram account quirkyandrelatable69 ran several versions in early 2024, some crossing the format with the Donatella Versace typography meme6. The two-selfie layout and the stray 'house' bubble became the recognizable visual beats that newer edits played off of.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

X / Twitter (origin), Instagram and TikTok (viral spread)

Creator

Katy Dorman

Date

2021

On July 12, 2021, Scottish X user @katyldorman shared the screenshotted exchange with her 11-year-old daughter Mercedes, which picked up around 200,000 likes2. Mercedes' message was split across two bubbles reading 'Please can I got to Ellie and Mason' and then 'house,' sent beneath two crying selfies, which prompted Katy to answer that there was 'no chance' because her daughter had been out all day and awake since 3 a.m.1

Katy's account later turned private, so most people encountered the texts secondhand. On August 29, 2021, the Scottish edition of The Sun ran a feature on the exchange that reproduced the full conversation and quoted Katy about her daughter's selfie habit1.

How It Spread

Reposts moved the screenshot to new audiences through late 2021. On October 16, 2021, a user cross-posted it to the subreddit r/KidsAreFuckingStupid, where it collected more than 600 upvotes4. The Instagram account gary_from_teen_mom reshared it on December 10, 2023, where the post reached over 12,000 likes5.

Remixes picked up in early 2024. Instagram user quirkyandrelatable69 posted an Ellie and Mason House meme on February 10, 2024 that reached around 8,000 likes6, followed by a sequel on April 29 that passed 13,000 likes7. Both borrowed the typography of the Donatella Versace meme3. On May 8, 2024, Instagram user senorlennon posted a photoshopped version placing a smiling Mercedes under the line 'I'm going to Ellie and Mason house,' which hit over 40,000 likes within a month8. TikTok user @chrissyxsnow uploaded a video riff on June 15, 2024 that reached roughly 105,000 views in two weeks9.

Timeline

2021-07-12

Katy Dorman posts the screenshot of her daughter Mercedes' crying 'Ellie and Mason house' texts to X.

2021-08-29

The Sun publishes a feature on the exchange, quoting Katy and reprinting the texts.

2021-10-16

The screenshot is reposted to r/KidsAreFuckingStupid on Reddit.

2023-12-10

Instagram account gary_from_teen_mom reshares the screenshot to a wider meme-page audience.

2024-02-10

Instagram user quirkyandrelatable69 posts an Ellie and Mason House remix mixing in Donatella Versace typography.

2024-04-29