Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie — Possum inside a pixelated black and white border with text 'gently shake the screen. make the possum boogie.'

Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie

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Published October 25, 2026

An Instagram image macro from March 2021 adapted the decade-old "fluttering heart" optical illusion into a possum that appears to wiggle when viewers shake their phones. Within months, remixers swapped the possum for frogs, orangutans, Bigweld and Bingus the cat across Instagram and Reddit.

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Overview

Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie is a photoshop format built on the "fluttering heart" optical illusion, where a faded subject sits inside a black field ringed by a QR-code-style grid of white squares1. When a viewer shakes their phone or wobbles their head, the central figure appears to vibrate against the still frame, giving the possum its "boogie"2.

The caption "gently shake the screen. make the possum boogie" is part of the format itself, usually swapped out for whatever animal or character the editor has dropped into the circle. Later edits kept the same patterned border and the same instruction-style top-text, changing only the subject and verb to match the new creature doing the dancing2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram (origin) / Reddit, Instagram (viral spread)
Creator
possum.sauce
Date
2021

The underlying illusion predates the meme by seven years. On February 14th, 2014, a user posted an eight-circle version of the fluttering-heart illusion to 9GAG, telling viewers to shake their phones to see the blue circles move; the post gained more than 18,000 upvotes2. The effect is documented in a 2003 paper on NCBI describing how a desaturated figure drifts against a saturated surround when the eye moves across them3.

The meme itself started on March 17th, 2021, when Instagram user possum.sauce posted the first image macro, placing a washed-out possum inside the black-and-white patterned frame with the caption "gently shake the screen. make the possum boogie"1. The post picked up more than 18,500 likes over the following six months and was reposted widely1.

How It Spread

Edits swapping the possum for other characters began showing up on Reddit within two months. On May 14th, 2021, u/IDKShrug_7 posted a version to r/memes starring Bigweld from the 2005 film Robots, titled "The Bigweld Boogie," which collected over 18,000 upvotes in four months4.

Instagram pages dedicated to specific animals ran with the template through the summer. On June 14th, the account @milliethefrog posted a frog-centered version that gained over 40,000 likes, and on June 22nd, @monkey.posting followed with an orangutan edit that reached around 22,500 likes in a similar window1. By September 5th, the account @bingus.official uploaded a Bingus the cat variant that collected over 58,000 likes in two weeks, making it one of the larger single posts in the format's run1.

Timeline

2014-02-14

A 9GAG user posts the eight-circle fluttering-heart illusion that later supplies the format's patterned frame[2].

2021-03-17

Instagram user possum.sauce posts the original "gently shake the screen. make the possum boogie" image macro[1].

2021-05-14

Redditor u/IDKShrug_7 posts "The Bigweld Boogie" to r/memes, the first widely shared character swap[4].

2021-06-14

@milliethefrog posts a frog-centered edit that gains over 40,000 likes[1].

2021-06-22

@monkey.posting posts an orangutan version collecting over 22,500 likes[1].

2021-09-05

@bingus.official posts a Bingus the cat edit that gains over 58,000 likes in two weeks[1].

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