# Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie
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.
## Origin
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 upvotes[2]. 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 them[3].
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 widely[1].
- **Platform:** Instagram (origin) / Reddit, Instagram (viral spread)
- **Creator:** possum.sauce (Instagram)
- **Date:** 2021
## 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 squares[1]. 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 dancing[2].
## 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 months[4].
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 window[1]. 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 run[1].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie?
It is an image macro format where a faded possum sits inside a black circle ringed by a QR-code-style grid, and shaking the screen makes the possum appear to wiggle via the fluttering-heart optical illusion[1][3].
### Where did Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie come from?
Instagram user possum.sauce posted the original on March 17th, 2021, adapting an eight-circle fluttering-heart illusion that had been circulating on 9GAG since February 14th, 2014[1][2].
### What does Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie mean?
The caption is an instruction, not a joke on its own. Shaking the device activates the illusion so the still possum looks like it is dancing against the patterned border[1].
### How do you use Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie?
Editors drop a desaturated animal or character into the black circle, keep the surrounding white-square pattern intact, and rewrite the top-text to match the new subject, as with the Bigweld, frog, orangutan and Bingus variants[4][1].
### Is Gently Shake The Screen, Make The Possum Boogie still popular?
The format had its biggest run in 2021 across Instagram and Reddit; it is still referenced as a classic optical-illusion meme rather than an actively trending one[1][4].
## References
1. [https://www.instagram.com/p/CMhxvDAAvEJ/]()
2. [https://9gag.com/gag/anYxoBV]()
3. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12854649/]()
4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/nc2rpm/the_bigweld_boogie/]()
5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/gently-shake-the-screen-make-the-possum-boogie]()
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