Get Your Fucking Ass Up And Work — Kim Kardashian and Ray J embracing on a bed with caption 'get your a** up and f**ing work'

Get Your Fucking Ass Up And Work

2022catchphraseclassic

Published November 15, 2026

Kim Kardashian offered the blunt career tip during a March 2022 Variety roundtable interview promoting Hulu's The Kardashians, and the clip triggered immediate backlash over her out-of-touch framing. Within 24 hours the quote was a catchphrase, and by mid-March Instagram meme accounts were pasting it over screenshots of her 2003 sex tape and jokes about her famous family.

celebrity backlash memes catchphrase memes tiktok sound trends reality tv origin memes privilege class memes

Overview

Get Your Fucking Ass Up And Work is a catchphrase lifted from Kim Kardashian's March 2022 Variety roundtable, where she offered it as blanket advice for women in business before adding that nobody seems to want to work anymore1. Online reactions pointed to the Kardashian family's billion-dollar inheritance and Kim's own launch via a leaked sex tape, so the quote became ammunition against the idea that she pulled herself up by sheer effort2.

Meme versions typically pair the sentence with a damning visual: a paparazzi shot of Kim with Ray J, or a photo of Kris, Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian captioned to point out the family money3. TikTok edits often loop the audio clip of Kim saying the line over footage of actual workers or exaggerated comedy skits, with the joke sitting in the gap between her phrasing and the reality of her come-up4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (Variety interview) / Twitter and TikTok (viral spread)
Creator
Kim Kardashian
Date
2022

On March 9th, 2022, Variety posted a sit-down interview with the Kardashian family to YouTube to promote their incoming Hulu show, The Kardashians. Around the 5:11 mark, Kim said, "I have the best advice for women in business: get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days," and Kourtney Kardashian agreed on camera1. Variety clipped the moment into a tweet the same day, which drew more than 14,500 likes and over 46,000 quote-retweets inside a week as users piled on with context about the family's wealth5.

The earliest wave of backlash came within hours of that tweet going up. Actress Jameela Jamil quote-tweeted Variety with a critical reply that passed 44,000 likes in a week2, and former Kardashian app contributor Jessica DeFino quote-tweeted on the same day with claims about the pay she got working for the family, drawing over 640,000 likes3.

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How It Spread

Variety uploaded the clip to TikTok on March 10th, 2022, where it drew over 3.3 million views in six days and seeded a sound that soundtracked more than 13,000 user videos in the same window4. Creators used the audio for comedy skits mocking Kim's delivery and for scripted bits where the advice gets applied to ordinary jobs.

Image macros followed on Twitter the same day. On March 10th, @P0PKULTURE posted a version pairing the quote with a photo of Kim holding onto Ray J, a reference to the 2003 sex tape that preceded her TV career, and the post drew more than 4,000 likes in under a week6. On March 15th, Instagram account shitheadsteve swapped the caption on a Now This post of Kris, Kourtney and Khloé into a version crediting Kim's rise to her rich parents, and that edit pulled over 207,000 likes in under 24 hours7. Davie_dave posted a similar Ray J reference on Instagram on May 14th that passed 12,200 likes within two days8.

Kim later told the BBC she was sorry the sound bite got read as a swipe at working people, saying the full answer was about her own career and not a comment on anyone else's work ethic9.

Timeline

2022-03-09

Variety publishes the Kardashian family interview on YouTube; Kim Kardashian says the line at the 5:11 mark.

2022-03-09

Jameela Jamil quote-tweets Variety with a critical reply that passes 44,000 likes in a week.

2022-03-09

Jessica DeFino quote-tweets Variety and cites her pay working on Kardashian apps; the reply draws over 640,000 likes.

2022-03-10

Variety uploads the clip to TikTok, where it draws over 3.3 million views in six days and seeds over 13,000 user videos.

2022-03-10

Twitter user @P0PKULTURE pairs the quote with a Ray J photo in a meme that passes 4,000 likes.

2022-03-15

Instagram account shitheadsteve edits a Now This post into a joke about Kim's wealthy parents; the edit passes 207,000 likes in a day.

2022-03-21

Kim Kardashian tells the BBC the quote was misinterpreted.

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