Jamal Did It Who Stole X — Portrait of a young Black boy labeled 'Jamal', the central character of the meme.

Jamal Did It Who Stole X

2022photo slideshow / catchphrasedeclining

Published August 7, 2026

Jamal Did It, also known as Who Stole X, is a TikTok photo slideshow trend from April 2022 where users pose a hypothetical crime and cycle through emoji or photo suspects before landing on a Black boy named Jamal as the framed culprit. The format drew heavy criticism for leaning on racial stereotypes and later spawned a fake death hoax in late 2022.

slideshow memes tiktok sound trends race and identity memes stereotype memes bait and switch memes

Overview

Jamal Did It, sometimes called Jamal Is Innocent or Who Stole X, is a TikTok slideshow format where a creator poses a crime, cycles through a handful of suspects rendered as emojis or photos, and lands on a Black boy named Jamal as the framed culprit1. The bit is almost always set to Mississippi Fred McDowell's blues track "You Gotta Move," which functions as the audio signature for the format1.

Most slideshows use a stock photo of actor Abraham Clinkscales as young Jamal, which became the go-to face of the joke by late 20221. Critics on TikTok argued the trend was straightforwardly racist because the punchline relies on Black identifiability rather than any actual setup2.

Origin & Background

Platform
TikTok
Creator
rodolfo.lopez1034 and chopp.2k
Date
2022

The earliest recorded uses date to April 2nd, 2022. TikToker rodolfo.lopez1034 posted an emoji slideshow asking who stole the KFC, running through named suspects before landing on a joke about a newborn baby named Lulquidication Daquan1. The same day, TikToker chopp.2k posted a nearly identical "Who ate all the chicken?" video that ended on Jamal as the culprit, giving the trend its recurring name1.

Both videos leaned on "You Gotta Move" by Mississippi Fred McDowell as the audio, which became the mandatory sound for imitations that followed1.

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How It Spread

The format picked up quickly. On April 13th, 2022, TikToker corey.bennett_ filmed a live-action KFC version that pulled in roughly 1.7 million plays and 124,200 likes over six months1. Virality spiked again on September 9th, 2022, when TikToker gerborg posted a "Who stole the picture?" iteration that reached about 17.3 million plays and 2.4 million likes in a month1.

The trend also went political. On October 1st, 2022, TikToker yunuss16x2 posted a slideshow asking who destroyed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, listing Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and German-Swiss filmmaker Mike Forster before landing on Jamal1. Slideshows aimed at other ethnicities appeared too, including a version from zuzanna.k07 on October 21st, 2022, blaming a Polish man named Stanisław Krzysztof Wojciechowski for stolen pierogi1. A doriannftjamal slideshow on October 17th, 2022, tying Jamal to Jeffrey Dahmer riffing on Netflix's Dahmer docu-series, hit roughly 10.4 million plays in a week and locked in the specific stock photo that became the default Jamal1.

Backlash arrived the same month. TikToker lesbiandis4ster 10 posted an October 24th, 2022 video calling the trend racist and unfunny1. Days later, on October 26th, 2022, max_but_2 11 posted a fake "Breaking News" graphic reading "Jamal Shot Dead In Houston," which kicked off a Jamal death hoax that griddy_mastermind 12 pushed further on November 10th, 2022, with a Patrick Bateman crying clip that pulled in about 4.1 million plays1.

How to Use This Meme

A typical Jamal Did It post is a TikTok photo slideshow set to Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Gotta Move"1. Creators usually pose a question in the caption like "who stole the X," then cycle through three or four suspect images, whether emojis or real photos, before ending on Jamal, most often the Abraham Clinkscales stock photo1. The caption often tags the final slide with "suspicious" or "#jamal" to signal the punchline.

Frequently Asked Questions