What is Khaby Lame Shrug?

It is a two-panel image macro built from two screenshots of TikToker Khaby Lame, a blank stare and an open-palmed shrug, used in a Drake-style layout to mock an overcomplicated option versus an easier one.

Where did Khaby Lame Shrug come from?

The source clip is a TikTok Khaby Lame posted on April 26, 2021, reacting to a pizza hack that used a plastic pizza saver to pry off a slice. The image macro format was first assembled by Twitter page @ChurchOfBoobism on May 13, 2021.

What does Khaby Lame Shrug mean?

The shrug reads as silent incredulity at an obvious answer, so the meme calls out anyone picking the harder path when a simpler one is right there, which is why it is also called 'It's That Simple'.

How do you use Khaby Lame Shrug?

Place a complicated or absurd option in the top-left panel and the easier alternative in the bottom-left, with Khaby Lame's deadpan stare above his shrug on the right, as in u/SregioPrez's /r/memes post from May 2021.

Is Khaby Lame Shrug still popular?

The format peaked across Reddit and Tumblr in May and June 2021, with multiple posts over 35,000 and 60,000 upvotes on /r/memes, and is treated as a classic reaction image macro rather than a currently trending template.

Khaby Lame Shrug

2021image macroclassic

Published November 12, 2026

Khaby Lame Shrug, also known as It's That Simple, began as an April 2021 TikTok in which Senegalese-Italian creator Khaby Lame wordlessly debunked a pizza life hack by tearing a slice off with his bare hands and raising his palms in disbelief. Two screenshots from that clip, the deadpan stare and the open-handed shrug, were cut into a Drake-style image macro three weeks later. By late May 2021, Reddit versions on /r/memes were logging upvote counts above 60,000.

two panel memes reaction memes dismissal memes tiktok memes gesture memes

Overview

Khaby Lame Shrug, or It's That Simple, is a two-panel image macro adapted from the Drake Hotline Bling layout. Khaby Lame's reactions occupy the right side: the top-right shows him staring blankly into the camera, and the bottom-right shows him with both palms raised in a silent shrug1. The left side pairs an overcomplicated option on top with a simpler alternative underneath, letting the shrug stand in for an eye-roll at whoever picked the harder route.

TikTok

The joke works because Lame never speaks in his original videos, so the deadpan stare and open-handed gesture carry all the meaning. Users apply the format to tech headaches, dating logic, programming habits and dumb life hacks. On Reddit, variations spread across /r/funny, /r/dankmemes, /r/ProgrammerHumor and /r/memes within two weeks of the first known edit2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

TikTok (source video) / Twitter (viral image macro)

Creator

Khaby Lame

Date

2021

On April 26, 2021, Khaby Lame posted a TikTok reacting to a pizza hack that recommended using a plastic pizza saver to pry a slice loose from the pie3. Lame skipped the gadget and tore a slice off with his hands, closing the clip with the raised-palm shrug that would later anchor the image macro. According to Know Your Meme, the TikTok passed 200 million views within two months3.

The meme format proper arrived on May 13, 2021, when Twitter page @ChurchOfBoobism cropped two frames from the pizza video and dropped them into a Drake-style side-by-side, pairing an 'OnlyFans' panel with a Google search for 'boobies'1. Lame made the video; @ChurchOfBoobism assembled the earliest known image macro.

How It Spread

Within hours of @ChurchOfBoobism's Twitter post on May 13, 2021, u/In-Jail-Out-Soon reposted the image to /r/funny, where it collected roughly 900 upvotes in a month2. A separate repost on /r/dankmemes the same day hit about 16,500 upvotes in the same period4, and a screenshot attached to a bawdy comment pulled 17,400 upvotes on /r/cursedcomments5.

The template kept spreading through late May. On May 25, u/space-_-man ported it to /r/ProgrammerHumor for a programming joke2, and on May 26 u/SregioPrez's take on /r/memes reached over 35,100 upvotes6. On May 30, u/antisocialhomebody's /r/memes post topped 60,000 upvotes in under a month7, one of the format's biggest Reddit hits of the spring.

Tumblr caught on in early June. On June 4, 2021, Tumblr blog dankmemeuniversity reposted a dankmemes version riffing on Twitter Blue, collecting about 17,000 notes within three weeks8.

Timeline

2021-04-26

Khaby Lame posts the pizza hack reaction TikTok that supplies the two source frames for the image macro.

2021-05-13

Twitter user @ChurchOfBoobism posts the earliest known Khaby Lame Shrug image macro in a Drake-style layout; it spreads the same day to /r/funny and /r/dankmemes.

2021-05-25

U/space-_-man adapts the format for a programming joke on /r/ProgrammerHumor.

2021-05-26

U/SregioPrez's /r/memes version reaches over 35,100 upvotes.

2021-05-30

U/antisocialhomebody's /r/memes post exceeds 60,000 upvotes.

2021-06-04

Tumblr blog dankmemeuniversity reposts a Twitter Blue version that pulls about 17,000 notes.

How to Use This Meme

The common convention is to set up a two-column grid. On the left, stack a complicated or absurd option above its obvious shortcut. On the right, place Khaby Lame's blank stare above his shrug, so the stare judges the top option and the shrug sells the easier one. Captions typically stay short, since the whole punchline rides on the visual payoff.