Misery Girl is a TikTok joke that mocks alt, emo, and goth girls with heavy makeup and piercings by imagining that their favorite song is 'Misery' by Pupsies.

Where did Misery Girl come from?

The earliest widely traced post came from TikToker @the.scarred.one on August 12th, 2026, though the joke picked up steam across TikTok through August 2026.

What does Misery Girl mean?

The term flags a stereotype of alt girls tied to the song 'Misery' by Pupsies, often paired with the caption 'dad play Misery' as a jab that also hints at ageplay.

How do you use Misery Girl?

Post a photo or clip of an alt girl with piercings and dark makeup and pair it with a 'dada turn on Misery' style caption, with @himonkeyhamie's face used in many of the top edits.

Is Misery Girl still popular?

The meme was trending on TikTok in mid to late August 2026, with @t.pearr's slideshow clearing 2.3 million views in four days.

Misery Girl

2026viral videotrending

Published August 27, 2026

Misery Girl is a TikTok meme that mocks alt, emo, and goth girls with heavy makeup and lots of piercings by tying them to the song 'Misery' by Pupsies. The joke exploded across TikTok in August 2026 through clips where the girls beg 'dada' to play the track, becoming one of the summer's stickiest alt-culture bits.

tiktok sound trends fashion aesthetic memes behavior mocking memes stereotype memes 2026 memes

Overview

The format runs on a simple beat: an alt girl with piercings and dark makeup is shown while a caption jokes that her favorite song is 'Misery' by Pupsies1. Many videos push the phrase 'dad play Misery' or 'dada turn on dat misery,' a running gag that also implies the girls are into ageplay5. Images of X user @himonkeyhamie became a recurring face for the format, though other alt girls also appear4.

TikTok

The joke heavily overlaps with the Dream Girl Wallahi template, with commenters ironically tagging misery girls as somebody's dream girl3. Defense posts pushed back as the format spread, arguing that not every alt girl is into 'Misery' or the ageplay angle and calling out meme accounts for turning real people into punchlines3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

TikTok (viral spread on X)

Date

2026

The Misery Girl meme's exact start is unclear, though the joke gathered steam through August 2026 by linking alt girls with heavy piercings and dark makeup to the song 'Misery' by Pupsies3. The earliest widely traced post came on August 12th, 2026, when TikToker @the.scarred.one shared a clip of an alt girl with lip piercings captioned 'How did you know my fav song is Misery?' pulling more than 12,000 views in its first week1.

How It Spread

On August 15th, 2026, TikToker @doelilll uploaded an AI-edited clip of a misery girl asking 'dada' to crank up some 'Miseryphonk,' racking up over 800,000 views in six days2. The same day, X user @bledgun posted a meme placing @himonkeyhamie's photo on a fake album cover captioned 'Buying da Misery album for Dada,' passing 11,000 likes in under a week4.

Two days later, on August 17th, TikToker @t.pearr shared a slideshow of misery girls captioned 'Dada turn on dat misery,' clearing 2.3 million views in four days5. On August 20th, TikToker @hotuniv posted a drawing of a misery girl that pulled more than 400,000 views in a single day3.

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How to Use This Meme

Creators typically pair a photo or clip of an alt girl with piercings and dark makeup with a caption casting 'Misery' by Pupsies as her favorite song, often using the phrase 'dad play Misery' or 'dada turn on dat misery'5. Many of the biggest edits use images of X user @himonkeyhamie as the face of the joke, though other alt girls work too4.