Pet the X — Doge and Pepe the Frog being petted by hands over a Windows XP green hills background

Pet the X

2020exploitableclassic

Published October 9, 2026

Pet the X / PETTHE Emotes is an exploitable built from DitzyFlama's sped-up GIF of a hand petting a frog, first tweeted on February 18, 20201. Twitch users turned the floating hand into hundreds of BetterTTV emotes through mid-20202, and YouTube and Instagram creators soon stuck the same hand onto sad cartoon characters for a wholesome petting format set to Super Mario World's ending theme3.

twitch emotes exploitable templates wholesome memes bait and switch memes reaction memes

Overview

The format sits on one visual trick: a disembodied hand drops into frame and strokes whatever character sits beneath it. On Twitch, it works as an animated BetterTTV emote so chat can spam a comfort reaction, often with the peepoHappy face or a streamer's cartoon avatar underneath2. In the longer video version, a sad subject sits still until the hand swoops in; the character then glows, smiles, or starts crying happy tears. The ending theme from Super Mario World became the standard soundtrack across those clips3.

Bait-and-switch cuts flipped the setup on its head. The hand sets up a wholesome pet, then slaps, crushes, or beheads the subject instead. These edits run on characters from Team Fortress 2, Among Us, and other games, keeping the Pet the X name while cutting against the Twitch originals' comfort-reaction tone.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter (source GIF) / Twitch BetterTTV (viral spread)
Creator
DitzyFlama
Date
2020

On February 18, 2020, Twitter user DitzyFlama tweeted a sped-up clip of a person petting a frog with the caption 'rt to pet frog,' pulling more than 14,600 likes and retweets through mid-20201. The clip rode on a frogposting trend running across Instagram and Twitter at the time, which spread it to Twitch chats and sparked the Mmmm Myes Pet Froge reaction before the PETTHE emote series took shape4. On May 16, 2020, BetterTTV user flammel_xd cut the hand out of the frog clip and placed it over the peepoHappy avatar, creating PETTHEPEEPO alongside a second variant called PETTHECUTIE that used the AYAYA emote2.

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How It Spread

PETTHEPEEPO landed on more than 3,300 Twitch channels inside six weeks of its upload, making it the top entry in the PETTHE emote series2. The template then moved streamer by streamer. BTTV user ayyybubu added PETTHEMANLET on May 23 with Twitch streamer Nymn as the subject5. GreekGodx uploaded PETTHEGREKLER for his own channel on May 27, and senboni posted PETTHESCHNOZER on May 28 with xQc's nose being pet6. Senboni submitted the emote to r/xqcow the same day and the post pulled nearly 3,000 upvotes within a month7; xQc approved it on stream the day after8. By June 28, 2020, more than 400 PETTHE emotes had shipped to BetterTTV9.

The hand jumped off Twitch in late July. On July 26, 2020, YouTuber manwel super uploaded 'pet the doge,' showing a Shiba Inu losing his cowboy hat and crying until the hand pets him, set to a MixAndMash remix of Jack Stauber's 'Buttercup'10. The next day, Instagram user nitro.if posted 'Me @ my homies when they're sad' with the hand petting a sad Peepo over Super Mario World's ending theme; the YouTube reupload pulled over 1.6 million views inside two months and locked in that soundtrack as the format's default4.

Bait-and-switch versions arrived next. On August 19, 2020, YouTuber SilentManJoe uploaded 'PET THE SPY,' the earliest documented bait-and-switch cut, in which the hand crushes the Team Fortress 2 Spy in a blood splatter. On September 12, bearbubb's 'PET THE RED' did the same with an Among Us crewmate getting sliced in half after the pet, pulling around 197,000 views in four days4.

Timeline

2020-02-18

DitzyFlama tweets the sped-up frog-petting GIF with the caption 'rt to pet frog,' the source clip for every later Pet the X edit.

2020-05-16

BetterTTV user flammel_xd uploads PETTHEPEEPO and PETTHECUTIE, the first two PETTHE emotes.

2020-05-23

BTTV user ayyybubu uploads PETTHEMANLET featuring Twitch streamer Nymn.

2020-05-28

Senboni uploads PETTHESCHNOZER showing xQc's nose being pet; the r/xqcow submission pulls almost 3,000 upvotes within a month.

2020-05-29

XQc approves PETTHESCHNOZER on his stream, boosting the emote wave.

2020-06-28

More than 400 PETTHE emotes are live on BetterTTV.

2020-07-26

YouTuber manwel super uploads 'pet the doge' set to a Buttercup remix, drawing over 920,000 views.

2020-07-27

Instagram user nitro.if posts 'Me @ my homies when they're sad'; the YouTube version locks in Super Mario World's end theme as the default soundtrack.

2020-08-19

SilentManJoe uploads 'PET THE SPY,' the earliest documented bait-and-switch cut using Team Fortress 2's Spy.

2020-09-12

Bearbubb uploads 'PET THE RED' with an Among Us crewmate getting sliced in half after the pet.

How to Use This Meme

The typical build is a still image or looping avatar of a sad character, with the floating hand animated in from off-screen to stroke the top of their head. Twitch creators drop the hand over a streamer's face or a Pepe variant for a comfort reaction emote on BetterTTV2. Video creators often add a smile, glow, or happy tears to the subject after the pet lands and set the clip to Super Mario World's ending theme, which became the default audio pairing after nitro.if's July 2020 Peepo video3. Bait-and-switch versions keep the same setup but swap the pet for a crushing, slicing, or shooting beat drop.

Frequently Asked Questions