"Red Flags" by Tom Cardy — Animated red-haired woman in red dress surrounded by menacing clawed hands from Tom Cardy's Red Flags music video.

"Red Flags" by Tom Cardy

2022viral song / animation memeclassic

Published October 26, 2026

"Red Flags" is a December 2022 comedy song by Australian musician Tom Cardy featuring Montaigne, about a bad date derailed when the woman names The Human Centipede as her favorite movie1. The animated music video racked up over 18 million YouTube views, then a sped-up clip of the morse-code waiter lyric took off on TikTok in July 2023, fueling a second round of animation edits across YouTube and TikTok2.

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Overview

The song is a duet in which Tom Cardy plays a nervous man and Australian singer Montaigne plays his date, who cheerfully reveals that The Human Centipede is her favorite movie1. Cardy spirals through verses about her potentially murdering him or sewing him into a centipede, then talks himself back into enjoying the date, with increasingly absurd gags like trying to flag the waiter down by blinking in morse code1. The joke runs on quick cuts between his horrified inner monologue and the mundane, flirty surface of the dinner.

On YouTube, fans built animation memes around the full track, redrawing the dinner scene with characters from games and TV shows23. On TikTok, the format shrank to a few seconds of lip-sync or character animation set to the morse-code line or a sped-up version of the chorus4. Both strains lean on timing the on-screen reaction to Cardy's panicked delivery, which is why the song attracted animators rather than straight dance edits5.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (song/video) / TikTok (viral spread)
Key People
Tom Cardy, featuring Montaigne
Date
2022

On December 1, 2022, Tom Cardy uploaded the animated music video for "Red Flags" to his YouTube channel, with vocals from Montaigne as the date and animation illustrating the horror-movie fantasies running through Cardy's head1. The video gathered more than 18 million views in about seven months after release2. Cardy, an Australian comedy musician, had built a following on TikTok and YouTube with short absurdist songs before releasing "Red Flags" as a longer narrative piece1.

The track is credited to Tom Cardy, with Montaigne as featured vocalist, so the meme's creator is Cardy himself rather than any later editor1. Animation remixers started posting their own versions within days of the original upload6.

How It Spread

YouTube animators moved first. On December 4, 2022, three days after the music video dropped, YouTuber TOTOSHKA posted a Brawl Stars-themed animation that reached over 280,000 views within seven months6. Later that month, on December 23, noriee404 uploaded a version using characters from Netflix's Wednesday, hitting more than 379,000 views in the same window3. On February 13, 2023, YouTuber Settero posted an animation edit that gathered over 1.1 million views in five months7.

The song's second life began on TikTok in July 2023, when sped-up and slowed-down clips, especially the morse-code waiter line, took off2. On July 12, 2023, TikToker @yesshejumped posted an animation set to the track that drew over 4.6 million views in a week4. The next day, July 13, TikToker @tabita.x_ posted a South Park-styled animation that reached more than 1.7 million views in a week5. On July 18, @notlevismassiveschl0ng uploaded an Across the Spider-Verse version that crossed 2 million views in three days8.

The TikTok wave kicked a new round of YouTube animation edits back into motion, with fandoms treating the dinner scene as a stock template for pairing a worried character with an unhinged date2.

Timeline

2022-12-01

Tom Cardy uploads the animated "Red Flags" music video to YouTube, featuring Montaigne as the date who loves The Human Centipede.

2022-12-04

YouTuber TOTOSHKA posts an early Brawl Stars animation meme set to the song.

2022-12-23

YouTuber noriee404 releases a Wednesday-themed animation edit.

2023-02-13

YouTuber Settero posts an animation meme that reaches over 1.1 million views.

2023-07-12

TikToker @yesshejumped's animation to the sped-up song gathers 4.6 million views in a week.

2023-07-13

TikToker @tabita.x_ posts a South Park-styled animation edit.

2023-07-18

TikToker @notlevismassiveschl0ng uploads an Across the Spider-Verse version.

How to Use This Meme

Animators typically pick a cast of characters from a game, cartoon or film and restage the "Red Flags" dinner scene with them, syncing mouth movements to Cardy's and Montaigne's lines63. On TikTok, a common convention is to clip the morse-code waiter line or a sped-up chorus and overlay character art, lip-sync video or a POV caption45.

Frequently Asked Questions