# "Red Flags" by Tom Cardy "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 movie[1]. 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 TikTok[2]. ## Origin 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 head[1]. The video gathered more than 18 million views in about seven months after release[2]. 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 piece[1]. The track is credited to Tom Cardy, with Montaigne as featured vocalist, so the meme's creator is Cardy himself rather than any later editor[1]. Animation remixers started posting their own versions within days of the original upload[6]. - **Platform:** YouTube (song/video) / TikTok (viral spread) - **Creator:** Tom Cardy (song), featuring Montaigne - **Date:** 2022 ## 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 movie[1]. 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 code[1]. 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 shows[2][3]. 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 chorus[4]. 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 edits[5]. ## 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 months[6]. 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 window[3]. On February 13, 2023, YouTuber Settero posted an animation edit that gathered over 1.1 million views in five months[7]. 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 off[2]. On July 12, 2023, TikToker @yesshejumped posted an animation set to the track that drew over 4.6 million views in a week[4]. The next day, July 13, TikToker @tabita.x_ posted a South Park-styled animation that reached more than 1.7 million views in a week[5]. On July 18, @notlevismassiveschl0ng uploaded an Across the Spider-Verse version that crossed 2 million views in three days[8]. 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 date[2]. ## How to Use 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 lines[6][3]. 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 caption[4][5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is "Red Flags" by Tom Cardy? It is a December 2022 comedy duet by Australian musician Tom Cardy featuring Montaigne, about a date that sours when the woman names The Human Centipede as her favorite movie[1]. ### Where did "Red Flags" by Tom Cardy come from? Cardy posted the animated music video to his YouTube channel on December 1, 2022, where it drew over 18 million views within seven months[1][2]. ### What does "Red Flags" by Tom Cardy mean? In the song, the narrator reads his date's taste in horror films as a warning sign and spirals through fantasies that she might murder him, then talks himself through staying on the date anyway[1]. ### How do you use "Red Flags" by Tom Cardy? Creators animate characters from games, cartoons or movies acting out the dinner scene, or clip the morse-code waiter line and sped-up chorus for short TikTok edits[4][6]. ### Is "Red Flags" by Tom Cardy still popular? The song is a classic of 2022-2023 animation meme culture, with its biggest TikTok wave hitting in July 2023 behind creators like @yesshejumped and @notlevismassiveschl0ng[4][8]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFokXnCCMf8]() 2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/red-flags-by-tom-cardy]() 3. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vb89LYhwKQ]() 4. [https://www.tiktok.com/@yesshejumped/video/7255130226378738949]() 5. [https://www.tiktok.com/@tabita.x_/video/7255294259966807302]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CJLuYdeglA]() 7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iztLTHkpqeI]() 8. [https://www.tiktok.com/@notlevismassiveschl0ng/video/7256879948458233093]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/red-flags-by-tom-cardy Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library