# Reply Girls Reply Girls were female YouTubers in 2011 who piggybacked on trending videos by uploading reply clips with cleavage-forward thumbnails to farm views. The tactic worked well enough to trigger a months-long user revolt in early 2012, complete with petitions, boycott videos, browser scripts, and accusations of bot warfare against critics. ## Origin Canadian YouTuber Alejandra Gaitan opened the channel "thereplygirl" on July 18, 2011, and started uploading reply videos with cleavage-heavy thumbnails aimed at up-and-coming uploads[3]. About three weeks later, on August 9, 2011, MeganLeeHeart launched the "MeganSpeaks" channel using the same trick, with arrows in her thumbnails literally pointing at her chest[3]. Both channels grew fast because YouTube's ranking algorithm at the time rewarded click-through rate on video responses, so a suggestive thumbnail attached to a popular video reliably printed views. - **Platform:** YouTube - **Creator:** Alejandra Gaitan (thereplygirl) - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview Reply Girls was less a joke format than a view-farming scheme built on top of YouTube's old video responses feature, which let any creator attach their own clip to someone else's trending upload. The bait was almost entirely in the thumbnail: prominent cleavage, arrows pointing at chests, and framing that had nothing to do with the actual video[3]. The clip behind the image was usually a short talking-head vlog with the creator commenting on whatever popular video they had latched onto[1]. Alejandra Gaitan (thereplygirl) and MeganLeeHeart (MeganSpeaks) were the two most visible practitioners, and both racked up millions of views before the backlash caught up. MeganSpeaks alone pulled more than 10 million views and thousands of dislikes inside its first seven months[3]. Later imitators including lauratickled, supercomicbookgirl, and outright bot channels like JessicaReview kept the tactic alive long enough for viewers to build blocklists against them[3]. ## How It Spread The backlash crystallized in February 2012. On February 11, icklenellierose posted "Dear Reply Girls," a rant against the trend that pulled over 1.1 million views within a year[2]. Four days later, YouTuber Skweezy called for a full viewer boycott of reply girl videos[3]. A February 23 thread on the Yogscast forum argued the uploads violated YouTube's own rules against misleading thumbnails and titles, and the next day The Daily Dot ran a piece labelling the whole mess the "Tittiepocalypse"[3]. Things escalated quickly from there. On February 26, a "YouTube Anti Replygirls" userscript went up on Userscripts.org so viewers could scrub the videos from their feeds automatically[3]. On February 27, a Change.org petition demanding Google act on the spam picked up more than 3,000 signatures in 24 hours[3]. Blogger HappyCabbie also posted screenshots that appeared to show MeganLeeHeart threatening another YouTuber with violence over copied video descriptions[3]. The story turned genuinely ugly in March. The Daily Dot reported that Heart and her boyfriend Brian Martin, known on YouTube as LifeInATent, had allegedly paid for roughly 540,000 bot views aimed at rival reply girls, hoping YouTube's freshly announced anti-bot crackdown would ban the competition automatically[1]. Heart denied the receipt was real and claimed it was Photoshopped, but Alejandra Gaitan later told the Daily Dot that Heart had threatened to leak her personal information and physically harm her[1]. ## How to Use The template was simple: pick a trending YouTube video, upload a short talking-head clip as a reply, and slap a cleavage-forward thumbnail on it. Titles typically referenced the target video vaguely enough to seem related while the thumbnail did the actual click-bait work. The pattern effectively died after YouTube retired video responses in 2013, but the phrase still gets used as shorthand for any low-effort viewbait tactic that trades on suggestive imagery[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Reply Girls? Reply Girls were female YouTubers who uploaded reply videos to trending uploads using cleavage-forward thumbnails to farm click-through views[3]. ### Where did Reply Girls come from? The tactic started when Canadian YouTuber Alejandra Gaitan opened the "thereplygirl" channel on July 18, 2011, and was popularized weeks later by MeganLeeHeart's "MeganSpeaks" channel[3]. ### What does Reply Girls mean? The term refers specifically to creators who exploited YouTube's video responses feature with suggestive thumbnails to hijack views from more popular videos[1]. ### How do you use Reply Girls? The label is now used as shorthand for low-effort viewbait built around sexualized thumbnails; the original tactic itself died after YouTube retired video responses in 2013[1]. ### Is Reply Girls still popular? No, the specific practice ended after YouTube killed video responses, though the 2012 backlash, the "Tittiepocalypse" coverage, and the alleged Heart/Martin bot-warfare scandal are still referenced as an early example of platform gaming[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-megan-lee-heart-brian-martin-botting/]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqCYVeA_Y_U]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/reply-girls]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmI9AfwCsLw]() 5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FufxQKCgPL4]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q-UyXiVWZA]() 7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbsy4CW_zxc]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/reply-girls Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library