What is Tag Yourself?

Tag Yourself is a 2016 Tumblr survey format where crudely drawn character lineups invite users to pick which one matches them best, with the answer written in the reblog tags.

Where did Tag Yourself come from?

Tumblr user Goblinlord posted the earliest viral entry on January 24, 2016, featuring six bird OCs. Know Your Meme traces earlier roots to 4chan "choose wisely" threads.

What does Tag Yourself mean?

Each post asks participants to identify which character from a crude Comic Sans lineup best matches their personality or vibes, written as a reblog tag.

How do you use Tag Yourself?

Reblog or repost a Tag Yourself image and write the name of the character you identify with in the tags; Daily Dot calls it an "extension of the self".

Is Tag Yourself still popular?

Peak activity ran through 2016, when Mic called it "the best meme of 2016". The format is classic rather than active, though the survey template is still reused in fandom spaces.

Tag Yourself

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Published November 9, 2026

Tag Yourself, also known as Tag Your Friends, is a Tumblr survey format where users pick which crudely drawn character from a lineup matches them best. Tumblr user Goblinlord kicked off the craze on January 24, 2016 with six bird-like original characters, and by November Mic had declared it "the best meme of 2016."

tumblr memes ms paint memes character archetype memes 2016 memes exploitable templates

Overview

Each entry presents a grid of four to eight characters drawn in MS Paint, labeled with an on-the-nose name and a few sarcastic or oddly specific traits set in Comic Sans1. Participants reblog the post and write the character name they identify with in the tag field, meaning the "answer" lives in the tags, not the post body itself. Mic described the appeal as "side-splittingly funny, purposefully anti-establishment and actually relatable"2.

Subject matter ran across fandoms. Early entries featured bird OCs, female pop singers, generic cat archetypes, and a Pepe the Frog variant from Twitter user @gentleskies5. Mic later compared the format to the 2015 "Signs As..." zodiac memes and the 2012 What Should We Call Me blog, placing Tag Yourself as a direct descendant of those relatability lineages2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Tumblr

Creator

Goblinlord

Date

2016

Tumblr user Goblinlord posted the earliest known entry on January 24, 2016: six bird-like original characters in MS Paint, captioned "reblog and tag which bird you are"3. The post hit 101,000 notes within 72 hours2.

Know Your Meme traces the format's deeper roots to 4chan "choose wisely" threads, where users would pick from lists of characters or items under constraints like dangerous scenarios or magical gifts4. Daily Dot writer Gabe Bergado also noted light documentation of similar posts on Tumblr as early as January 11, 2016, so the format was likely already circulating before Goblinlord's bird post went viral1.

How It Spread

Within 24 hours of Goblinlord's post, dozens of Tumblr variants appeared, many passing 30,000 notes by the following day4. On January 25, 2016, the @tagyourselfmeme Instagram archive account launched, and Twitter user @gentleskies posted a Pepe the Frog version that same day5. Lizzie, a Tumblr user who started the Tag Which One You Are archive blog overnight, told Daily Dot "I went to sleep and I woke up and this was my entire timeline. It was everywhere. Every single post"1.

Daily Dot covered the trend on January 27, 20161, and Smosh followed with a round-up of the strangest and best examples on February 96. Variants ran for months: Instagram user _memethief posted a Dat Boi version on May 9, 20167. Mic crowned it "the best meme of 2016" in a November 4 feature2.

Timeline

2016-01-11

Daily Dot notes light documentation of similar tag-style posts on Tumblr, predating the viral spike.

2016-01-24

Tumblr user Goblinlord posts six bird OCs with the caption "reblog and tag which bird you are," hitting 101,000 notes in 72 hours.

2016-01-25

The @tagyourselfmeme Instagram archive launches, and Twitter user @gentleskies posts a Pepe the Frog variant.

2016-01-27

Daily Dot publishes "The 'tag yourself' meme lets you choose your own destiny."

2016-02-09

Smosh runs a listicle of the weirdest and best Tag Yourself examples.

2016-05-09

Instagram user _memethief posts a Dat Boi-themed Tag Yourself entry.

2016-11-04

Mic declares Tag Yourself "the best meme of 2016."

How to Use This Meme

A Tag Yourself post typically shows four to eight characters in a grid, each with a bold label in Comic Sans and one or two short descriptors underneath. Common conventions include deliberately bad MS Paint art and traits that read as absurd, sarcastic, or oddly specific. Participants reblog or repost the image and write the chosen character's name in the tags.