The Clitoris Has 8,000 Nerve Endings — Man crying dramatically with hands on head and ear

The Clitoris Has 8,000 Nerve Endings

2019catchphraseclassic

Published October 1, 2026

In January 2019, Twitter user @xlayre posted a joke about white men online being more sensitive than the clitoris, triggering a viral copypasta template that mocked thin-skinned public figures. The one-liner racked up more than 700,000 likes in under a week and spawned one of the sharpest format jokes of early 2019.

snowclone memes twitter memes catchphrase memes behavior mocking memes sarcasm memes

Overview

The Clitoris Has 8,000 Nerve Endings is a Twitter snowclone that follows a fixed opening clause and a swappable punchline, built around the structure "The clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings and still isn't as sensitive as X"2. The X slot gets filled with whoever the poster thinks is thin-skinned, usually a politician, pundit, fandom, or group behavior the writer wants to drag3.

The anatomical factoid at the front is real, the clitoris does carry roughly 8,000 nerve endings, which PopBuzz noted while covering the format's spread2. That bit of trivia is what makes the setup land, it reads as a mock science fact before pivoting to the insult. Variants ranged from political (Donald Trump, Piers Morgan) to sports (Mohamed Salah drawing penalty box fouls) to pop culture (K-pop stans, cereal mascots)2.

The tone is pointed rather than wholesome, the joke is pretty much always an accusation of fragility. That framing is why it drew a backlash defense from Piers Morgan within a day of going viral3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Creator
@xlayre
Date
2019

On January 23rd, 2019, Twitter user @xlayre tweeted, "The clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings and still isn't as sensitive as a white man on the Internet"1. The post hit more than 208,000 retweets and 700,000 likes inside six days3.

The original did not announce itself as a template, but the symmetrical "and still isn't as sensitive as" clause made it trivially remixable, and other Twitter users began swapping in their own targets within 48 hours2. Know Your Meme logged it as the origin post for the format3.

Loading tweet...

How It Spread

The format jumped from a one-off joke to a running template over the following week. On January 24th, British television personality Piers Morgan quote-posted a response calling the tweet "racist toxic feminism" and arguing that a male-coded version of the joke would get him banned, a reply that itself drew more than 12,000 retweets and 66,000 likes4. His reaction gave the original tweet a second wave of attention and effectively invited more people to try the template.

On January 25th, @altNOAA posted a political variant, "The clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings and it is still not as sensitive as Donald Trump," tagged with #science, pulling roughly 90 retweets and 930 likes over four days5. On January 28th, @rishibagree aimed the format at Indian lyricist Javed Akhtar, writing that the clitoris still isn't as sensitive as Akhtar "when someone disagrees with him," and the tweet picked up more than 380 retweets and 1,200 likes within a day6.

PopBuzz published a roundup of standout variants on January 28th, 2019, pointing to swipes at Mohamed Salah's legs in the penalty box, K-pop fans online, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Piers Morgan himself, confirming the template had locked in as a shorthand for calling someone fragile2.

Timeline

2019-01-23

Twitter user @xlayre posts the original tweet aimed at white men online, which gathers over 700,000 likes in six days.

2019-01-24

Piers Morgan quote-tweets the post calling it "racist toxic feminism," drawing 66,000 likes and amplifying the format.

2019-01-25

@altNOAA posts a Donald Trump variant tagged #science.

2019-01-28

@rishibagree posts a Javed Akhtar variant; PopBuzz publishes a roundup of standout remixes.

Loading tweet...

Frequently Asked Questions