The Part Where Ariel Says X

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The Part Where Ariel Says X is a snowclone meme born in the YouTube comments under Disney's September 2022 trailer for The Little Mermaid remake. Commenters pretended Ariel says wildly out-of-place dialogue from other films or memes, riffing on the earlier Morbius joke format.

Overview

The Part Where Ariel Says X is a snowclone meme where commenters claim to love a specific line or moment from Disney's 2023 live-action The Little Mermaid, then plug in dialogue or events that are obviously not in the film1. The joke lives almost entirely in the comment sections of the movie's trailers, where posters cite fake Ariel quotes lifted from other movies, video games, and older memes2.

The format is a direct descendant of the Morbius jokes from earlier in 2022, particularly It's Morbin' Time and Stand Back, I Am Beginning to Morb, which had trained audiences to pretend that ridiculous lines actually appeared in a real theatrical release3. Two of the most repeated punchlines built specifically for Ariel are It's Mermin' Time and It's Mermaidin' Time, both explicit Morbius callbacks tailored to the character3.

How It Spread

The joke jumped off YouTube almost immediately. On September 10th, 2022, one day after the trailer dropped, a post in Reddit's r/OutOfTheLoop asked what all the love the part comments were about and pulled in over 100 replies across the next nine days2. Answers there drew the line straight back to the Morbius comment culture from May 20222.

Over the following weeks, It's Mermin' Time and It's Mermaidin' Time solidified as the meme's signature punchlines3. A YouTube commenter going by Lord posted a widely liked mermin/mermaidin variant on September 19th, 2022 that pulled in more than 370 likes within a few hours3. Replies under that comment layered in another timely reference, this time to Don't Worry Darling and Harry Styles's promotional press for the film3.

The meme also traveled to Twitter, where accounts such as @miyadomah helped push the snowclone beyond the trailer's own comment section4. Because the format only needed one line and a plausible-sounding setup, it was easy to slot into any ongoing pop-culture argument that fall.

How to Use This Meme

A typical Part Where Ariel Says X post opens with a phrase like I love the part where Ariel says or the part where Ariel says, then attributes an obviously wrong line to the character1. Common conventions include quoting other movies, referencing unrelated memes such as It's Morbin' Time, or inventing anachronistic dialogue that Ariel would never say in a Disney film3. Mermin' Time and Mermaidin' Time work as ready-made punchlines when a poster wants the Morbius connection to be explicit3.

Frequently Asked Questions