# The Square Hole The Square Hole is a viral TikTok from December 2020 in which user @brock1137 jams every toy block through a shape sorter's square opening, triggering a duet reaction video by @tired_actor that went massively viral in January 2021. By early 2021, developers were captioning the clip as a metaphor for watching QA testers break their software. ## Origin The original TikTok was posted by @brock1137, previously known as @brockbenson8, on December 30th, 2020[1]. The 17-second clip shows him working through a shape sorter and placing every block into the square hole regardless of its actual shape. Within a year it had racked up more than 20.2 million views and 4.6 million likes on TikTok[5]. Two days later, on January 1st, 2021, @tired_actor filmed the duet that locked the format in place, reacting with growing distress as Brock refused to pick the correct opening[2]. Her side of the split-screen is what most reposts and remixes point back to, and it drew over 5.3 million views and 830,000 likes in its first year[5]. - **Platform:** TikTok (Twitter viral spread) - **Creator:** @brock1137 - **Date:** 2020 ## Overview At its core, The Square Hole is a two-part video gag. In the source clip, TikTok user @brock1137 sits with a children's shape sorter and calmly pushes every toy piece, triangle, circle, star and cross, through the square opening, since all of them technically fit[1]. The visual punchline is that the toy is designed to teach shape matching, but Brock has defeated it with a single workaround. The reaction half of the format is a duet by actor @tired_actor, whose face fills a parallel panel next to Brock. She starts amused, then her expression collapses into visible alarm and near tears as he keeps choosing the square[2]. That split-screen contrast between his flat delivery and her escalating meltdown is what people were quoting when they captioned reposts on Twitter and iFunny[3]. Later edits dropped new captions over the top of the original footage without changing the video itself, turning it into a caption template rather than a remix format[4]. ## How It Spread The video jumped platforms within 48 hours. On December 31st, 2020, iFunny user TheWinstonDude posted a Wojak comic riffing on Brock's logic, which got featured on the app and pulled in over 34,700 smiles in a year[5]. Twitter user @chriswade__ reposted the TikTok on January 1st, 2021, captioning it "Me designing games," and the tweet picked up 2.6 million views, 44,300 retweets and 145,800 likes in a year[4]. @brock1137 and @tired_actor both did follow-up videos on January 2nd, 2021, with Brock finally placing pieces in the right holes and @tired_actor calmly predicting each correct move[5]. The biggest viral spike came on January 22nd, 2021, when Twitter user @sanjazakovska reposted the @tired_actor duet with the caption "Devs watching QA test the product," which pulled in 7.5 million views and 332,600 likes over the next year[6]. That software-development framing locked the clip in as a workplace-humor shorthand throughout 2021 and 2022[5]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is The Square Hole? The Square Hole is a December 2020 TikTok by @brock1137 in which he jams every toy shape through the square opening of a shape sorter, paired with a viral duet reaction by @tired_actor[1][2]. ### Where did The Square Hole come from? It started on TikTok on December 30th, 2020, when @brock1137 posted the original shape sorter clip, and it blew up after @tired_actor's distressed duet two days later[1][2]. ### What does The Square Hole mean? People use it as a stand-in for brute-force problem solving, especially the January 22nd, 2021 "Devs watching QA test the product" framing by @sanjazakovska[6]. ### How do you use The Square Hole? Most posts reuse the @tired_actor reaction clip with a new caption about watching someone break a carefully designed system, like QA testers or streamers playing a new game[6]. ### Is The Square Hole still popular? It is a classic TikTok reference that kept getting used as a caption template and reaction clip across 2021 and 2022[5]. ## References 1. [https://www.tiktok.com/@brock1137/video/6912243945200225542]() 2. [https://www.tiktok.com/@tired_actor/video/6912855387788102918]() 3. [https://ifunny.co/picture/no-you-can-t-just-that-goes-in-the-put-cVeuS6BG8]() 4. [https://x.com/i/status/1345212421510672384]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-square-hole]() 6. [https://x.com/i/status/1352557733787152389]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-square-hole Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library