The Struggle Is Real — Man in car holding a binder filled with many CDs

The Struggle Is Real

2013catchphraseclassic

Published October 2, 2026

The Struggle Is Real is a catchphrase borrowed from hip hop that mutated into an ironic online stand-in for 'first world problems' around 2013, used to crank up the drama on tiny inconveniences. Urban Dictionary, Facebook pages, BuzzFeed listicles and Reddit all picked it up within a year, turning the phrase into a go-to caption for exaggerated hardship memes.

catchphrase memes ironic memes sarcasm memes urban dictionary memes slang memes

Overview

The Struggle Is Real is a sarcastic sympathy line used to dress up a trivial setback as a genuine hardship, with the humor sitting in the gap between the dramatic phrasing and the pettiness of the complaint2. People reach for it when the WiFi drops, the drive-thru order gets botched or the dining hall milk machine runs low, treating a mild annoyance as if it were a real crisis4.

The tone is almost always ironic online, which is why Urban Dictionary's October 2013 entry pinned it as a swap-in for 'first world problems'1. In practice the catchphrase works as a caption on image macros, a reply in comments, and a title for photo posts that frame a minor inconvenience as world-ending, with Reddit posts about everyday snags like loading a CD binder or filling a milk jug drawing thousands of upvotes5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Hip hop lyrics / YouTube / Urban Dictionary (viral spread)
Date
2013

The phrase itself predates the internet and is tied to rap music, where artists used it earnestly to describe real hardship. The hip hop group DTMD included a track called 'The Struggle Is Real' on their September 27, 2011 album Makin' Dollas, one of the earliest clearly dated musical uses of the exact phrase3.

The ironic online version took shape in mid-2013. On July 25, 2013, YouTuber DashieXP posted a comedy sketch titled 'Struggle is Real!' in which one friend badgers another for favors, which helped push the phrase in front of a younger online audience6. A few months later, on October 11, 2013, Urban Dictionary user nobranknerms submitted the definition framing it as an 'ironic saying often used in place of' first world problems, locking in the sarcastic reading that spread from there1.

How It Spread

After the Urban Dictionary entry landed in October 2013, the phrase picked up platform momentum fast. A Facebook page simply titled 'The Struggle is REAL' launched on October 16, 2013 and pulled in roughly 159,000 likes over the next two years, acting as a hub for relatable complaint memes2.

By early 2014 the catchphrase was mainstream enough for listicle treatment. BuzzFeed published '28 Times The Struggle Was Real' on February 14, 2014, pairing the phrase with animated GIFs of minor daily disasters3. Reddit's r/funny then supplied two of the format's defining posts: on August 8, 2014, user HeathenBarbie's photo 'Back in my day the struggle was real,' showing a man flipping through a CD binder, cleared 4,800 upvotes at 96% positive5. On October 23, 2014, user brendan1018 posted 'The college student struggle is real,' a shot of a woman filling a milk jug from a cafeteria dispenser, which hit over 4,600 upvotes at 96% positive4.

The phrase stuck around as general-purpose internet shorthand well after that initial wave, still showing up as a caption on inconvenience memes and in casual replies long past the 2013 to 2014 peak3.

Timeline

2011-09-27

Hip hop group DTMD releases the album Makin' Dollas, which includes a track titled 'The Struggle Is Real.'

2013-07-25

YouTuber DashieXP uploads the comedy sketch 'Struggle is Real!'

2013-10-11

Urban Dictionary user nobranknerms submits an entry defining the phrase as an ironic replacement for 'first world problems.'

2013-10-16

The 'The Struggle is REAL' Facebook page launches and eventually reaches around 159,000 likes.

2014-02-14

BuzzFeed publishes '28 Times The Struggle Was Real,' a GIF listicle built around the phrase.

2014-08-08

Redditor HeathenBarbie's r/funny post 'Back in my day the struggle was real' tops 4,800 upvotes.

2014-10-23

Redditor brendan1018 posts 'The college student struggle is real' to r/funny, drawing over 4,600 upvotes.

Frequently Asked Questions