Werewolf Ripping Shirt — Howling werewolf kneeling under a full moon ripping open his shirt in a dark forest

Werewolf Ripping Shirt

2022image macrosemi-active

Published October 16, 2026

Werewolf Ripping Shirt, also known as Wolf Ripping Shirt or Werewolf Tearing Shirt, is an image macro centered on a drawing of a shirtless werewolf howling at a full moon while on his knees. Twitter user @de4dname set the format in motion on July 25, 2022, by overlaying Zedd's 'Clarity' lyrics on the artwork. By late 2024, posters were captioning the wolf with Maroon 5's 'Animals' and recycling it for Wolverine jokes in Marvel Rivals.

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Overview

Posts typically stack a quiet, oddly earnest declaration or song lyric over an image of maximum feral intensity. A standard variation shows the wolfman mid-howl with all-caps text spelling out something horny, embarrassing, nostalgic, or absurd, and the mismatch between the drawing and the words does the comedic work. Early captions ranged from Paramore's 'Decode' chorus4 to a Pizza Hut tagline bit, 'I couldn't out pizza the hut'5.

Later variations got more openly thirsty. Tumblr user djorkus added the line 'I love effeminate men' in November 2022, drawing over 44,000 notes in a month6. Reblog chains spawned response edits reading 'I love masculine women' and 'I hate this shirt,' with each new overlay posted as its own standalone caption on top of the same wolfman drawing.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt (artwork) / Twitter (viral meme usage)
Creator
Endlen; @de4dname
Date
2022

Endlen, a now-deleted DeviantArt user, drew the artwork at some point before 20195. The illustration surfaced publicly on May 10, 2019, when it was reposted to the r/werewolves subreddit under the title 'Howl of the Beast' by Endlen1. KYM notes the drawing has visual overlap with the Emo Wolf meme by artist WolfRoad, though the two are separate pieces.

Meme usage started on July 25, 2022, when Twitter user @de4dname overlaid the lyrics of Zedd's 'Clarity' on the illustration ('How did we get here when I used to know you so well'), a post that collected over 123,000 likes across the next five months2.

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How It Spread

One day after @de4dname's tweet, Tumblr user gxkv rehosted a screenshot of the post on July 26, 2022, drawing over 4,100 notes3. Tumblr user longseasons followed on July 27, running it with the chorus of Paramore's 'Decode' typed in all caps and collecting more than 11,600 notes4.

Caption variations multiplied through late 2022. On August 24, Twitter user @dirtybird0_o publicly asked for a copy of 'the meme of the wolf ripping his shirt off,' signaling that the image already circulated as a known reference. By November 7, djorkus turned the format horny with 'I love effeminate men,' picking up over 44,000 notes in a month6. Reblog threads added 'I love masculine women' and 'I hate this shirt' as counter-captions.

On December 20, 2022, the Instagram meme account new.incognito.tab reposted a recaptioned version of an @XEXEEZY tweet, collecting more than 23,500 likes within a day7. In late 2024, the drawing regained attention when posters started adding Maroon 5's 'Animals' lyrics, and it was later reused in Marvel Rivals memes about Wolverine5.

Timeline

2019-05-10

Endlen's artwork is reposted to r/werewolves under the title 'Howl of the Beast'[1].

2024

The drawing is paired with Maroon 5's 'Animals' and reused in Marvel Rivals Wolverine memes[5].

How to Use This Meme

Grab the Endlen drawing of the wolfman on his knees mid-howl, then layer a short line of text across the top of the image. A common convention is all caps for maximum intensity, and the caption often includes song lyrics, a declaration of attraction, or an absurd non-sequitur. The joke lands when the words feel smaller, sillier, or more sincere than the drawing's energy.

Frequently Asked Questions