The Trisha Paytas War Memes use imagery from the artist’s “Van Gogh” music video featuring a soldier screaming (Paytas) to joke about superficial “wars” they face. The music video pays heavy homage to My Chemical Romance’s “The Ghost of You” and is part of Paytas’ SadBoy2005 project. The emo and pop-punk-inspired side band was a project Paytas pursued from 2020 to 2022.
Meme basics:
- Meme Creator: @trishlikesfish88/TikTok
- Meme Type: Exploitable, Reaction
- First Appearance: August 2021
- Origin Source: TikTok
- Peak Popularity: January 2025
Origin of the Trisha Paytas War Meme
In 2021, Trisha Paytas‘ emo project, SadBoy2005, filmed a video for their track “Van Gogh.” SadBoy2005 is a side band Paytas takes part in alongside YouTuber Social Repose, singer-songwriter Jeremy Thurber, and producer rapper Connor Musarra.
The project existed, in part, to pay homage to some of the pop-punk and emo acts of the early aughts that inspired Paytas. It combined original lyrics with some of the sounds that are nostalgic for millennials.
The video for “Van Gogh” was a recreation of My Chemical Romance’s “The Ghost Of You,” released in October 2009.
Paytas meme’d the video from the jump, sharing a behind-the-scenes clip on TikTok and captioning the video, “Me when Wendy’s cancelled their spicy chicken nuggs.”
Cultural context
The close recreation, self-funded by the content creator, was a subject of debate. Paytas fans and members of the My Chemical Romance fandom felt particularly torn.
Some didn’t know the reference and thought Paytas chose quite a theatric and emotional music video.
While some were impressed with how closely Paytas recreated the cinematic music video on a budget, others thought it was less of an homage and more of a rip-off of the original. MCR fans unfamiliar with Paytas were not happy with the video.
Paytas has spoken out about getting hate from MCR fans. The hate isn’t just about the video, but also related to other instances where Paytas cosplayed Gerard Way. Paytas acknowledges that they’ve gotten a lot of backlash for what they say is genuine fandom.
Meme spread
The comments on Paytas’ post were met with more memes, particularly relating to their screaming moment in the video.
In August 2022, @ruddruddreact shared the meme on Twitter, getting thousands of reactions.
People quoted the reaction and started sharing more memes about the moments that felt like battles, which were as widely varied as the X users behind them.
Meme examples
More Trisha Paytas memes:
- ‘Her baby starts talking with a British accent’: Here’s what all those Trisha Paytas and King Charles memes are about
- Trisha Paytas memes take over Twitter as her death hoax trends
- The Queen died—and Twitter went wild
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