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High-pressure cafeteria meme asks, 'where y'all sitting?' at lunch

It's never been easy to pick a table.

Nicole Gallucci

on August 7, 2019

You may be out of school, but one of the most important social questions of your youth is back to haunt you on social media: Which table are you sitting at in the cafeteria?

A new interactive meme prompts people to choose where they'd sit from an image of labeled school cafeteria tables. To partake, simply label an image with a specific category like music or TV tastes, and ask followers, "Where y'all sitting?" like so.

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In Mean Girls, you may recall that tables were separated by high school cliques such as "art freaks," "burnouts," "cheerleaders," "freshmen," "varsity jocks," and of course, the "Plastics," or popular girls. But the labels in these memes go far beyond school clubs — they consider fandoms, television shows, music, books, and more.

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According to Know Your Meme, one of the earliest "Where y'all sitting" iterations took place on July 30, when @journalsfire labeled a cafeteria picture with names of Justin Bieber songs.

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After the format gained attention, Twitter users like @bangtanhxpe began using cafeteria art from VectorToons that was much easier to label and the meme really began to flourish.

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What's great about this meme is that the format is whatever you make of it. You can stick to the fandom labeling or really get creative, like these people.

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Where you sit on Twitter can determine how other people see you, so put some real thought into the seat-selection process. But remember, when you look back on this decision in a few years, just like the high school cafeteria, it absolutely won't matter.

Topics X/Twitter Memes

Nicole Gallucci

Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.