You may have seen the meme of Beyoncé being thanked on your social media feed. Here’s what it’s all about.
A trend started on social media has led to people posting about being afraid of Beyoncé, with some claiming she will “punish” those who do not thank her.
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, better known by her first name, or “Queen Bey,” is an American singer-songwriter and one of the most highly-regarded influential cultural figure in the 21st century. Beyoncé was born on September 4, 1981 and is married to American rapper Shawn Corey Carter, known by his stage name Jay-Z.
She achieved fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B group Destiny’s Child, and then went on to start her career as a solo artist. Currently, she has 32 Grammy Awards, making her the most Grammy Award-winning artist of all time.
According to Forbes, the meme thanking Beyoncé was a satirical conspiracy theory started by users on the popular social media platform TikTok. The singer was often mentioned during award ceremonies, and users on TikTok began to notice a pattern in major artists thanking Beyoncé during acceptance speeches. TikTokkers then made comedy skits about the importance of thanking Beyoncé for any simple occasion, such as sneezing or submitting an assignment.
In 2017, when Adele won Album of the Year at the Grammys, she credited Beyoncé as a major role model, and described her as the “artist of my life.” Then, in 2023, Lizzo thanked Beyoncé, and in 2024 Jay-Z thanked her as well.
During Taylor Swift’s VMA acceptance speech in 2009, Kanye West interrupted her to shout out Beyoncé and her music video. It was said that Kanye did that as a way to keep Taylor Swift safe from Beyoncé.
The compilations of award ceremony clips of artists paying tribute to Beyoncé lead to an online speculation that artists “fear” the singer, which in turn created the “Thank, You Beyoncé” meme.
Aava Shrestha, a sophomore from New Jersey, told The Willistonian that she found the meme to be “funny because it’s [so] stupid and random.”
Kora Brissett, a sophomore from Sunderland, Mass., told The Willistonian that she also found the meme funny, especially considering “the irony of the situation with P-Diddy and Jay-Z. It’s just an ironic turn, and if something goes bad you just thank Beyoncé or she puts you in a bad situation,” Kora said.
The situation Kora is referring to is the alleged tie Beyoncé and Jay-Z had to the abuse scandal surrounding producer and rapper Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. An article written by The Express Tribune mentioned that Jay-Z may have been aware of Diddy’s alleged years of sexual misconduct because of his close relationship with Combs.
