- TikTokers are making memes about the “Shrek” character Prince Charming.
- The memes depict creators showing off their faces by lip-syncing and in-app effects.
- It’s one of the latest trends in the “Shrek” franchise’s long history of memes and online fame.
TikTokers are putting on their best impressions of Prince Charming from Shrek by lip-syncing his ridiculous lines like “not here, kitten whiskers,” and using an in-app effect to replicate his animated face.
The meme involves people using TikTok’s “Face Time Warp” effect to stretch out their face in a manner reminiscent of Charming’s comically chiseled chin. Users then use the effect to lip-sync to Charming’s lines in the Shrek films. The trend began to circulate on TikTok September and involves two audios which have 325,000 videos each.
Charming is an antagonist in the franchise who first appears in “Shrek 2,” competing for the ogre princess Fiona’s love and attempting to steal her away from her husband Shrek. He appears once again in “Shrek The Third,” throwing a coup d’état in Fiona’s home kingdom of Far Far Away.
Rupert Everett is the English actor who voices Charming. He’s smarmy, confident and full of self-confidence. He is a charming, beautiful boy with a striking likeness and exaggeratedly smoothed features.
The TikTok trend began in early September
The trend began to take off on TikTok in early September and appears to have been popularized by TikTok user @danielabrahall, who used the “Face Time Warp” effect to lip-sync to one of Charming’s lines from “Shrek 2” using an audio uploaded by TikTok user @wayofthewesley.
“Is that glitter on your lips?” Fiona is speaking to Prince Charming during the dialogue.
“Mmm, cherry flavored. Want a taste?” @danielabrahall responds by lip-syncing, paraphrasing Charming’s line.
The trend eventually also featured another Prince Charming audio, which was uploaded to TikTok in January by user @deanshannai. That one clips a sequence from “Shrek The Third” in which Charming brushes off a comment from Rapunzel, the princess.
“Not here, kitten whiskers,” His voice is heavy with frustration, he said. “Daddy will discuss it later.”
Since “Shrek” was released in 2001, the franchise and its characters have grown to hold a venerated place in meme culture. The film, as Polygon reported, was an oddball in the early 2000s animation landscape, bucking against the idyllic fantasy animated features that had predominately been made by Disney.
TikTok’s Prince Charming memes are merely the latest in the lineage of Shrek’s lasting online fame: a culture that’s included surreal sexual posts fantasizing about Shrek, the meme-ification of Smash Mouth’s “All Star,” and real-life events celebrating the films.
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