Pakistani Kids Pledge Loyalty | Know Your Meme

New Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/OsmaniTheOttoman/

About

Pakistani Kids Pledge Loyalty refers to a series of viral clips, primarily on TikTok, featuring English-speaking Pakistani children pledging their allegiance to Pakistan during a school event. The principal of the school holds a microphone to each child as they make their pledges. The clips became the subject of memes due to the comedic nature of the pledges, and the cadence with which the principal says the word “great.”

Origin

On July 11th, 2011, the Pakistan International School Jeddah English Section (commonly abbreviated as PISJ-ES) hosted an event celebrating Pakistan’s independence. The event encouraged Pakistani kids to dress in Pakistan’s colors and make pledges to the country. The full ceremony was uploaded to YouTube on December 22nd, 2016 by Ammar Yasir, then reuploaded on August 24th, 2020 to the same channel as it started going viral (shown below).

On August 19th, TikToker filthysus uploaded a clip from the ceremony featuring a number of pledges, captioned, “We gotta do this in our schools bruh this is raw” (shown below). The video garnered over 19,000 views in one month, and is one of the earliest instances of the meme on the platform.

Spread

On August 26th, 2020, TikToker brandon3bailey uploaded a clip from the ceremony where a young boy pledges, “My pledge is that I will be a cricket” (shown below). The clip gained over 3.6 million views in 27 days.

On August 28th, TikToker i_love_pakistan_12345 uploaded a clip from the ceremony (shown below, left). In the clip, a young Pakistani girl pledges, “To sacrifice my own life for Pakistan,” to which the principal responds, “That’s the spirit, great.” The clip highlights how it sounds like the principal is saying, “That’s a spirit, grape.” The principal’s pronunciation of “great” as “grape” is a highlight in many subsequent memes. The video garnered over 11 million views and 1.4 million likes in 24 days. This sound clip is one of the most popular from the ceremony, with i_love_pakistan_12345’s sound clip being used over 1,700 times across TikTok by September 22nd.

On the same day, TikToker brandon3bailey uploaded another clip from the ceremony, this time of a young boy pledging, “When I will grow up I will be a army and save Pakistan and destroy India.” A graphic of a child flying a plane and exploding is added over top (shown below, right). The clip garnered over 12.9 million views in 24 days.

Isolated clips from the ceremony continued to circulate around TikTok throughout late August and September, branching out to other social media platforms. On August 30th, YouTuber EBK uploaded a compilation of Pakistani Kids Pledge Loyalty memes to their channel (shown below). The video garnered over 686,000 views and 20,000 likes in three weeks.