About

What Color Was The Baby’s Shirt? refers to a social game played through TikTok Stitches and Duets that started in September of 2020. The game is based around a bait-and-switch Stitch by TikToker Aiden Dale to a now-deleted video from TikToker Celia Odon. In the video, Odon, facing away from the camera and wearing yoga pants, bends down to pick a baby in a red shirt up off of a bed. The Stitch then cuts to Dale, who says into the camera, “What color was the baby’s shirt, bro?” anticipating that the viewer can’t answer correctly as they were too focused on Odon bending over. Shortly after being uploaded, TikTokers began posting Duets reacting to the Stitch with their partner, specifically filming their partner’s reaction to the video to see if they can answer the question about the baby’s shirt.

Origin

Sometime prior to September 12th, 2020, TikToker Celia Odon uploaded a video of herself picking a baby up from a bed in a manner that shows off her butt. The video was deleted sometime after this. On September 12th, Aiden Dale uploaded a Stitch reacting to the video, posing the question, “What color is the baby’s shirt?” after the video plays (shown below). Dale’s video was very popular, garnering over 22.7 million views and 2.3 million likes in just over a month.

Over the course of the month, TikTokers began Duetting to Dale’s post with their partners, testing to see if they could correctly say the color of the baby’s shirt after watching the video (examples shown below, left and right).

Spread

As the game took off, TikTokers started making Stitches reacting to similar “thirst trap” style videos with the intention of attracting Duets. On October 3rd, 2020, 8biteric posted a Stitch to a video of lynaperezz dancing in a bikini, asking the question, “What color was the couch, bro?” (Shown below, left.) The video gained over 80,000 views in 3 weeks. October 11th, TikToker filichino22 made a Stitch to a video of yellz0 dancing in revealing clothes, asking after her video plays, “What color was the Post-It Note?” (Shown below, right). The video garnered over 4.3 million views in 16 days.

What Color Was The Bar?

On September 16th, 2020, TikToker dirtyboy112a uploaded a Stitch reaction to a video of four male bodybuilders working out on a chin-up bar, captioned, “the girls think this is so funny so now it’s their turn.” (Shown below, left.) The video cuts and dirtboy112a asks, “What color was the bar?” The video gained over 1.4 million views in just over a month, and is one of the most popular versions of the game aimed at females. After the video dropped, male TikTokers started Duetting it with their female partners to catch their reactions (example shown below, right).

Shake That Laffy Taffy Girl / Jillian Fox Twerking Parodies

On September 26th, 2020, TikToker Jillian Fox uploaded a video of herself dancing and twerking to the song “Laffy Taffy” by D4L. The video gained over 30.7 million views and 3.3 million likes in 1 month (shown below, left). Over the next few days, the video was Stitched, re-uploaded, and Duetted to a number of times, to the point where it made up the majority of the posts under its related Original Sound. On September 27th, TikToker roblox_edit382 uploaded a Stitch of the video ironically following the “What Color Was The Baby’s Shirt?” trend, asking, “What color was the sky?” (Shown below, right.) The video gained over 3 million views in a month.

TikTokers started posting parody versions of the trend as Stitches to Fox’s video, where they try to ask a question about something in the background to the camera but can’t as they’re too distracted by her twerking themselves. On September 26th, TikToker shane_walker2 uploaded a parody of the trend, garnering over 1.5 million views in a month (shown below, left). On October 12th, coolkid0183 uploaded another parody where he gets distracted by the video, gaining over 560,000 views in 2 weeks (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Know Your Meme Store

External References