"Look between the X and the C": the explanation of Twitter's viral trend

“Best doctor series, look on your keyboard between the W and the T.” Unless you have your keyboard in a configuration other than traditional QWERTY (say, in Dvorak), you will discover “ER”. This is one of several examples of a new trend that has resurfaced on Twitter / X that targets letters for character initials, phonetic jokes, and sometimes nothing at all, for the purpose of creating jokes using the space between certain letters on the keyboard.

Where did the “look between the X and the C” trend come from?

Like many viral memes, this one originated in the hotbed called 4Chan in May 2021. In the first recorded appearance of this meme, the user made a reference to Yui Hirasawa, the main character of K-On: “look between t and o on you’re key bored” (sic), the response being “YUI”, the character’s name.

However, the meme remained dormant until April 17 of this year, when Twitter/X user @LoDthesecond retweeted the original post and it went viral with 5,200 retweets in 5 days. Since then, the basis for “look between ‘x’ and the ‘x’” went viral.

From phonetic jokes, initials, or just plain trolling

To understand this viral trend, it is necessary to see some examples to know where it is going. The first explanation falls into the category of what can be a completely phonetic joke, like this one from Sony and the Spider-Man movie. “Who’s going to see Spider-Man 2 in theaters tonight... look between Y and I on your keyboard” is answered with “U”, which sounds like “you”.

Or this one, “Waiter: What’d you like to have? Look between R and Y on your keyboard” whose answer is “T,” which sounds like “tea.”

On the other hand, they can be simple jokes that use the lyrics for a message using the broad slang of the Internet. For example, the New England Patriots themselves used a lot of humor about their draft prospects. “Want to know who we’re drafting? Look between the H and L on your keyboard.” The answer is a JK, or Just Kidding.

However, there are times when, as with any Internet activity, the situation makes no sense, and it is simple trolling aimed at getting people to circle back and try to explain a meme just because there is a solution in the previous ones. An example of this would be “Look between T and Y on your keyboard”, or as in this case, the lack of a key in the middle leaves the user confused because as such there is no answer. Activities of people who just want to watch the world burn.