People online are confessing their unconventional childhood loves and I, for one, am happier for it. A new TikTok trend has people making videos about their first love interests, like Diego from the Ice Age movies or The Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George, with the top videos getting around 9 million views.
The trend really picked up steam in late September when user d3spond3lara made a viral TikTok about The Man in the Yellow Hat. The videos work something like this: a person draws a caricature of themselves from their childhood in a simple, comic-book-like art style. In each video, the child version of the person finds themselves as an adult when they are married or dating someone. The boy meets his future partner, but then expresses dismay that this is not a specific fictional character. All of the videos use a TikTok audio clip where the adult version tells his childhood self to “be nice” to his partner.
As with most memes, it's best to just watch one rather than explain it. This video, created by TikTok user Graphicsbygab, has more than 291,000 views. In it, you see a child confront the fact that they didn't end up marrying Beast Boy from teen titans – sad!
You can scroll to see many other adorable videos that are part of the trend. The next one is about Diego, the anthropomorphized saber-toothed tiger from the Ice Age movies.