A meme called “Ningning is the maknae,” surrounding Ningning, the youngest member of the K-pop girl group Aespa, has taken the TikTok scene by storm. The girl group has made it to the headlines recently after bagging numerous awards at the 2024 Mnet Asian Music Awards, also known as the MAMA Awards.
Here is everything fans need to know about the ‘Ningning is the maknae’ meme and how it became viral across social media platforms.
‘Ningning is the maknae’ meme explained
Ningning, also known as Ning Yizhou, a vocalist of the talented girl group Aespa, has sparked a wave of memes on TikTok. This happened after a clip of her from a recent livestream made its way to the platform.
In the clip in question, Ningning, the maknae of the group, that is, the youngest among the four members, takes the first bite from a cake, thus sparking reactions from fans on the internet. This moment, blew up after a TikTok user @ludicrousdonut reacted to the singer eating first. She jokingly stated, “In Korea, you can’t eat until the elders eat. Ningning is the maknae, which means she’s the youngest, and the fact that she ate first is crazy.”
Here’s the reaction video shared on TikTok:
This went viral among users on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), who began sharing edits of Ningning. They used the popular phrase “Ningning ate” and also shared memes of the moment. Ningning’s moment of eating before her seniors gained attention online, because of an etiquette in the Korean culture that many follow.
This etiquette rule states that the youngest (maknae) people always let their elders start eating first to show their respect. However, Ningning being the youngest in Aespa, took the first bite of the cake while the other three were still praying.
Although the ‘Ningning is the maknae’ meme is taking over rapidly, there has been no reaction to it from the singer or the other aespa members.
