As one of the most memorable games of the late 2010s, Doki Doki Literature Club! naturally has a large number of associated memetic mutations.
Please add entries in the following format if possible:
Square up, thot.
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] Explanation Like this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- "[Character] is best girl"Explanation While variants of this phrase are nothing new in the anime communities, this template only became more popular in reference to Monika due to her being such a yandere that she sabotages the game so that not only does she have a route, but her route is the only route. Many would also genuinely say she is, as detailed in Draco in Leather Pants on the YMMV page.
- It's common in reviews for this game to play up the cute aspects while only vaguely alluding to it being a Disguised Horror Story, such as making puns about Sayori's and Yuri's deaths, or talking about how wonderful Monika is.
- Just Monika. Explanation She has a tendency to railroad options to her favor, turning the phrase into eerie Arc Words across Act Two. There's even a sequence where the player is forced to sit through the phrase six times in a row, including a fake-out cut back to the title screen. Its frequent usage has led to many fans saying it, and it's since become a phrase heavily associated with the game.
- Just Mônica.Explanation From the Brazilian side of the fandom, this variant
of the "Ata" meme posted on Tumblr has Monica (with a "c") from the Brazilian comic series Monica's Gang edited to have Monika's hair and sitting in front of the computer with the words "Just Monika" on the screen. Considering how Monica herself is one of the most popular characters in Brazil, the comparison was bound to happen. - (No Hubert.) Just Monica.Explanation Monica von Ochs from Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes was revealed to have Stalker with a Crush tendencies for celebrity songstress Dorothea and especially Edelgard, their empress. Comparisons came quickly. Hubert is Edelgard's right hand man, and thus Monica's "rival".
- It's not over until the credits roll.Explanation The most common response to people who try to quit after Sayori's suicide, or to a lesser extent those who don't realize that there is more to the story after Act 3.
- Hang in there!Explanation What many people refer to Sayori's suicide as. It's also used to refer to the event where posters in the back of the clubroom are replaced with the image of Sayori's corpse.
- No bulli the Sayori!Explanation Often said by Sayori fans in response to the large wave of these types of memes.
- BulliExplanation The next step of mutation, with the term now being used to refer to any remark made at any girl's and MC's expense.
- monikaS Explanation monkaS is a Twitch emote to convey fear and/or anxiety. It didn't take long for users to mutate the term, and it becomes doubly relevant once Monika's role in the story is understood.
- "Buffsuki"◊ or "Swolesuki", an outlandishly muscular version of Natsuki based off of a fanart◊ of Riku from the Kingdom Hearts series. Uses of this Natsuki variant often involve comparisons with her considerably smaller regular counterpart as well as her using her newfound strength to retaliate against other characters, particularly her father and Monika.
- She is often depicted saying "Square up, thot" that has become one of the most memetic sentences associated with the game.
- Monika Number Five Explanation Editing Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5" to replace all the girl names so that only Moni(k)a remains has become popular, too. If you go to just about any video of the song at this time you'll find comments relating to it.
- Appending ".chr" to one's username. Explanation The format of the character files in this game, implying that those users are just characters in a simulated world.
- "Doki Doki is not Oki Doki." Explanation Used when humorously discussing the game's Disguised Horror Story nature, apparently started by MagikarpUsedFly.
- A lot of people like to make Flex Seal jokes in relation to Yuri's death after JonTron popularized the product in a video released around the same time, mostly thanks to the "extreme bucket demo" featured in said JonTron video involving Phil Swift stabbing a bucket with a large knife.
- fucking monikammmmmmm Explanation One of the pieces of Natsuki's altered dialogue in the screwed up act 2. Being one of the very few instances of explicit language in the game makes it incredibly memorable, and it's often cited as a response to a glitchy scene or Monika in general.
- Doki Doki Eldritch Horror Explanation Many people like combining the girls together (or humorously, like Monika's thighs and Natsuki's fang) or all four to make a "perfect" member of the club. One person brought it to exaggerate all of these, including Buffsuki, and make some eldritch horror that is both hilarious and terrifying to look at.
- Manga is literature! Explanation Natsuki's insistence that manga be included in the Literature Club's itinerary. The quote is often paired with Yuri's Deadpan Snarking or her father abusing her for bringing it up.
- Fans often use "posture", especially "bad posture" as a synonym for big breasts. Explanation In the game, Yuri says that she suffers from back pain and starts to attribute it to a reason. She stops herself short, but it's implied from the look on her face that she was about to say that her large rack was the cause. The protagonist, either innocently or knowingly, suggests that "bad posture" was the the reason for her back pain, to which Yuri hastily agrees.
- The East German song Monika is now associated with Monika from the game. Take a look at the comment section which one user notes has turned into a fusion of Doki Doki Literature Club and the Volksarmee, with Monika even getting fanart of her in the NVA uniform.
- On the matter of communists, a lot of art◊ depicts the Dokis in Soviet-style uniforms with Monika being some Stalin-like figure, with the joke being that the game is a Whole-Plot Reference to Stalin's party purges.◊
- I gently open the door. Explanation (spoilers) Many people like to edit Sayori's death in various humorous ways. The most common is to pull a Bait-and-Switch by having the scene play out the way it does in the game, only for the reveal to be something Faux Horrific.
- 2029 Explanation There was a prediction that in 2029, the brain could directly enter virtual reality with sensory functions intact. This has spawned a ton of memes in regards to the attraction of the girls, specifically Monika, involving people waiting for 2029 to roll around and make Monika's dream come true.
- There's another variant of this meme, namely that there's a prediction that robots would be used as sexual partners in 2029, which caused people to claim that Monika will come to their world in 2029.
- This image of Monika T-Posing over Sans. Explanation A fan art made by sansurichin, the image is used to depict dominance from one side, Monika, and the other side cowering in fear, Sans. As Sans had already become a rather memetic character by this time due to his own meta-awareness and use of said meta-awareness, this meme is essentially Monika declaring her dominance as a new memetic character from a Disguised Horror Story game of the 2010s.
- Rated M For Monika Explanation The Updated Re-release, DDLC Plus, is rated Mature by the ESRB for "violence, blood, suggestive themes, and strong language". Naturally, getting an M rating for what is ostensibly a cutesy anime dating-sim caused many to joke about how Monika changed the rating, or perhaps is the reason the game was rated M in the first place.
- Cool Sayori / "Coolyori" Explanation A piece of fanart depicting Sayori giving finger guns while wearing aviator shades; originally based on the preexisting "that's where you're wrong kiddo" meme, the artwork became popular to use among DDLC fans as a variant of Drakeposting. Eventually received Meme Acknowledgement when Team Salvato released a set of custom emoji for DDLC's sixth anniversary, including one of Sayori wearing shades of the same color as those in the original image.
- Egg SayoriExplanation The game has a sizable trans following that particularly latched onto Sayori; because the game came out around the time when the concept of "eggs" (trans people who don't yet realize that they're trans) started entering mainstream visibility, an offshoot of the "Cool Sayori" meme themed around the idea emerged, becoming popular enough to give the original fanartist a noticeable Colbert Bump.
- "Monika: Friendship is awesome!" "Main Character: Hello." "Monika: These bitches are going down." Explanation Plus is a prequel to the main game that shows how all four girls met, and put a lot of focus on how they became friends, with many heartwarming moments. Which can come off as jarring given how in the main game the girls will begin to bicker and fight among each other for the Main Character's attention, and that's before getting to everything Monika ends up doing.
- Natsuki's News Explanation A meme template derived from a drawing of Natsuki sitting at a table with a cupcake, which received a version◊ with a news banner and was subsequently used in many posts on the DDLC subreddit where she reports the news on various things.
- There are many jokes that this game is tied to Super Mario Bros. 2 in some way, shape or form. The well-known fact that that game was originally released as Doki Doki Panic definitely has something to do with it.
- Skip! Skip! Yo, when does this game get fucking good, bruh?Explanation During streamer Ishowspeed's playthrough of the game, he kept skipping the dialogue of the game, as he found it boring. But then, after skipping enough, he got to Sayori's suicide, and got fittingly shocked by it. People have since taken that part of the stream and replaced the game with something else to make it look like Ishowspeed is choosing between stuff such as food to eat, while changing the part with Sayori's suicide to something like a lego brick or a Tide Pod.
