DreamWorks Animation
- TikTokers are making memes about the "Shrek" character Prince Charming.
- The memes show creators stretching out their faces using an in-app effect and lip-syncing.
- It's one of the latest trends in the "Shrek" franchise's long history of memes and online fame.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
TikTokers are putting on their best impressions of Prince Charming from Shrek by lip-syncing his ridiculous lines like "not here, kitten whiskers," and using an in-app effect to replicate his animated face.
The meme involves people using TikTok's "Face Time Warp" effect to stretch out their face in a manner reminiscent of Charming's comically chiseled chin. After applying the effect, users then lip-sync along to one of Charming's lines from the Shrek films. The trend, which began circulating on TikTok in September, involves two different audios that have a combined 325,000 videos to their name.
Charming is an antagonist in the franchise who first appears in "Shrek 2," competing for the ogre princess Fiona's love and attempting to steal her away from her husband Shrek. He appears once again in "Shrek The Third," throwing a coup d'état in Fiona's home kingdom of Far Far Away.
Voiced by English actor Rupert Everett, Charming is smarmy and dripping with baseless confidence. A classic pretty boy with an exaggeratingly chiseled face, his lines from the films and striking likeness have made him prime TikTok meme fodder.
The TikTok trend began in early September
The trend began to take off on TikTok in early September and appears to have been popularized by TikTok user @danielabrahall, who used the "Face Time Warp" effect to lip-sync to one of Charming's lines from "Shrek 2" using an audio uploaded by TikTok user @wayofthewesley.
"Is that glitter on your lips?" Fiona asks in the audio, speaking to Prince Charming, who is pretending to be her husband Shrek during the dialogue.
"Mmm, cherry flavored. Want a taste?" @danielabrahall lip-syncs in response, parroting Charming's line.
The trend eventually also featured another Prince Charming audio, which was uploaded to TikTok in January by user @deanshannai. That one clips a sequence from "Shrek The Third" in which Charming brushes off a comment from Rapunzel, the princess.
"Not here, kitten whiskers," he says, his voice laden with annoyance. "Daddy will discuss it later."
Since "Shrek" was released in 2001, the franchise and its characters have grown to hold a venerated place in meme culture. The film, as Polygon reported, was an oddball in the early 2000s animation landscape, bucking against the idyllic fantasy animated features that had predominately been made by Disney.
TikTok's Prince Charming memes are merely the latest in the lineage of Shrek's lasting online fame: a culture that's included surreal sexual posts fantasizing about Shrek, the meme-ification of Smash Mouth's "All Star," and real-life events celebrating the films.
Read more stories from Insider's Digital Culture desk.