About
Girl With Man’s Hand Over Mouth or Goku Covering Kid’s Mouth refers to a series of memes[1] based on a stock photograph[2] of a girl with man’s hand covering her mouth in which characters are edited into the background to represent the person muffling the girl. Most popular versions of the meme feature Goku[3], Dr. House[4] and a cat[5]. The format first achieved popularity online in early 2024, later inspiring redraws.
Origin
On February 24th, 2014, the stock image “Scared young girl with an adult man’s hand covering her mouth” was uploaded to Alamy. The image shows a scared young girl with a man’s hand over her mouth. The man is standing behind her but is unpictured in the frame.
The exact origins of the meme are unclear. On April 19th, 2024, Redditor[6] u/Administrative-Can77 posted a meme to the subreddit /r/analoghorror that places the character Goku from Dragon Ball[7] behind the girl, garnering around 570 upvotes in a year. This is one of the earliest examples of the meme.
Spread
On August 15th, 2024, the Goku meme was reposted to the /r/animememes subreddit by Redditor u/PjrepGh, garnering over 3,200 upvotes in 10 months.
On August 16th, Redditor u/felipe0294 posted a collection of memes that place various characters behind the girl, as if kidnapping her, including Baldi[8], to the /r/pillarchase2 subreddit, garnering over 80 upvotes in 10 months.
The post inspired a large number of photoshops that were shared in the comment section as people made their own versions of the meme over the next few months.
On March 25th, 2025, TikToker @sketchletch456 posted a video consisting of the Baldi version of the meme captioned, “share this image to your friend and say nothing,” garnering over 46,000 views in three months.
@sketchletch456 #baldi #meme #scary #prank #baldisbasics #lol #lmao #kidnapped #help ♬ Silent Hill – Horror music – Gabriel Andrade Produções[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]
On May 21st, Redditor u/PotatoPineapple1 posted a version of the meme to the /r/Deltarune subreddit, replacing the young girl with Ralsei from Deltarune[20] and placing Hank from Madness Combat[21] behind her, garnering over 250 upvotes in two weeks.
Various Examples
Template
Search Interest
External References
References
- ^ memes (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ stock photograph (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Goku (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Dr. House (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ cat (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Redditor (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Dragon Ball (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Baldi (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ @sketchletch456 (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ baldi (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ meme (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ scary (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ prank (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ baldisbasics (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ lol (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ lmao (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ kidnapped (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ help (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ ♬ Silent Hill – Horror music – Gabriel Andrade Produções (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ Deltarune (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Madness Combat (knowyourmeme.com)