Meme History: English or Spanish?

I’m willing to bet that most men, when approached by a random stranger filming them in a public place, will probably just run away.

But those people could be missing the opportunity to a) become semi-internet famous, and b) prove their sexual orientation to an entire internet full of people who never asked. Confused?

Alfonso Nieves

Alfonso Nieves—better known on TikTok as @alfonsopinpon—is a prankster and social media content creator, often creating in the Tacoma, Washington, or Austin, Texas areas. He’s known for his impromptu interviews and pranks with random passers by—often in shopping malls. And in an area with such a high concentration of Spanish speakers, it’s not unreasonable to introduce yourself by asking which language they speak.

In late February 2024, he began the trend that he’d become most widely known for—telling his victims, almost all men, “whoever moves first is gay.”

To the surprise and disappointment of many, including their female partners, a lot of them freeze for a long time. But to many more viewers watching in comfortable anonymity online, it's a really funny, genuinely amusing thing. 

Initial Spread and Tributes

In three months, Alfonso’s first video had received almost 200,000 plays on TikTok. His next two received over 3 million and 4 million views respectively in the same timeframe. And this set a new norm for his channel. As of the writing of this video, if you scroll @alfonosopinpon on TikTok, you’ll find a whopping 61 videos with over a million plays. That number will only rise as time goes on.

It became famous enough that by May, tribute videos were being made and posted all over TikTok.

Including one which set it to “Static” by Steve Lacy. It’s now become the track to use for many other knockoff video creators and fans, to the point where it's now considered to be the unofficial “whoever moves first is gay” song. 

It's not every meme that gets a track assigned to it, and this is more evidence that it’s a really big trend taking off in an explosive way.

Controversy

A fair and pretty obvious point often made by critics is that this whole thing should go away because it has homophobic implications. After all, it highlights just how much a lot of straight men are afraid of being thought of as homosexual.

But the fact that this meme has taken off as much as it has is a testament to the idea that the culture war over what masculinity even is in the first place is still far from over. For a lot of men, it’s apparently still wrapped up in their sexuality, and for them, the power of a heteronormative society is still really strong.

The flip side of this is that many people participating might not be thinking that hard about it. And as the popularity of Alfonso’s videos continued to spread, the phrase “English or Spanish?” became a stand-in for the prank itself.

Dropping the entire thing about being gay (or not), as time went on more and more videos by fans were posted just making people freeze by asking “English or Spanish?” This is often in increasingly extreme or out-of-nowhere situations. Which arguably changes the entire thing. 

In this context, the new memes lose the referent entirely, and become just another fun viral gag—almost like a Gen Z version of the 2011-2012 planking fad.

But whether you think it should be canceled for its homophobia, or you think it's just innocent fun, like it or not “English or Spanish” is in all likelihood here to stay. 

The world is full of young men making stupid, half-thought-out jokes. Reward any one of them with 1.1 million TikTok followers and this is what you get. Is anyone surprised?

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