What Are 'Papyrus' Memes? The Instagram Font Turned Ironic Meme Trend Explained

The font Papyrus has led to an entire meme trend called Papyrus Irony that's taken over the Explore pages of Instagram users in recent years.

The oddly deep-fried and ironic trend feels like a resurrection of surreal memes for a hood irony audience.

If all of those phrases make sense to you, congratulations, you should probably get offline soon (us too). If not, let's explain their meaning and why Papyrus and its sub-trends have gone so viral.

What Is The Papyrus Font?

Papyrus is a font that resembles ancient text, replicating how a mantra would be engraved on a tablet in Mesopotamia. It was created in 1982 by graphic designer Chris Costello when he was only 23 years old.

The font gained widespread popularity when it was used for the Avatar poster. Soon after, Papyrus amassed notoriety, joining the ranks of Comic Sans and Wingdings as fonts not to use in a serious setting.

How To Get Papyrus Font On Instagram

Papyrus font has soared in popularity recently because it's actually a secret font on Instagram. Back in 2021, users of the app realized that Papyrus was an easter egg in Instagram's code that they could use in their stories via a simple trick.

To use Papyrus on Instagram, go into "Create" mode on an Instagram story and choose Comic Sans as your text. Then, type "Papyrus" in Comic Sans. That's all you need to do. Then, you can backspace "Papyrus" and write whatever you want in the font.

Where Did The Papyrus Meme Come From?

Papyrus has become the quintessential meme text over the past few months, joining the likes of Impact as one of the most saturated typefaces used online.

It all started when a little-known rapper and artist named Tek lintowe jailbroke his Android back in 2022 and made all of the text on it Papyrus. As Tek's popularity grew in the 2020s, alongside his rap group Shed Theory's rise (including rappers like Joeyy), so did his usage of Papyrus because it just looked so funny and absurd.

A meme creator named Bug2sick on Instagram then started using Papyrus in lots of ironic memes, eventually inspiring lots of others to join the wave. Bug2sick started the brand Wait I'm Goated whose iconic shirt is written in the ancient font.

What Are Freaky Memes?

Papyrus memes have inspired a lot of sub-trends that are cropping up all over social media sites like TikTok and Twitter / X. One of the most popular ones is Freaky memes which show "freaky" versions of apps, characters and celebrities who are shown with their tongue out like this: 👅.

For instance, what if Fortnite was "freaky?" It'd be called "𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂nite" is what.

The trend started when a Papyrus meme was posted on Instagram last year, showing the alien from the comedy movie Paul saying, "Im fr a freak Just lmk.."

What's The Rio De Janeiro Filter Meme?

Another notable meme a part of Papyrus Irony is the Rio De Janeiro filter on Instagram. The purple and pink filter is contagious at the moment, making screenshots look hilarious low-brow, pretending that the meme's creator was so lazy that they didn't even wait for "Rio De Janeiro" to fade from their screen.

What's The 'Hello Bro' Meme?

A popular Papyrus meme on TikTok is Hello Bro. It's also known as Hello Vro, as in, the XXXTentacion word for "Bro."

Although Hello Bro memes started on X, they've since become commonplace on Instagram and TikTok when paired with cute animals in an ironic genre known as Soft Irony.

For the full history of Papyrus Irony, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's entry for even more information.