The Cave Diver Meme Trend, Explained

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A hilarious look at the inspiration behind these surreal videos and why they’re going viral on social media

Co-authored by Eric McClure Reviewed by Candace Gasper

Last Updated: September 3, 2025 Fact Checked

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What are cave diver memes?

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Where did they come from?

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Cave Diver Meme Examples

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Video

There’s a 1 ft (0.30 m) wide hole in the middle of nowhere that leads to a dark, wet dungeon full of spiders. You want to climb in there, right? Well, probably only if you’re a cave diver. This dangerous (and wild) hobby has led to countless examples of mishap and adventure, but why are there memes about it showing up everywhere? We’ll break it down for you (and share some of our favorite examples).

What’s with the cave diver memes?

YouTube and TikTok users have noticed a lot of cave diving videos in their recommended videos, especially in the past year. In response, people have started creating memes that show people, silhouettes, or feet sticking out of small spaces to poke fun at cave diving and how wild and dangerous it is.

Section 1 of 3:

What are the cave diver memes about?

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Cave diver memes are poking fun at how absurd cave diving is. It takes a special kind of person to look at a giant hole that leads down into the dark depths of the underground and go, “Yeah, I’m going to go in there.” The memes have blown up partially because cave diving videos have been seriously having their moment online. For some reason, the TikTok and YouTube algorithms have been showing cave diver videos to tons of users, so the memes are all over the place, too. Why have the memes taken off? There are a few reasons, including:
- Cave diving is a wild hobby. It’s super dangerous, and if you’re even slightly claustrophobic, this hobby is the stuff of nightmares.
- It’s amazing how cave divers fit into tiny spaces. Many of the cave diver memes highlight how wild it is that human beings will contort themselves to fit inside tiny openings.
- The algorithms randomly latched onto cave diving content. Videos exploring caves and covering cave diving incidents have just been randomly showing up a lot, so there’s a lot of inspiration for cave diving content.

Section 2 of 3:

Where did the cave diver meme come from?

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“Cave divers be like” memes took off in 2025. It’s unclear who published the first “cave divers be like” meme, but these short videos feature a “cave diver” analyzing a fictional or unrealistic opening as if they’re going to climb in. Then, the camera cuts, and you just see the bottom of their shoes as if they’re inside. The trend likely started when a YouTube user named BigMoneyJT published a short video about a cave diver climbing inside the gap between their fridge and kitchen floor.
- These memes sort of zero in on a very specific behavior that cave divers engage in, where they force themselves into unfathomably small and dangerous spaces, like this. It’s a bizarre combination of terrifying and mesmerizing to see a human body force itself into such small spaces!
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The meme featuring a gray silhouette is from the Nutty Putty incident. You’ve probably seen memes like this one that feature a digital image of a gray person upside down in a narrow cave. This image is an illustration of the Nutty Putty Cave incident—a tragic (and very disturbing) catastrophe from 2009. Cave diving enthusiast John Jones misunderstood the route he was taking and ended up accidentally getting stuck, headfirst, inside an angular crevice. He couldn’t reverse from where he was, and he tragically died after being stuck for 27 hours.^{[1]
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- The memes that feature the Nutty Putty Cave illustration are typically poking some dark fun at deeply tragic and unfortunate circumstances.
- The Nutty Putty memes are often paired with the Saddam Hussein bunker memes, which also feature a silhouette of a person in a bizarre position underground (original here), like in this example.^{[2]
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- The Nutty Putty cave was sealed off with concrete after Jones lost his lif, and nobody has been allowed in the cave since.

Section 3 of 3:

Cave Diver Memes

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Here are a few fan-favorites in the cave diving genre. Knowing the context now, you’ll appreciate these memes a lot more. Here are a few bangers to enjoy:
- This “cave divers be like” video from @veefriends featuring a stuffed cow.
- Here’s a wacky video from @michaelpickettt that went viral and got 60+ million views.
- This Nutty Putty mashup combines three cave diving memes in one.
- Check out this video by MasterofRoflness about how insane every cave diving documentary is.