The '500 Cigarettes' meme stems from a hilarious scene in the sci-fi series The Orville, where the characters Bortus and Klyden, members of the Moclan species, discover 20th-century cigarettes. After tasting one, they immediately use their ship's matter synthesizer to produce an overwhelming pile of 500 cigarettes at once. The scene went viral in 2024, particularly on TikTok and X, as users related to the absurd escalation of a new vice or hobby. It is commonly used to represent any situation where someone discovers something new and immediately dives in with excessive, hilarious, or unhealthy enthusiasm.