The 'This Is America' meme stems from the visually arresting and politically charged 2018 music video by Childish Gambino (Donald Glover). Directed by Hiro Murai, the video features Gambino performing eccentric dance moves and acts of violence against a backdrop of escalating chaos, symbolizing the distractions used to mask systemic issues in the United States. While the original work is a serious critique of gun violence and racial injustice, the internet quickly adapted specific frames—particularly Gambino's shirtless pose and his exaggerated facial expressions—into a versatile labeling template. It is frequently used to represent the juxtaposition between a person's focused activity and the chaotic reality surrounding them, or as a literal take on American culture and its ironies.