The 'Midnight City' meme is heavily inspired by the iconic 2011 synth-pop track by M83, often associated with the 'Drive' (2011) film aesthetic and the 'Literally Me' subculture. It typically depicts a character—often Ryan Gosling or a solitary driver—navigating a neon-lit urban landscape, capturing feelings of cinematic isolation, nostalgia, and cool melancholia. While the song was a global radio hit, the meme evolved on platforms like TikTok and Instagram as a shorthand for reaching a state of peak late-night introspection. It is widely used to highlight moments of aesthetic appreciation, self-reflection, or simply the powerful emotional shift that occurs when the song's famous synthesizer hook begins to play.