The Smartschoolboy9 meme centers around a series of unsettling social media accounts featuring an adult man dressed in an undersized school uniform, often wearing pale makeup and a wig. The phenomenon gained massive traction in late 2024 across platforms like TikTok and YouTube as amateur detectives attempted to uncover the person's identity and motivations. Because of the 'uncanny valley' aesthetic and the bizarre nature of the content, the imagery has been adopted by the meme community to represent feelings of extreme discomfort, unexpected encounters, or surreal horror. It is primarily used in 'POV' style posts and image macros to highlight situations that feel deeply off-putting or unsettling.