Low Taper Fade Meme
Low taper fade is a meme built on one improvised line: hyperpop artist ericdoa sang imagine if Ninja got a low taper fade during a January 2024 Twitch stream. The joke is the randomness, not the haircut itself.
Where low taper fade came from
On January 5, 2024 the musician ericdoa, whose legal name is Eric George Lopez, went live on Twitch and freestyled for roughly an hour. About half an hour in he sang, over and over, the line about imagining if Ninja got a low taper fade. Ninja is Richard Tyler Blevins, the Fortnite streamer and one of the most-followed people on Twitch. The stream was archived to YouTube on January 6, 2024, with the moment sitting around 25:35.
The context is the part most retellings skip. ericdoa has said he had been talking on stream about his late grandfather, the man who bought him his first guitar, and was trying not to cry in front of an audience. The line was what he reached for to break his own mood: the most absurd sentence available. That is why the clip sounds the way it does. It is sung, unsteady, and completely sincere about a subject that does not deserve sincerity.
It left the stream on January 11, 2024, when the clip was reposted to the TikTok account ericdoaclips, where it was reported to pass 1.4 million views within a day. Slideshow edits followed almost immediately, typically pairing the audio with a photo of Ninja.
Then the loop closed. On January 13, 2024, Ninja got a low taper fade and posted a TikTok showing it off, set to the original ericdoa sound. That video was reported at more than 5.4 million views inside three days. Google Trends recorded searches for the phrase low taper fade hitting an all-time high around this point, which is unusual for a haircut term that had been in barbershop use for years.
A second, larger meme grew out of the aftermath. On January 30, 2024 the TikTok account oblivioncactus posted a clip from a Ninja stream captioned with the observation that he was dragging the low taper fade at this point. In it Ninja sings the line and then says the meme is still massive. The clip became a copypasta, and the joke shifted from the haircut to the spectacle of someone insisting a meme is alive. By late 2024 the single word massive had spun off into its own format, used as a setup line for unrelated punchlines.
What low taper fade actually means
Two things at once, and they barely overlap. As a haircut it is a real and specific thing. As a meme it is a non sequitur, and the more irrelevant the context, the better it works. Dropping the phrase into an unrelated comment section is the standard use; ericdoa himself has complained that it turns up under everything he posts regardless of subject.
| Reading | Literal claim | What it actually does when someone says it |
|---|---|---|
| The haircut | Longer on top, cut progressively shorter down the sides and back, with the fade beginning low near the ears and neckline | The only literal sense. Almost never what the person commenting means. |
| The ericdoa line | A sung non sequitur from a January 2024 Twitch stream | The verified origin, and the audio that carries most edits. Works as a sound, not a sentence. |
| Still massive | The meme remains popular | Mocks the insistence rather than the meme. Aimed at anyone claiming a dead joke is alive, including outside this meme entirely. |
| An unrelated comment reply | Nothing at all | Pure derailment. The value is that it has no connection to whatever is being discussed. |
| You know what else is massive | A question | A spin-off setup line from late 2024. The haircut has fallen out of it completely. |
How people actually use it
As a comment-section grenade. The most common use is posting the phrase, or just the words low taper fade, under a video that has nothing to do with hair, streaming or Ninja. It is a recognition token. Anyone who knows it replies; anyone who does not is left reading a barbering term.
As an edit soundtrack. The original ericdoa audio is the asset that actually spread. It gets laid over slideshows, fade transitions and photo edits, usually timed so the picture blurs or fades on the word fade. This is the format that pushed the meme into TikTok at scale in mid-January 2024.
As a joke about the meme being over. After January 30, 2024 the dominant strain stopped being the haircut and became the still massive clip. Editing Ninja saying it into a new context, or captioning any stale trend with it, is now the more common move. Blevins has leaned into this himself, responding to variations on stream over the following years.
As a genuine barbershop request. The unusual part of this one is that it crossed back into the physical world. Searches for the cut spiked, and barbers reported being asked for it by name. That is a rarer outcome than it sounds, because most catchphrase memes have nothing to buy.
If you are making one rather than reading about one, two templates hold up. The first is the caption-over-photo edit, with the phrase set against an image that has no connection to hair. The second is the still massive reaction panel, used on any joke that has visibly run out of road.
What we do not know
- The view counts. The 1.4 million views on the January 11 repost and the 5.4 million on the Ninja haircut video come from meme documentation written at the time. They were snapshots then and cannot be checked now, and both videos have kept accumulating views.
- The exact timestamp in the stream. The 25:35 mark on the YouTube upload is reported in secondary sources. We could not confirm it against the archive, and stream archives get re-cut.
- Why ericdoa picked Ninja specifically. His own account is that he wanted the funniest thing he could think of. Whether the name was arbitrary or came from something earlier in the stream is not documented.
- The exact wording of the still massive quote. It circulates in several transcriptions, all conveying the same thing but differing in filler words. This page describes what he says rather than quoting a version we could not verify.
- Whether the Google Trends peak belongs entirely to the meme. The spike is real and documented, but low taper fade was already a searched barbering term, and no source separates meme-driven searches from people genuinely looking for a haircut.
- Where it stands now. The meme peaked in early 2024 and has since run as a recurring in-joke, with comeback edits still appearing in 2026. Whether that is a real revival or a small group keeping it alive is not something the available evidence settles.
Frequently asked questions
What does low taper fade mean?
As a haircut it means the hair is left longer on top and cut progressively shorter down the sides and back, with the fade starting low, near the ears and neckline. As a meme it means almost nothing, which is the joke.
Where did the low taper fade meme come from?
From a Twitch livestream by the musician ericdoa on January 5, 2024. About half an hour in, while freestyling, he sang the line about imagining if Ninja got a low taper fade. A clip reached TikTok on January 11, 2024.
Did Ninja actually get a low taper fade?
Yes. On January 13, 2024 he posted a TikTok showing the haircut, set to the original ericdoa sound. Google Trends recorded searches for the phrase hitting an all-time high around that period.
What does still massive mean?
It comes from a clip posted on January 30, 2024 in which Ninja says on stream that the low taper fade meme is still massive. People replay it as a joke aimed at anyone insisting a finished meme is alive.
Why did ericdoa sing that line?
He has said he had been talking about his late grandfather on stream and was trying not to cry, so he reached for the most absurd thing he could think of. The unguarded delivery is a large part of why the clip travelled.
Is the low taper fade meme dead?
It peaked in early 2024 and now runs as a recurring in-joke. Edits and comeback posts still appear in 2026 and Ninja still gets tagged in them, but it no longer dominates feeds the way it did.
What is the difference between a low taper fade and a low fade?
The terms overlap and barbers use them loosely. Broadly, a taper is a gradual shortening concentrated around the sideburns and neckline, while a fade blends further up the head. The meme ignores the distinction entirely.
What does you know what else is massive mean?
It is a spin-off of the same clip. Once the word massive became attached to Ninja, people started using it as a setup line for unrelated punchlines, which is how the joke outlived the haircut.
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