였던 것

Meme Name: ~였던 것[62]

The Korean phrase "~였던 것" is pronounced approximately as "yeot-deon geot" (similar to "yut-dun gut"). The tilde (~) indicates that a preceding noun or phrase would be inserted before the "was/used to be" part.

This meme first emerged on May 8, 2013, during comment discussions related to the anime 'Evangelion: Q'. It resurfaced in early 2018, gaining popularity through posts about The Sims series on DC Inside's Medieval Game Minor Gallery, and subsequently spread widely after being made into a DC Con (emoticon).

The '~였던 것' meme is primarily used to describe an object that is now broken or damaged, referring to its former, normal state, by appending '~이었던 것' (was) or '~였던 것' (was) to the end. It humorously describes objects that are damaged beyond recognition, deceased, or whose identity has changed, much like the Ship of Theseus. It originated from a line spoken by Kaworu Nagisa in 'Evangelion: Q' when he sees Lilith's corpse and says, "Lilith, that was Lilith." It is also used to convey the meaning "it is no longer what it was." It shares a similar context with the English expression 'Ex-Parrot' (from Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot' sketch).

Primarily used by internet community users, especially those active on online platforms like DC Inside. It tends to be more actively consumed by users with a good understanding of subculture content, such as Evangelion, The Sims, and Jujutsu Kaisen. Rather than being limited to a specific age group or gender, it is widespread among general internet users familiar with internet meme culture.

• Foot (that was a foot)
• Foot (emphasizing the past tense)
• Similarly, bolding the past tense endings '었' or '였다' when describing an object's past on wikis is a similar joke.
• In 'Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie,' Yuta Okkotsu uses a similar expression when looking at a twisted knife, saying, "A knife... that was a knife..."