Meme · meme format

By Deimos EMK · Published Oct 4, 2026 · Updated Oct 4, 2026 · 5 min read · AI-drafted, source-checked

Via GIPHY (@Fuji23)

• StatusPeaking now
• Typephrase
• Categorymeme format
• LaneMemes

See it in action

Video: how I feel in my hometown trend, embedded from its original platform.

What the meme is

The 'How I Feel In My Hometown' trend is a TikTok format built on one simple visual joke: you take a clip or photo of an ordinary, recognizable spot from where you grew up, a quiet road, a small-town street, a suburban shopping center, a rural landscape, and layer an edit of an anime or other fictional character over it, captioned 'how I feel in my hometown' or 'how it feels in my hometown.' The character is always someone who looks completely wrong for the setting: too dramatic, too stylish, too much for a gray street or a country road in Tennessee.

That mismatch is the entire punchline. The character becomes a stand-in for the poster, and the message reads instantly: this is what it feels like to be me, in this place.

The feelings packed into the format are more layered than a single joke. Depending on the character and the location, a post can express boredom, awkwardness, nostalgia, alienation, or the sense that your personality simply doesn't match your surroundings, sometimes several of those at once.

Someone stuck in a quiet rural town casts themselves as an intense Jujutsu Kaisen character; someone back in their suburban mall imagines a dramatic anime protagonist wandering the food court.

The exaggeration is intentional and ironic, the posts are largely presented as jokes rather than sincere statements, but the underlying sentiment is often real: feeling stuck in a place that doesn't suit you, or like you've outgrown the community that raised you.

Part of the format's flexibility is that any fandom can plug into it. Documented examples pull from My Dress-Up Darling, Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, Alien Stage, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ouran High School Host Club, Nana, Madoka Magica, and Evangelion, mapped onto places as varied as the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, rural Tennessee, South Texas, Orange County, Warsaw, and Serbia.

The character choice does the emotional work: picking a character known for feeling removed from their own world sharpens the joke, while the specific hometown footage keeps it personal. To someone outside the bit, it can look like random anime clips over dashcam footage, to anyone in on it, it's a whole autobiography in fifteen seconds. [1][2][3][4][5]

Seen in use

People using “How I Feel In My Hometown trend” in their own posts, each linked to the post itself. These are examples of use, not sources.

Every quote above passed the same verification gate this site publishes under: real source, real date, copied verbatim. See the editorial policy.

How it spread

The trend emerged in late August 2026 and spread rapidly through September, with each new iteration pulling bigger numbers than the last.

After the early Marin Kitagawa example on August 30th, a Chainsaw Man edit set in rural Tennessee from @rosstheboss28 pulled over 395,800 views in about a week on September 11th, a Suguru Geto edit from @crux_x5 hit over 434,600 views in six days, a South Texas Jujutsu Kaisen edit from @jiminiemochioppa reached over 598,300 views in roughly four days, and an Alien Stage version from @maffichuu cleared 294,700 views in three days.

Each new version drags a fresh fandom into the format, which keeps the cycle going.

The format works because it's cheap to make and infinitely personalizable, all you need is footage of your own town and a character edit, no special skills required. It also taps a near-universal feeling: the weird dislocation of living in, or returning to, the place you grew up.

The ironic contrast between a heightened anime aesthetic and painfully ordinary local scenery gives people a way to say 'I don't belong here' that's funny instead of mopey, which is exactly the register TikTok rewards.

Variants & examples

Casual TikTok-native format; still fresh and peaking as of September 2026, so participating reads as current rather than cringe, just keep the irony intact.

• “POV: it's Suguru Geto standing in a South Texas H-E-B parking lot, how I feel in my hometown, honestly.”Caption on a TikTok joining the trend
• “She posted a 'how I feel in my hometown' edit with Marin Kitagawa over footage of her Midwest suburb and it actually nailed the vibe.”Describing a friend's TikTok
• “Every 'how it feels in my hometown' video is just an anime character looking way too cool for a rural gas station and I can't stop watching.”Commenting on the trend's appeal
• “I made a how I feel in my hometown edit with a Chainsaw Man character over my street in Tennessee, the contrast is the whole joke.”Explaining your own post
• “The Alien Stage version of the hometown trend hit different because the character already looks like they're from another planet.”Discussing a standout variant

Frequently asked