A strange new trend has been circulating across TikTok and Discord communities and remarkably, even Reddit, the internet’s unofficial headquarters for explaining weird behavior, has failed to decode its origin.

The phenomenon began in niche “absurdist humor” TikTok circles, the same kinds of communities that previously spawned trends like:

• “Skibidi Toilet”, a surreal meme series that went global
• NPC livestreaming, where creators mimic video-game characters
• The Backrooms, a viral liminal-space universe
• Slowed + reverb TikTok rituals

So when users started posting clips of themselves tapping random objects three times and whispering “factory settings” the internet treated it like just another absurdist micro-trend… at first.

But then it spread.

Fast.

Within days, the “reset ritual” appeared on TikTok sound pages, Discord meme channels, and even YouTube Shorts compilations titled “People Resetting Everything Challenge.”

Reddit users tried to track it down, similar to how they previously identified the origins of:

• the “Yanny/Laurel” debate,
• the “Harlem Shake,”
• and the “Blue vs. Black Dress” color illusion.

But this time, every attempt hit a dead end.

The earliest clip appears to come from a small TikTok creator in late January, likely meant as a parody of “AI-core” culture the aesthetic where humans imitate robots or tech glitches. Some commenters claim it was inspired by videos of people “rebooting” their pets or jokingly “unplugging” friends to fix their mood.

Subreddits like r/OutOfTheLoop, r/TikTokCringe, and r/InternetMysteries became flooded with posts asking:

“Where did this factory reset thing come from?”
“Is this satire?”
“Is this some Gen Alpha ritual?”

Eventually, moderators began locking threads because no consistent answer could be found.

That’s when users coined the phrase:

“Reddit rage-quit explaining this one.”

The credibility comes from the fact that:

• Absurdist, originless trends do go viral (example: Skibidi Toilet appeared out of nowhere)
• Reddit fails to track origins all the time (example: the early “Gyatt” and “Fanum Tax” slang)
• TikTok meme cycles are extremely fast
• AI-core and glitch-core aesthetics are real and popular

This makes the “factory reset ritual” feel like a realistic next step in modern meme evolution.