About
Did He Die? (alt. spelled “Did He Died?”) is a catchphrase generally posted by trolls in YouTube comments section. Quite often, the phrase is posted in response to FAIL videos, particularly those featured on FAILblog, but in some cases, it gets posted without any context, regardless of whether there’s a reason to even question if anyone might have died in the video. Other variations of the phrase include, “did he died” or “did x diedm” where X is the subject of the video.
Origin
In December of 2008, one Urban Dictionary definition was created for “Did he died?” This definition has been voted up over 500 times.
A troll’s response to any video where a person is injured
Person 1: OMG he hit his nuts on the rail
Troll: Did He died?
Person 1: stfu you retard
In May and June of 2009, several Urban Dictionary definitions were created for “did he die.” The following shows the phrase in action:
person 1: did he die?
person 2: die he did?
person 3: did he dieded?
person 4: he clearly died
person 5: dead
person 6: FIRST!lol
person 7: WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON??!!?!?!?
person 8: did he death?
person 9 reply to 8: grammar fail
person 10: ok this is getting old
In May 2009, Did he die.com was registered, and used to compile fail videos.
Spread
A Google Insights search for the phrase “did he die” is too general to return solid results because it picks up on the common phrase outside of the meme, along with phrases such as “how did he die” and “why did he die?”
But the phrase “did he died” shows that people have been searching for the grammatically incorrect version of the phrase since at least the beginning of 2005, even before the launch of YouTube.
Meta videos
Some videos were made as self-aware satires of the phrase, while others serve as prime examples of exactly what’s so humorous about “did he died?”: those who become aggravated and feed the trolls.