It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when a phrase achieves meme status, but it seems to be happening more than ever. From “I’m baby” to “You hate to see it,” expressions that first gained currency in the shadowy depths of Twitter and Instagram often go mainstream, but it can be tricky to trace the precise etymology that takes, say, “Weird flex, but okay” from extremely online slang to all-purpose catchphrase.
The expression “I love that for you” and its variants (“I love that for me/us/them”) has picked up steam of late. If you’re a culture vulture, you might suspect that its origins could partly be traced back to The Bachelor’s Arie Luyendyk Jr., a living manifestation of compulsory heterosexuality who exclaimed “I love that” in 2018 enough to merit a three-minute compilation video. It’s now become a widely used phrase within queer communities, appearing even as the title of an LGBTQ+ lifestyle blog.
Love is good