"Do You Remember When We Were All at School?" Poem & Meme Explained

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Dive into Sam Browne's viral poem & the brainrot memes it inspired

Co-authored by Dev Murphy, MA

Last Updated: December 12, 2025 Fact Checked

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Poem Origin

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Memes & Copypastas

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Poem Meaning

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Video

"Do you remember when we were all at school?" goes the first line of British spoken word poet Sam Browne's viral poem "Silly Billy." After the poem took off on TikTok in early 2025, this line—as well as the one that follows, "We were all silly, and we used to throw glue sticks at the ceiling"—became viral memes. But what's the poem about? You might be surprised to learn it's actually a serious meditation on the consequences of unchecked toxic masculinity. We'll explain the meaning of the poem, according to Browne himself, in more depth below, as well as explore its transformation into a popular TikTok meme. Keep reading for everything you need to know!

What does "Do you remember when we were all at school?" mean?

"Do you remember when we were all at school?" is the first line of Sam Browne's spoken word poem "Silly Billy," which went viral on TikTok in early 2025 and has since been turned into a copypasta and a meme, with TikTok users lip syncing the poem or remixing the video in brainrot edits.

Section 1 of 3:

"Do You Remember When We Were All at School?" Origin

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This quote is the first line in Sam Browne's poem "Silly Billy." In January 2025, Sam Browne, a spoken word poet from England, shared a TikTok of himself reciting his poem in the woods. The TikTok quickly went viral, garnering more than 37,000 likes. He also shared the video to Instagram and received over 12,000 likes in the first five months. Many users were moved by the piece's challenging themes of misogyny and sexual assault, and others were compelled to…well, meme-ify the heck out of the poem (there truly are two types of people).
- Browne also posted a video to TikTok of himself reciting the poem on stage at the FFinc awards in February 2025, for which he received over 107,700 likes in four months. He also shared the video to Instagram, gaining over 548,900 likes, and, in June, he shared it to LinkedIn.
- The most famous lines of the poem (and most memeified) are the first few:
  - Do you remember when we were all at school,
    and we were silly,
    and we used to throw glue sticks at the ceiling,
    'cause we wanted to,
    and what the f**k was she gonna do?
    Miss Lovett, there's 30 of us and one of you.
    But glue stops sticking.
    Lovett's tears had to dry.
    I don't think we were malicious, no,
    Just a bit f**ked up inside…

Section 2 of 3:

"Do You Remember When We Were All at School?" Memes

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As the poem gained popularity, it became a brainrot meme. TikTokers and Instagrammers isolated the first two lines of the poem—"Do you remember when we were all at school? We were all silly, and we used to throw glue sticks at the ceiling"—and turned them into brainrot memes and copypastas. The memes generally poke fun at what Browne seems to be trying and failing to depict as a relatable or universal experience—throwing glue sticks at the ceiling—and at his overly sincere (even cringe) delivery of the lines. (As one Redditor commented, the poem reads like something "straight out of r/teenagers.")
- Many users remix the poem in brainrot edits, as in @cryptobullwhale's viral Instagram edit, which added heart visuals and sound effects to the video.
- Other users have posted videos of themselves lip syncing to Browne's original audio, like in user @isabellacsgrv's TikTok of herself lip-syncing to the first two lines of the poem with the caption, "when the convo dies so you gotta bring up some random primary school memory" or in @dxnnyszn's TikTok of a dog "lip syncing" the poem.
- Other users, like @celticsontop1234, posted TikToks of glue sticks stuck to the ceiling, overlaid with audio from Browne's original recording.
- But some users have kept their edits simple, like @strawberryshortcake300, who reposted Browne's TikTok with the caption, "What is he talking about."
- The quotes have also been turned into copypasta, with users spamming them into TikTok comment sections.

Section 3 of 3:

"Silly Billy" Poem Meaning

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The poem explores "misogyny and the social responsibilities of men," according to Browne. When Browne shared a video of himself performing the piece at the FFinc awards earlier this year to his LinkedIn page, he added a caption that contextualized the spoken word poem, clarifying that it's about toxic masculinity and how it thrives when unchecked. "It’s not enough to do nothing," he writes. "We must be part of the solution."^{[1]
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- The poem begins with the narrator fondly recollecting times in his youth when he and the boys in his class would playfully throw glue sticks at the ceiling to get them to stick, much to their female teacher's dismay.
- But the poem takes a turn in the second half, when we learn one of the narrator's friends—Billy—ends up sexually assaulting a woman when he gets older:
  - But glue stops sticking,
    Lovett’s tears had to dry.
    I don’t think we were malicious, no,
    Just a bit f**ked up inside.
    One of us was called Billy.
    Billy f**king loved it, dreamed of glue sticks every night,
    Til years later, Billy was at a party and this girl,
    She was drunk out of her mind,
    And Billy felt silly.
    So Billy flicked off the lights,
    'Cause he wanted to,
    And what the f**k was she gonna do.
    He was screaming, "There’s one of me and none of you!"
    But some things just stick,
    Some tears never dry,
    And those of us he knew, we were all surprised.
    But Billy wasn’t malicious, nah.
    Just a bit f**ked up inside.
- The titular "Billy" is given leeway as a young man for immature behavior, with the narrator and their friends adopting a "boys will be boys" attitude around his disrespect towards women—only to be shocked when, down the road, Billy turns out to be a violent misogynist.
- The message of the poem, then, is that men should be brave enough and self-aware enough to call out red flags in other men, because misogyny unchecked can often result in violence.
- Most of the memes about the poem only emphasize the first few lines of the poem; in fact, some users have expressed surprise when they learn what the much-memed poem is really about. As one Redditor commented, "I was sad to find out this poem had been made into a popular meme with many not knowing where the original quotation came from. It's important to discuss topics like these and yet people instead make memes out of them."