How 'oh no, our table, it's broken' went from 'America's Funniest Home Videos' to a TikTok meme challenge
- Audio of glass breaking and a child saying "oh no, our table, it's broken" has exploded on TikTok.
- The audio comes from a clip that appears to have first aired on America's Funniest Home Videos.
Audio of a child saying, "oh no! our table! it's broken!" has become one of TikTok's biggest try-not-to-laugh challenges years after the clip, which also features the shattering sound of a broken table, first began circulating online in 2016 after it appears to have aired on the ABC program "America's Funniest Home Videos."
Uploaded to TikTok in July by the user @chefsbrim, the sound is popularly used by users who film themselves trying not to laugh as they lip-sync along to its words. It has soundtracked over 411,000 videos, some of which feature the try-not-to-laugh challenge, while others show users pantomiming the sound.
While the shattering noise of the table has echoed in thousands of TikTok videos in 2021, it's been circulating online in various forms for half a decade.
The video appears to have originally aired on 'America's Funniest Home Videos' in 2016
The video appears to have come into internet fame by airing on "America's Funniest Home Videos" ("AFV"), the ABC television program that compiles funny home videos, as its name suggests, with the chance for their owners to win cash prizes. Per Know Your Meme, the video originally aired on "AFV" in February 2016, and was also uploaded to the show's account on Vine, the now-defunct short-form video app.
In the video, a child stacks what appear to be bricks on a table as multiple people film the stunt. Too much weight causes the towers of bricks to fall and the table to crumble, producing the glass-shattering sound of the century.
"Oh no!" The child exclaims as he approaches the site of destruction. "Our table! It's broken!"
On Vine, the clip received approximately 971,100 "loops" - Vine parlance for views - the archived post shows. That was only the beginning of its online fame.
Clips of the video were re-uploaded sporadically since its original air date in 2016 on platforms like YouTube and Reddit. This year, fans began to apply its audio to internet-famous rhythm games like "Beat Saber" and "Friday Night Funkin." These kinds of edits, in which creators make rhythm game maps to memes, are a relatively common phenomenon.
'Oh no, our table, it's broken' exploded on TikTok last month
After audio of the video was uploaded to TikTok, users began to apply it to some viral videos like this one from a TikToker claiming they were hiding in the walls from their mother or another featuring a falling-apart laptop, both of which were posted in August and received at least a million likes.
The audio seems to have gained major traction on TikTok in late September as users pantomimed the actions of the sound, lip-synced along, or applied it to other memes.
In October, however, many users were filming themselves trying not to laugh while lip-syncing the sound - a task that seemingly becomes impossible the minute that they turn the camera on themselves. In some cases, the challenge seems to have circled around in parody, with users making exaggerated facial expressions as if they're holding in laughter.
Long-standing meme sounds regularly circle around into TikTok fame, and "oh no, our table, it's broken" is just the latest. Other internet-famous audio clips like the chorus of Raffi's "Bananaphone" or Starburst's "Berries and Cream" jingle have also sparked TikTok memes of their own in the past.