‘Boy Math’ And ‘Girl Math’ Meme, Explained

You might have seen the term “Boy Math” thrown around the internet lately, poking fun at nonsensical decisions made by men (at least, according to women).

Nowadays, gender-specific jokes are firing at a frequency not seen since the days of Rodney Dangerfield, from the feminine urge to throw together a measly “Girl Dinner” to the masculine urge to dwell on the lost glories of Rome.

To understand Boy Math, we first need to revisit its successor, “Girl Math.”

What is the Girl Math meme?

Girl Math is an invented set of “rules” that women supposedly keep to when justifying impulse spending. For example, any item under five dollars is considered free, as is anything bought with cash. Concert tickets bought in advance are also free (at least, by the time said concert rolls around).

Purchases that are returned for a refund aren’t just free, but profitable, according to the carefully distorted logic of Girl Math.

Essentially, Girl Math is the “women be shopping” meme, but created and popularized by women, mostly on TikTok.

According to KnowYourMeme, the trend originated in August with a video from @samjamessssss in which she proposes that the discourse move from “Girl Dinner” to “Girl Math.”

The joke was embraced by female content creators and commentators; Buzzfeed’s Shelby Heinrich described Girl Math as “probably the most accurate thing I’ve ever heard.” While some took offense to the popularization of an old gender stereotype, the meme was generally viewed as a tongue-in-cheek ode to the joys of consumption.

There were attempts to turn “Boy Math” into a thing after Girl Math exploded, with jokes about men’s perceived frugality, but the meme never really caught on until September, by which time the punchline had changed.

What is the Boy Math meme?

Like its predecessor, Boy Math is all about nonsensical “rules.” This time, the focus is not on spending, but general hypocrisy and leaps of logic.

Again spearheaded by female creators, the meme focuses on the quirks and flaws of men, usually pointing out that men aren’t quite as logical as they like to believe.

Most of the Boy Math memes have come from posts on “X” (formerly known as Twitter), with the TikTok content on the topic consisting of creators reading X posts.

Boy Math scenarios include “being afraid of gold diggers when you only have 3 pairs of socks to your name” and “wanting a traditional woman who pays bills.”

The meme even became a political punchline, embraced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wrote: “Boy math is needing 15 attempts to count the votes correctly to become Speaker and then shutting down the government 9 months later.”

One X user threw in a reference to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter/X, writing:

“Boy math is paying $44 billion for a $25 billion company and, through business smarts and entrepreneurial know how, turning it into an $8.8 billion company.”

Some of the Boy Math jokes have veered into a more serious tone, tackling misogyny rather than roasting the oddities and eccentricities of men. One X post reads: “Boy math is waiting until her 18th birthday, and thinking that doesn’t make you a pedophile.”

Another says: “Boy math is being 6 times more likely to abandon their wives with terminal or chronic illness and then crying about male loneliness.”

Take my wife, please

Although the genders are switched, Boy Math memes echo the old-fashioned “take my wife, please” jokes once beloved by male stand-up comedians, who exaggerated the flaws in their marriage for comedic effect.

The perceived differences between men and women seems to be a topic that never loses its punch, an infinite source of witticisms and one-liners.

Serious posts aside, the meme has generally been a lighthearted roast between genders, without sparking too much animosity, but still, the sparring has been heralded as a victory for women.

Many commentators noted that the fact that female creators popularized both memes was significant, destroying the negative stereotype about women being bad at comedy.

Christopher Hitchens, it turns out, didn’t know what he was talking about.