Jeremy Allen White, 34, Responds to the Viral ‘The Bear’ Meme

When Season 1 of The Bear premiered, you may remember that it was a bit of a grassroots campaign to get fans to watch the series. The FX show was not the hit it is today right out the gate. One of the reasons that fans tuned in was because of word of mouth online, mainly using pictures of star Jeremy Allen White from the series to get them interested in the show. One of those tweets was shown to White during a recent trip to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon when host Jimmy Fallon was doing a segment on Season 4 of the hit show.

The tweet in question came from journalist Alex Zaragoza. In 2023, she posted “I’m too scared to watch The Bear because I’m actively in therapy to stop falling in love with men who look like this,” on social media. It included a picture of White as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto wearing a white t-shirt and a blue apron, which has since become something of a recognizable costume for anyone who is a fan of the series. If you see a white man on Halloween dressed like this, you know he has seen The Bear. Zaragoza followed up her tweet by saying, “By falling in love, I mean wasting my time.”

When Fallon showed the tweet to White on The Tonight Show promoting Season 4, White shared that it was probably responsible for the show’s success. “Oh man, I think she’s responsible for the success of the show, to be honest,” White told Fallon. “That one was going around a lot at the beginning. It was really good marketing.” It is true; the post has over 30,000 likes on it and was part of a movement with fans in Season 1. Many made jokes about how blue White’s eyes are and how Carmy would be trouble.

‘The Bear‘ Is the Show That Keeps Giving

Season 4 of the hit series just dropped on FX, bringing with it new challenges for the restaurant and Carmy. This also means more memes. A fan-favorite meme is to tell White to get brown contacts because he’s “too powerful” with his blue eyes. But that is the fun allure of The Bear. Carmy’s white shirt even became a topic of conversation, and it is literally just a white t-shirt! But with each new season, fans worry about our favorite restaurant chefs, and maybe the memes are just how we all cope.

You can see White in Season 4 of The Bear on Hulu.

Source: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon