Yung Gravy Wants to Be Your New Dad

TikTok-beloved rapper Yung Gravy posted a TikTok video on Saturday thanking everyone for introducing him to their moms. He’s referring, naturally, to the trend on the app that began  earlier this month where people text pictures of Yung Gravy to their moms and screen record their responses.

Gravy’s video opens with a black screen with the words, “thank you to all the real ones who introduced their moms to gravy ❤️ your actions will not be in vain.” Gravy then shows screenshots of 18 different videos from what has come to be known as the Yung Gravy Mom Trend.

This trend was all the rage in the first couple weeks of July, and the song that accompanies these memes is still going viral. The videos, set to Gravy’s newest release “Betty (Get Money),” take the form of a series of iMessage conversation screenshots. The fan texts their mother something along the lines of, “Hey Mom, what do you think of this man?” and sends a picture of Yung Gravy.

The moms’ replies range from “Oh my 😍😍😍” to “I think he needs a pair of scissors and some shave cream.”

Despite the wide range of responses from older women, Gravy has been enthusiastic about every Yung Gravy Mom Trend video. When one mom’s text asked, “Is he single??,” Gravy replied in the comments, “He’s single.” His comment got 375,000 likes.

Another mom wrote that he was “trying too hard for the 70s and someone should tell him they ain’t coming back.” But Gravy does have a 70s appeal. The rapper’s fluffy blond hair and affinity for brightly-colored shirts certainly contribute to his look. His songs often sample older songs. “Betty (Get Money)” is set to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” His 2019 breakout song, “Mr. Clean,” is set to the popular 1954 song by The Chordettes, “Mr. Sandman.”

One woman wrote in the comment section of Gravy’s music video, “oops!,” that Gravy’s songs had her “dancing and feeling like I’m on the X rolling hard in the club in my 20s” at 47 years old. For many of these moms, he’s probably reminiscent of youth.

 But Gravy is also definitely a rapper of the TikTok era. Several of his songs, including “oops!,” have gone viral because of people using them as sounds when posting popular memes. He even references his success on the app in “shining on my ex,” a collaboration with rapper bbno$. He says, “Dude, I’d be pissed off if this song blew up on TikTok.” And it did.

TikTok success aside, being a “mom guy” is part of Gravy’s brand. “Betty (Get Money)” has lyrics like, “With your baby mama at the crib,” and, “All the mamas love me, now I think I’m peanut brittle.” In “Mr. Clean,” he sings, “I’m with your mom in the kitchen, makin’ blueberry muffins.” He often posts duets and stitches of fans’ mothers on the app, and at 5.6 million followers, they’re well-liked. He’s never disrespectful or misogynistic towards these women. He just genuinely seems to like moms. Even his TikTok bio is on point: “your mother’s favorite.”

But is Gravy really the mom magnet we make him out to be?

“We think of Yung Gravy as this absolute MILF-hunter, the apex mom-smasher,” wrote one TikToker in a post. “But maybe he just wants to be a dad? He values children? Yung gravy would make me pancakes in the morning on a weekday before school and I stand by that hypothesis.”

Gravy seemed to like that idea, and stitched the video with himself in an apron, flipping a pancake. The text: “POV i’m your father.”