The strange backstory behind the ‘I just wanna be appreciated’ TikTok audio

Unless you’ve been living a sheltered existence for the past week (or just haven’t been on TikTok), you will have heard the viral audio of the entire month going round, and it sounds a little like this: Set to some mopey sad music, a lady’s voice can be heard saying “I just wanna be appreciated”. It’s most often set to clingy pets, but it’s been used in a varied of other settings including needy girlfriends/boyfriends and, let’s be honest, it is super wholesome – who doesn’t want to be appreciated?!

But we need a little more context. Where does the “I just wanna be appreciated” audio come from? What is the song that plays over the “I just wanna be appreciated” clip? Why did the lady “just wanna be appreciated”? We’ve got the answers to all of those questions and more right here and, as it turns out, the video is not exactly what you’d expect.

@yaraturkk##greenscreenvideo meet my dad♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

Where does the “I just wanna be appreciated” audio come from?

For starters, let’s acquaint ourselves with the original video, which is by a lady called Maritess Trosper. In it, she sits in her car and claims that she… just wants to be appreciated:

The audio from this clip quickly spread, and when combined with Cigarettes After Sex’s Apocalypse, which is what the below user did first, you get an absolute viral classic that can be applied to a whole load of situations.

@vasque7_Reply to @ch.nalpz hi sorry for the response but people wanted me to allow stitch so here you go!!! Sorry for the wait !!♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

Making an audio combining a hit song with a popular catchphrase is clearly the way to go if you want to go super-viral on TikTok.

Who is Maritess Trosper?

Maritess Trosper is a seasoned content creator who has been making videos for a long time. Seriously, some tweets referencing her date back to 2016.

For starters, it’s unclear if she’s playing a character or if she is genuinely like this, but her videos are… certainly out there to say the least. Her trademark seems to be calling people “rats” and saying generally ridiculous things. Take a look:

She hasn’t uploaded on TikTok since 2019, and she doesn’t seem to have any social media profiles to go on – even her YouTube channel looks somewhat likely to be re-uploaded content from her old account, so there’s not a lot we can learn from her.

Under her old name, @rjoyourjoy1919, she made headlines in 2016 for being an enthusiastic and outspoken Trump supporter. Why has she deleted all of her social media profiles? Will she return? Who knows, but for now that remains a mystery.

So now that’s out of the way, here are some of the best examples of the “I just wanna be appreciated” TikTok trend:

@_omnI named her flo ##NeonShadow ##MyHobby ##chinchilla ##ijustwannabeappreciated♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

@itsbunnycocoIt’s a hard life for a bunno ##fyp ##foryoupage ##xyzbca ##pet ##notforyou ##viral ##bunny ##chicago ##petlover♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

@breadsticksaucethe people sayin that b the mites ##MyRecommendation ##RedBullDanceYourStyle ##UnwrapTheDeals♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

@colombianbrat ♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

@officialslendermandon’t text ##foryou ##fyp♬ Ur appreciated ily – angela

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