Published August 11, 2026
Me As A Baby, also called Whimsical Little Creature, is a late 2022 TikTok trend built around videos of a flying white puppet named Tibúrcio, made by Brazilian creator Jhonatan Oliveira on the account @mestreensinador1. Users duetted his clips and tried to convince younger siblings that the floating green-hatted puppet was them as a baby.
Overview
Me As A Baby, also called Whimsical Little Creature, is a late 2022 TikTok trend built around videos of a floating white puppet in a pointy green hat[2]. The puppet is named Tibúrcio, and its videos come from the Brazilian TikTok account @mestreensinador1, run by artist Jhonatan Oliveira[1]. Clips typically show Tibúrcio flying through forested areas, twirling, doing small dances, or performing mysterious rituals[2].
The meme took its familiar shape once TikTokers started duetting the clips and asking their younger siblings, cousins, or kids if they remembered being the floating puppet as a baby[4]. Many children agreed, sometimes inventing detail like being 'strange and had no hair' or a flying ghost, while others bluntly refused to buy it[4]. The joke also spawned running speculation about how these implanted fake memories might quietly mess with Gen Alpha's sense of self later in life[3].
Oliveira had been posting Tibúrcio videos since 2020, so English-speaking TikTok discovered a two-year backlog of surreal Brazilian puppet clips all at once when the duet trend hit[2].
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Origin & Background
The @mestreensinador1 account posted its first Tibúrcio skit on May 9, 2020, showing Oliveira digging up a cloth bag from the dirt and pulling out the white puppet in a green hat[3]. The caption read 'Butija,' Portuguese for 'buried treasure,' though Oliveira later told Rolling Stone that Tibúrcio was a spiritual treasure, not a monetary one[1]. A follow-up video the next month showed him dancing with the puppet under the caption 'Meu Professor,' meaning 'My teacher'[2].
Oliveira goes by Maestre Ensinador, which translates from Portuguese as 'master teacher' or 'master professor'[5]. He has said Tibúrcio originally belonged to his late grandmother and that he remade the puppet's body about three years before starting the videos[1]. Answering questions from Rolling Stone via Google Translate, Oliveira described the character as 'a strong gnome' whose inspiration 'comes from God'[1].
How It Spread
Tibúrcio clips slowly built an audience on TikTok through 2021 and into 2022, with individual videos on the account racking up hundreds of thousands and then millions of plays as the character kept reappearing in new woodland skits[2].
The 'me as a baby' twist arrived on October 27, 2022, when TikTok user @iz.khalifa1 duetted one of the mestreensinador1 clips and asked her younger brother if he remembered being the floating puppet[4]. He fell for it, and the duet quickly hit millions of plays[2]. She posted a second version soon after that also went viral, and by mid-November hundreds of imitators were doing the same prank on their own kids and siblings[1]. A November 17, 2022 clip on Oliveira's account, backed by music from Brazilian songwriter Raul Seixas, was viewed nearly 10 million times inside two weeks[1].
The format jumped platforms in late November and December 2022. Twitter user @OddOblivion posted Tibúrcio fan art captioned 'Me as a baby' on November 30, 2022, and political webcomic artist Stonetoss followed with his own Tibúrcio-themed comic on December 6, 2022, each pulling tens of thousands of likes[3]. Coverage from Rolling Stone, PopCrush, and The Tab pushed the trend beyond TikTok's Brazilian and English-speaking circles into wider culture press[1].
How to Use This Meme
The typical Tibúrcio video is a TikTok duet. Someone puts a clip of the flying puppet in one panel and their own reaction in the other, then asks a young sibling, cousin, or child sitting next to them if they remember being that little creature as a baby[2]. Kids either roll with it, sometimes adding their own details about what they were doing as a floating puppet, or bluntly deny it[4].
Outside the sibling-prank format, people cosplayed as Tibúrcio, wrapping themselves in a white gown and pointy green hat and moving in a similarly jerky, floating style[4]. Others dressed pets in matching outfits, with confused orange cats being a small running joke inside the trend[4]. Fan art of the puppet doing similar poses became its own mini format on Twitter, treating Tibúrcio as a stand-alone character with his own visual identity[1].
Cultural Impact
Coverage jumped from TikTok explainer sites to bigger culture press once the trend hit the wider English-speaking internet. Rolling Stone ran a feature in late 2022 interviewing Oliveira through Google Translate about Tibúrcio's origins and his late grandmother's connection to the puppet[1]. British student site The Tab published an explainer walking readers through the setup after Tibúrcio kept showing up on their FYPs[2]. Pop culture outlet PopCrush covered the trend and highlighted several standout kid reactions, including one girl who confidently declared, 'I was a ghost'[4].
Italian critic Valentina Tanni also archived the meme on her site, framing Oliveira's videos as a piece of surreal folk art that briefly went global through TikTok's duet mechanic (translated from Italian)[5].
Fun Facts
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Tibúrcio originally belonged to Oliveira's late grandmother, and Oliveira remade the puppet's body about three years before starting the videos[1]
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The music behind Oliveira's November 17, 2022 viral clip was by Brazilian songwriter Raul Seixas[1]
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Oliveira answered Rolling Stone's interview questions using Google Translate, calling Tibúrcio 'a strong gnome' whose inspiration 'comes from God'[1]
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Oliveira's uncle appears in the first 2020 'buried treasure' video, pulling Tibúrcio out of an earthenware vessel called a cruse[1]
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The username Mestre Ensinador translates from Portuguese as 'master teacher,' and Oliveira calls the puppet a 'forest being' in his comment replies[5]
Derivatives & Variations
Cosplay videos where people dressed themselves as Tibúrcio in a white gown and pointy green hat[4]
Pet costume versions of the trend, including a confused-looking orange cat dressed as the puppet[4]
Fan art on Twitter treating Tibúrcio as a stand-alone character, including pieces published in late November and early December 2022[3]
Duets not limited to siblings, with parents pranking their kids and friends pranking each other[1]
Frequently Asked Questions
It's a late 2022 TikTok trend where users duet clips of Brazilian creator Jhonatan Oliveira's floating puppet Tibúrcio and try to convince younger kids that the puppet is them as a baby[1].
Jhonatan Oliveira, who posts as Maestre Ensinador, started uploading videos of the puppet on TikTok in May 2020[1]. The 'me as a baby' twist arrived in late October 2022 through duet videos[4].
The setup is a prank memory implant. An older person shows a young child a floating-puppet clip and insists it's the kid as a baby[2]. The joke lands when many children happily agree and add invented detail[4].
TikTok's duet feature is the standard format. You put a mestreensinador1 clip on one side, your own reaction with the kid on the other, and ask if they remember being the floating puppet[2].
The mass-duet trend peaked in October and November 2022, when Oliveira's clips pulled millions of plays and inspired hundreds of imitator duets[1]. It's best understood as a late-2022 moment rather than an ongoing format.
