A bacon, egg and cheese sandwich might be the most New York City breakfast ever—but in 2025, it’s also become the unlikely anthem of Dominican TikTok.
The Bacon, Egg and Cheese song has invaded feeds across the platform, becoming the soundtrack to a meme that playfully pokes fun at Dominican cultural stereotypes with the question: “How you know I’m Dominican?”
Origin of the Bacon, Egg and Cheese Song
The track fuelling this cultural moment is “Bacon, Egg N Cheese” by New York rapper Wavyrioo (also known as Wavy Rioo), featuring fellow NYC artists D-Dotty and DellyDell.
Released in early 2022, the song celebrates the iconic NYC bodega breakfast sandwich with a distinctively catchy merengue beat.
The song’s most memorable feature is its chorus, where “Bacon, egg and cheese” gets enthusiastically repeated with particular emphasis on “Cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.”
While much of the track flows in Spanish, this English breakfast sandwich refrain has become the hook that TikTok couldn’t resist—three years after its initial release.
“The original song was introduced on March 30, 2022, through a YouTube video,” explains Know Your Meme editor Owen. “The music video features the rappers dancing in a New York deli while repeating the sandwich order.”
When Did the Bacon, Egg and Cheese’ Meme Go Viral?
Despite dropping in 2022, Bacon, Egg N Cheese languished in relative obscurity until February 2025.
Wavyrioo had posted a clip from the music video on August 24, 2022, which pulled in over 1.7 million views, but the song remained largely dormant until this year’s unexpected revival.
@yoloc0n #fyp #funny #ockyway #nyc #joke ♬ original sound – Wavy Rioo
The tipping point came on February 4, 2025, when TikToker yoloc0n shared footage of someone “getting sturdy” (a dance style native to New York) to the track, simply captioned “I’m from NYC.”
This post sparked the initial wave of interest that would soon evolve into something bigger.
By February 10, users began transforming the song into a proper meme, pairing it with the question “How you know I’m Dominican?”
The format typically showcases Dominican men dressed in tight black skinny jeans and fitted wide-neck shirts, with Wavyrioo’s song providing the perfect audio accompaniment.
The How You Know I’m Dominican Meme Explained
The “How you know I’m Dominican?” question operates as a rhetorical setup—the visual punchline is supposedly self-evident.
The meme good-naturedly plays on stereotypes about Dominican men, particularly those from New York City.
The joke hinges on several recognisable Dominican-American cultural markers:
- Tight-fitting clothes, especially skinny jeans
- Wide-neck shirts that showcase gold chains
- An appreciation for merengue beats like the one in Wavyrioo’s song
- Connection to NYC bodega culture (where one might order a bacon, egg and cheese)
“It’s said to be obvious because of stereotypes about Dominican men,” notes one article. “They’re known to wear tight clothes and enjoy funky merengue beats, like the one used in Wavyrioo’s song.”
The typical format shows a muscular Dominican man in the described outfit, with the song playing in the background.
The meme essentially suggests that these elements make anyone’s Dominican heritage immediately recognisable.
Fanum and Druski: Key Players in the Meme’s Spread
Dominican-American streamer Fanum has become one of the unofficial mascots of these memes.
On March 4, TikToker celo.clips posted footage of Fanum reacting to the trend and the memes featuring him, which collected over 3.1 million views.
@celo.clips bacon egg and cheesee #viral #fyp #fypシ #fanum #amp ♬ original sound – celoclips
In the clip, Fanum laughs while asking, “Bro, why they always put me though?” as his friend belts out the song in the background—a good-natured acknowledgment of his unexpected starring role in the trend.
For one, streamer Fanum, who’s a famous Dominican-American, laughed about it with friends this week, showing that he’s in good spirits about being included in the edits, reports Know Your Meme.
TikTok users have also incorporated the popular Druski Dancing format into these memes.
Druski, a comedian known for his exaggerated dance moves and expressions, has become another common feature in Bacon, Egg and Cheese content, with users adapting his recognisable style to fit the Dominican stereotype theme.
@blitzhiscat #baconeggandcheese #dominican ♬ original sound – Wavy Rioo
Content creators including jugginsomalis, traitfut, and blitzhiscat helped propel the trend to wider audiences, with their posts accumulating millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes.
Why This Song Resonated as a Meme in 2025
The delayed explosion of Bacon, Egg and Cheese demonstrates TikTok’s unique ability to resurrect and recontextualise older content.
Several elements made this particular song ripe for memeification:
- The earworm-quality chorus that’s impossible to forget
- Its celebration of a universally recognized New York street food staple
- The distinctive merengue beat that instantly sets the cultural tone
- Its association with New York City’s bodega culture
- The perfect musical backdrop it provides for the Dominican stereotype joke
New York City’s vibrant Dominican community has significantly shaped the city’s cultural landscape, particularly its beloved bodega scene—connecting this trend to other viral NYC food moments like the Ocky Way memes.
15,700 Videos and Counting: The Meme’s Explosive Growth
As of mid-March 2025, the song has spawned over 15,700 TikTok posts, with millions of viewers consuming both the infectious beat and its accompanying visual jokes.
Despite relying on cultural stereotypes, the trend appears to have found a welcoming reception within the Dominican community itself, with figures like Fanum embracing it with good humor rather than taking offense.
The Bacon, Egg and Cheese meme now sits alongside other breakout TikTok trends of 2025, including the unsettling Creepypasta Song and the widely shared They say shooters shoot craze.
The humble bacon, egg and cheese sandwich—already a New York breakfast institution—has evolved into something more: a cultural touchstone that now serves as shorthand for Dominican-American identity in the digital age.
The next time someone orders this breakfast classic with particular emphasis on the cheese, they might be doing more than satisfying their hunger—they might be participating in one of 2025’s most unexpected cultural moments.
