Case file ML-2020-1011:
the "my beloved" heart locket meme

Summary

The subject is a looping animation, several seconds in duration. A heart-shaped locket turns, opens, and reveals two panels: on one side a photograph of a person, animal, character, or object; on the other, a caption in the form "[subject] my beloved." The device conveys sincere affection, absurd affection, or both simultaneously. Positive identification is straightforward, as the subject has been reproduced several million times.

This office discloses a material connection to the case: we manufactured the locket. Details follow.

Origin of the device: the heart locket animation (2008)

The locket animation was produced in February 2008 at makesweet.com, a website established 2007 for placing civilian photographs inside short 3D animations. The mechanism: each design is rendered in advance in the open-source 3D suite Blender, and a lightweight renderer composites the visitor's photograph into the precomputed animation on request. This is why results are instant, and why every specimen in circulation shares identical frame timing. The shared timing is usable as a fingerprint for identifying output of the engine. [1]

EXHIBIT A. The device in unissued condition. Render produced for this file on the site's own equipment; the design's default insert prompts are visible.

A 2009 trade-press statement by the manufacturer noted that the locket outperformed a more elaborate Valentine design because it had a "much clearer narrative and hook for the user message." [1] The device then operated without notable incident for twelve years. Known pre-incident activity is limited to scattered community use, including Sea of Thieves players mocking up pirate sails with a related flag device. [2] (EXHIBIT E)

EXHIBIT E (RECONSTRUCTION). Pre-incident activity, 26 APR 2017: in the "Let your flag fly!" thread of the Sea of Thieves forums, a community collecting pirate flag designs for a game that had not yet been released, user KattTruewalker posts a crew flag animated with the related flag device ("Another flag waving website"). The original specimen was hosted on this office's own servers and purged at an unknown date; when the Internet Archive's crawler reached it on 5 JUN 2020, it recorded a 404 response. Shown above: a reconstruction, produced on this office's equipment from the maker's source artwork, which survived elsewhere in the thread. The flag device itself remains in service.

Timeline of events: from "bingus my beloved" to Times Square

SEP 2020. A hairless Sphynx cat designated BINGUS attains public prominence via a video posted to Reddit, traced to a cat breeder's account on Douyin. [3][8]

OCT 2020. Person or persons unknown place an image of BINGUS into the locket device with the caption "bingus my beloved." The specimen circulates in a Discord server devoted to the cat. [4] (EXHIBIT B)

EXHIBIT B. "bingus my beloved," the index specimen. Maker unknown; produced with the site's generator. On file with Tenor since 11 OCT 2020; this copy recovered from Know Your Meme, where it was entered into the record on 21 OCT 2020.

11 OCT 2020. The specimen is uploaded to the GIF platform Tenor. [4] Know Your Meme designates this the format's first viral use. [8]

19 OCT 2020. First confirmed derivative: a Tumblr user applies the format to the Danganronpa character Kiyotaka Ishimaru. [5] (EXHIBIT F)

EXHIBIT F. The first confirmed derivative: a drawing of the open locket by Tumblr user pompadorbz, posted 19 OCT 2020 under the title "the true bingus," in which the cat has been replaced by the Danganronpa character Kiyotaka Ishimaru while the caption still reads "bingus my beloved." The image documents the format at an intermediate stage: the subject has been replaced, the caption not yet. The original post has since been deleted; recovered from Know Your Meme.

18 DEC 2020. The manufacturer reports that a long-standing memory leak, "solved" for years by restarting the site nightly, now requires restarting the site every few minutes; the cause is not identified. [6] The surge registers, at this stage, only as an infrastructure problem.

28 DEC 2020. Ten days later, the manufacturer identifies the cause and states it publicly: "Apparently the traffic is people making memes for something called a bingus???" [6] The manufacturer was, at the time of the statement, unfamiliar with the term. (EXHIBIT H)

EXHIBIT H. The manufacturer's contemporaneous statements, 18 and 28 DEC 2020, recovered from his own account. The two statements bracket the ten-day interval between detection of the traffic and identification of its cause.

22 FEB 2021. On Tumblr, user johnnyjoestarrelatable asks how the GIFs are made; user hellobendykitty produces the answer. [7] The exchange accumulates over 189,000 notes in five months, and a screenshot of it draws over 26,000 retweets. [8] The format reaches the general population.

2021, ONGOING. Documented sightings include: a K-pop idol (Twice's Sana, 20 JAN 2021); Minecraft and Dream SMP streamers, generally; "Metal Crates, my beloved" (The Legend of Zelda); "Ganyu my beloved!" (Genshin Impact); a dinosaur (r/Paleontology); Homestuck character headcanons; and "MICROPHONE, MY BELOVED" (EXHIBIT G). [8] Video tutorials on producing the GIFs circulate on YouTube; none were produced by the manufacturer. By this stage the phrase travels without the locket: artists on DeviantArt caption plain GIFs "my beloved" with no locket present. The format is assessed as endemic.

EXHIBIT G. Endemic-phase specimen: an anthropomorphized microphone, entered into the record at Know Your Meme, 5 FEB 2022. Subjects at this stage include fictional and inanimate characters.

20 JUN 2021. The marketing agency of the YouTuber Landon runs a Twitter contest: most-liked reply in 24 hours appears on a billboard in Times Square, New York. The winning entry, submitted by fans of the Minecraft streamer Ranboo, is a heart locket GIF reading "Ranboo my beloved." It plays in Times Square, at intervals, for 24 hours. [9][10] The manufacturer was not informed in advance and learned of the display from press coverage. (EXHIBIT D)

Persons of interest: who made the heart locket GIF

THE CAT ("BINGUS"). A hairless Sphynx, first documented on a cat breeder's account on Douyin. Attained public prominence September 2020. Took no active part in events; only its image was used.

THE UNKNOWN MAKER. Identity unknown. Placed the cat in the locket, captioned it, and released it into a Discord server. Several million derivatives descend from this act. No identification has been made.

THE STREAMER. Ranboo, Minecraft streamer. Did not make the Times Square GIF and did not enter the contest; both were done by his fans.

THE MANUFACTURER. Occupational history, in order: goat herder (last century); researcher on a humanoid-robotics project (Genoa, Italy); programmer (New Jersey). Each entry has been verified. [1] Sole operator of the site since 2007. Author of this file. Current whereabouts: ██████████.

The anonymity problem: where the heart locket GIF comes from

Specimens carry no watermark, signature, or identifying marks. Consequence: for much of the subject's active period, the general population did not know where the GIFs came from, producing a recurring pattern of amateur investigation ("where is the heart locket gif from"; EXHIBIT C), followed by discovery, followed by suspicion that a website looking like that could not possibly be safe. [8] Independent discovery posts are documented in communities ranging from Pikmin players to Protogen enthusiasts.

EXHIBIT C. A locket GIF whose caption consists of the question itself, produced in the format it asks about. Recovered from Know Your Meme (entered 21 JUN 2021).

The site is operated by one person, and its appearance has remained substantially unchanged since the late 2000s. The manufacturer did not publicly address the subject until 2025. (EXHIBIT I)

EXHIBIT I. The manufacturer's statement on the site's appearance, 28 JAN 2025, recovered from his own account, with a reply from a member of the public.

Assessments by other agencies vary. Automated security scanners have rated the site both safe and "questionable," the latter on the grounds that it lacks the tracking and corporate apparatus their heuristics expect of a legitimate commercial operation. The absence of trackers is confirmed.

Assessment: why the "my beloved" format spread

The device's effectiveness is attributed to incongruity. The heart locket is a sincere, old-fashioned keepsake; the subjects placed inside it are, frequently, a hairless cat, a video game crate, or a microphone. The resulting expression of affection is read as simultaneously earnest and absurd.

The format is assessed as evergreen. New specimens continue to be produced daily, and the generator remains in operation.

Disposition

Case remains open. The heart locket generator remains publicly available.

References

Primary records are cited as originally filed. Several no longer exist at their original locations; in those cases the archival copies named are cited instead.

1. Fitzpatrick, Paul. "Building Online Generators with Blender." BlenderArt Magazine, issue 21, April 2009.
2. "Let your flag fly!" thread, Sea of Thieves forums, April 2017 (archived June 2020).
3. haydongers. "hi bingus..." r/ambien, Reddit, 8 SEP 2020.
4. Maker unknown. "bingus my beloved." Tenor, 11 OCT 2020. Original upload since removed; copy on file at Know Your Meme.
5. pompadorbz. "the true bingus." Tumblr, 19 OCT 2020. Original post since deleted; copy on file at Know Your Meme.
6. MakeSweet (@mkswt). Statements on anomalous traffic. Twitter, 18 and 28 DEC 2020.
7. johnnyjoestarrelatable; reply by hellobendykitty. "how do you make these." Tumblr, 22 FEB 2021.
8. "Heart Locket GIF," "My Beloved," and "Bingus." Know Your Meme. (Aggregate case history; engagement figures.)
9. "Ranboo beats jschlatt, Spifey, BadBoyHalo to get on NYC billboard in Times Square." Dexerto, June 2021.
10. "'We love to see it': Fans cherish gathering for Ranboo 'my beloved' NYC billboard." Sportskeeda, June 2021.