What do people mean when they say "Notice me, senpai"?


I'm new to anime and my friends really like it. They really like to say to me
" **notice me, senpai!** " and I don't get the reference. I could be walking
to class and one of my friends would say "Can you go to the canteen?" and I
would say no I can't and then, they will say **"NOTICE ME, SENPAI!"** Can
anyone shed some light on the "notice me, senpai" reference, please?




This is a meme in the English-speaking internet anime community. This
particular phrasing appears to have come into existence around December 2013
([according to Google
Trends](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%22notice%20me%20senpai%22)),
though variants [are known to date back to
2012](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-hope-senpai-will-notice-me).

It does not directly reference any particular work of anime or manga. Rather,
it is inspired by a reasonably common trope of anime/manga writing about
school-age children, whereby a character (usually a girl) will have a personal
or romantic interest in an older student at their same school (which is what a
[" _senpai_ "](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senpai_and_k%C5%8Dhai) is in this
context), but instead of doing a dag-blasted thing about it, just silently
hopes that the _senpai_ will pay attention to them. This narrative trope is
particularly common in _shoujo_ media.

Goodness knows why your friends are exuding memes in real life; you would do
better to ask them about that. As a meme originalist, I cannot help but notice
that the contexts in which your friends are reportedly using this meme don't
make much sense.




This is a meme in the English-speaking internet anime community. This
particular phrasing appears to have come into existence around December 2013
([according to Google
Trends](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%22notice%20me%20senpai%22)),
though variants [are known to date back to
2012](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-hope-senpai-will-notice-me).

It does not directly reference any particular work of anime or manga. Rather,
it is inspired by a reasonably common trope of anime/manga writing about
school-age children, whereby a character (usually a girl) will have a personal
or romantic interest in an older student at their same school (which is what a
[" _senpai_ "](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senpai_and_k%C5%8Dhai) is in this
context), but instead of doing a dag-blasted thing about it, just silently
hopes that the _senpai_ will pay attention to them. This narrative trope is
particularly common in _shoujo_ media.

Goodness knows why your friends are exuding memes in real life; you would do
better to ask them about that. As a meme originalist, I cannot help but notice
that the contexts in which your friends are reportedly using this meme don't
make much sense.

