According to Know Your Meme, the ‘how it started vs. how it ended’ meme first started on September 23, 2020, when Twitter user Vjillanelles shared a post. It went viral with 25.5k likes and 2.2k retweets.
The trend and the meme format both caught on very quickly. That’s when people started changing around the format a bit. Some Twitter users started adding ‘how it’s going’ instead of ‘how it ended’ and, ever since then, both versions have been in use.
The meme is very versatile and can be used for pretty much anything and everything: funny and ironic posts, romantic before-and-afters, as well as great achievements that had very humble beginnings.
However, it looks like the ‘how it ended’ version of the meme is mostly focused on humorous tweets and relationship goals. Meanwhile, the ‘how it’s going’ version is all about noting personal achievements, successes, and goals that are still in progress without a definite end in mind. So you could say that the ‘how it’s going’ version is more ambitious while the ‘how it ended’ one could be considered to be much more personal and down-to-earth.
