The Lock 'Em Up Meme, Explained
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Search for the lock em up meme, the state property meme or hit the road dude and you land on the same 2025 TikTok: a man in a white pickup, two fishermen at his pond, and a send-off that people have been quoting ever since. This page covers where the clip comes from, what the lines mean, how it spread and how the AI remakes work.
One clip, three names
Know Your Meme files the clip as Lock 'Em Up / State Property. Both names come from the dialogue: state property is the fishermen's excuse, and "lock 'em up" is what the driver says someone told the owner to do with trespassers. Hit the road dude is the send-off, and it is the name most TikTok captions use.
So the lock em up meme, the state property meme and the hit the road dude meme are not three memes. They are three lines from the same short argument.
Hit the road dude original: where the video comes from
The hit the road dude original, the video that started it all, was posted on TikTok on August 21, 2025 by @bird28thegr8. An older man in a white pickup truck pulls up to a pond where two men are fishing. They say they thought the pond was state property. He repeats "State?" in disbelief, sends them off with "hit the road, dude" and tells them it ain't no state property, it is private property. Within about three weeks the clip had passed 13.7 million views.
We do not host or re-upload the original clip. The Know Your Meme entry documents the original post and the early remakes.
The lines, in order
- The excuse: the fishermen say they thought the pond was state property, meaning public land that anyone can fish on.
- The disbelief: "State?" The driver repeats the word as if it is the most absurd thing he has ever heard.
- The send-off: "Hit the road, dude." A thumb over the shoulder, and the line that became the caption.
- The correction: "This ain't no state property, this is private property." He points out of the window. Flat, no argument, no raised voice.
- The threat: "Lock 'em up." The driver mentions that someone told the owner to have trespassers locked up, which is where Know Your Meme got its name for the clip.
The comedy is in the rhythm: a confident excuse, a baffled "State?", then a send-off with no room for debate. That three-beat structure is why the clip works as a sound even when you cannot see the truck.
How the meme spread
- Aug 21, 2025: The original fishing-spot video is posted on TikTok.
- Aug 24, 2025: The first known lip-dub, by @130zay, reaches 2.3 million views in three weeks.
- Early Sep 2025: A green-screen version of the "lock 'em up" line turns it into an editing template.
- Late Sep 2026: The first AI remakes appear. One of the earliest puts a dog in the driver's seat.
- Oct 2026: AI remakes take over, many of them starring cats and a lot of dogs, while the camera, the timing and the lines stay the same.
Each stage made the meme easier to reuse. The lip-dub turned the audio into a sound anyone could perform. The green-screen template let editors paste the driver into other scenes. The AI remakes removed the editing entirely: one photo is enough to put a new character behind the wheel.
Where to find a lock em up GIF or a hit the road dude GIF
The most searched spin-off of the meme is the lock em up GIF. GIF keyboards inside chat apps, and sites such as GIPHY and Tenor, index clips by the words people search for, so try "lock em up", "state property" and "hit the road dude" as search terms.
A GIF drops the audio, and most of the joke is in the delivery. If you want the voice, you need video: share the MP4 instead, or make your own version with your pet in the driver's seat and convert it to a GIF with any MP4-to-GIF converter.
The hit the road dude cat and the AI remakes
In late September 2026 the meme came back as AI video, and by October the remakes had taken over. Instead of lip-syncing the lines, creators used AI video models to put someone else behind the wheel while keeping the truck, the camera and the timing. One of the earliest AI versions put a dog in the driver's seat, and cats and dogs have been among the favourite versions since.
The pet version is the one this site makes. Our generator works from a scene we made ourselves: a white pickup at a pond with original voice lines, starring our own hit the road dude cat, an orange tabby. The AI model puts the animal, toy or character from your photo behind the wheel in its place and keeps the truck, the pond, the lines and the pause before the punchline. It is a parody built on our own material, not a re-edit of the original TikTok.
Make your own version
Upload one photo of your cat, dog, toy or a character you drew. You get a vertical 10- or 15-second MP4 with sound in 480p or 720p, ready to post. Photos of real people are not accepted.