“He is stable, you are deep”: How a song lyric became a relationship test

TikTokers are celebrating all things messy, vulnerable, and unhinged again. Nothing new, but this time…well, you could say it goes deep.

The “he is stable, you are deep” TikTok trend started as a fun way for people to contrast safe, dependable partners with intense and unpredictable ones, but it has evolved into something much more complex, and, at times, completely hilarious.

What is the “he is stable, you are deep” TikTok trend, and where did it come from?

The trend takes a line from the song ‘Pushing it Down and Praying’ by Lizzy McAlpine, which features the lyrics, “he is stable, you are deep.” TikTokers are using this sound to contrast two things together: one of them calm, safe, easy—the other intense, difficult, complicated. Of course, the second, deeper choice, is often romanticized as the right one.

Naturally, this most often takes shape in the form of relationships, for example in this video by @aft3rtaste, which received over 486,000 views, and contrasts “he is stable (a boy who has been trying for you for a long time)” with “you are deep (the boy who made me never want to have feelings for anyone else again.”

@aft3rtaste #whosaidthat #fyp #ex #him ♬ Pushing It Down and Praying by Lizzy McAlpine – Jordanne Hamilton

“This but he’s the same boy,” user avahtracie commented.

“This is a little bit too relatable,” added someone else.

Others have been using the trend to compare different fictional relationships, such as this year’s most obsessed-over show The Summer I Turned Pretty’s main love triangle, alongside classics like Rachel and Joey/Ross from Friends, Rory and Dean/Jess from Gilmore Girls, and of course, Tumblr’s fave clash of the titans: Team Edward v Team Jacob.

How did the trend evolve?

Like most TikTok trends, it doesn’t end there, with people getting increasingly creative over what is stable vs deep—whether that’s people, occupations, majors, random inanimate objects, you name it.

Shrek the movie? He is stable. Shrek the musical? He is deep.

Assigned reading for class? Stable. AO3? Deep.

@.whokilledari I hope the genuine tears pull this all together #fanfiction #ao3 #fanfic #reading #fyp ♬ original sound – Mxuser

“10 pages of my psych textbook vs 250K word batman fic”, Muskan commented.

“The odyssey vs wolfstar” another user wrote on the same video.

Perhaps the weirdest was this video, showing a girl in the UK comparing making jelly AKA Jello normally (stable, obviously), with eating it by the block (deep.)

@clara_spam009 it’s so good though #fyp #relatable #jelly @hartleysjelly #viral #xyz ♬ Pushing It Down and Praying by Lizzy McAlpine – Jordanne Hamilton

“I’m confused, is this European”, one person said.

“This has got to be a British thing,” said someone else.

Can we have both stable and deep?

Bringing it back to relationships, those debating the issue across TikTok, as well as journalists unpacking the trend in more depth, have questioned why we feel torn between comforting but unchallenging, and complex but painful dynamics when dating.

Contrary to what TikTok’s often polarizing nature would have you believe, both of these traits are important and necessary, and ideally, both will be present in a relationship.

You can find these two qualities in one person. And if not? Then, like Zendaya showed us last year, there are other ways to have both.