Where is "I love the Smiths" from?

The scene in (500) Days of Summer

The I Love the Smiths line comes early in (500) Days of Summer, about ten minutes in. Tom and Summer work at the same company; she has just started as his boss's assistant. They end up in the same elevator, Tom has his headphones on, and Summer can hear what he's playing.

She says "I love the Smiths", repeats it when he doesn't hear, tells him he has good taste in music, sings a line of the song and walks out when the doors open. Once she's gone, Tom says "Holy shit" to himself.

The scene has been argued about for years. In July 2019, ten years after the film came out, VICE ran a piece titled "Why the Elevator Scene in '(500) Days of Summer' Still Pisses People Off 10 Years Later".

The song behind the line

The music in the elevator is "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" by The Smiths, from their 1986 album The Queen Is Dead. The line Summer sings, "To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die", is from that song. So when people search "I love the Smiths song", that's the answer.

2023: real couples make it a TikTok trend

Before any AI, I Love the Smiths was a trend people filmed themselves. Between July and October 2023, couples on TikTok acted out the elevator moment, usually with the caption "I said I love the Smiths". @itsjuli4_ posted one on 15 July 2023 that has 3.18 million plays, and @jaimeadler's from 29 October 2023 has 4.19 million.

On 1 February 2024, Searchlight Pictures, the studio that released the film, posted the elevator clip on its own TikTok with the caption "I LOVE THE SMITHS". It has 5.7 million plays. People kept filming their own versions after that: @dontpresspaulaa's from 29 July 2025 has 5.39 million plays and @lllxo14's from 10 March 2026 has 8.39 million.

November 2026: the AI version

The AI I Love the Smiths trend took off on 5 and 6 November 2026. The earliest AI version we could find is an Instagram reel by @notlalalisaaa, posted on 5 November 2026 and captioned "made with Higgsfield Genjutsu". It swaps a famous footballer and his partner into the film clip, runs 24 seconds in widescreen and had 5.27 million plays on 9 November. We can't say for sure it was the first one ever posted.

The next day, 6 November 2026, the same account posted an Ariana Grande and Mac Miller version, which reached 13.96 million plays on Instagram. On TikTok the most played AI version is @yairrag's take on the same pair, at 6.06 million. At least two TikTok posts say they saw it on @notlalalisaaa's account first.

From 7 November 2026, tutorial accounts piled in with posts like "How to make the viral I Love The Smiths scene trend?". By 9 November 2026, #ilovethesmithstrend had 711 videos and 2.96 million views. Most of the AI versions run 21 to 24 seconds, the length of the scene up to Tom's "Holy shit".

Why so many posts use "ghostin"

"ghostin" by Ariana Grande isn't in the film. It's on her 2019 album thank u, next, and it's widely read as a song about Mac Miller, who died in September 2018, while she was engaged to Pete Davidson. Since the Ariana Grande and Mac Miller version was the biggest one, fans put ghostin under it.

Tutorial accounts then copied ghostin onto their own posts, so now it sounds like the trend's song. It's only the soundtrack people chose for their posts. The other sound you'll see a lot is "original sound - coenai", from @coenai's version captioned "the leclercs", posted on 6 November 2026 and reused by many tutorial posts.

Is it from The Perks of Being a Wallflower?

No. Google sometimes suggests "I love the Smiths" together with The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and some TikTok posts mix the two films. The elevator scene and the line are from (500) Days of Summer.