What is Love? About “What is Love” is a 1993 dance pop song by the Trinidanian eurodance artist Haddaway, which saw a resurgence in popularity when it was featured in the “Roxbury Guys” sketches on TV show Saturday Night Live in 1996. In 2005, a scene from the show in which several characters are shown bobbing their heads in unison to “What is Love” was uploaded as a GIF to YTMND, which inspired a fad on the community website. Origin On March 23rd, 1996, the comedy television show Saturday Night Live debuted the first “Roxbury Guys” sketch, in which comedians Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey bob their heads in unison to the song “What is Love” while driving in a car (shown below).
On June 2nd, 2005, YTMND user ligamentx submitted a page titled What is love, featuring a GIF of the car scene (shown below) accompanied by a looped audio clip of “What is Love.” Spread On December 30th, 2007, YouTuber YTMNDsGifCollections uploaded a montage of notable “What is Love?” Notable Examples Search Interest. Literal Music Videos. About The “Literal Music Video” starts with an easily recognizable music video (typically from the 80’s) and uses both subtitles and newly recorded audio to narrate what is literally happening in the music video; often highlighting the bizarre visual narratives used.
LMV’s were first popularzed when film-maker/musician/producer of SuperNews! On CurrentTV/founder of Dustfilms, Dustin Mclean created his literal translation of Take on Me by Ah-Ha! And posted it to funnyordie.com in October 3rd of 2008. The next week, DustFilms followed up with Head Over Heels, the Tears for Fears classic. Dustfilms created a total of four Literal Music Videos, most of which were promoted on various video sites, and received significant activity on social news sites like Digg and Reddit. Imitation of form While the Literal Music Videos began as a very deliberately manufactured set of viral videos, they inspired others to take part in the creation and interpretation of their own LMV’s. e.g.
The literal Rick Roll. Miku Hatsune / Vocaloid. About Vocaloid is a vocal synthesizer released in 2004, created to “sing” by piecing together phonemes (sounds made by humans to create words and syllables) at different pitches with different settings such as vibrato, dynamics, pitch bends, and transitions. Hatsune Miku (初音ミク) is an application developed by Crypton Future Media. Released in August 2007, using Yamaha’s Vocaloid 2 technology and voice samples of Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita, the program allows the user to synthesize and optimize the singer’s voice to sing any tune. It was first introduced to the Japanese market with an official anime character, who has since reached iconic status within Otaku culture as well as mainstream J-pop and online video culture as well. History Prior to the introduction of Hatsune Miku, the vocal effect was mainly referred to as “Vocaloid,” a voice synthesizer intended for the creation of songs.
On August 17th, 2007 the “Hatsune Miku CV01 Vocaloid2” vocal synthesizer was released in Japan. Badger Badger Badger. About “Badger Badger Badger” is a Flash animation created by Jonti Picking in 2003. It consists of images of dancing Badgers over an electronic song while a voice repeats the word “badger”, breaking off to say “mushroom” at the approprite moment. After about three loops of badgers and mushrooms a mini-chorus about a snake plays as an animated snakes crawls across a desert, and the animation loops once again. On the original site the cartoon loops indefinitely, but many YouTube videos (including Picking’s version) only last 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.
Because of its popularity the cartoon brought Picking to the attention of MTV Europe who produced a new flash series by Picking, “Weebl and Bob”. Badger Badger Badger was listed as one of the “top five internet fads of all time” by PC World. Media The original flash animation YouTube instance: A Christmas version, also by Jonti Picking: Remixes Other remakes include the ones below: Real people doing the badger dance: Bananaphone. You Spin Me Round. About You Spin Me Round is a meme that began as YTMND fad based upon the 1984 pop song of the same name.
While the lyrics of the song used the phrase as something of an idiom implying infatuation akin to the Elvis song “All Shook Up,” the YTMND fad takes the meaning of the song literally; displaying looped animations of people and objects spinning around. The You Spin Me Round YTMND fad was created as an alternative to the “Ridin’ Spinnaz” YTMND fad, which is also centered around the theme of people and things spinning. The meme eventually mutated from a YTMND fad to include a number of Youtube videos. The Appeal It’s no surprise to find a chart-topping pop song inspiring a large number of derivative works, even decades after it’s initial rise. About the song “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” is a song by Dead or Alive on their 1985 album Youthquake. The original music video can be seen below: Lyrics Retro Pop Song + Looped animation = Y.T.M.N.D fad Evolution: Meatspin affiliation Cartoons. They see me rollin' Chamillionaire: Ridin’ Official Video About “They See Me Rollin” is a popular catchphrase derived from the rapper Chamillionaire’s 2006 hit single, Ridin’.
Soon after the single and video were released, people began spoofing the song. The key to understanding this meme lies not in the popularity of either Chamillionaire or Weird Al, but in the meme’s identity as an incarnation of the “Roll family” such as Duckroll and Rickroll. Usage The phrase “They see me rollin’, they hatin’” is often found superimposed over captioned onto or in motivational format using images of out-of-the-ordinary methods of transportation. Either that, or it’s pasted over the top of overweight/disabled people on scooters/wheelchairs. A unimaginably lengthy video of a truck being chased by police (not as exciting as it sounds Harry Potter Slytherin mashup, 2007 Rolling down an escalator, 2008 Ridin’ dirty on Hoverounds, 2008. Also Popular on YTMND Sites using the song will involve either of the following: White and Nerdy. Row Row Fight the Powah. Origin The “Row Row Fight The Powah” catchphrase is the altered line of the “Raw Raw Fight The Power” lyric and can be initially found in three different songs from the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (天元突破グレンラガン).
The catchphrase is used in three songs from the serie’s Original Soundtrack (OST): Disc 1, track 3: Rappu ha Kan no Tamashii da! Onore wo Shinjite Ten wo Yubisasu Dotou no Otoko Kamina-sama no Teema wo Mimi no Ana Kappojitte Yo~ku Kikiyagare!! Disc 2, track 2: Rappu ha Kan no Tamashii da! Disc 2, track 22: “Libera me” from hell Spread 4chan Even if the meme in itself was launched during the context exposed below, jokes about the lyrics were already on 4chan’s /a/ board in September 2007, coinciding with the start of the anime release in the US. But it didn’t get the following of the other boards. A webcomic, produced by Deviant Art user ~3-angled-blue, soon followed by flash animations depicting the civil war that occurred between the /v/ board and /b/. Kamina’s Glasses. ...While I Play Unfitting Music. About …While I Play Unfitting Music is a YouTube remix fad that involves users remixing videos with music that does not match what is occurring. Similar in usage to Yakety Sax making anything funny, the videos are meant to create inconsistency between the mood created by the music vs. what is happening on the screen.
Origin In 2007, YouTube user gnomebob (current account: xMAHATMAxGHANDIx) uploaded “LUIGI WINDS A TOY WHILE I PLAY UNFITTING MUSIC” Reupload: Between March and April of 2007, four other videos were made labeled as using unfitting music: “Random guild wars users go AFK while i play unfitting music,” “Tourettes Guy Being Himself,” “Model train chugs while I play [un]fitting music,” (to the tune of Yakety Sax), and “JasonDTube pretends he’s James Bond while I play unfitting music.” On May 19th, 2007, Saphira4eva uploaded “Spongebob Squarepants music video”. Soundtrack Dissonance as a trope It has also appeared in video games.
Derivatives. Spongmonkeys. Rickroll. About Rickrolling is a bait-and-switch practice that involves providing a web link supposedly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually re-directs the viewer to Rick Astley’s 1987 hit single “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The URL is often masked or obfuscated as a randomly-generated shortlink to conceal its true source from the experienced users. Whenever someone clicks the link and unintentionally summons Rick Astley’s song, he or she is said to have been rickrolled. Origin Rick Astley’s solo debut single “Never Gonna Give You Up” was originally released as part of his 1987 album Whenever You Need Somebody. On 4chan The bait-and-switch phenomenon had its beginning on imageboard site 4chan as a spin-off of an earlier practical joke known as duckrolling, in which an external link with a sensational title (i.e., a specific picture or news item) would be redirected to an edited image of a duck with wooden wheels.
Spread Project Chanology YouTube’s April Fools Prank New York Mets White House Tweet. They see me rollin' Yakety Sax (The Benny Hill Theme) About the Song The song Yakety Sax was written by Boots Randolph and James Q. “Spider” Rich in 1963. Randolph recorded the song and released it as a single 45 that same year. The Benny Hill Show ran first ran from 1955-1968, with Yakety Sax becoming the show’s theme song somewhere in between. Usage online. In 2002, Something Awful user CheechLizard created a thread entitled “Anything+Benny Hill Theme=Funny.” By 2005, YouTube had become the primary video-sharing site where the lion’s share of video-remixing took place. Anything Better w/ Benny Hill Hypothesis The titles of many videos suggest that nearly anything is better when paired with “The Benny Hill Theme.”
Auto-Tune. About Auto-Tune is an automated pitch-correction and audio-processing software developed by Antares Audio Technologies in 1997. While the technology has been silently at work behind various hits for over a decade, it was introduced to larger audiences after the breakout of rapper, singer and producer T-Pain, who experimented heavily with auto-tune effect in his albums. Since its mass popularization through pop music hits in 2007, online videos of all genres have been treated with the software for humorous effect. Origin At first, Auto-Tune was primarily used as a subtle way to cover the mistakes of a vocalist off their game; smoothly sliding the pitch to the correct note. With the expense of the Antares Auto-Tune plugin and the relative lack of social networking sites at the time, Auto-Tune remained something of a trade secret among many record producers who simply wanted to save time while working in the studio.
Online Spread Notable Examples Crying T-Pain Baby Auto-Tune the News T-Pain vs.