We must not despair as long as we are here, we can teach the children about the ancient texts
Listen, kinderlach.
If you want to know how widespread a meme this was, I was in college when it was a thing. I was taking a women’s choir, as required by my major.
MY ENTIRE CHOIR CONVINCED OUR PROFESSOR THIS WAS A “ROMANIAN FOLK SONG” AND WE PERFORMED IT. LIVE.
We literally did it as a joke. Because we knew most of our audience would be students from other classes who were required to attend for a grade.
I will forever treasure the looks on the faces, ranging from outrage to pure unabashed glee, that popped up when we hit that first “maya hii, maya hu …”
This was back when a meme could go on for weeks, if not months or even up to a year. (Caramelldansen was around even longer than that, but Caramelldansen is up there with the Rickroll as the spiders Georg of the meme world.) It was still considered “current” nine weeks after we talked the prof into doing it. EVERYONE KNEW IT. It was the perfect prank.
I kind of wonder how many of the people who attended still remember this.
I am stunned to see this whole thread and not see the original meme video that really introduced this song to US audiences (or at least to everyone I know who was aware of it):
Theoldest YouTube upload I can find has 48.8 million views at this time and is dated 2006 is because that’s when someone uploaded this video to YouTube because YouTube is younger than this video. The description to that upload says that a Guardian article FROM 2006 estimated that this video had been seen 700 million times at THAT time.
This video was passed around in emails and hosted on “homepages” and would take MINUTES to load. And it was worth every minute to see this young man, Gary Brolsma just fucking joyfully JAM OUT to this song (his upload of the video is embedded above to give him the views).
But dang, young folks, it took WORK to make something go viral in the Days of the Old Magic. Not just on the part of content producers (no one was a content producer yet, though) but also on the part of people sharing it. It was a wild, untamed time.
I’ve actually never even seen the official video before this thread. I love it. SO MUCH. I hope that John Ralphio knows how much whoever did the little animated segments is in love with him and I hope that the Tiny Twink knows how much whoever did the little animated segments hates him for existing so close to His Beloved John Ralphio. And also the other guy is there.
It’s incredible. Thank you for sharing that and bringing this joy back into my life.
I am 100% convinced that “exit, pursued by a bear” is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we’ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.
Okay but actually, this is true!! Kind of.
So a few years before Winter’s Tale was written, white bears became very popular in London. No one knows why–possibly Londoners first became aware that white bears were a thing that could exist. So the Chamberlain’s men made a white bear costume for one play (the name of which I can’t remember right now). Well, the play stops running and the Chamberlain’s men suddenly have this super expensive bear costume they can never use again.
So along comes Billy Shakes, who’s like “I know how we can get our money’s worth”. So he writes in “exit, pursued by a bear” to both kill off Antigonus and to make use of the bear costume.
Ta-da, Shakespeare economically repurposing a 1590s meme.
The interesting story behind the Crying Jordan Meme, perhaps one of the most popular memes of all time, in addition to being the most popular sports-related meme of all time.
Often used when a sports team, player, or person in general messes up, loses, trips, falls, makes a mistake, etc. This meme has taken on a life of it’s own.
This awesome video by 2 Point Lead, gives the inside look on various opinions of the meme, an interview with the AP photographer that shot the original photo, and the history of the meme and it’s development into a universally recognized reference to someone losing or failing.
While this doesn’t tarnish anything Jordan has accomplished, he is in our opinion the greatest basketball player of the modern era, it’s interesting that a photo of one of the greatest athletes of all time is used in reference to someone doing something bad or wrong. Maybe we should start using a Ryan Lochte photo from now on.
it has been like at least eight years and sometimes I still think to myself, when I am tired, “but I am le tired… well then take a nap! AND THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES” even though in retrospect that is like one of the most embarrassingly unfunny videos to ever come out of the internet
tbh i still start sentences with “hokay, so” at least 3 times a day
same, aggressively so. I also still use “wtf, mate.”
who doesn’t think this is STILL AS HILARIOUS as it was when we all watched it over and over and over again 15 years ago?
I’ve reblogged this before and will doubtless reblog this again because MY ENTIRE GROUP OF FRIENDS WAS SO OBSESSED WITH THIS VIDEO IN 2002/2003 THAT WE COLLECTIVELY BANNED ANY MENTION OF IT EVER AGAIN
AND YET
WE ARE NOW GROWN-ASS ADULTS IN OUR THIRTIES
AND IT STILL GETS QUOTED FROM TIME TO TIME
I HAVE THE WHOLE THING MEMORISED
TO THIS DAY, MY MOTHER REGULARLY SAYS “BUT I AM LE TIRED” BECAUSE OF A VIDEO I SHOWED HER IN FUCKING HIGH SCHOOL
THIS IS AN ICONIC PIECE OF INTERNET HISTORY AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERS
