The internet is a hivemind of people, where small ideas get spread indefinitely until they become culture wide phenomenon. “Dat Boi” frog, Harambe and Mei’s Doritos are just some of the crazy ideas that the internet has made more popular “just because.” It may not be a new meme, but one song from a Nickelodeon show in the early 2010’s has skyrocketed to god-like meme status over the last few months: “We Are Number One.”
What Is “We Are Number One”?
Lazytown was a kid’s show where a superhero, Sportacus, and a group of creepy puppets -think Genesis’ Land Of Confusion- fight a villain named Robbie Rotten. In episode 107, Robbie clones himself in order to catch Sportacus. Like all kid’s shows, the villain eventually fails, but not after he sings a little song called “We Are Number One.”
According to Know Your Meme, the first known remix of “We Are Number One” comes from YouTuber Silvagunner. Uploaded on Sep 13, 2016, “ We are Number One – LazyTown: The Video Game ” the video has over a million views. Over the coming months, the meme evolved into something else entirely, with the most popular involving the replacement of the word “one” with some crazy pop culture reference.
MrMrMANGOHEAD, a YouTuber, may be considered the king of the meme. He has dozens of videos remixing “We Are Number One.” Some of them are even funny.
Not all memes are bad, this one may end in a person’s life being saved. Stefan Karl, the man who played Robbie Rotten, had a reddit AMA, where he announced that he was fighting Pancreatic Cancer. A GoFundMe was created and has already surpassed it’s $100,000 goal after two months.
I cannot explain why the internet likes weird shit like this, but it’s heartwarming to see the hivemind doing something nice for a change. Like Hugh Mungus, a man who became internet famous for making a silly joke but then had a massively successful GoFundme, the internet can do amazing things.
I expect great memes out of #2017.
