Numa Numa

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New York Times article (February 26, 2005) about Gary Brolsma and the Numa Numa dance.
New York Times article (February 26, 2005) about Gary Brolsma and the Numa Numa dance.

Numa Numa (or "the Numa Numa Dance") is an Internet phenomenon based on amateur videos, particularly one by Gary Brolsma, made for the song "Dragostea din tei" by Moldovan pop band O-Zone. It came 28th in the 100 Greatest Funny Moments, broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK.

The phrase "Numa Numa" comes from the chorus of the song, "nu mă, nu mă iei," meaning, roughly, "don't want don't want to take me."

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[edit] Gary Brolsma

Main article: Gary Brolsma

A Flash-based video of American Gary Brolsma lip-synching the song energetically on his webcam brought the Numa Numa phenomenon to the US (video). Brolsma has stated that he first discovered the song in the Japanese flash animation Maiyahi [1] and thought it was Japanese. In the original video, Brolsma does not finish the entire song, ending at around 1:39.

Brolsma first published his "Numa Numa Dance" on the Newgrounds site on December 6, 2004, where it has since been seen more than 14 million times and copied onto hundreds of other websites and blogs, making it the second-most watched viral video of all time (only losing out to Star Wars kid) [2]. He has also received mainstream media coverage from ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's The Tonight Show and VH1's Best Week Ever, and, according to The New York Times, was an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity." He cancelled media appearances, but in September 2006, reappeared with a professionally produced video. This video, titled "New Numa", has appeared on YouTube (posted by Brolsma) and marks the start of the "New Numa Contest" [3]. The contest promises $45,000 in prize money, with $25,000 going to the winner.

A story in The Believer (June/July 2006) explores the song's spread and global homogenization, while arguing that Brolsma's video "singlehandedly justifies the existence of webcams . . . It’s a movie of someone who is having the time of his life, wants to share his joy with everyone, and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks."

One version of Brolsma's video also contains some puns, among them pictures of "feta cheese" during the lyric "fericirea" ("happiness") and a LEGO representation of Bob Ross during the singer's words: "sunt eu Picasso" ("it's me Picasso").

[edit] Parodies

The Numa Numa dance is a popular Internet Meme that has spawned many parodies. Many of them are on Newgrounds, Google Video, and YouTube.

Thousands of amateur videos of people recreating the dance have appeared on YouTube.com. Many themes have been chosen for Numa Numa parodies. Fictional characters have been chosen to be used in parodies, such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, Vash the Stampede, and many other anime characters, Optimus Prime, Mario, Luigi, Godzilla, Thomas the Tank Engine, TUGS, Muppets, and Calvin and Hobbes [4], River City Ransom, and Homestar Runner, and World of Warcraft. There have also been items used for videos, such as Lego bricks, army men and even a G.I. Joe and John F. Kennedy. In addition, Napoleon Dynamite and American Idol have versions. A parody of the infamous "Angry German Kid" video was made including Numa Numa and Star Wars Kid. An alternate parody music video was also created by students at the University of British Columbia. [5]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ [3]
  4. ^ [4]
  5. ^ [5]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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