ASSIGNMENT #5 - "MEMES" and DIFFUSION of INTERNET TRENDS by Kristine Paulsrud Brenna

Student: Kristine P. Brenna

SELECTED MEME: COCHOLATE RAIN

An American student from Minneapolis in Minnesota, Tay Zonday, published in April 2007 this video on YouTube, and it became a huge hit! In the beginning, Zonday said that the song was made to make people think about what they really meant, but later on Zonday said that the meaning of the song was «institusional racism» (Know Your Meme, 2007).

Just a few months (about three) after the video was published on YouTube it had more than 90 million views (Wikipedia, 2013). In writing (11.28.13, 3:30 pm), the video have 94,543,935 hits on YouTube. By looking at «Google Insights», I found that the interest for this video was highest in August 2007. This was right after Tay attended the American television show «Best Week Ever» and Jimmy Kimmel Live show (Know Your Meme, 2007). There was then an interest reduction in the end of 2007, while it increased again after the first quarter of 2008. Since summer 2008 the interest has been stabil – just a slight decrease. The song was most popular in Hong Kong, the United States and Canada (Google Insight, 2013).

Source: Google Trends (2013). Chocolate Rain.  http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=Chocolate%20Rain&cmpt=q

Thousands of people have made a parody of the song (even in South Park). In addition to this, the video has been remixed a large number of times and Tay him self has performed the song on several televison shows and different commercials (e.g. for Dr. Pepper, Vizio Super Bowl with Beyoncé and Firefox). Even the parodies have got millions of views on YouTube, which gives us an even better picture of this song´s crazy popularity. The first parody was made after 4chan published it and made a lot of fun with the song, in honor to mr. Zonday. As we understand, the new published video was seen by millions of people and got a lot of attention, and the hacktivist and activist group Anonymous is no exception. Tay was really cool when this happened and responed to them by doing a cover hit of a song from another of Anonymous´ interests, Rick Astley (Know Your Meme, 2007).

When I first watched the video, I thought «What on earth made this video so popular? It is just wierd». But when I had watched it a few more times, I changed my mind. The reason why I think the video has became so popular is first of all that Tay Zonday looks like a sharming and modest boy which has made a video just because he wanted to. It doesn´t look like he planned to be a popular YouTube video maker. I think these personal characteristics and such appearance captivates the viewers' attention. When he starts to sing, his voice is surprisingly deep. How can this «little» boy has that deep voice? It is almost hard to believe that it is his real voice. I think this is another thing that catched peoples attention. People get impressed and surprised, and will gladly share it with friends, family and other acquaintances. A third reason I will highlight is the lyrics and the point of the video. Racism is a topic many people care about, and since he is a boy with darker skin which sings about this topic, it is easier for him to be well-liked among the population. The lyrics and the melody also sticks to your head once you have heard it.

Sources

 Know Your Meme (2012). Tay Zonday/Chocolate Rain. Recruited 11.28.13 from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tay-zonday-chocolate-rain

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2013). Chocolate Rain. Recruited 11.28.13 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Rain

Google Trends (2013). Chocolate Rain. Recruited 11.28.13 from http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=Chocolate%20Rain&cmpt=q

 YouTube (2007). "Chocolate Rain" Original Song by Tay Zonday. Recruited 11.28.13 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA