Numa Numa
Encyclopedia
Numa Numa is an Internet phenomenon based on amateur videos, most notably Numa Numa Song by Gary Brolsma
, made for the song "Dragostea din tei
" as performed by O-Zone
. Brolsma's video, released in December 2004 on the website Newgrounds.com
, was the first Numa Numa–themed video to gain widespread attention. Less than three months after the release
, it had been viewed more than two million times on the debut website alone. Numa Numa Song has since spawned many parody videos, including those created for the "New Numa Contest", sponsored by Brolsma, which promised US$
45,000 in prize money for submissions. His original video was named 41st in the 2006 broadcast of 100 Greatest Funny Moments
by Channel 4
in the UK
.
by the Moldovan band, O-Zone
. In Romanian the lyrics are "nu mă, nu mă iei", which translate as "you don't, you don't take me". See Dragostea din tei: Lyrics for details and context.
The Numa Numa phenomenon was first popularized by Gary Brolsma's release of Numa Numa Dance on Newgrounds
.com on December 6, 2004. The video shows Gary Brolsma
wearing headphones and lipsyncing to the audio of the original O-Zone
track whilst moving his head, shoulders and arms gesticulating to the music in an animated and earnest manner. Brolsma was sitting at his computer filming himself with a webcam. This video has been viewed over 700 million times on YouTube
(from many different "copycat" videos, though the official video received approximately 40 million views).
By February 25, 2005, less than 3 months after he released the video on Newgrounds, it had been viewed more than two million times on that site alone. Brolsma later stated in an interview, "...I found it ["Dragostea din tei"] in another (I believe it was Japanese) flash animation with cartoon cats". Others have noted Brolsma's inspiration was the Japanese flash animation Maiyahi by the Albinoblacksheep.com
user "ikari", whose music featured an animated version of the popular Shift JIS art
cat Monā
.
On Newgrounds
, Numa Numa Dance has since been seen more than eighteen million times. From there it has been copied onto hundreds of other websites and blogs. According to a November 27, 2006 report by the BBC
, based on page impression figures collated by viral marketing
company The Viral Factory, Numa Numa Dance is the second-most watched viral video of all time, with 700 million views, losing out only to "Star Wars kid"
. Brolsma received mainstream media coverage from ABC
's Good Morning America
, NBC
's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and VH1
's Best Week Ever
and the Numa Numa video was listed as number 1 on VH1
s Top 40 Internet Superstars. According to The New York Times
, however, he was an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity". He canceled media appearances but reappeared in September 2006 with a professionally produced video, New Numa, featuring a song specially made for him by Variety Beats. This video, hosted on YouTube
, marked the start of the "New Numa Contest", which promised US$
45,000 in prize money and a US$
25,000 award to the winner.
A story in the June/July 2006 issue of The Believer
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".
Brolsma appeared in the video for the Weezer single "Pork and Beans," singing along with the band while doing the Numa Numa dance.
The original Brolsma "Numa Numa Dance" was featured in a sixth season episode of the TV series NCIS
, where characters Abby and McGee both expressed their fondness for the video, and in the 2008 "Canada on Strike" episode of the animated TV comedy series South Park
. Japanese variety show SMAP×SMAP
featured SMAP
members Takuya Kimura
and Goro Inagaki
lip-synching and dancing to the song during one of the program's Host club sketches in 2005.
In 2006, South Korean singer Yoo Hyun Young performed her version, releasing it as "Noona's (Big Sister's) Dream".
In the summer of 2008 YouTube anthropologist Michael Wesch identified the video and its numerous replies as an important part of the newly emerging video sharing service. He has called Brolsma "the first guy on the dance floor at this global mixer".
In the 2009 college football game between the Iowa Hawkeyes
and the Michigan State Spartans
, Brolsma conducted the Michigan State Marching Band at halftime at Spartan Stadium
as they played "Dragostea din tei." During the Super Bowl XLIV
, the ad for Vizio
briefly showed Brolsma doing the Numa Numa dance.
Gary Brolsma
Gary William Brolsma , also known as simply The Numa Numa Guy, is an American singer who gained worldwide attention after posting onto the Internet, near the end of 2004, a webcam video of himself miming to the song "Dragostea din tei" by Moldovan pop band O-Zone...
, made for the song "Dragostea din tei
Dragostea din tei
"Dragostea din tei" , also informally known as "The Numa Numa Song" , is the most successful single by the Moldovan pop group O-Zone, sung in Romanian. It shot to the number one spot on the Eurochart Hot 100, where it remained for 12 weeks between June and early September 2004...
" as performed by O-Zone
O-Zone
O-Zone was a Romania/Moldovan pop music trio that was active from 1998 to 2005 and consisted of Dan Bălan, Radu Sîrbu, and Arsenie Todiraş. The group gained global popularity with their song "Dragostea din tei" and their subsequent album DiscO-Zone....
. Brolsma's video, released in December 2004 on the website Newgrounds.com
Newgrounds
Newgrounds is an American entertainment and social media website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash animations and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal...
, was the first Numa Numa–themed video to gain widespread attention. Less than three months after the release
Release
- Media :* Film release, the public distribution of a film* Legal release, a legal instrument* News release, a communication directed at the news media* Software release life cycle, the public distribution of software code and support materials...
, it had been viewed more than two million times on the debut website alone. Numa Numa Song has since spawned many parody videos, including those created for the "New Numa Contest", sponsored by Brolsma, which promised US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
45,000 in prize money for submissions. His original video was named 41st in the 2006 broadcast of 100 Greatest Funny Moments
100 Greatest / 100 Worst
100 Greatest is a long-running TV strand on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom that has been broadcasting since 1999. The "list show" programmes are generally public polls, and reflect the votes of visitors to the Channel 4 website. However, the results of some of the polls are determined by experts...
by Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Background
The phrase Numa Numa is taken from the chorus of Dragostea din teiDragostea din tei
"Dragostea din tei" , also informally known as "The Numa Numa Song" , is the most successful single by the Moldovan pop group O-Zone, sung in Romanian. It shot to the number one spot on the Eurochart Hot 100, where it remained for 12 weeks between June and early September 2004...
by the Moldovan band, O-Zone
O-Zone
O-Zone was a Romania/Moldovan pop music trio that was active from 1998 to 2005 and consisted of Dan Bălan, Radu Sîrbu, and Arsenie Todiraş. The group gained global popularity with their song "Dragostea din tei" and their subsequent album DiscO-Zone....
. In Romanian the lyrics are "nu mă, nu mă iei", which translate as "you don't, you don't take me". See Dragostea din tei: Lyrics for details and context.
The Numa Numa phenomenon was first popularized by Gary Brolsma's release of Numa Numa Dance on Newgrounds
Newgrounds
Newgrounds is an American entertainment and social media website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash animations and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal...
.com on December 6, 2004. The video shows Gary Brolsma
Gary Brolsma
Gary William Brolsma , also known as simply The Numa Numa Guy, is an American singer who gained worldwide attention after posting onto the Internet, near the end of 2004, a webcam video of himself miming to the song "Dragostea din tei" by Moldovan pop band O-Zone...
wearing headphones and lipsyncing to the audio of the original O-Zone
O-Zone
O-Zone was a Romania/Moldovan pop music trio that was active from 1998 to 2005 and consisted of Dan Bălan, Radu Sîrbu, and Arsenie Todiraş. The group gained global popularity with their song "Dragostea din tei" and their subsequent album DiscO-Zone....
track whilst moving his head, shoulders and arms gesticulating to the music in an animated and earnest manner. Brolsma was sitting at his computer filming himself with a webcam. This video has been viewed over 700 million times on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
(from many different "copycat" videos, though the official video received approximately 40 million views).
By February 25, 2005, less than 3 months after he released the video on Newgrounds, it had been viewed more than two million times on that site alone. Brolsma later stated in an interview, "...I found it ["Dragostea din tei"] in another (I believe it was Japanese) flash animation with cartoon cats". Others have noted Brolsma's inspiration was the Japanese flash animation Maiyahi by the Albinoblacksheep.com
Albino Blacksheep
Albino Blacksheep is an animation website made in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that posts member-submitted digital media. Most of these are movies or games created with Adobe Flash. The website also features image galleries, audio files, and text files. Additionally, there is a mobile section that...
user "ikari", whose music featured an animated version of the popular Shift JIS art
Shift JIS art
Shift_JIS art is artwork created from characters within the Shift JIS character set, a superset of ASCII intended for Japanese usage. Naturally there are many similarities between Shift_JIS artwork and ASCII art....
cat Monā
Mona
Mona may refer to:*Mona in Saxon mythology*Cercopithecus mona, a long tailed African Monkey*Mona at Birmingham Zoo in the United States*Mona , a female given name and surname...
.
On Newgrounds
Newgrounds
Newgrounds is an American entertainment and social media website. Founded on July 6, 1995 by Tom Fulp, the site primarily hosts Adobe Flash animations and games, but also features a music-oriented page, along with an art portal...
, Numa Numa Dance has since been seen more than eighteen million times. From there it has been copied onto hundreds of other websites and blogs. According to a November 27, 2006 report by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, based on page impression figures collated by viral marketing
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
company The Viral Factory, Numa Numa Dance is the second-most watched viral video of all time, with 700 million views, losing out only to "Star Wars kid"
Star Wars Kid
"Star Wars Kid" is an Internet meme involving a video of a high school student from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, wielding a golf ball retriever in imitation of Darth Maul's lightsaber moves from the Star Wars films....
. Brolsma received mainstream media coverage from ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
's Best Week Ever
Best Week Ever
Best Week Ever is a weekly television program on the United States cable/satellite network VH1. It started airing in 2004 and was put on hiatus in the summer of 2009...
and the Numa Numa video was listed as number 1 on VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
s Top 40 Internet Superstars. According to The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, however, he was an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity". He canceled media appearances but reappeared in September 2006 with a professionally produced video, New Numa, featuring a song specially made for him by Variety Beats. This video, hosted on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, marked the start of the "New Numa Contest", which promised US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
45,000 in prize money and a US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
25,000 award to the winner.
A story in the June/July 2006 issue of The Believer
The Believer (magazine)
The Believer is a United States literary magazine that also covers other arts and general culture. Founded and designed in 2003 by the writer and publisher Dave Eggers, it is edited by Vendela Vida, Heidi Julavits and Ed Park...
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".
Brolsma appeared in the video for the Weezer single "Pork and Beans," singing along with the band while doing the Numa Numa dance.
The original Brolsma "Numa Numa Dance" was featured in a sixth season episode of the TV series NCIS
NCIS (TV series)
NCIS, formerly known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S...
, where characters Abby and McGee both expressed their fondness for the video, and in the 2008 "Canada on Strike" episode of the animated TV comedy series South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
. Japanese variety show SMAP×SMAP
SMAP×SMAP
SMAP×SMAP is an ongoing weekly Japanese variety show on Kansai TV and Fuji TV starring the members of SMAP. The show began on April 15, 1996 and it airs from 22:00 to 22:54 every Monday...
featured SMAP
SMAP
SMAP is a Japanese boy band formed by Johnny & Associates. While originally consisting of six members, the current group members are Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Shingo Katori...
members Takuya Kimura
Takuya Kimura
, nicknamed , is a Japanese singer and actor. He is also a member of the Japanese idol group SMAP. Most of the TV dramas he starred in produced high ratings in Japan...
and Goro Inagaki
Goro Inagaki
is a Japanese musician and actor from Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan. Inagaki is a member of the Japanese pop group SMAP. His career began while he was in junior high school, when his sister submitted his picture to a talent company; he was subsequently chosen to join SMAP, which has a considerable...
lip-synching and dancing to the song during one of the program's Host club sketches in 2005.
In 2006, South Korean singer Yoo Hyun Young performed her version, releasing it as "Noona's (Big Sister's) Dream".
In the summer of 2008 YouTube anthropologist Michael Wesch identified the video and its numerous replies as an important part of the newly emerging video sharing service. He has called Brolsma "the first guy on the dance floor at this global mixer".
In the 2009 college football game between the Iowa Hawkeyes
Iowa Hawkeyes
The Iowa Hawkeyes are the athletics teams that represent the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. The Hawkeyes have varsity teams in 24 sports, 11 for men and 13 for women. The teams participate in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association and are members of the...
and the Michigan State Spartans
Michigan State Spartans
The Michigan State Spartans are the athletic team that represent Michigan State University. The school's athletic program includes 25 varsity sports teams. Their mascot is a Spartan warrior named Sparty, and the school colors are green and white...
, Brolsma conducted the Michigan State Marching Band at halftime at Spartan Stadium
Spartan Stadium
Spartan Stadium may refer to:* Spartan Stadium , stadium on the campus of Michigan State University* Spartan Stadium , stadium on the campus of San José State University* Spartan Municipal Stadium, stadium in Portsmouth, Ohio...
as they played "Dragostea din tei." During the Super Bowl XLIV
Super Bowl XLIV
Super Bowl XLIV was an American football game between the American Football Conference champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference champion New Orleans Saints to decide the National Football League champion for the 2009 season. The Saints defeated the Colts by a score of...
, the ad for Vizio
Vizio
Vizio is a privately held producer of consumer electronics, based in Irvine, California, USA. It was founded in October 2002 as V Inc. Vizio's major partner in the consumer electronics arena is AmTran Technology, a Taiwan-based OEM/ODM that manufactures more than half of the televisions sold...
briefly showed Brolsma doing the Numa Numa dance.
External links
- The "Dragostea din tei" music video (in the RealMediaRealMediaRealMedia is a proprietary multimedia container format created by RealNetworks. Its extension is ".rm". It is typically used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio and is used for streaming content over the Internet....
format) at O-Zone's official web site - "Numa Numa Dance" on Newgrounds, where it was originally submitted
- New York Times Article