By Hedda Christina Gronbech
Hafskjold
“Chocolate
rain” was uploaded on YouTube in April, 2007 by Tay Zonday. Overnight his music
video became a hit. At first people questioned if the video was real because of
this young guy’s dark voice, but after a little bit of individual private
investigation it was a fact, the video is real. By this time we were hooked and
it became a stuck in head sensation, and today it has more than 88 million views.
When first
uploaded the audience was unsure of what the strange lyrics actually meant. But
according to urban dictionary “chocolate rain” is a euphemism for racism
created by Tay Zonday in his hit YouTube song “Chocolate rain”. E.g. if you
replace racism with chocolate rain in the lyrics it may make more sense:
“Chocolate rain, The school books say it can’t be here again”.
Tay himself
(and many more) claim that 4chan is the reason why it became so popular. In
July (only a month after being posted) the internet forum displayed him all
over the front page, along with Chocolate rain jokes and a remix of the song. After
the video was featured on 4chan, lots of parodies was created and got millions
of views only by being associated with Zondays song.
As mentioned
earlier the video has over 88 millions views. If we look at the “Google
insight” interest of the meme the video went from 0 in June 2007 to 100 in
August 2007. After its absolute peak it dropped significantly to 19 in October
2007. But after getting a Youtube Award the video has a modest peak in April
2008. Since this the interest has steadily decreased.
“Chocolate
Rain” is spread all over the internet. Since the music video was released in
2007 the concept has evolved throughout numerous of commentary, imitations,
parodies, tributes, remixes, and covers. For example several artists spoofed
the song, among them is Chad Vader. And there also have been made a parody on
Barack Obama.
Sources:
- http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=Chocolate%20Rain&cmpt=q
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Rain
- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chocolate%20Rain
- http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tay-zonday-chocolate-rain
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