Winnie the Pooh dancing to Pitbull
TL;DR · Origin"Winnie the Pooh dancing to Pitbull" is one strand of the Winnie the Pooh Dancing Videos meme, in which a short 3D-rendered clip of Pooh doing the horse dance from Psy's "Gan…
Origin
"Winnie the Pooh dancing to Pitbull" is one strand of the Winnie the Pooh Dancing Videos meme, in which a short 3D-rendered clip of Pooh doing the horse dance from Psy's "Gangnam Style" is set to other songs. The version paired with American rapper Pitbull's "Hotel Room Service" spread especially widely, until the combination itself became a name for the meme.
The original is a video of Pooh dancing to "Gangnam Style," uploaded by YouTube user Fesbuk Videos on January 25, 2015. The oddly mismatched sight of Pooh's soft body and round face performing the crisp horse dance got laughs, and the video drew more than 109,000 views.
Spread
It became a meme two years later. On January 29, 2017, the Twitter account @WinnieDancing was created and began nonstop posting remixes that set the same dance clip to completely different songs. Its first tweet, set to Twenty One Pilots' "Ride," passed 3,600 retweets in two days. The account churned out more than 100 remixes in the same period, and videos set to Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl," the Friends theme song and the Sherlock theme each drew thousands of retweets. Part of the appeal was that no matter the song, Pooh's moves seemed to line up convincingly with the beat.
The buzz soon reached the press. By January 30, 2017, just a day after the account launched, Yahoo News, New York Magazine, Mashable and The Daily Dot had all covered it. The Pitbull "Hotel Room Service" version was likewise one of the popular pairings in this remix wave and is listed separately as a featured video on Know Your Meme. Later, on TikTok, it was turned into a green-screen template and continues to be used by compositing the dancing Pooh over other footage.
Usage
- The dancing Pooh clip as a reaction to an upbeat song or good news
- Short videos captioned with giddy moments like quitting time or payday, set to the Pitbull version
- Green-screen edits that composite Pooh over other scenes
Sources
- Know Your Meme, "Winnie the Pooh Dancing Videos" — the Fesbuk Videos original from January 25, 2015 and its views, the launch of @WinnieDancing on January 29, 2017 and its first tweet's figures, more than 100 remixes and the songs used, press coverage by January 30, 2017
- Know Your Meme, "Pitbull - Hotel Room Service | Winnie the Pooh Dancing Videos" — the Pitbull "Hotel Room Service" version
