Okay, so a couple months ago, I was working on an article about Japanese Internet culture that ran in the June issue of Wired. The main character in the story is Hiroyuki Nishimura, a roguish web entrepreneur whose two web sites, 2channel and Nico Nico Douga, have spawned a huge collection of strange web memes that dominate the subterfuge of the Japanese Internet.
One of the strange web memes is the Uma Uma Dance. Some people thought the chorus of a Swedish dance track called Caramelldansen sounded like "uma uma" or horsey horsey in Japanese, and they made a video of popular anime characters doing this little bunny ear dance to it.
As part of the reporting process, I went to Japan and met dozens of experts and web geeks. I spent hours watching Nico Nico videos, and I even convinced my coworkers at Wired to help me make a Uma Uma video of our own. Then we uploaded onto YouTube and Nico Nico Douga. We got tons of crazy comments on the NicoDou version, which you can't see here—but they said things like: "What is this? An American joke?"
If you have a NicoDou account, you can watch the commented version here. Otherwise, here's the YouTube version for your entertainment, featuring unnamed silly characters from the Wired editorial department.
Comments