Popularity
On 10 July 2006, the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that Loituma Girl had caused a resurgence in Loituma's popularity, and the band had received thousands of fan letters from around the world.
Band member Timo Väänänen describes his initial reaction to the video:
I first found out there was something going on when I looked at the statistics of my own web page and then I realized that something weird is happening because there is such a huge traffic there. And most of the traffic came from Russia and then I started to track down what is happening and then I found this video. And well, I have no idea what this video is about, and what this girl is about.
The author of the meme is reported as Russian blogger g_r_e_e_n, having uploaded the animation 23 April 2006 at 15:40 and posted it in Russian LiveJournal. The song clip soon enjoyed overwhelming popularity in Russia as a ringtone, with most of the young urban population aware of the "Yak zup zop" lyrics.
PRI's The World radio program covered the animation in a segment, in which they noted the clip's trance-inducing qualities. Patrick Macias, who was interviewed in the program, described the animation:
This is basically a joke for someone who spends all of their time staring at a computer, made by people who spend all of their time staring at a computer. It's possible to read deeper meanings into it, but it sort of defeats the purpose because in the end it's just this hypnotic clip of animation.
As with most Internet memes, there are numerous videos, remixes, and parodies that have been inspired by the Flash animation. These may feature the animated background, the song clip, or otherwise reference the style of the animation.
In December 2010, Operation Leakspin played off the "Leekspin" meme during efforts to raise awareness of potentially important documents leaked by WikiLeaks.
Read more about this topic: Loituma Girl
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.”
—Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)