Numa Numa (Video)

Numa Numa (Video)

Numa Numa is an Internet phenomenon based on amateur videos, most notably a video by Gary Brolsma, made for the song "Dragostea din tei" as performed by O-Zone. Brolsma's video entitled Numa Numa Song, was released in December 2004 on the website Newgrounds.com, it 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 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 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", which featured soramimi wordplay (from Romanian into Japanese) and whose video 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 VH1s 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.