The Origin Of Yee
Throughout digital culture on the internet and social media memes for better or worse are present and very relevant. Memes can be images, gifs, and videos that have some sort of mass appeal as a joke. Often memes are enjoyed for how relatable they are or their cultural relevance. Once this joke has surfaced it is remixed and put into different contexts for people’s enjoyment. An example of a meme that became popular in 2014 and 2015 is “Yee”
The clip that spawned the Yee meme originated from the Italian version of the film “Dinosaur Adventure” and was uploaded to Youtube on June 6th 2010. 2 years later a Youtuber named “revergo” took the clip and added instrumentals from the movie to the first section. Though the clip remained small it eventually spread and became viral after being uploaded to r/youtubehaiku on Reddit. This then prompted people to create their own Yee videos featuring the two dinosaurs within different contexts such as songs and movies, as well as photo shopped images featuring the dinosaurs.
The reason this became so popular is because of how the video presents the little dinosaur singing a song only to receive an awkward “Yee” response. It is comedic and people clearly liked seeing the two bizarre looking dinosaurs interacting with each other. As the meme became more popular the word Yee became featured in many popular remixed songs replacing certain lyrics with the word Yee.
The “Yee” meme peaked around may of 2015 before slowly losing its popularity and being stored in the vaults of old memes. The nature of Yee with the awkward bizarre interaction between two dinosaurs animated in a knock off of “Land Before Time” is an example of the bizarre things that become popular on the internet and the kind of obscure humor that appeals to people who take part in meme culture.
