The video featured a strange animation of a baby and father singing a mashup of “Johnny Johnny Yes Papa” and the “ Baby Shark” song, which seems to have been a winning combination.Ĭreator behind Free Memes Kids (1.8 million Twitter followers) : I think it’s popular now because it’s so weird and people can’t believe that little kids actually watch this and they are creeped out by the voices and the characters in the video.
All it really takes is a few popular posts or creators posting about a meme before it can become a full fledged trend.ĭon Caldwell, Managing Editor of Know Your Meme: The recent resurgence was almost certainly caused by a tweet posted by which highlighted a clip taken from the Billion Surprise Toys YouTube channel. Shemrock Pre-Schools/YouTube Why is the “Johnny Johnny Yes Papa” meme so popular right now?ĭolan Dark, YouTube’s top meme creator (936,000 subscribers) : The increasing popularity of surreal humor definitely played a part in Johny Johny getting popular. To better understand this oddity, Polygon convened a panel of some of the most popular meme creators and aggregators to make sense of Johnny Johnny Yes Papa’s recent resonance. Why certain memes take off and reach mainstream success is the quantum mystery of the internet. “Now everyone knows and nobody can forget.” And all of those chambers are also full of undeniable evidence that these hidden vaults of eldritch knowledge have been plumbed by countless before you, but again, nobody ever talked about it. Then you realize the tomb has dozens and dozens of other chambers, nearly identical to the one you’re in but somehow different. But none of them have ever told the rest of the world.
“You’re this explorer who just tumbles into a bizarre tomb full of unknowable, weird objects and you’re sure that nobody else has ever been there but then you notice scrawled messages on all of the walls and it becomes clear that people have been there.
I asked Patrick Gill, Polygon’s resident shitposter and the employee most obsessed with Johnny Johnny Yes Papa, why this meme drew him into the internet’s weird vortex more than any other in recent times.