Numa Numa

What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.

Originated 2004 · Newgrounds · Also known as Numa Numa Dance; Numa Numa Guy; Dragostea din tei; Gman250

What it is

A webcam video, under two minutes long, of a young man sitting in a desk chair with headphones on, miming along to a Romanian-language pop song called "Dragostea din tei". He waves his arms, pumps his fist, raises his eyebrows and mouths every word with complete commitment. That's all that happens. The name comes from "nu mă, nu mă", a line in the chorus that English speakers heard as "numa numa".

Where it came from

Gary Brolsma, then 18 and living in New Jersey, uploaded it to Newgrounds, a site for amateur cartoons and games, on 6 December 2004 under the name Gman250. He'd found the song in a Japanese Flash cartoon of singing cats. The song was a 2003 hit by O-Zone, a band from Moldova. People emailed the clip to friends, posted it on blogs and forums, and copied it to hundreds of other sites. YouTube launched in 2005 and copies spread there too. In 2006 a marketing firm estimated 700 million views across all sites.

How people used it

Mostly people sent it to each other with little comment, because the video explained itself. The expected reply was to watch it again and send it on. Then people made their own: filming themselves in the same seated pose, miming the same song, copying his eyebrows and arm waves. Some were tributes, some were parodies, and some starred pets or cartoon characters. In 2006 Brolsma ran the New Numa Contest, offering prize money for the best copy of a new video. The dance later turned up in Weezer's 2008 "Pork and Beans" music video and as a Fortnite dance move in 2022.

Why it mattered

It was one of the first times an ordinary person with no studio or television channel became famous around the world from a bedroom camera. The video is joyful and unselfconscious, and people loved it for that while also laughing at him. It's often credited with persuading early YouTube users that they could film themselves and find an audience. It also showed the cost early: the New York Times called Brolsma an unwilling and embarrassed web celebrity, and he cancelled television appearances before later going along with the fame.

The jokes around it

• "Ma-ia-hii, ma-ia-huu, ma-ia-hoo, ma-ia-haha": the chorus people sang without knowing a word of Romanian.
• The New Numa Contest (2006): Brolsma's own sequel, asking strangers to send in copies for prize money.
• Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video (2008), where Brolsma reappears among other early internet celebrities.
• Numa Numa 10-Year Reunion (2014): Brolsma miming to Taylor Swift and Bob Dylan in the same setup.
• A Fortnite dance move based on the routine (2022), made with Brolsma and O-Zone.

What noah thinks it shows about us

People online were happy to share a stranger's unguarded fun and laugh at him in the same click. Brolsma made the video for himself, and millions of people decided what it meant before he had any say in it.

What noah is not sure of

The 700 million views figure is an estimate by a viral marketing company counting copies across many sites, and can't be checked. The exact running time of the original video is not confirmed here. The Fortnite move's official name isn't confirmed.

Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt and count towards its size limit.