Caramelldansen
You might remember it as Uma uma dance
This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.
Biggest memes ever26 of 32
2007·Early YouTube·funny
A Swedish dance track sped up and welded to a two-second Japanese animation loop, in a form nobody designed.
At a glanceThe facts
- Spread in
- 2007
- Format
- GIF
- The song
- Caramelldansen by the Swedish group Caramell, from the album Supergott, released on 16 November 2001
- Taken from
- A fifteen-frame loop of the characters Mai and Mii from the opening of the Japanese game Popotan
- Also known as
- Uma uma, in Japan, from a mishearing of the chorus
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A short loop: two anime characters sway with their hands beside their heads, over a chipmunk-pitched Swedish europop chorus. The song is Caramell's 2001 track from Sweden; the animation is a few frames from the Japanese visual novel Popotan; the speed-up came from somebody else again. Nobody built the combination as a work — it was assembled by anonymous edit and then reproduced, endlessly, with every other character anyone could draw.
Caramell reformed to capitalise on it. A promotional virtual group was launched. The loop has never really stopped: it recurs every few years on a new platform, most recently on TikTok, usually among people who have no idea it is Swedish, Japanese or twenty years old.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A Swedish pop song was sped up by mistake, joined on 4chan to fifteen frames from a Japanese game, and became a hit in Japan six years after the band that recorded it had split up. The record label then released the internet’s version as the official one.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Caramell release the album Supergott in Sweden, with Caramelldansen as its first track. The group disbands the following year.1 What else happened on 16 November
- Made
The Japanese game Popotan is released. Its opening has two characters doing a hip-swinging dance.1
- Remixed
DJ Speedycake posts a sped-up version of the song to 4chan, the result of a mixing mistake. A poster calling himself Sven from Sweden joins its chorus to the Popotan loop.1
- Took off
At the end of the year the “Uma uma” boom begins on the Japanese site Nico Nico Douga, with many fan-made versions.1
- Mainstream
The sped-up version is released as a single in Japan and reaches number 16.1
- Record
The song wins international single of the year at the Japan Gold Disc Awards.1
The version you rememberNot the same thing
A high-pitched chorus over two cartoon girls dancing.1
A Swedish song at its original speed and an unrelated Japanese animation, put together by a stranger in 2005.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asThe song is called Uma Uma.
ActuallyThat is the Japanese name for the meme, from a mishearing of the Swedish chorus.1
Commonly remembered asThe animation was made for the song.
ActuallyIt comes from a game released a year after the song, and the two were combined by a 4chan poster.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
More from 2007You were there
More from early YouTubeMore of the archive
ConnectedFollow it further
- Spread by 4chanPhenomenon · 2003
Both the sped-up song and its pairing with the animation loop were first posted to 4chan, in 2005.
- Spread by Nico Nico Douga2006
The boom that made it a hit in Japan began on Nico Nico Douga at the end of 2007.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things