ViralWorld

Deez Nuts

You might remember it as Welven da Great deez nuts, Deez Nuts presidential candidate

The archive has not found a surviving copy.

2015·The platform era·unexpected

A schoolyard joke revived on Vine that ended up on a Federal Election Commission filing and in national polling.

At a glanceThe facts

Remembered as
Welven da Great deez nuts
Spread in
2015
Began as
A video upload
Where it started
vine
Format
Video
Era
The platform era
Taken from
The phrase comes from a skit by Warren G on Dr. Dre’s album The Chronic
Who or what it shows
In 2015 a fifteen-year-old from Iowa registered a presidential candidate under the name
Origin
Original no longer exists
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

A caller sets up a mundane question and delivers the answer: deez nuts. Welven Harris, posting as Welven da Great, made the version that spread in early 2015, and the setup-and-payoff structure was reproduced by hundreds of thousands of people. The joke itself dates to a Warren G skit on Dr Dre's The Chronic in 1992.

It is the only internet catchphrase to have stood for public office. In July 2015 a fifteen-year-old in Wallingford, Iowa, filed a statement of candidacy for the presidency of the United States under the name Deez Nuts; Public Policy Polling put the candidate at eight and nine per cent in three states, and mainstream outlets covered the result seriously before The Daily Beast identified the filer.

Warren G endorsed the candidacy. The episode became the standard illustration of how third-party polling numbers actually work — the pollster's own analyst observed that a segment of the electorate would give any anti-establishment name its seven or eight per cent. In Texas in 2016 the name outpolled both a Green Party candidate and a dead gorilla.

TimelineIn order

  1. Made

    A candidate called Deez Nuts is registered with the Federal Election Commission.1 What else happened on 26 July

  2. Took off

    A polling firm includes the name and finds 8 per cent support in Iowa and Minnesota and 9 per cent in North Carolina.1

  3. Found

    The person behind it is identified as a fifteen-year-old.1

  4. Later

    A national poll gives the name 10 per cent against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.1

LegacyWhat it left behind

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later

Originally published on Vine.

Where it came fromWhat we know

The original upload no longer exists. It has been identified, and nothing that survives is both legitimate and playable — so this page is the record, and the video is gone.

The original was identified by research and is no longer online. What is shown here is a surviving copy somebody else published, which is why this record makes no claim to be the first upload.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Deez Nuts (politician)

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

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