Lofi Girl
You might remember it as ChilledCow, lofi hip hop radio, beats to relax/study to
Latest viral14 of 24
2017·The platform era
A YouTube channel that plays quiet instrumental music without stopping, over an animation of a girl writing at a desk.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- ChilledCow
- Spread in
- 2017
- Format
- Phenomenon
- Made by
- Dimitri Somoguy; the animation is by Juan Pablo Machado
- Original title
- ChilledCow, until March 2021
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Playable from the source
What this wasThe story
An endless livestream of instrumental hip hop under a looping animation of a student at her desk. It ran continuously for years, became the default background of remote study, and its brief takedown in 2022 was treated as news.
Why it matteredWhat changed
When YouTube took the stream down by mistake in 2020 it had been running for 13,000 hours. The two taken down in 2022 had run for 21,000 each.
TimelineIn order
- Made
The channel is created.1
- Posted
It begins streaming lo-fi music, using a clip of a girl studying from a Studio Ghibli film.1
- Corrected
After YouTube removes the stream over the film clip, a commissioned animation replaces it.1
- Taken down
YouTube removes the channel without explanation and restores it after protests.1
- Later
The channel reaches ten million subscribers.1
- Taken down
Two streams are taken down by a copyright claim that YouTube later calls abusive. They return two days later.1
The version you rememberNot the same thing
A character drawn for the channel by Juan Pablo Machado in 2017.1
The stream first used Shizuku Tsukishima, from the 1995 Studio Ghibli film.1
More from hereIn this collection
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
The version shown here is an official copy on YouTube, published by a rights holder.
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. The example shown is one surviving copy and is not claimed as the first.
View the official copy on YouTube
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.
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