ViralWorld

Numa Numa

You might remember it as Numa Numa Dance

Most viral ever12 of 32

2004·Early web, before YouTube·funny

The webcam video that showed a generation that the thing to do with a camera was point it at yourself.

At a glanceThe facts

Remembered as
Numa Numa Dance
Format
Video
Era
Early web, before YouTube
Made by
Gary Brolsma, of Saddle Brook, New Jersey, posting as Gman250
The song
Dragostea din tei by O-Zone, sung in Romanian
First posted
Newgrounds, on 6 December 2004
Origin
Earliest source documented
Available
Playable from the source

What this wasThe story

Gary Brolsma sits at a desk in front of a webcam and lip-syncs and dances, from the chest up, to O-Zone’s "Dragostea din tei". The name is from the song’s refrain.

Brolsma described himself as an unwilling and embarrassed web celebrity and cancelled his media appearances. He returned in September 2006 with "New Numa" and a $45,000 contest, appeared in Weezer’s "Pork and Beans" video in 2008, and has released music since.

Why it matteredWhat changed

It is the webcam video before there was a place for webcam videos: one person at a desk, miming to a Romanian pop song, posted to a Flash site four months before the first video went up on YouTube. Nearly everything people later did in front of a camera for strangers is a version of it.

TimelineIn order

  1. Posted

    Gary Brolsma posts Numa Numa Dance to Newgrounds. He said he had found the song in a Japanese Flash animation of cartoon cats.1

  2. Remixed

    Brolsma releases New Numa on YouTube, with a contest offering 45,000 US dollars in prizes.1

  3. Record

    The marketing firm The Viral Factory estimates the video has been watched more than 700 million times.1

  4. Mainstream

    Brolsma appears in the video for Weezer’s Pork and Beans.1

  5. Later

    Brolsma uploads the original to his own YouTube channel, more than twelve years after he made it.1 What else happened on 1 April

  6. Taken down

    A widely watched copy is deleted from another channel after Brolsma threatens copyright strikes. He releases a remake that August.1

The version you rememberNot the same thing

The version people rememberNuma Numa, on YouTube

Copies uploaded to YouTube by other people, which is where most viewers saw it.1

The originalNuma Numa Dance, on Newgrounds

Posted by Brolsma in December 2004. Newgrounds later deleted it over music licensing, so the first posting no longer exists where it was made.1

What people misrememberSet straight

Commonly remembered asA YouTube video.

ActuallyIt was posted to Newgrounds in December 2004. YouTube did not yet exist, and Brolsma did not put the original on his own channel there until 2017.1

Commonly remembered asThe song is called Numa Numa.

ActuallyThe song is Dragostea din tei. “Numa numa” is a pair of Romanian words from its refrain.1

LegacyWhat it left behind

More from hereIn this collection

Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast

The version shown here is a later copy, posted by the creator to YouTube.

Where it came fromWhat we know

Earliest source currently known. This may not be the first publication.

View the creator's copy on YouTube

No original upload has been established for this record. The index is showing the earliest copy it currently knows about, and says so rather than guessing.

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

When
Originally published December 2004.

ConnectedFollow it further

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Numa Numa (video)

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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