The attention is odd. He’s not your typical bit of eye candy. His popularity is not based on good looks. He is instead a somewhat slick-looking dude with gangly limbs, a homely countenance and black, beady eyes. Yet there’s something endearing about ‘dat boi’. Perhaps it’s his ride.
Earlier this month a meme featuring a frog on a unicycle began making the rounds of social media. Suddenly dat boi, as he was dubbed, was everywhere.
While the first meeting with him required his presence incorporated with an additional phrase, “O shit waddup”, to express gleeful excitement, it has since taken on a life of its own. Different versions of memes have been created, even one with Kermit on a bicycle which says simply, “Here come dat boi.”
The original frog on a unicycle, however, is the popular choice and besides memes, he can be found in movie posters (a spectral image in “Saving dat boi”, for example), and even on a t-shirt.
Type dat boi into your browser’s search engine and be prepared to be amazed at the scope of this dude’s fame. Brian Feldman, a reporter covering New York magazine’s internet culture, tracked the origins of the cycling amphibian to AnimationFactory.com. Alison Hoy, president of Vital Imagery Ltd., parent company of AF, responded to his request for comment.
“We are very excited to see the resurgence in popularity of animated GIF images on the internet and in social media particularly. A good meme can brighten up your a day and with over 500,000 quirky and amusing images available on AnimationFactory.com we really do have something for everybody.”
Memes are fun. While we might not always understand them, they offer amusement in a way that translates well for social media. The ones that go viral, such as dat boi, according to “meme scientist” Ari Spool, typically border on the absurd. Another factor, he says, is an inside-joke element. (You can see the full interview here: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/we-asked-an-expert-why-some-memes-work-better-than-others)
Following a study of memes, (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3366348/What-makes-meme-Scientists-reveal-secret-causes-images-viral.html) researchers revealed that short and sweet memes tend to get more attention, while those with swear words are least likely to be shared.
Hmm.. guess dat boi is the exception to that rule.
If you have something to say and share, and would like to create a meme or two of your own, there are plenty of meme generators to be found online. Here’s a random sample:
