Bubb Rubb

About

Bubb Rubb is a Bay Area resident who appeared in a local news segment on the growing trend of “whistle tips,” a custom-modified exhaust pipe that generates deafening sounds of whistles during motor operation. While the news story focused on local residents’ complaints of constant noise in the neighborhood, one naysayer stepped up to the camera in staunch advocacy of the whistle tips. His name was Bubb Rubb.

Origin

In 2003, KRON-TV Channel 4^[1] in San Francisco Bay Area covered a story about strange noise problems in the streets of Oakland, CA, caused by a piece of metal added onto cars’ exhaust pipes. Among the local residents interviewed were Jonathan Worrel, identified in the video as “Bubb Rubb," and his associate “Lil Sis” who spoke in defense of the whistle tips.

Interview Transcript

Reporter: Can you tell me about the whistles?
Bubb Rubb: The whistles go WOO-- You wanna WOO WOO--
Reporter: Some neighbors are saying it’s “way too loud.”
Bubb Rubb: …That’s only in the mowrning. He’s supposed to be
up cooking breakfast or something, …so it’s like an alarm clock!

Spread

Shortly after the video aired on TV, car hobbyists started passing around links to independently hosted clips on KRON’s website as well as various automobile-related forums like VWVortex^[2], Tundra Solutions^[3] and HondaSwaps^[4].

One of the VWVortext forum users, Mark Leinhos, sampled Bubb Rubb’s quotes and created a hip-hop influenced tune titled “Ghetto Hooptie Woo Remix”^[5], which was uploaded onto Leinho’s website under the moniker “Evil Shift Key”. Within two weeks, the song was downloaded more than 25,000 times.

Another viewer, UC San Diego student Matt Durand, discovered the clip around same time on KRON’s website; when the video was removed from KRON, Durand set up an entire website^[5] devoted to Bubb Rubb, featuring the original news clip and Leinho’s remix mp3 file, as well as various photoshopped images and flash animations. In the first week of launch, the site was linked on FARK^[6], Metafilter^[7] and Milks & Cookies^[8] receiving over 45,000 visits.

Throughout 2003, the audio / video remix phenomenon continued with some of the great viral mediums of the time, such as flash animations, audio soundboards^[9] and YTMND^[10], where Bubb Rubb would become one of the most popular exploitables of all time within the community.

KRON’s Cease & Desist

As Durand’s website continued to gain traction, KRON sent a cease-and-desist letter^[11] asking him to take down their video from the website. However, Durand wrote back and pleaded that the site was part of his senior thesis (therefore exempt from copyright infringement), eventually getting KRON’s permission to host the videos online.

Documentary

With Bubb Rubb dominating the blogs in the first quarter of 2003, Lynell would hook up with the owners of the website BubbRubb.com who started selling BubbRubb tshirts, BubbRubb thongs, and Bubb Rubb ringtones. Eventually they would promote and sell a DVD documentary with Lynell entitled “Chillin at the Mansion” who’s trailer would create it’s own viral aftershock for its trailer, solely focused on the stories and opinions of Bubb Rubb.

On YTMND

The original YTMND starring Bubb Rubb was uploaded on May 3rd, 2004 by user oldmangimper^[11]. The site remained low-key for another year until May 2005, when several Bubb Rubb mash-ups featuring pop culture icons like Darth Vader, Sonic the Hedgehog and Zelda’s Link began to surface.

In 2006, over a dozen parodies of Bubb Rubb were submitted, many of them remixing the footage from another local news report about The Crichton Leprechaun in Mobil, Alabama.

The first YouTube version of the news segment was uploaded via YouTube by LILOUTLAW209 on January 25th, 2006. As the whistle tip video began to gain momentum on YouTube, it led to creation of more spin-offs and remixes on YTMND^[12]. The popularity of Bubb Rubb fad peaked sometime in 2007, spawning a high-quality assortment of more than 100 derivatives. One parody in particular, Zelda: The Bubb Rubb of Time, still remains as the 4th highest rated YTMND ever.

Occupy Oakland Interview

On November 3rd, 2011, an article published by The Guardian^[13] about clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators during Oakland’s Occupy protests included a brief statement from a man named Bubb Rubb about the actions of a rogue group of black bloc protesters.

Bubb Rubb, from Oakland, was unimpressed with “these people in black clothes, with black flags”. “They bamboozled us. They wanted violence,” he told the Guardian.

Search Interest

Notable Examples

Bubb Rubb feat. Juelz Santana’s There It Go:

“Whistle Remix Remix” Edition:

Little girl says “woo woo” like Bubb Rubb:

External References