Conga!

About

Conga! (also known as "Tutti I Conga" in behalf of Italian Facebook users) is a series of image exploitables based on a cartoon character yelling "Conga!", which was originally quoted in a Cyanide & Happiness comic by Italian illustrator Rob DenBleyker. Having spawned hundreds of derivative images via Italian-speaking communities, this meme is comparable to the fsjal series that was popularized via 4chan in 2009.

Origin

The original strip that inspired the meme can be found in the issue #1422 of web comic series Cyanide & Happiness posted by Rob on October 6, 2008. The comic begins with a scuffle between two characters and as others jump in to break it up, one of them yells "Conga!" and the scrimmage suddenly turns into a Conga line, a style of Cuban carnival march that's become a staple party thing in the US since the 1930s.

On the very next day, Explosm artist Dave McElfatrick posted another comic strip featuring the "Conga!" joke.

On October 19th, 2008, Rob posted a follow-up iteration featuring his joke:

Spread

Image Derivatives

In the following weeks and months, dozens of derivative images began to appear, such as these shown below. More deivatives can be found on the 'Tutti I Conga' fan page on Facebook under the photos tab and on the official site of 'Tutti I Conga'.

Facebook Pages

Searching "Conga" under Facebook pages yields at least 39 fan pages, most with less than a thousand members. The biggest fan page is Tutti I Conga, created on October 27, 2010 with over 50,000 members. Two other groups with over a thousand members are: * Conga #1 (11,000+ members) & Conga #2 (4,000+ members).

The Facebook event, Conga di fine mondo (Conga at the end of the world) will take place on December 21, 2012, having over 100,000 attendees and 60,000 people invited. After the launch of this event, more pages appeared such as Conga Del Fine Mondo!! However, most of these have few confirmed guests.

YouTube

On September 20, 2010, YouTube user xlXlxREQUIEMxlXlx uploaded the following video, which has recieved more than 160,000 views:

On November 2, 2010, 2 different videos were uploaded to YouTube featuring 'Conga!' fan photos galleries.
One by silveroboy,

And another by ispanico9696.

Rob's Response

On November 6, 2010, Rob posted his response to the phenomenon on the Explosm Forums:

Conga Line Template

'Conga!' Blank Exploitable

The Official 'Conga!' Site

On December, 28 2010, the creator of the Facebook page 'Tutti I Conga' opened a site that collects the image derivatives of 'Conga!' and updates daily.