Robot Unicorn Attack / Harmony Harmony

About

Robot Unicorn Attack is a side-scrolling Flash game on Adult Swim^[1] that became popular on 4chan’s /v/ board. It is often associated with the catchphrase “Harmony Harmony”, coming from the 1994 synth-pop single Always by Erasure (the game’s audio track).

Origin

Robot Unicorn Attack was released on February 4th, 2010, and was produced by Spiritonin Media Games. The player takes the role of a robotic unicorn galloping across a land made of purple grass, rainbows and sparkling dolphins. Points are earned by leaping over obstacles and chasms, or bursting through stars using a “dash” move.

Always by Erasure

Lyrics

Open your eyes I see
Your eyes are open
Wear no disguise for me
Come into the open

When it’s cold outside
Am I here in vain?
Hold on to the night
There will be no shame

Always, I wanna be with you
And make believe with you
And live in harmony,
harmony oh love

Melting the ice for me
Jump into the ocean
Hold back the tide I see
Your love in motion

When it’s cold outside
Am I here in vain?
Hold on to the night
There will be no shame

Spread

4chan discussions on the game reportedly began on the /v/ (video game) board following the release of the game. On February 26th, /v/ board’s layout was revamped by moot at the request of the users. The background was changed to a tiled rainbow image featuring the infamous Yaranaika face accompanied by Always playing in the background.

-Adult Swim’s online scoreboard shows that the top three scores are listed under names closely associated 4chan and they’re impossibly high scores exceeding 44 million points.

YouTube views for the Erasure song saw a significant increase in February of 2010, the same month the game was released.

On April 2nd, 2010, Urlesque^[3] reported a brief primer on the meme.

Derivatives

Search

Search queries for “robot unicorn attack” picked up the month the game was released in February 2010, and reached their highest spike in December that year.

External Links

^[1] Adult Swim – Robot Unicorn Attack

^[2] 4chanarchive – /v/, I will love you. Always

^[3] Urlesque – Robot Unicorn Attack