Leviathan Explains How He Created His Viral Song ‘Chug Jug With You’ And What’s Next For The YouTuber After His ‘Fortnite’ Parodies Swept The Internet

t just 13 years old, YouTuber Leviathan uploaded a parody song to his channel in 2018 featuring Estelle’s Grammy-nominated “American Boy.” For years, it sat in relative obscurity before exploding this year and giving life to a multitude of meme formats and viral trends. By now, most have heard this infamous Fortnite parody that, despite being sung by a squeaker, is an incredibly catchy earworm. The song in question, of course, is none other than “Chug Jug With You.” If you haven’t heard it yet, we’re sorry for getting it stuck in your head.

We caught up with Leviathan earlier this week to find out more about how he created the song, where the inspiration came from, and how he’s been handling the influx of attention online since it swept the internet in recent weeks. Now that it’s racked up over 10 million views, become a TikTok trend, meme format via Tomato Town Massacre and more, here’s what Leviathan himself had to say about it all.

Q: Welcome and thanks for joining us, Leviathan. Let’s start off with a quick intro about who you are and what you’re known for.

A: Hey! I’m Leviathan and I made a few popular Fortnite parodies that have made their rounds on the internet lately, you might know them. There’s one in specific as of recent that’s sort of getting a little big right now.

Q: So would you tell us a little more about your background and who you are? How’d you get into making parody music and when did you start your YouTube channel?

A: So I think I started my channel in 2015 but didn’t upload much until around 2017 when I was making theory videos on a mobile game called My Singing Monsters. I was getting a few thousand views or so on each of the videos. I eventually made a video called “Do Ya Thing Without Music,” which was a Gorillaz music video I had edited to replace the music with Foley sound effects and such. That got around 500,000 views, which was my first big video and that was pretty exciting. Eventually, I started writing parody lyrics in calls with my friends which is where that side of things began.

Q: Back in late 2018, CM Skits’ “American Boy Fortnite Parody” video dropped a few months before your version. How did his earlier iteration inspire you to create your song and where/when did you first see it?

A: I believe it was just making its rounds on the internet at the time. I know it was pretty popular on Instagram and such, so I might have seen it there. I thought it was really funny though and it was popular in my friend group, so I decided to make a full song out of it with my friends. I didn’t really have any intentions of uploading it anywhere, but then I decided to put it on SoundCloud just to see where it went. “Chug Jug With You” was definitely inspired a lot by him [CM Skits] — a lot of the writing style and the chorus was taken from his, but I’ve talked to him and he’s cool with it.

Q: Yeah, I was going to ask about that. What did he say and think of yours?

A: As soon as it started getting traction and views, I wanted to make sure he was okay with it because that wasn't the point of uploading it. So I said like, “Hey. I used the chorus from the song, what do you think?” He thought it was really funny and he was cool with it. I did a podcast with him too. He told me that he wishes he got more credit online for being the inspiration, and he definitely helped out a lot with mine.

I think most of the popularity right now is coming from the start of the song, but I definitely owe a lot to him because I wouldn't be where I am without the version he made. I put links in the description and comments that lead to his channel, but people seem to think I stole the entire thing, and I don't know where that came from.

Q: So then you uploaded “Chug Jug With You” to your channel in December. Can you give us the full backstory of how this song came to be? How’d you come up with the lyrics, and what did you make of it at the time?

A: It doesn’t really have that much of a backstory. I remember being in a Discord call with friends and using RhymeZone and a Notepad file to come up with lyrics. I think I had the Fortnite wiki pulled up so I could find different items and locations that went with the lyrics of “American Boy,” which might be why some of the story elements in the song don’t really line up. It got 1,000 views in the first 15 days of being up, which wasn’t too crazy at the time, but it pretty quickly started picking up steam and getting hundreds of thousands of views. It had reached a million just before a year or so of being out.

Q: Since the song is often referred to as an “earworm,” how did you make it so catchy, and why do you think it gets stuck in your head so easily?

A: I really don’t know, I honestly think it’s just the flow. That’s the one thing that carries it because if there was no flow or rhythm, nobody would care. The entire point of the song was to have bad vocals and bad lyrics, so it’s surprising to me that so many people listen to it and praise it for those exact things. People think my mom is an English teacher or I’m in a choir or something, but neither is true. I’m not really sure why it’s such a phenomenon.

Q: So how do I get it out of my head? I’d really like to know.

A: You can’t. It’s inevitable, just let it happen. I put a reverse subliminal message in there so it gets stuck in people’s brains.

Q: Another prominent element of the song is your use of the “squeaker” voice, which is not your real voice despite what some think. How did you come up with that high-pitched voice and decide to use it?

A: I think it's a few things. I was trying to aim for the type of thing CM Skits was doing with the high-pitched voice and the constant cracking, but since I was 13 at the time, my voice was higher and it was easier to get to that point. I can still sort of do it, but it doesn’t really sound as authentic. Parody songs really get big when they have that formula of like little kids singing about their favorite game or whatever, so I wanted it to sound like a kid because I thought that'd be funnier.

Q: Alright so despite the song now being over two years old, it’s recently become a huge viral trend, particularly on TikTok. When did you first see other people using your “Chug Jug With You” parody, and when did you notice the meme was becoming a big trend again?

A: It started with a video of some game with people moving away from a character [Kids] and it said something about Fortnite kids at school. From there, it started being a dance trend type of thing and those videos ended up on people’s “For You” pages, which boosted the popularity by a lot and helped the song reach a whole new audience.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6921078232682876165

Q: Now that there are thousands of TikToks and other variations using your song out there with millions of views each, what’s your reaction to seeing it become an online phenomenon?

A: I really don’t know. It’s exciting and I’m glad so many people are enjoying the stuff I made, but it’s difficult for my brain to process these huge numbers. I got 1,000 Twitter followers recently and that was super exciting, it was probably like 200 or something two months ago. Then I go to my YouTube channel and I see that I have 100,000 subscribers, but having almost 10 million views on “Chug Jug With You” doesn’t really phase me that much because my brain can’t compute it. I’m really happy that so many people like it though, I think that’s really cool.

(Artwork by @mijthemij.)

Q: Of those other memes, remixes or clips using your song, do you have any favorite examples or specific types that you find the funniest?

A: I recently cameoed in a Schmoyoho video, which was pretty crazy to me because the Gregory Brothers are people I’ve been watching for a long time. That’s probably my favorite so far because they got really creative with it and decided to reach out and get me in the video, which was really nice of them to do.

Q: The song has also become popular on the Wombo.ai app where people create facemorphs of all types of things singing along to the lyrics. Are you familiar with these derivations?

A: I’ve seen a lot of those recently. People have been making them of me, which is pretty weird to see pop up. The reason so many deepfakes are using that specific audio is that it’s actually a default song on there [Wombo] and there are only a dozen options on that app. There are like three different offshoots of the song that went into different memes.

Q: Given how massive “Chug Jug With You” has become, what do your friends or family think of your involvement in creating such a viral hit? Do they think it’s funny?

A: My family thinks it’s really cool and they’re proud of how far I’ve come because I’ve always expressed my interest in this type of stuff since I was younger. I’m really lucky to be where I am and have the opportunities that I have, and I’m glad they recognize that and are happy for me. Most of my siblings have been talking about it recently, which is pretty odd because I never told some of them. The song managed to travel out into the world and back into my house, which is pretty funny to me. My sister has been like singing it a lot. Trisha Paytas sang it on her TikTok and was talking about it on her podcast. My sister is a huge fan of Trish, so it was really weird. She keeps talking to me about that saying like, “You gotta get in contact with her!” I'm trying to get on the H3 Podcast. They've brought me up multiple times, so I'm just saying, I could call in and do the voice and everything. It's all planned out for a $0 fee! [laughs]

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6924168492409179397

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6932932393238154502

Q: Are you getting sick of people asking you to do the voice yet?

A: A little bit. I was getting sick of it at school because people were passing around that I made the song and then coming up to me in the halls and saying like, “Sing the song, do the voice!” or whatever. That was a little frustrating to me, but it wasn't that big of a deal. It was kind of cool the first few times, but it gets boring after a while.

Q: Since you posted it in 2018, have you ever received any hate mail or fan mail regarding the song? What types of responses have you gotten from the internet?

A: Hate comments don’t really get to me because that was a character I was doing, so I’m separated from it in that way. I think the only thing that’s really affected me is when people say I stole the entire song or am lying for fame, which isn’t true at all. It’s difficult to handle that kind of stuff unless you’re in that situation because there’s nothing you can do about it. When a huge portion of the people that know you online think you’re lying for fame and there’s nothing you can do to get the word out, it’s really frustrating and that really got to me for a while. I’ve learned recently that it’s a lot easier to not care.

Leviathan & Suzie feat. Hatsune Miku Chug Jug With You [3DPV] pic.twitter.com/ugLbpuKWM1

— ki ouh (@majin_kz) March 15, 2021

Q: As this parody has become popular, have you noticed your other songs like “Fortnite Is Trash” or “Wall Dynamo” seeing increased attention or use? Do you plan to produce any more in the near future?

A: All of my songs have had a huge boost in views since “Chug Jug With You” started blowing up, “Fortnite Is Trash” especially since that’s one of the more polished out of the three. It’s really cool to see people recognizing me along with the song because, in the past, nobody really knew about the person behind everything. I want to upload more songs, but it’s difficult to find motivation and inspiration for that kind of stuff and the voice being inauthentic makes me think people will dislike anything I put out now. It doesn’t have the same feeling now that people know it’s not actually an 11-year-old singing. I really hate the new Fortnite update, and if Epic Games doesn't reach out to me, I very well might make a big diss track and it will definitely get out there. I have lots of material to work with since so many people hate Fortnite [laughs].

Q: More recently, the song’s lyrics about wiping out Tomato Town spawned the “Tomato Town Massacre” memes. What do you make of these memes and do you recall when or where you first saw one of them?

A: I think the first one I saw was the Joker one with Murray saying, “You’re laughing. Ten people were killed in Tomato Town and you’re laughing.” It was really weird to see because I hadn’t really seen much about the song on Twitter, so seeing a somewhat viral tweet that related to it was really interesting to me. More people started tweeting about it, and it was No. 9 on trending in America when it had somewhere above 40,000 tweets. I think it’s really funny having multiple recognizable memes that all come from one song you made. Usually, that means you’ve done something right.

(Two examples of Tomato Town Massacre memes.)

Q: So since your parody songs all revolve around Fortnite, have you had any contact with Epic Games or any other companies seeking to use the song?

A: Epic has not contacted me yet, and I’m still waiting on that. I’ve been trying to get in contact with Mark Rein (who co-founded Epic) because he’s tweeted out the song three times now on different occasions, even tagging Donald Mustard in one of the tweets. I’m totally down to work on something with them, but I’m pretty sure they’re uninterested because I called them "cucks" in one of my songs. I think a few important things to note are that the songs are all the opinions of the character I was playing, and I’d happily unlist it at some point if they decided they wanted to put me into the game somehow.

Q: Speaking of Fortnite, why did you choose to focus on this game in particular? Any plans to expand your parodies into other video games or franchises?

A: I think the reason I chose Fortnite was that I was playing it a lot at the time of making the first song, and it was so incredibly popular at the time. I don’t think anything has had the same amount of popularity as Fortnite did and still does somewhat, everyone knows what it is and everyone has played it at least once. You can ask your grandma what Fortnite is and she'll know because it was such a phenomenon. I might do like a Minecraft thing. I am moving into the Minecraft community and have a lot of connections on that side.

Q: Any final word, closing statement or additional info to add?

A: I’m putting out an announcement video very, very soon to explain everything that’s going on, but I’ve had some pretty insane opportunities as of late. If you want to invest and be there before it picks up I’d recommend you go follow my Twitch at twitch.tv/leviathanttv.

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Watch our interview with Leviathan below for the video version of our discussion.

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Leviathan is a YouTuber and Twitch streamer known for his Fortnite parody “Chug Jug With You” and subsequent meme Tomato Town Massacre. To see more of his content, you can check out his YouTube and Twitch or follow him on Twitter and Instagram.