About

2204355 is an example of a "specific number ID meme." These tend to be self-reinforcing, as it is created by people searching for the number assigned to the image or .gif.

The animation that goes by 2204355 is also known by the names "Awesome Rainbow Chicken Dance" and Coxinha Roll. It consists of a specific number used as a unique identifier, and this low-resolution flash animation of a man dancing while eating two pieces of fried chicken, accompanied by a 80's video-game style background music and colorful blinking lights.

"Coxinha," in Portuguese, means thighs, as in the chicken thighs the man is eating.

As a bait-and-switch.

On 4chan, people would trick each other into typing "2204355" into Google search and clicking "I'm feeling lucky," leading to the flash animation. This happens because the name of the file on the server is "2204355.swf". This sort of "bait and switch" utilizing Google Search forces the content to trend.

Origin

The video itself is comprised of two main elements: the dancing chicken-eating man and the background audio.

The dancing man came from a Kentucky Fried Chicken ad campaign which aired in 2009:

The audio is a remix of the theme song from the late 1980's television show ALF by chiptune artist Zalza, also known as Alessandro Bulér from Sweden. He commented on the video on his Last.fm page. He had the following to say about the song:

I'm afraid that I don't recall the exact year/date when it was made but I remember I've just joined a Chipgroup called Tequila (TQL) when I composed that one. Must have been year 1999 or 2000.

[It was uploaded in 2004 to] Modarchive, Though [when he had first composed it,] it was mostly spread via IRC channel #trax #tql on the network IRCNET that I remember.

It has also been used as background music for a cracktro/keygen "Warhammer".

The original flash loop was posted to Pown.it on January 14th, 2010. It was created by a user named w33n.

The loop became associated with 2204355 in March 2010 when the .swf file was uploaded to Imageshack. In July 2010, the imageshack uploader created a Facebook fan page to document their original upload.

Google Insights

Significant Google search data began on June 26th, 2010

Further spread

On June 28th, 2010, Reddit user MaximumInteresting created the thread Go to Google, type in 2204355 and click I'm feeling lucky. Just do it reaching the Reddit front page with 282,677 readers, 977 points (59% like it) 3,080 up votes 2,103 down votes within the first 24 hours.

Just as the Reddit thread peaked, it was carried to Buzzfeed by Reddit Top Links.

Still within the same day, it was also mentioned in Happy Rainbow Chicken Dance and How To: see the awesome rainbow chicken dance.

Time Magazine's newsfeed covered the phenomenon on that day as well.