About

"Been Had Money" is to a viral video of a man spreading money out on his pool table and floor while repeating the phrase "I been had money." It has inspired several YouTube parody videos where each subject lays out their choice of items in large quantity and says "I been had (x)." (See also These Photos Are Mines)

Origin

A video titled "Been Counting Money"^[2] was uploaded to YouTube in February of 2009. The video features a shirtless Ju of D4L, an Alabama-based MC who unbands several stacks of 20 dollar bills and fans them out all over his pool table and floor. The original YouTube video has since been removed by the uploader.

Catchphrase

The earliest known usage of the phrase "been had money" dates back to rap songs released by Been Had Money Records^[1], a New York City-based hip hop label founded in April 2006. The label featured artists like Mike Delorean, who can be heard using the phrase in a YouTube music video for the track "Here's a Story" uploaded on July 29th, 2007.

Spread

The video was blogged about by Holy Taco^[3] and Videogum^[4] on February 4th, 2009. The video was re-uploaded to Ebaumsworld^[5] on February 12th, 2009. On February 24th, G4tv published the parody video Been Had Bagel Bites. Tosh.0 parodied the video during its first season in a segment called "Is it Racist?" aired in June of 2009.

Derivatives

Parodies of the original video used a wide range of substitutes like polo shirts, vitamin water, video game collections, bootleg movies and Pokemon cards. Many of the derivative videos were created by Ju and Jose Hustle of D4L.

More can be found in the video gallery below.

Search

Search queries for "been had money" peaked in February of 2009, the same month that the original video was uploaded to YouTube.

External References