About

Chupapi Munyayo, or Chupapi Muñañyo, is a nonsense phrase used in a series of prank videos on TikTok in which a person approaches someone unexpectedly and says, "chupapi Muñañyo" or simply "Muñañyo" in order to confuse them and make them believe they can't speak English. The phrase is similar to Howard Stern's Baba Booey. The trend began in late 2020, gaining significantly in popularity over the course of 2021.

Origin

One of the earliest known uses of the phrase is in a July 27th, 2020, upload by TikToker^[3] @jaykindafunny8, aka Jay, in which he goes through a drive-thru and orders an ice cream cone, grabs it, shouts, "I am a unicorn," and thrusts it against his forehead (shown below). As he drives away he mutters, "muyayo," a variation of the phrase. The video is also captioned, "Muyayoooo."

On September 4th, he posted a prank video to TikTok^[4] in which he sneaks up on various people and says "munyayo" in a high-pitched voice to them repeatedly, as if he doesn't know English, inspiring confusion in everyone as they ask what it means (shown below). The video gained over 2.4 million views in eight months.

Definition

The definition of the term "Chupapi Muñañyo" is a subject of debate, but is generally agreed to be nonsense, particularly the word "Muñañyo / munyayo."

On January 3rd, 2021, Urban Dictionary^[1] user im_Bob defined it as, "[..] the word 'chupa' derived from the spanish word that means 'to suck a dick.' While, 'papi' means 'father or papa' and 'munyayo' means 'come on,' garnering over 2,100 thumbs-ups in four months.

Despite the support, the definition is debatable. The word "Munyayo," and its counterpart, "Muñañyo," don't appear to have any direct translations from Spanish or any other language, suggesting it is gibberish.

"Muyayo," the word spoken in the original video, translates from Spanish to "kid."^[2] It's possible Jay used the word the first time as an insult to the drive-thru worker and the phrase evolved to gibberish from there, but this is unconfirmed.

The most likely answer is that the phrase is complete gibberish, meant to confuse as many people as possible. In many prank videos featuring the phrase, Jay pretends he can't speak English and repeats the word over and over. The word being nonsense, while also sounding like a plausible Spanish phrase, ensures he can confuse anyone with it despite the language they speak and trick unknowing people into believing he is a Spanish-only speaker.

Spread

Jay continued to use the word in future prank videos to great success, eventually deeming himself the "CEO of Chupapi Muñañyo."

Many were initially confused about what he was saying, thinking the word is spelled "munyayo." On September 10th, Jay posted a video to TikTok describing how to pronounce and spell "Muñañyo," confirming the accented spelling as correct, but not defining the word, garnering over 251,000 views in eight months (shown below).

On December 12th, one of @jaykindafunny8's "chupapi Muñañyo" videos went viral, gaining over 85 million views in five months (shown below, left). A December 28th upload went similarly viral, gaining over 137 million views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right). Following their viral success, the majority of Jay's content is based around the prank.

The hashtag #muñañyo boasts over 3.7 billion collected views as of May 2021, most videos being Jay's. @Jaykindafunny8 has gained over 16 million followers as of the same date.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References