About

"Every 60 Seconds in Africa a Minute Passes" is a joke expression parodying distressing factoids about frequent occurrences that take place in the continent of Africa.

Origin

While it may have existed offline, the earliest known usage of the joke on the internet was posted to Twitter on April 25th, 2009 by Twitter ^[1] user @raphaelbek (shown below). They wrote, "every 60 seconds a minute passes in Africa. DO SOMETHING!"

Spread

Three years later, Twitter^[2] user @tejucole tweeted the joke. The post received more than 3,200 retweets and 900 likes in seven years (shown below).

On August 21st, 2012, 9GAG ^[3] posted an image macro using the joke as the caption. The post received more than 270 points (shown below, left).

On May 25th, 2014, YouTuber Big Man Tyrone uploaded a video titled "Jamal Says "Every 60 Seconds In Africa, A Minute Passes," in which he repeats the expression (shown below). Within five years, the video accumulated upwards of 3.5 million views and 9,400 (shown below, right).

On July 22nd, 2019, Redditor africa_mans ^[4] posted a screen capture from the Big Man Tyrone video with the Skyrim Skill Tree reaction "Intelligence 100." The post received more than 26,000 points (95% upvoted) and 175 comments in less than one month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References