Fireflies

About

"Fireflies" is a song by American recording artist Adam Young, also known as Owl City. It has been the subject of popular remix videos and in the late 2010s found use as a soundtrack to Unfitting Music videos.

Origin

Fireflies was recorded in 2008 by Adam Young and features Matthew Thiessen of Relient K performing guest vocals.^[1] It was released on July 14th, 2009 as his debut single and the lead single to his second studio album and major label debut Ocean Eyes, and entered the charts in early September of that year, before eventually reaching number 1. As of June 5th, 2017, the music video (shown below) has over 205 million views.

Spread

The song quickly became an ubiquitous hit. Many were quick to point out the group sounded much like the band The Postal Service, which had scored a hit with the similar-sounding "Such Great Heights" prior to the release of "Fireflies." Vulture^[2] wrote an article listing Owl City's numerous similarities to The Postal Service on March 30th, 2010. On November 30th, YouTube user will able uploaded a remix of the song where all the notes of the song were replaced by sounds made by dogs and cats, gathering over 272,000 views (shown below).

The song also was referenced in numerous memes popular at the time, appearing in numerous advice animals and rage comics (examples shown below).

In the following years, the song's online presence consisted mostly of appearing in ear rape remixes (examples shown below).

2017 Comeback

In late May and early June of 2017, the song began to appear in "Unfitting Music" videos on Instagram, some popular examples of which were then posted to iFunny. On May 27th, Instagram user _slendersphere^[4] posted a version of an alien popping out of a person's chest then beginning to sing "Fireflies," gaining over 134,000 views (shown below, left). On May 30th, Instagram user Labrynthske^[3] posted a video of a man dressed as the character Woody from Toy Story dancing while "Fireflies" played in the background (YouTube embed shown below, right). This video was later reposted to iFunny,^[5] where it gained over 94,000 likes.

Threads inquiring about the sudden resurgence in "Fireflies" memes were posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop^[6] and /r/OwlCity.^[7]

On May 30th, Twitter user @Pryce_D reached out to Owl City asking them about the song in a series of tweets. The first tweet (shown below, left) said, "In the song 'Fireflies' you state 'I get a thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs.' How do you interpret this statement?" The tweet received more than 1,200 retweets and 2,900 likes. @Pryce_D quickly followed up with a second tweet (shown below, right), writing, "In the song 'Fireflies' you state "I get a thousand hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs." How do you interpret this statement?"^[8][9]

Roughly three weeks later, Owl City responded on Facebook, garnering more than 78,000 reactions, 29,000 shares and 15,000 comments.^[10] They wrote:

Pryce -- great question. I was the recipient of 1,000 hugs from 10,000 lightning bugs for a grand total of 10,000,000 hugs. As the lyrics of the song clearly state, the average layperson would not believe their eyes if 10,000,000 fireflies were to illuminate planet Earth, nor would the average person conclude by natural instinct that 10,000 lightning bugs, acting as a collective group, are capable of embracing a human being 1,000 times without difficulty. By the same token, a gathering of lightning bugs in such vast numbers form a sort of “swarm," and a swarm can collectively surround a human and deliver a “hug” that a single firefly, acting according to the dictates of his own conscience, simply cannot. Consequently, I was embraced 1,000 times by 10,000 luminescent insects.

This may seem inconceivable due to the firefly’s soft-shelled body, which is common among all winged beetles within the Lampyridae insect family. Members of the scientific community may be tempted to cast doubt upon the possibility of this exchange due to the immobility of the prothorax and pterothorax, in addition to the elytra protruding outward while a firefly is engaged in mid-flight. However, I can testify to the accuracy of this exchange. I can furthermore add that while each individual hug took place, each firefly participated in the chemical reaction commonly known as bioluminescence in which the enzymes within the firefly, in the presence of oxygen, magnesium ions and ATP, emitted a chemically produced light or “glow” because they were happy to be hugging me.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any further questions. Stream “Fireflies” on Apple Music and Spotify.

Several news outlets covered Owl City's response, including TIME,^[11] The Verge,^[12] NME,^[13] Mashable^[14] and more. Twitter published a Moments page, documenting the response and reaction to the response.^[15]

Various Examples

Related Memes

"You Would Not Believe Your Eyes"

[WIP]

*"You Would Not Believe Your Eyes" is the opening lyric from Fireflies. Since the song's resurgence in 2017, variations of the lyric that replace "eyes" with something else have emerged alongside an accompanying rhyming lyric replacing "If 10 Million Fireflies". A comparison could also be made to Smash Mouth's "All Star" with its opening lyric

Search Interest

External References