Grubhub "Delivery Dance" Ad

About

Delivery Dance is a GrubHub commercial in which several animated characters perform a "delivery dance" while consuming various foods. The commercial received negative attention online, with users expressing their distaste for the commercial and the characters, leading to the creation of numerous parodies in January 2021.

Origin

On November 16th, 2020, Grubhub^[1] uploaded a 3D-animated commercial "Delivery Dance" to YouTube (shown below), featuring a montage of several people dancing to Bomba Estéreo's "Soy Yo"^[2] while eating various foods. In two months, the video received over 882,000 views (15,000 likes and 65,000 dislikes).

Spread

On November 19th, 2020, Redditor^[3] /r/xxdogfartxx posted the video in /r/CommercialsIHate subreddit, where it received over 130 upvotes in two months.

On November 21st, YouTube user shawnee p uploaded^[4] the earliest found edit of the commercial, with the video gaining over 3,100 views in two months (shown below, left). On November 26th, YouTube user Braden220 uploaded^[5] the first instance in which the song was replaced, using "Long Time" by Playboi Carti. The edit garnered over 5,200 views in one month.

On December 21st, 2020, Twitter^[6] account Cursed Commercials (@CursedAds) reuploaded the commercial, with the post gaining over 260 retweets and 2,100 likes.

Starting in late December 2020, a number of posts in which users expressed their dislike for the commercial and the characters were made in /r/CommercialsIHate subreddit. For example, on December 30th, 2020, Redditor^[7] ames54 made a post that received over 380 upvotes in two weeks. On December 31st, 2020, Redditor^[8] RapIsGoodKpopIsBad made a post that gained over 450 upvotes in two weeks.

On January 5th, 2021, Redditor^[9] DoggedMeerkat76 posted an Iceberg Tier Parody meme that received over 400 upvotes in one week. The meme was widely circulated online in the following days.^[10]

In the following week, the video became a popular source material for edits and analysis videos, particularly on YouTube and Twitter. For example, on January 8th, 2021, YouTube^[10] user Gourune posted a video that received over 431,000 views in three days.

Related Memes

Ice Age Baby

Ice Age Baby refers to a human baby character named Roshan from the 2002 animated film Ice Age. Following a viral tweet posted in January 2020, memes in which people expressed hate for the character, or a desire to hurt or murder him, gained popularity online.

Corporate Art Style

Corporate Art Style, also referred to as Big Tech Art Style, Globohomo Art Style and Corporate Memphis, refers to a set of similar minimalist "flat" art styles that became popular among Big Tech companies in late 2010s, best known representative of which is Alegria art style adopted by Facebook in 2017. This art style is distinguished by flat primary shapes, oversized limbs and non-representational skin colors. In November 2020, growing public awareness of this art style prompted appearance of memes and parodies.

Various Examples

External References