Hoodini

About

"Hoodini" is an onomatopoeic pun used as a punchline to a joke about the name of a magic owl which became popular among the fans of Grand Theft Auto V_ after it was featured in a Machinima stand-up skit by YouTuber VanossGaming. On YouTube, the word "hoodini" is often uttered in comments as an irrelevant stock response to a variety of questions and jokes, in a similar vein to the use of 'Darude-Sandstorm'.

Origin

On June 22nd, 2015, VanossGaming uploaded a video titled "GTA 5 Online Funny Moments," in which a Grand Theft Auto V character performing stand-up comedy while wearing an owl mask delivers a joke about a magic owl named"Hoodini" (shown below). Within three weeks, the video gained over 6.8 million views and 9,000 comments.

"What do you call a magic owl? Hoodini!"

Spread

On June 27th, YouTuber Ichiban Animations uploaded an animated version of the original VanossGaming video (shown below, left). The same day, Redditor VALERock submitted a post titled "Why is the word 'hoodini' appearing everywhere on YouTube comments now?" to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[1] subreddit. On June 28th, YouTuber VanossAndFriends uploaded a compilation of "Hoodini" parody videos (shown below, right).

Also on June 28th, an owl-themed Minecraft skin titled "Hoodini," was submitted to the MinecraftSkins^[3] database. On July 6th, Urban Dictionary^[2] user Viktor OP submitted an entry for "Hoo-dini," defining it as "a magic owl." The same day, VanossGaming placed a Hoodini owl T-shirt for sale on his online store.^[4]

Search Interest

Not available.

External References