About

Novi God (or Nowiy God) is a holiday pop song and music video that has inspired numerous parodies on YouTube due to its low-budget greenscreen effects and awkward, apathetic dancing. Typically these parodies feature four people standing in front of greenscreen backgrounds and lipsynching to the original song, while mocking the dancing and exaggerated facial expressions of the original. The style of the video is similar to those of other viral hits such as Mark Gormley and Tunak Tunak Tun.

Origin

"Novi God," which translates to "New Year" in English, was released in 2002 by Russian boy band Steklovata^[1] (English: Glass wool) as a follow-up to their earlier self-titled single. The music video was originally uploaded to YouTube in early 2007, and since then, it has amassed several million views in aggregate through dozens of duplicate uploads. Being a holiday pop song, the music video continues to experience a seasonal spike in online interest every year. The original video has since been removed.

Steklovata was formed in 1999 by producer Sergei Kuznechov and originally consisted of two Russian orphans, Denis Belikin and Arthur Eremeev. "Novi God" proved to be a minor hit at the time, getting seasonal airplay over Estonian radio^[2].

Spread

Soon after the original upload to YouTube in 2007, the video was posted on several blogs^[3] and reuploaded with variations of "the worst music video ever" titles. As the video continued to make rounds across the web in Eastern Europe, dozens of lip dubs and parody music videos featuring members of other European nationalities began to appear on YouTube, many of them mimicking the original music video's low-budget green-screen effects, Earth-toned clothing and awkward camera transitions.

2020 Remake

On December 28th, 2019, Russian network provider MTS posted a remake of "Novi God" featuring three of the four of the original members of Steklovata. The video received over 2 million views on Vkontakte^[4] in three days, with a YouTube^[5] reupload gaining additional 280,000 views (reupload shown below).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References