About

"Radioactive" is a song by the rock band Imagine Dragons. The song was immensely successful and charted across the globe. It also earned the group several awards and nominations. Online, its lyrics have been used in multiple remixes, particularly its opening lyric, "I'm waking up to ash and dust, I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust." Remixes will generally replace the second half of the lyric with humorous text or sounds.

Origin

"Radioactive" was released by Imagine Dragons on October 29th, 2012. A video for the song, released December 10th, 2012, on YouTube, gained over 1.2 billion views in roughly 11 years (shown below). The song charted internationally and was certified Diamond,^[1] selling over 8.2 million copies in the United States. The song also scored Imagine Dragons several awards, including a Grammy for Best Rock Performance.^[2]

Spread

I Wipe My Ass I Slap My Nuts

The song began spreading as a meme in 2017 thanks to a Tumblr post parodying the lyric "I'm waking up to ash and dust, I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust" as I'm waking up to ash and dust, I wipe my ass and I slap my nuts." In March of 2017, a text post originally written by Tumblr user butchgomezaddams spread, reading:

im waking up
to ash and dust
i wipe my brow and i slap my nuts

On April 21st iFunny user HiggsBoson created an extended version of the lyrics which were used in a parody of the song that iFunny user MLPFun posted on April 22nd, 2018, (YouTube backup shown below, left). The audio was used in a few more video parodies on YouTube, each utilizing different footage. Another edit by YouTuber Funee used footage from a WWE 2K game, gaining over 2,000 views (shown below, right).

Further Remixes

Similar remixes were created after the initial wave of "Wipe my ass/slap my nuts" remixes, though later remixes focused on replacing lyrics with bizarre sounds. For example, on April 8th, 2019, YouTuber JacKet posted a video that replaced the lyric with death noises from video games, gaining over 1.2 million views (shown below, left). On November 5th, 2018, YouTuber Alex Hartman posted an example that gained over 597,000 views (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References