About

Run is a song by alternative rock band Awolnation that is played in videos when something dangerous appears and causes the subject of the video to run away. It appeared in Vine videos and YouTube remixes.

Origin

"Run" was released on March 5th, 2015 as the second promotional single from the album of the same name by the rock band Awolnation (shown below).

This began becoming a meme on Vine in June of 2015. One of the first known videos to use the song featured footage of umbrellas getting blown away by wind. It was posted to Vine by John Mala on July 28th, 2015 and gained over 3510,100 likes and 115,400,000 loops (shown below).

Spread

Early examples of the meme on Vine included people acting out a scene which would culminate with one of the people saying the word "Run" in time with the song. An early compilation of such Vines posted July 23rd, 2015 gained over 1.6 million views on YouTube (shown below, left). On YouTube, users used a longer edit of the song; one such example of a man escaping a bear gained over 3.8 million views (shown below, right).

The song also was used in a number of animations on YouTube. Popular examples include an animation by GlittzyCatDraws featuring Cuphead and Bendy that gained over 3.2 million views (shown below, left). Another featuring Undertale characters posted by Ichika gained over 300,000 views (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References