About

"Secunda" is a musical composition by Jeremy Soule that appears in the 2011 video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In 2022, the song achieved meme popularity after it was used in Wise Mystical Tree memes on TikTok and YouTube.

Origin

On November 11th, 2011, role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released^[1] by Bethesda. In the game's soundtrack, musical composition "Secunda," written by composer Jeremy Soule, appears (video shown below).

On June 25th, 2012, YouTube^[2] user Aramil uploaded the track to the platform, where it gained over 1.4 million views in 11 years. Another upload^[3] of the song, made in 2017, accumulated over 2 million views in six years. On Spotify,^[4] "Secunda" had over 46 million streams as of September 2023.

Until September 2022, the song saw minor presence in memes on TikTok without a defined format, most notably in several viral videos by TikToker @fun,jokez.^[10][11]

On September 17th, 2022, X / Twitter^[5] user @JacobKluding posted a Wise Mystical Tree montage set to the song, with the post not gaining significant traction (shown below). On September 18th, 2022, X^[6] user @marisagender reposted the video, commenting, "obsessed with this video." The post received over 250,000 views, 5,500 retweets and 36,400 likes prior to deletion.

pic.twitter.com/z2pPO93qDB

— goober (@JacobKluding) September 18, 2022

Spread

Following the viral spread of the video, "Secunda" achieved strong association with the Wise Mystical Tree meme format and saw spread on YouTube and TikTok.

For example, on September 30th, 2022, TikTok^[7] user @userkojxh2dtu9 posted a meme that received over 292,000 likes in one year (shown below, left). On October 9th, 2022, TikToker^[8] @e.l.e.p.h.a.n.t.300 posted a meme that received over 469,000 views in the same period (shown below, right).

After the peak popularity of Wise Mystical Tree memes, "Secunda" saw independent use on TikTok and YouTube. For example, on October 19th, 2022, TikToker^[9] @benhappenin uploaded a meme that gained over 173,000 likes in one year (shown below, left). On March 24th, 2023, TikToker^[12] mikeykazz posted a humorous video set to the song that received over 529,000 views in six months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References