About

Shimmy Shimmy Ya is a catchphrase taken from the 1995 song "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and reused in the 2017 song "Swalla" released by Jason Derulo. The catchphrase as said in "Swalla" started to pick up usage online as a backing sound to various spinning memes and repetitive dancing animations in mid-2022.

Origin

The catchphrase is used as a primary part of the chorus in the song "Swalla" released by Jason Derulo in early 2017. On March 17th, 2017, the song was uploaded to Jason Derulo's official YouTube^[1] channel, with lyrics being shown in the description and the song reaching over 1.7 billion views in seven years (shown below).

Spread

The catchphrase started to get meme attention due to its repetitive nature in mid-2020. On June 24th, 2020, the iFunny user Spare_requiem_2020^[2] uploaded a variation of the Are You Going To Sleep? meme with the original lyrics to "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" being used, before the punchline showed the phrase being said at the end (shown below).

The phrase itself remained in obscurity until mid-2022 when it started to get used in repetitive dancing animations using the audio from the song "Swalla."

The earliest video meme to be seen using the audio as its background song was uploaded to YouTube on July 12th, 2022, by the YouTube channel Epic Gamer.^[3] In the video, the audio is used as a replacement for a snippet from a McDonalds commercial that shows tens of its Happy Meal boxes dancing, but at a reduced bitrate, where it earned over 11.7 million views in two years and created the trend that quickly migrated to TikTok (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References