Super Saiyans are Real

About

"Super Saiyans are Real!" is a YouTube video of a teenager named Jalen discussing the possibility of becoming a Super Saiyan, a transcendent state of being assumed by the warring members of the Saiyan race in the Dragon Ball manga / anime franchise.

Origin

The webcam-style video monologue was uploaded by YouTuber KillaKarisma^[5] on February 14th, 2012. The video shows KillaKarisma confessing his dream of transforming into a Super Saiyan, which he attempts to demonstrate by taking his shirt off and screaming for an extended period of time. The video ends with KillaKarisma saying "my name is Jalen and I am a Super Saiyan."

Spread

The YouTube clip was instantly met by excited responses from the audience, sparking a debate over whether YouTuber KillaKarma was sincere in the comments section. A link to the video was shared on Facebook, bringing in over 129,000 views on the same day. It was also posted onto Reddit^[1], but the thread didn't receive much attention. On February 16th, video game blog Kotaku^[2] published an article about the video titled "Man Screams, Takes Off Shirt. He Becomes a Dragonball Super Saiyan," which was syndicated through the Australian and Japanese versions of the blog.

As the video continued to gain hundreds of thousands of views, YouTuber KillaKarma updated the description of his video with a link to his personal profile as well as his fan page^[4] on Facebook, which accrued over 4,000 likes in the span of a week. According to his profile description, his real name is Jalen Thomas and he currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Response Videos

Many viewers and YouTube personalities followed up on KillaKarma's monologue with response videos, including YouTuber CopperCab who recorded a message of encouragement praising his bravery and believing in something.

Notable Examples

There are several mash-up parodies featuring various scenes from the anime series and references to other Dragon Ball-related memes like Over 9000, as well as a rap tribute to Jalen the Super Saiyan.

External References