About

Twerking Turkey refers to a viral video of an animated turkey performing the twerking dance move. Though popular, it grew infamous and was derided by media outlets.

Origin

While the more popular "twerking turkey" video was published in 2016, a "twerking turkey" video made by the gay lifestyle channel LOGO was published November 20th, 2013, gaining over 550,000 views (shown below).

Spread

The video more widely known as the "twerking turkey" video was published by Joel Erkkinen on November 23rd, 2016. It gained over 4 million views (shown below).

The video quickly inspired parodies. On December 15th, user Sapiophile 2566 posted a version with the music set to Missy Elliot's "Work It" (shown below, left). The following year, user N Khann posted a version with the animation set to a different song (shown below, right).

The video gained most of its attention in 2017. That year, it was covered by DanceSpirit^[1] and CartoonBrew^[2] who explained how the video was reposted without credit to Erkkinen, and how French DJ Willy William edited the video with his song "Voodoo Song" to bring the video more exposure without Erikkinen's permission. This helped "Voodoo Song" grow popular and William to get signed.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References