Vibin' Naoto

About

Vibin' Naoto or Chibi Naoto refers to a clip of a chibi version of Persona 4 character Naoto Shirogane dancing by turning left and right and moving her arms up and down. The dance originates from a 2018 crossover fighting video game BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and became popular source material for humorous edits in 2020.

Origin

On May 31st, 2018, crossover fighting game BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle featuring characters from BlazBlue, Persona, Under Night In-Birth and RWBY was released in Japan.^[1] In the online lobby of the game, players can perform various moves with the chibi versions of the playable characters, with the "Dance" move being one of the options. Characters dance by turning left to right and moving their arms up and down (shown below).

On August 9th, 2018, Twitter^[3] user @llamam00n posted a video of chibi Naoto dancing set to "Stay With Me" by Japanese composer and singer MIki Matsubara. The video received over 3,400 retweets, 7,000 likes and 89,300 views in two years (shown below). YouTube^[4][5] reuploads of the video accumulated over 20,100 and 53,000 views in the same period.

pic.twitter.com/1P5FM2ussd

— llama🎞️ (@llamam00n) August 10, 2018

On January 18th, 2019, YouTube^[11] and Instagram user menotoshy (macntoshy) posted a green screen of the dancing animation. On August 3rd, 2019, Facebook^[6] page Magician Arcana posted another meme featuring chibi Naoto dancing alongside another chibi character from the game that received 13,000 views and 540 shares.

The meme see significant spread until starting approximately in late December 2019 Facebook Persona meme page Ryuji's Memes And Weeb Shit started posting multiple memes based on the chibi character, referring to it as "Vibin' Naoto," with friendly Facebook meme pages joining in on the trend. For example, on December 24th, 2020, Ryuji's Memes And Weeb Shit invited^[7] subscribers to share Vibin' Naoto memes and tag them with #VibinNaoto hashtag. On the same day, the group posted^[8][9] and reposted several memes featuring the character (example shown below).

Spread

Starting on January 9th, 2020, Ryuji's Memes And Weeb Shit started posting video edits based on chibi Naoto's dancing animation; a Dancin' meme posted on that day (shown below) received over 120 reactions and 800 views. Multiple Vibin' Naoto videos posted by the page also featured Furret Walk^[10] and other dancing memes.

On January 13th, 2020, Facebook^[15] group Chibi Naoto bailando canciones diferentes todos los dias (sp. Chibi Naoto Dances to Various Songs Every Day) was created, posting videos of chibi Naoto dancing set to various tracks (examples shown below). The group accumulated over 13,700 followers in seven months.

On June 16th and 17th, YouTube^[12] and Twitter^[13] accounts Vibin' Naoto and @VibinNaoto were created. Starting on June 18th, the accounts posted multiple videos of Naoto dancing set to various songs previosly posted by Chibi Naoto bailando canciones diferentes todos los dias, as well as other memes featuring chibi Naoto. For example, on June 28th, 2020, @VibinNaoto reposted^[14][16] a Tom Morello Battle edit that received over 2,800 retweets, 7,700 likes and 81,200 views in two months (shown below).

Guitar Hero 3 – Tom Morello Battle pic.twitter.com/GaJr1XOY6f

— Chibi Naoto dancing to different songs every day (@VibinNaoto) June 29, 2020

In the following months, the meme maintained its popularity on Facebook and Twitter, with Ryuji's Memes And Weeb Shit, Chibi Naoto bailando canciones diferentes todos los dias and @VibinNaoto remaining the major driving forces behind its spread.

Related Memes

The Sleeping Naoto

Some people have noticed the image of Chibi Naoto with closed eyes, and have pointed out that it can't be found in regular game. This is correct, the sleeping image of Chibi Naoto was actually first made by @Pizzazz_Music on Twitter for the meme shown below. It has since been used for any instance where Vibin' Naoto is getting some well-deserved rest.

https://twitter.com/Pizzazz_Music/status/1229246803977154561?s=09

— PZ Drew(@Pizzazz Music) February 16, 2020

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References