About

"Wann hast du Geburtstag?" (When Is Your Birthday?) is a song featured in episode 9 of Hallo aus Berlin (Hello From Berlin), titled Ferien und Feste (Holidays And Celebrations). The song became a minor meme due to Rolli's "excessive" dancing.^[1]

Origin

Hallo aus Berlin is a German-British educational television series co-produced by the BBC and the Goethe-Institut. It has been used in German lessons in the United Kingdom, United States, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands and Australia. The series aired in 10 episodes on BBC Schools TV from 19th September, 1996 to 27th March, 1997. It was produced in a "magazine" style with reports, interviews, "lively" music, and animated sequences, and was aimed at beginner German speakers aged 11–14 years old.

The main characters are Marko, Jessica, Daniel, Esther, Thomas and Miriam, who are young people who show the audience what everyday life is like in Berlin, the capital of Germany. An animated sketch and song performed by Rolli and Rita, the hosts of the show, who are computer-animated teenagers, appears in every episode.^[2]

At the end of episode 9 of the series, Rolli and Rita, who appear in every episode of the series, perform "Wann hast du Geburtstag?".

The original episode:

The original song:

The cut of the original song commonly used in examples of the meme:

Spread

On 12th November, 2019, the first known instance of a "Wann hast du Geburtstag?" meme was released on YouTube by user Jaun Plays, which features the song playing over the intro of Season 2 of Attack on Titan instead of the original music.

On 20th November, 2019, the first known Tweet mentioning the meme was posted by user christianeattig, saying Aus der Wikipedia: (From Wikipedia:), then giving a small excerpt of the German Wikipedia article for the meme's original series translated into English, surrounded by German quotation marks, followed by a Face With Tears of Joy Emoji, then a link to the German Wikipedia article.

Aus der Wikipedia:
„The characters (mainly Rolli) and the music video 'Wann Hast Du Geburtstag?' later became a small meme, due to Rolli's 'extreme' and 'over-the-top' dancing.“ 😂https://t.co/RlCxEHwJMW

— Christiane Attig (@christianeattig) November 20, 2019

On 2nd December, 2019, the next known example of the meme on YouTube was released by user Captain YEE, titled YEEEEEEE, which parodies the original song's video with a few edits for humorous effect.

The meme started to gain minor popularity on YouTube on 10th December, 2019, when the next known "Wann hast du Geburtstag?" meme on YouTube was released by user Ultimate Kars, simply titled "Wann Hast Du Geburtstag", which is an edit of the original song's video that plays at 0.25x speed.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Wikipedia – Hallo aus Berlin

^[2] Wikipedia – Hallo aus Berlin