About

When the Zyzz Music Kicks In refers to a series of motivational videos that are bodybuilding progress montages from various animated series set to hardstyle song "Legend" by Tevvez. The name and the choice of music are references to Aziz 'Zyzz' Shavershian, an Australian bodybuilder whose untimely death brought him a cult following within bodybuilding community. The format is a subformat of When the Doom Music Kicks In.

Origin

On December 14th, 2021, YouTube^[1] user Emerald Bros posted a video titled "When the Zyzz Music Kicks In." In the video, a bodybuilding progress montage from episode nine part one "Josh Gets Shredded" of the animated series Close Enough is set to "Legend" by Tevvez, a hardstyle song associated with Zyzz, a late Australian bodybuilder with a cult-like following. The name of the video repurposes the "When the Doom Music Kicks In" format which first achieved popularity in 2020. The video (shown below) garnered over 26 million views in two years.

Spread

The video did not spawn a meme format until late May 2022, when Emerald Bros posted a similar montage from episode "The Diet" of season five of The Amazing World of Gumball in which character Richard Watterson gets extremely buff. The upload (shown below, left) received over 7.9 million views on YouTube^[2] in two years. On June 3rd, 2022, Emerald Bros posted another meme, now a Family Guy montage, that gained over 2.9 million views in the same period (shown below, right).^[3]

Starting in late June 2022, more creators on YouTube made videos within the format: for example, on June 21st, 2022, YouTube^[4] user ASP posted a Tom & Jerry version that received over 196,000 views on in five months (shown below, left). On June 26th, YouTube^[5] user BarRookie posted a Rick & Morty meme that gained over 563,000 views in the same period (shown below, right).

In July 2022 and the following months, more videos within the meme format saw popularity on YouTube, including The Simpsons, Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV and The Pink Panther Show.

Related Memes

When the Doom Music Kicks In

When the Doom Music Kicks In refers to a series of memes set to "The Only Thing They Fear Is You" and other progressive metal songs by composer Mick Gordon from the soundtracks of the 2020 video game Doom Eternal and the 2016 video game Doom. The memes combine scenes of intense, sometimes humorous, fights with the music, imagining that its energetic nature invokes desire to inflict violence.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References