About

"X Island" is a meme which combines the products of the Valve community with the music of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. The resulting videos often feature simple, choppy animations by Team Fortress 2 characters.

Backstory

Valve

The Valve community has a history of creating bizarre, nonsensical memes such as the TF2 Food Debate and Painis Cupcake, all of them involving Valve video games.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is a video game released in 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Famicom. It has been praised for, among other things, its soundtrack. The song used in the meme is titled "Map" according to the Yoshi's Island Original Soundtrack. This song plays in the game on the level selection screen. As the player defeats more bosses, the song gradually becomes more elaborate, adding instruments like strings and drums. The videos in this meme also reflect the subtle changes in music by incorporating more sounds.

YouTube

In 2010, YouTube user "RubberFruit" sent fellow YouTube user "MrXarlable" the "Map" song from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. "MrXarlable" then came up with the idea to incorporate the song into a video.

On September 15th, 2010, "RubberFruit", "MrXarlable", and "Unit563" uploaded the first of these videos to YouTube. "RubberFruit" uploaded "Painis Island", "MrXarlable" uploaded "Gottam Island", and "Unit563" uploaded "Gabens Island".

Users then immediately began replying to "MrXarlable"'s fad by making and uploading their own creations. Some of these videos were created immediately the day after "MrXarlable" uploaded his own.

Spread

Some videos involved in this meme went beyond using characters from the Valve community.

MADs

The meme has also been made a subject of some Japanese MADs.

Derivatives

Meme Goes Meta: