About

Yelling Goat or Screaming Goat is a video recording of a Peruvian goat repeatedly making a loud bleating noise that is reminiscent of a human yelling. Since going viral in August 2008, the video has been the subject of remixes and parodies, most notably music video mash-ups that combine the audio tracks of popular songs and yelling goats.

Origin

A video titled "Man Goat" was uploaded by YouTuber SmoothFeather on November 30th, 2007, featuring a goat repeatedly bleating while tied to a rope. The video description claimed the goat was discovered during a hike in Peru.

Justin Mclennan came across this goat while hiking in Peru. He couldn't figure out who was yelling until he came across this little guy :)

The most viewed version of the video was re-uploaded by YouTuber latestvideoss^[1] on August 18th, 2008. In the next five years, the video gained upwards of 3.5 million views and 5,300 comments.

Spread

On May 20th, 2008, YouTuber SmoothFeather's video was posted to the Internet humor site I Am Bored.^[4] On December 15th, 2009, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[2] posted a link to a YouTube Doubler^[3] page featuring the track "Papers" by R&B performer Usher in sync with the goat's cries. Three days later, YouTuber sitrucflaw uploaded a mashup of the Usher song edited with the original goat video (shown below, left). In the next four years, the video accumulated over 750,000 views and 790 comments. On August 19th, 2009, YouTuber Jonathan Kuzmick uploaded a remix video of the original yelling goat spliced together with a different bleating goat (shown below, right).

On August 30th, 2010, YouTuber arjen92 uploaded a video featuring footage of the talk show host Oprah Winfrey introducing guests with clips of YouTuber SmoothFeather’s yelling goat interspersed throughout (shown below). In the following three years, the video received upwards of 1.2 million views and 780 comments. On July 11th, 2011, the vegetarian blog This Dish is Vegetarian^[6] published an article that proclaimed that if there were to be a vegan mascot, it should be the yelling goat.

On February 7th, 2013, the pop culture blog The Roosevelts^[7] published a montage of yelling goats (shown below), which was subsequently reblogged by Gawker,^[10] Slate,^[11] BuzzFeed,^[14]FAIL Blog^[12]and Mashable^[13] in the next several days. Within three weeks, the video accumulated over 9.1 million views and 5,000 comments.

Notable Examples

Screaming Sheep

"Goat Edition" Remixes

“Goat edition” remixes are edited music videos featuring a clip of a yelling goat that has been substituted for the vocal track in a portion of the song. On February 9th, YouTuber Goosik uploaded a music video remix of the 2012 pop song “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Taylor Swift, featuring a yelling goat edited into the chorus (shown below, left). Within three weeks, the upload accumulated more than 1.09 million views and 800 comments. On February 22nd, YouTuber MaShitUp2012 uploaded another remix featuring the 2010 music video “Firework” by Katy Perry, including several yelling goats from The Roosevelts' supercut montage (shown below, right). In less than a week, the video received over 260,000 views and 40 comments.

On February 25th, YouTuber CompilarizTV uploaded a montage of 20 notable "goat edition" videos, garnering more than 430,000 views and 700 comments in the following three days. On the following day, compilations of notable examples were posted on the Internet news blogs Web Pro News^[8] and the Social Times.^[9]

Search Interest

Search query volume for keywords related to "yelling goat" rose significantly in December of 2009, shortly after BuzzFeed posted the YouTube Doubler videos.

External References