Numa Numa

:American Idle redirects here. For the TV show, see American Idol.

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Numa Numa is an Internet meme based on the Moldovan Romanian pop song "Dragostea Din Tei" by O-Zone. Specifically, it refers to a Flash-based video of 19-year-old American Gary Brolsma lip-syncing the song energetically on his webcam.

Related Topics:
Internet meme - Moldova - Romanian - Pop - Dragostea Din Tei - O-Zone - Flash - American - Lip-sync - Webcam

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The phrase "Numa Numa" comes from the words from a refrain of the song, "nu m?, nu m? iei," meaning roughly "(you) won't take, won't take me."

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Gary Brolsma first published his "Numa Numa Dance" on December 12, 2004, on the internet website Newgrounds.com. Since then it has popped up on hundreds of other websites and blogs, and he has made appearances on ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's The Tonight Show and VH1's Best Week Ever.

Related Topics:
2004 - Newgrounds.com - Blogs - ABC - Good Morning America - NBC - The Tonight Show - VH1 - Best Week Ever

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Brolsma lives in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. Reportedly, he was not happy with his fame. According to The New York Times, Brolsma has become an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity". Brolsma has stopped taking phone calls from the media; he canceled an appearance on NBC's Today Show on February 17, 2005, and he did not cooperate with The New York Times for their February 26 article about him.

Related Topics:
Saddle Brook - New Jersey - New York Times - NBC - Today Show - February 17 - 2005 - February 26

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] There are a number of other videos using the song, including several Japanese cartoons based on 2ch Shift JIS art and a LEGO dancing video but none have ever come close to the international cult-like following of Gary Brolsma's. One version even includes a sim from the computer game The Sims 2 dancing to the song.The 2ch version may seem completely random, but the images and text are a series of puns based on interpreting the lyrics of the song as English or Japanese words that they sound like (for instance, in the first line, Alo = Arrow(or Hello), salut = saru , sunt eu = sugee , un = un , haiduc = haidoku , and ?i te rog = ji bero ). This style is in keeping with the original "Numa Numa" video, in which someone super-imposed several pictures onto his dance routine, among them pictures of "feta cheese" during lyrics that would sound like such to an American listener and a LEGO representation of Bob Ross during the singer's words: "sunt eu Picasso" ("it's me, Picasso").

Related Topics:
Japanese - Cartoons - 2ch - Shift JIS art - LEGO - Computer game - The Sims 2 - Bob Ross

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Perhaps the most detailed parody was created as a Numa Numa/American Idol hybrid, by animator Dustball.

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