Numa Numa is the internet meme built on “Numa Numa Dance,” a webcam video in which American vlogger Gary Brolsma lip-syncs and dances, seated at his computer, to “Dragostea din tei,” a Romanian-language pop song by the Moldovan group O-Zone. He uploaded it to Newgrounds on December 6, 2004, and it became one of the earliest viral videos.
Origin
- 2003: O-Zone released “Dragostea din tei” in Romania around June 2003. It went on to top charts across Europe in 2004 and 2005.
- Before December 2004: A Japanese animated video of a cat illustrated by users of the textboard 2channel set the song to misheard Japanese phrases. Brolsma later said he found the song through a Flash animation with cartoon cats.
- December 6, 2004: Brolsma uploaded “Numa Numa Dance” to #Newgrounds under the username Gman250. Know Your Meme reports it received over 15.7 million views there over the next eight years.
- February 26, 2005: The New York Times published “Internet Fame Is Cruel Mistress for a Dancer of the Numa Numa,” including an interview with Brolsma; per Wikipedia, the paper called him an “unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity.”
The Lyric Behind the Name
The title comes from the refrain. Here is the line as written and as heard:
| Version | Text |
|---|---|
| Romanian lyric | nu mă, nu mă iei |
| Translation (Wikipedia) | you won’t, you won’t take me |
| Translation (Know Your Meme) | you don’t want, don’t want to take me |
| How English speakers heard it | ”numa numa yay” |
| 2channel Japanese mishearing | ”noma, noma, yay” (Japanese for “drink, drink, yay”) |
The song also opens with a yodelled “Ma-ia-hii, Ma-ia-huu, Ma-ia-hoo, Ma-ia-haha.” In the English-language version, “Ma Ya Hi,” the “nu mă” refrain was replaced by “Oo-aa-oo-aa-ay,” according to Wikipedia.
How It Spread
Brolsma received coverage on ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Tonight Show and VH1’s Best Week Ever. The video ranked No. 1 in VH1’s “40 Greatest Internet Superstars” in March 2007 and 41st in Channel 4’s 2006 broadcast of 100 Greatest Funny Moments. A 2006 BBC report, based on page-impression figures from the viral marketing company The Viral Factory, estimated the video had been viewed 700 million times by November 27, 2006, second only to “Star Wars Kid.” That figure is a 2006 marketing-firm estimate, not a platform count.
The Wikipedia article on the song notes that O-Zone’s Dan Balan performed “Ma Ya Hi” on NBC’s Today on February 22, 2005, an appearance prompted by the viral video.
Lineage: From Song to Sample
| Year | Step |
|---|---|
| 2003 | O-Zone releases “Dragostea din tei” in Romania |
| 2004 | Brolsma uploads “Numa Numa Dance” to Newgrounds (December 6) |
| 2006 | Brolsma returns with “New Numa: The Return of Gary Brolsma” (September 9) and the New Numa Contest, promising US$45,000 in prizes |
| 2008 | T.I. and Rihanna sample the song in “Live Your Life,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 on November 8, 2008 |
| 2024 | David Guetta and OneRepublic interpolate it in “I Don’t Wanna Wait” |
Recent Developments
- December 5, 2014: Brolsma uploaded “Numa Numa 10-Year Reunion” to Newgrounds. Both it and the original were later removed by Newgrounds moderators over music licensing.
- April 1, 2017: Brolsma uploaded the original video to his own YouTube channel.
- November 20, 2022: A Fortnite emote based on the dance was released as a collaboration with Brolsma and O-Zone.
- August 11, 2023: Brolsma released a remake of the 2004 video on YouTube.