- (Bongo Cat meows) - ♪ I'm a cat ♪
- It's evolving in so many ways.
- (FBE) We want you to create your very own Bongo Cat meme.
♪ (bongo drumming) ♪
♪ (dramatic chord) ♪
- Oh yeah. This is cute already.
- Oh, it's adorable! It's some kind of a little kitten or somethin'.
♪ (bongo drumming) ♪ - (chuckles)
♪ (upbeat trumpet music) ♪ - (chuckles) What?!
♪ (bongo drumming) ♪ - (snickers)
- Okay, Kitty. Yes, Hawaii Five-0, right?
- Oh my goodness. - Oh my gosh.
What is that? - Whatever that is, I need more of it.
- It's the Bongo Cat thing. - It's just a couple pictures.
It's not a-- it's a very basic meme.
- I have no idea what that was. That was a cat on a bongo.
It's my living dream.
♪ (Zelda theme) ♪ - (gasps) Ohh, Spanish guitar.
- Oh my goodness! - Look at his little hands! (laughs)
- ♪ (hums melody) ♪ Zelda!
- Are you kidding me? - (gasps) Oh my god! It's Zelda!
- Oh, there's a whole band of 'em. - Oh man. That's pretty cool.
- It's like a little Latin flair on the Zelda theme.
That was kind of nice. - I think I'm too old
to appreciate whatever this is. - Is this a popular meme?
- Dang! That's pretty talented. Someone just put that all together.
- I feel like I've seen one of these before.
- I have never seen this before, but I wanna see more of it.
♪ ("A Thousand Miles" piano) ♪ - Oh. (laughs)
- (softly) Yes! - (softly) Oh my god.
I'm gonna cry already. - Ohh!
- ♪ (drums on table) ♪ - This is beautiful.
- ♪ Making my way downtown ♪ - I have never seen this!
It's very cute, whatever it is.
- It's great songs, but it's also done in a very cute way.
- It's so cute! These little-- who is the target audience
for this? Everyone?
- (men) Hey! ♪ (Lazytown, "We Are Number One") ♪
- Oh! - Ohh!
- (both) ♪ We are number one, hey! ♪
- Does this cat have a name? - Ohh, I love them.
- Oh, this one has pretty good editing. Wow.
- ♪ This is going down in history ♪ - Oh, you love it.
- I mean, it's cute. - I hate it. (giggles)
I hate it! - I can see how it can be
so addicting to keep watching more and more.
- It's a meme-ception meme. I like it.
- This is a meme on a meme. You can't combine this many things.
- But it [bleep] did.
♪ (rhythmic music) ♪
- Oh my god. Oh my god.
- This is a really old meme, but I like this song.
- I'm enjoying it so far. - ♪ Oooh ♪
- This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen actually.
♪ (Darude, "Sandstorm") ♪ - Okay, there it is.
There it is. (laughs)
- This is pretty funny. - Classic. Going through space.
- Just let the music wash over me. - Woo!
- (both) Wow. - You know what this reminds me of?
Nyan Cat! - There isn't enough good,
clean-hearted comedy on the internet these days,
and I think it's very important that we take some time to appreciate
how wonderful this is. - There hasn't been something
like this for a minute, and I love it when people take a meme
and expand on it exponentially.
♪ (rhythmic music) ♪ - Oh, is this gonna be--
Keyboard Cat! There it-- (laughs)
♪ (keyboard music) ♪ - Oh yeah, that's Keyboard Cat.
I was waiting for this. - There we go. There's the piano cat.
All right. - The OG, Keyboard Cat!
- ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪
- Oh yeah. This is beautiful.
- Oh, I like this one. - (chuckles) He's so fat.
- Man, who needs the world when you have stuff like this?
I don't need to leave my apartment. - Some memes are just easy.
You put a picture and you put some words,
and the meme's done. This is time consuming for a joke,
and I appreciate the payoff.
♪ (bongo music) ♪ - Whoa.
- Oh, [bleep], a 3D one.
- Oh, wow! Someone got a budget. - Oh, they gots a budget!
- Wooo. - Wow, now we've accelerated
very quickly into CGI versions.
- (Bongo Cat meows) ♪ I'm a cat ♪
- It's evolving in so many ways. - ♪ Dance all, dance all night ♪
- This is tight.
- ♪ I play the bongo ♪ - He plays the bongo!
You're playing a couple bongos there, fatty.
- Oh my goodness! Disco!
- ♪ I can dance all night ♪ - I can get behind this one.
- ♪ I'm a cat ♪ - (both sing along) ♪ Play the bongo ♪
- (humming) - I like this one!
- It's so catchy! - Somebody has a beautiful mind.
- Delicious little cats. - How did they do the 3D animation?
- I don't know. - Doesn't that cost, like,
a lot of money?
- Or a lot of time. - Yeah.
♪ (soft instrumental music) ♪ - What the [bleep]?
- (man) Play bongo. - Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Yeah. ♪ (Mii theme) ♪
- Oh wow. - Mm-hmm.
- Oh, yes. Yes. - Oh god.
- I like that. - (man) Well played.
- I don't like it. - (man) ...fish for you.
- Okay, so in this one, I'm more concerned about
this creepy red man than I am the cat.
- (scoffs) Uh-oh, don't piss off the cat.
- What? - I was really looking forward
to seeing where that was going. - These are getting creepier,
and I have to drive home alone.
- They're getting more bizarre, certainly.
- Yeah. That one had a whole story. - Yeah.
- You either die a wholesome meme or live long enough
(chuckles) to see yourself become toxic!
(clapping)
- ♪ Ass, ass, ass, ass, ass ♪ - (laughs)
- Ooh, I like this one. - (bursts out laughing)
- Can I go back to the other cute cats?
- He's slapping what appears to be ass.
- The question, is that a human ass or is that a cat ass?
- ♪ Stop, stop ♪ - (snorts) What?!
- That's dirty. - I love it. It's a great meme.
- I really like this meme, because you have to actually
be really talented to pull it off if you wanna make one of your own.
It's kind of fun and refreshing to see people get so creative
with something so simple. - (FBE) So the meme
is called Bongo Cat. - Oh, okay. Makes sense.
- Oh, Bongo Cat. - Bongo Cat. Well, he is a cat.
He plays the bongo, dance all, dance all night.
- Mm-hmm. - (FBE) Many people say that the meme
originated from a GIF posted to Twitter in May
that had just this simple animation. - Ahh.
- Oh, okay. So, that's the original.
- It's so simple! - Aww. With no sound.
He's just beating away to the sweet sounds of silence.
- I remember seeing this. - That's cute. Yeah.
- And then it just blew up. - (FBE) From there,
many say that the origin of the bongos came a day later
when another user posted this.
♪ (Super Mario World, "Athletic") ♪ - Ohhh! That's dope.
- ♪ (hums along) ♪
- Wow. - Ah, so it's not just
one person's creation. It's sort of the creation
of the internet. - It's the internet.
- Ah. - The internet is so stupid,
but so awesome. - I never would've expected it
to just blow up into what it is today. Amazing.
- I like how creative people can be with memes nowadays.
It's like a comedy genre on its own. - The internet can be a dark place,
but it can also be a beacon of light,
as seen by Bongo Cat. - Internet culture gets a lot of flack
for being lazy, and this is an example of something
that is really artful in a way
and time consuming and creative, and I love it.
- (FBE) This meme has become extremely popular with a lot
of different variations of it. We are seeing compilations
of hundreds of these videos from different creators.
Some have millions of views. Some have tens of thousands
of retweets. - Dang.
- It's a versatile little meme, and you can put it anywhere.
You could literally put it right here with me and I'm sure--
- (Bongo Cat meows) - ...I'm sure you could put that
and it would be like... ♪ (bongo drumming) ♪
I should be bongo-ing Bongo Cat. There you go.
- Since the animation is really simple and loopable, I think it made it
a little easier for people to copy and paste onto different things.
And it's actually kind of fun to see where people take it
with their animation skills. - (FBE) So, this meme really took off
in the last month with a lot of media outlets
who reported on it, saying that this was, quote,
"The wholesome meme we all need right now."
- Yeah! - Right, yeah.
- I think so. - I could kind of see that.
When I was looking at it, I was like, "Oh yeah,
I could share this meme with my six-year-old nephew
or whatever and I won't feel weird about it."
- Everything is about sex and ass and [bleep] and cigars,
and it's nice to see something that is very clean.
And I'm not even saying that sarcastically,
'cause I do anything but clean humor, but I can appreciate
when something clean goes huge, because yeah,
you don't see that very often.
- In the darkest of times in this world,
you have to look towards the light. And even if that light is, in fact,
just a cat playing some bongos,
it is something that people will look to.
- (FBE) As creators yourselves, do you find that doing something
that's a little more wholesome works, or is it more advantageous
to stir a little controversy when creating content?
- Well, in my channel-- my channel's completely clean.
- And mine's completely dirty. So... - So...
- ...we partner together, and we can kind of balance.
- I have kids and stuff, so I wanna, like...
If one of my kids' friends watched my channel,
I want them to be like, "Oh, it's fine."
- I definitely feel like I prioritize my wholesome side
a lot more than my (deepens voice) "Get all the views in the world" side.
But if I prioritize that, then yeah, I would feel that pressure, I think.
- I would say we always strive for things that are wholesome.
- We do both. Uhh... - You know, I mean, we---
Well, we show our butts a lot, but in a wholesome way.
- Yeah, with a little kitty cat playing them like a drum.
- I remember when I was a kid, I hated not being able
to share things with my grandparents, my aunts and uncles
on Christmas and Thanksgiving, because it was inappropriate.
I couldn't, you know-- So, it is kind of cool for kids
to be able to be like, oh, and enjoy something with their parents.
- We've seen some pretty dark parts of YouTube for sure.
And I can tell you right now, there's no real light
at the end of the tunnel, you know? It's a pretty dark void.
So, I guess, good on Bongo Cat for surviving it.
- (FBE) So finally, we want you to create
your very own Bongo Cat meme. - (laughs) What?
- How can I do that? - Okay.
- Hmm, what we should we put-- do you want--
should I play your butt? - Yeah, play my butt.
♪ (bongo drumming) ♪ - (FBE) Actually, we had
something else in mind without Ned's butt.
- Woo! - Ohh. Ohh.
I understand. I understand. - (FBE) So obviously,
you're gonna need help doing that, so go ahead and type in bongo.cat
and see what happens. - bongo.cat.
Oh there--! And then there he is.
- I can control Bongo Cat. Bongos left and right,
click A and D. Cymbals, C.
Meow-- MEOW?!
- C. - (Bongo Cat meows)
(rapid meowing)
(meows) - Oh! And he-- (laughs)
♪ (discordant piano music) ♪ - Ohh, dang! This is dope.
- How do I write a--
OHHH!
- Make it meow. - (Bongo Cat meows)
- (chuckles) That's cool. - There's only, like, two instruments.
- No! No, there's more! ♪ (cymbal crashing) ♪
♪ (taps bongo) ♪ - Ooh! (laughs)
♪ (cymbal crashes) ♪ Oh, hoo, hoo! Oh my god.
♪ (random piano notes) ♪ - (Bongo Cat meowing)
- [Bleep] it up, Ned! Get it! Dirty!
♪ (bongo drumming) ♪ - Yes!
- (Bongo Cat meowing)
♪ (bongo drumming) ♪ - (Bongo Cat meows)
♪ (xylophone slide) ♪ - Whoa!
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! - (laughs triumphantly)
♪ (cymbal crashes) ♪ Wow, this is a really great way
to spend your day. - This is unexpected
and delightful. - Yeah.
- Thanks so much for watching this episode of YouTubers React.
- Subscribe to all the creators in this episode.
Links are in the description.
- ♪ (drumming on table) ♪ Buh-bye.
- Hey, guys. Ethan here from FBE. Thank you so much for watching
this episode of YouTubers React. A big thanks to all the creators
who came in and shot this episode with us.
Be sure to check out their channels
by clicking the links in the description below.
♪ (drumming on table) ♪ Bye!