Animutation

Animutation or fanimutation is a form of web-based computer animation, typically created in Adobe Flash and characterized by unpredictable montages of pop-culture images set to music, often in a language foreign to the intended viewers. It is not to be confused with manual collage animation (e.g., the work of Stan Vanderbeek and Terry Gilliam) which predates the Internet.

Animutation was popularized by Neil Cicierega. Cicierega claims to have been inspired by several sources, including bizarre Japanese commercials and Martin Holmström's "Hatten är din" Soramimi-style video made for the "Habbeetik" song by Azar Habib. The term animutation was popularized in 2001 with flash animations such as Japanese Pokerap and Hyakugojyuuichi!!, which featured the credits music from older episodes of Pokémon. The popularity of Hyakugojyuuichi!! quickly made it an Internet phenomenon. Since that time, others have adopted a similar style and communities of similarly-minded animators have sprung up around the web. These versions made by fans were christened "fanimutations".

Animutations can be based on songs of foreign, independent, or mainstream origin. Japanese songs were used in many of the original animutations by Neil Cicierega, but newer animutations use songs in a wide variety of languages, including English, Dutch and gibberish. Some bands/singers who have performed a song in at least one animutation include Cibo Matto, Polysics, Rip Slyme, Rammstein and Imakuni? (as part of Suzukisan).

The foreign language songs are often "misheard" into English by the creators and added as subtitles. The words are not translations but soramimis, English words that sound roughly the same as the original lyrics. For example, the animutation title "French erotic film" is a soramimi of the original Dutch lyrics "Weet je wat ik wil" in an Ome Henk song. The actual translation of the lyrics is "Do you know what I want?"

...
Wikipedia