Gary Brolsma
| Gary Brolsma | |
|---|---|
Gary Brolsma in 2006.
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| Born |
January 14, 1986 Saddle Brook, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | @GMan250 |
| Known for | Numa Numa Dance viral video |
Numa Numa is an Internet phenomenon based on a video by American vlogger Gary Brolsma made after the song "Dragostea Din Tei" as performed by O-Zone. Brolsma's video, entitled Numa Numa Song, was released on December 6, 2004 on the website Newgrounds.com under the username @GMan250 and shows Brolsma lip-synching the hit song with lively gesticulations and dance moves, which later got taken down by the Newgrounds moderation team in late 2016. The video title is derived from the Romanian words "nu mă nu mă" that occur in the refrain of O-Zone's song. It was the first Numa Numa-themed video to gain widespread attention. Less than three months after the release, it had been viewed more than two million times on the debut website alone.
Numa Numa Song has since spawned many parody videos, including those created for the "New Numa Contest", sponsored by Brolsma, which promised US$45,000 in prize money for submissions. His original video was named 41st in the 2006 broadcast of 100 Greatest Funny Moments by Channel 4 in the UK. The video was featured on Channel 4's Virtually Famous and entered its Hall of Fame, and was ranked #1 in VH1's "40 Greatest Internet Superstars" in March 2007.
The Viral Factory estimated that by November 27, 2006, the video had been viewed over 700 million times.
By February 25, 2005, fewer than 3 months after Brolsma released the video on Newgrounds, it had been viewed more than two million times on that site alone. Brolsma later stated in an interview, "...I found it ["Dragostea Din Tei"] in another (I believe it was Japanese) flash animation with cartoon cats". Others have noted Brolsma's inspiration was the Japanese flash animation Maiyahi by the Albinoblacksheep.com user "ikari", which featured soramimi wordplay (from Romanian into Japanese) and whose video featured an animated version of the popular Shift JIS art cat Monā.
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