Okay, look. I'm not going to lie to you here. Cards on the table - I really wanted to compile a list of memes.
But this is an article, so there really needs to be a point. So what we're going to do is look at the makeup of a meme, and then we're going to look at some. Is that okay with you?
Great! Take my hand and let's dive into the meme stream!
Well... at this point it's not so much a 'stream' as it is churning rapids peppered with rocks and waterfalls.
That is to say, the meme scene these days is a wild and crazy place.
Now keep in mind I was born in the early '90s, so I'm coming at this from the perspective of an old fogie who remembers a world without "LEEEEROOOOOOOYYYYYY JENNNKINNNNNNNS", a world before ultra specific meme pages on Facebook and when most image macro memes were little more than Scumbag Steve or advice animals.
Good god, do I miss Socially Awkward Penguin...
Wait, where was I going with this...
By now we all know that while most memes rise and fall, flickering like the mad, beautiful bursts of joy they are, there are a few that seem to have more staying power.
Whether they have a sort-of nostalgic charm to them or they never got popular enough to hit critical mass and implode, some memes just seem to... stick around. You won't see them all the time, but people still make them and when you stumble on one in one of your many feeds it's like reconnecting with an old friend.
The 'Eurobeat kicked in' meme seems to be one of those.
If you've never stumbled onto one here's a pretty typical example:
They parody scenes from Initial D an anime that, if you're into both cars and anime you've almost certainly watched.
If you haven't watched it, the cliff notes are as follows: (Side note: I know that this is dicey territory stepping into anime, meme and car fandoms, please know that I've done my research but I'm only human, and a pretty below average human at that, if I make a mistake let me know in the comments and I'll fix it. Just... please... be gentle with me. I'm soft)
Initial D follows Takumi Fujiwara, a gas station attendant who also works as a tofu delivery driver for his father Bunta.
Story goes: Takumi makes his deliveries in an old Trueno Sprinter AE86 owned by his Dad, and has been doing so since he was a child. Over the years, in order to make those deliveries, he has fine tuned his driving skills on the mountain and unknowingly become the world's greatest driver. You know - that old love story.
The reach of the series is impressive. Not only did it give us a manga, an anime, a whole ton of video games, a live action adaptation, those Initial D insipired arcade machines and the best CGI drifting the '90s had to offer, it also gave us a super-fun meme of the dankest quality.
See, the show's soundtrack is another thing to really enjoy. It's mostly bright, boppy Eurobeat music. In lieu of explaining what Eurobeat is I'm just going to leave an example here.
Basically all you need to know is that it's bright, fast, and has big powerful vocals performing lyrics that are... well... pretty shallow.
Here, just have a listen:
It's fun, right?
So, with the internet being the internet (I really feel like I say that a lot...) the songs have been taken and stuck onto other videos.
Would you like to see some examples?
Trick question, I know you do. Let's look at some maymays:
'Deja Vu' is a popular song choice for people drifting.
Sometimes they come out of nowhere:
Sometimes they appear and don't stop:
Sometimes they're not even in cars:
Running in the '90s (from before) is another popular choice:
And sometimes they're not even that fast, they're just cute:
There are tons more out there, if you've got a favourite that you don't see here let us know in the comments!
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