Caramelldansen Vid

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Dansa med oss, klappa era händer
Dance with us, clap your hands
Gör som vi gör, ta några steg åt vänster
Do what we do, take a few steps to the left
Lyssna och lär, missa inte chansen
Listen and learn, don't miss the chance
Nu är vi här med Caramelldansen!
Now we're here with The Caramell Dance!

—"Caramelldansen"

Barusamikosu yappa irahende
I don't want balsamic vinegar after all
Yosho ni noreta niodachi no sensei
Teacher with an imposing pose, riding from an important position
Messo mo nai misairu honten
Ridiculous missile head office
Metta ni aenu kyarameru tante
Caramel dectective you rarely meet

—Japanese Mondegreen lyrics, from Nico Nico Douga

Some time after the Speedy Techno Remake, called the "Speedycake Remix", of Caramelldansen by Caramell was released, someone made a video from the Popotan h-game opening (NSFW, obviously), which was two girls bobbing up and down while flapping their hands, and the video synced the dancing to an excerpt of the song.

Now it seems the internet won't stop until at least one character from every major work is animated in that style and dancing to the song. Notably, even the official music video that was eventually made for the remix features the bob dance and anime styling.

This trope is about that effort, that now spans hundreds of different videos on YouTube and Nico Nico Douga. It doesn't help now that rights holders to the song wrote and recorded an English version of the song just because of its internet popularity, including a line in the chorus saying "Look at YouTube clips do it..."[1]

Again, it has to be animation like that (drawn or CGI). Simply syncing footage to the song doesn't count. People at Anime Conventions have been known to spontaneously burst into this dance en masse, but those wouldn't count as this.

The animations might be crudely done, but the point is to actually go for that look.

It might be noteworthy to note that the song is a case of Love It or Hate It in some circles. A word of warning: the song is prime Ear Worm material, so don't go following the links if you're prone to getting songs stuck in your head. It's also worth pointing out that this got started on YouTube, not YTMND, despite consisting of a looping animation accompanied by looping audio. A sign of the times, it seems... You can really find anything for it, for example.

YouTuber Jan Misali released a documentary on the origins, evolution and exploitation of the meme on YouTube in 2022.

Examples of Caramelldansen Vids include:

Other:

Tropes used in Caramelldansen Vid include:

From Sweden to UK we will bring our song
Australia, USA, and people of Hong Kong
They have heard this meme all around the world
So come and move your hips, sing ua a a
Look at YouTube clips, do it la la la
You and me can sing this melody

  • Dance Sensation: Not only "Caramelldansen" itself, but several of the followups by the Caramella Girls including their first, "Boogie Bam Dance".

Dance with us
Clap your hands
Do like we do
Take some steps to the left
Listen and learn
Don't miss the chance
Now we're here with
The Caramell Dance!

  • Everybody Do the Endless Loop: Pretty much every "Caramelldansen" video.
  • Fake Band: The Caramella Girls, formed by Remix Records to cash in on the popularity of the meme. They're about as real as The Archies were, and are composed of three animated dancer/singers voiced by a trio of performers whose actual identities have been very successfully hidden for more than a decade.
  • Modesty Shorts: The animated Caramelldansen girls are shown wearing shorts under their short skirts when they're dancing.
    • The Popotan footage used to make the original video had the girls wearing Modesty Shorts (as seen in the page image), so it's not unexpected that people in later groups would wear them as well.
  • Memetic Mutation: Possibly the modern archetype for memetic mutation on the Net.
  • Mondegreen: Part of the appeal which initially drove the meme in Japan were Japanese mondegreen lyrics for the original Swedish shared and reinforced on Nico Nico Douga, which turned it into a nonsense song about balsamic vinegar, missiles and detectives:

Barusamikosu yappa irahende (I don't want balsamic vinegar after all)
Yosho ni noreta niodachi no sensei (Teacher with an imposing pose, riding from an important position)
Messo mo nai misairu honten (Ridiculous missile head office)
Metta ni aenu kyarameru tante (Caramel dectective you rarely meet)

  1. ↑ The members of Caramell had long gone their separate ways when the meme took off, so an anonymous Fake Band called "Caramella Girls" was formed to record it and its follow-ups.
  2. ↑ Apropos, considering the characters from Popotan run a Christmas store in their story.
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