“Gingers do have souls”
In 2005, a
South Park episode called “ginger kids” used the phrase “gingers have no soul”.
In the episode one of the characters held a class presentation regarding “red-headed
children” and a so-called disease “gingervitus”.
Five years
later in 2010 a red headed boy (username CopperCab) posted a video at Youtube
in response, to the phrase “gingers have no soul” he called the video “gingers
do have souls”. In this monologue video the boy talks about how he has been
bullied and discriminated because of his redheadness at school. The boy’s
expressions in the video are clearly showing frustration regarding the topic, redheaded
discrimination. The video was posted January 14th and after a month it
had over 3,1 million views (it now has over 3,4 million views). The interest
for the video made it´s peak in April. Over 600 people also posted videos in
respond to “gingers do have souls”. For example another “famous” Internet video
blogger made a video called “leave ginger boy alone” which matched one of his
other Youtube “hits” called, “leave britney alone”. The video became so popular
that it eventually made South Park (in response to the video), incorporate the
“gingers do have souls” monologue into a cartoon parody in promo for it´s new
season (season 14). This meant that the boy, CopperCap actually gained profit
from his Youtube success. It has also become common to make up pictures with
text (macros) containing stuff said and done at the videos mentioned over.
Why I think
this video had so much success after it´s release? Many of us are familiar with
South Park and have somewhat seen or heard about it´s “ginger kids” jokes and
the phrase “gingers have no soul”. Seeing a true red-headed boy stand up
against the discrimination of gingers and being completely serious about it
might be why this was seen as funny for people to watch. Because the phrases
used in both the south park episode, the original video and the South Park
promo have become so popular and well known, people have used them in the
making of Internet macros. Multiple jokes have now been made about gingers as a
result of these videos.
Google insights interest :
Example macro, someone has used shots from the original video and filled in text to make it funny (left). It also became popular to use other pictures of ginger kids and fill inn “humoristic” text (right).
This Picture shows CobbCab in the original video and South Parks version in the promo for its 14th season.
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