Horse Plinko

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About

Horse Plinko refers to a viral animated GIF of a horse falling through a Plinko board as it bounces off pegs. Originating from a demonstration video for a computer science paper, the GIF achieved virality with a Tumblr post in September 2021 and inspired edited versions and memes in early 2022.

Origin

On November 27th, 2017, a team of computer science researchers at the University of Minnesota^[1] published a paper titled "ADMM ⊇ Projective Dynamics: Fast Simulation of General Constitutive Models." On the same day, Assistant Professor Rahul Narain uploaded a demonstration video for the project to YouTube.^[2] The video, created by students George Brown and Matt Overby, consisted of a series of 3D animations, with an animation of a horse falling through a Plinko-like arrangement of pegs used to demonstrate real-time collisions (shown below, part starts at 2:18). The video gained over 3,000 views in four years.

On December 2nd, 2017, GIF collector Tumblr^[3] account fruitsoftheweb posted a transparent GIF based on the animation from the video. The post received over 12,100 likes and reblogs in four years (shown below).

Spread

The GIF did not see spread until August 2021 when it was presumably posted on an unknown Discord server and was combined with animated text reading "horse plinko" (created in Cooltext^[4] generator) and a fire animation, commonly referred to as the "incinerator." On August 11th, 2021, YouTuber^[5] Wizard posted the first known meme based on the combined animation, combining it with a heavy metal music track and a voiceover. The post gained over 9,600 views in five months (shown below).

On August 12th, 2021, Imgur^[6] user ElbowDeepInAHorse reposted the GIF to the site, where it gained over 1,700 upvotes and 76,300 views in five months. On August 14th and 15th, Tenor^[7] user sockinator and Redditor^[8] MeWhenThe-ItsWhen posted versions of the GIF with two different backgrounds (shown below, left and right).

The GIF achieved viral spread on September 8th, 2021, after Tumblr^[9]^[10]^[11] users juicedoesthings, passioninblue and kadethecat had a humorous exchange, with juicedoesthings posting a screenshot of a Discord conversation in which a user demanded that they no longer be sent Horse Plinko, passioninblue replying with Horse Plinko animated text and GIF and kadethecat posting the incinerator animation. The exchange received over 108,100 likes and reblogs in four months.

In the following weeks, the GIF was widely circulated online.^[12]^[13] On September 28th, 2021, voice actor Luke Correia posted a voiced version of the meme, with the video gaining over 280,000 views on YouTube^[14] in three months.

The GIF again became viral on December 30th, 2021, after Tumblr^[15] user skull-syrup posted a version of the GIF turned 90 degrees counter-clockwise, thus allowing the horse to "avoid" falling into the incinerator. The post (shown below) gained over 35,600 likes and reblogs in four days.

In the following days, other Tumblr^[16]^[17] users posted more versions of the meme, with multiple versions going viral on the platform and being reposted elsewhere.