KENTENSHI's "Paranoia"

About

"Paranoia" is a drum and bass / breakcore composition by producer KENTENSHI that samples vocaloid song "Young Girl A" by siinamota. Released in January 2022, the song gained virality on TikTok in May and June 2023, where it was used in various caption memes and in a viral Sonic the Hedgehog edit.

Origin

On January 24th, 2022, producer KENTENSHI released^[1] "Paranoia," a breakcore track which sampled vocaloid song "Young Girl A" by Japanese producer siinamota. The composition garnered over 4 million streams on SoundCloud in four years (shown below).

On May 23rd, 2023, TikTok^[2] user cocoaswole posted the earliest found viral meme based on the song which received over 7.1 million views and 1,200 million likes in one year (shown below).

Spread

In the following weeks, the song saw extensive use in various caption memes on TikTok, often being combined with videos running from something or chasing someone. For example, on May 29th, 2023, TikTok^[3] user @imabadbacon posted a meme that garnered over 1.1 million views and 57,200 likes in one year (shown below, left). On June 11th, 2023, TikTok^[4] user @kss_bh posted a video caption meme that gained over 849,000 views and 157,000 likes in one year.

Notably, on June 14th, 2023, TikTok^[5] user @giliann.deserva combined the song with a 2010 TAS speedrun of the Power Plant Zoner 3 stage of Sonic Boom in which Sonic runs away from a wall of fire. The video gained over 3.1 million views and 257,000 likes in one year, but its audio has since been removed. On August 12th, 2023, YouTube^[6] channel『Is That A JoJo Reference』archived the meme, with the upload (shown below) gaining over 1.8 million views in ten months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References