Mario Headbanging

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About

Mario Headbanging refers to a viral clip of video game character Super Mario headbanging and doing the sign of the horns. Originating from a 2007 commercial, the clip has since been used in various edits and YTPs, regaining popularity in 2020 in "Mario Headbangs to" videos.

Origin

In 2007, Singapore Airlines released a commercial for its in-flight entertainment system KrisWorld featuring video game character Super Mario. In one fragment of the commercial, Mario briefly headbangs to a rock music video playing on the screen.

On May 14th, 2017, YouTube^[1] user greatsia uploaded the commercial to YouTube (shown below, left). On August 21st, 2012, Singapore Airlines^[2] made an official upload of the commercial (shown below, right).

On July 6th, 2007, YouTube^[3] user blazfire7325 posted a Chacarron Macarron / Dragostea din Tei meme based on the clip which received over 472,000 views in thirteen years (shown below).

Spread

On July 11th, 2007, YouTube^[4] user delpedro96 posted a "Chacarron Macarron" edit featuring Headbanging Mario, Rapper Mario and several other Super Mario clips. The video accumulated over 10.4 million views in thirteen years.

In the following years, the clip appeared in several YTP videos and music edits, with the GIF of Mario headbanging being spread on various forums in the following years.^[5]^[6]^[7] On May 22nd, 2016, Tenor^[8] user REDMCAP uploaded the GIF (shown below, left). The GIF has since been used in GIF Captions on iFunny^[9]^[10] (examples shown below, center and right).

On December 17th, 2017, the Twitter^[13] account of Super Mario Wiki tweeted about the story behind the meme, crediting SMW forum user winstein.

On July 29th, 2020, Twitter account @MarioHeadbangs (Mario Headbangs To) was created, posting edits of Mario headbanging to various songs. The first video posted^[11] by the account, a clip of Mario headbanging to MEGALOVANIA, received over 12,500 views, 360 retweets and 1,300 likes in three months (shown below).

The account accumulated over 22,100 followers in three months, with several edits accumulating over 100,000 views. For example, a September 21st, 2020 post^[12] of Mario headbanging to "September" received over 144,000 views in two weeks (shown below).