Santa Running to Earth

About

Santa Running to Earth, also known as Santa Running Towards Earth, refers to a 3D animation video showing Santa Claus running towards Earth from outer space with sparkles and glitter trailing him. The Christmas animation was originally posted to YouTube in 2018. It became an exploitable meme template in mid-2023 on TikTok where creators object labeled captions on a low quality version of the video.

Origin

On December 7th, 2018, Hungarian animator and YouTuber^[1] kontraszt uploaded a 3D animation showing Santa Claus running towards Earth from outer space with sparkles and glitter trailing him. Over the course of five years, the video gained roughly 748,300 views and 3,400 likes (shown below).

Despite a 2018 origin, the video didn't gain memetic usage until August 2023, directly following a video posted by TikToker^[2] @brinnelec on August 21st, 2023, who captioned a low quality version of the animation with, "Me running to the kitchen as soon my family leaves the house," gaining roughly 1.5 million plays and 398,600 likes in 10 days (shown below). The post is currently the video's first known usage.

Spread

On August 22nd, 2023, TikToker^[3] @.hashlblra repurposed the format, captioning it, "Me running to my room when guests come over," gaining roughly 102,800 plays and 30,700 likes in nine days (shown below, left). On August 25th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @flashwebz posted an iteration about running to the bathroom, gaining roughly 50,400 plays and 3,600 likes in six days (shown below, right).

Going into late August 2023, TikTokers^[5][6] continued to go viral for the meme format. Some creators even started to use the segment of the original YouTube^[1] video after Santa arrived on Earth and was dancing in the snow as presents fell from the sky. The first known creator to do so was TikToker^[5] @len_sp123 on August 30th, 2023, captioning it, "Me when I can stay home On a school day," gaining roughly 571,500 plays and 185,600 likes in one day (shown below).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References