Last night I had a realization: I think the “What Does the Fox Say” trend was loathsome. Now it's true that I believe many things to be at least somewhat loathsome, but the multitudinous nature of that list doesn’t lessen my hatred for each and every item on it.
For those unaware, “What does the Fox Say” was a YouTube sensation that transcended the medium to become a radio and commercial hit as well. The YouTube video has 556,144,621 views and counting and the song itself lingered on the billboard hot 100 for the latter half of 2013. Yes, the video was released on Sept. 3, 2013, meaning I am more than two years late to comment on it and for my comments to be considered even somewhat “timely” or “relevant”. Still, I write this not in the hopes that it could serve as a cautionary forewarning of idiotic sensations still on the horizon, but because I want to.
“What Does the Fox Say” was made by the Norwegian comedic duo Ylvis for a bit on their talk show. For me, this is a red flag of inauthenticity. I don’t mean to imply that I originally believed the video to be serious, but I think that given the fact that they are performed in English, that this video and many of Ylvis’ other works are nothing but poorly thrown together drivel meant to gain them notoriety by pandering to an American audience. I shiver at the thought of being an unthinking pawn in a Norwegian, fraternal, comedic duo’s quest for mainstream success.
The video itself is stupid and annoying, but only because it tries to be. The over serious delivery of “dog goes woof” paired with the poppy and stylish instrumentation very clearly drives home the point that it’s trying to be a humorous juxtaposition. It’s definitely silly and has a slight ear-worm quality, but I’m not sure why people would like it. Someone may like it as a legitimate song and while this may be humorous to imagine, the song would not be humorous for that viewer, they’d think it’s good. I knew several people like this. The vast majority of people liked it ironically, pretending it was a great song for the laughs.
Whether you reveled in imagining if a fox actually makes nonsense sounds or whether you thought of it as a mockery of itself, I don’t see how it ever actually would get funny. All parties thought they were being subversive as they screamed the lyrics at the top of their lungs, thinking, “I like this song but no one else does, that’s hilarious”, or “this song is so dumb yet we’re dancing to it, that’s hilarious”, or “people think it’s funny that they’re dancing to a dumb song, that’s hilarious”, their faces gleaming with self-confident smiles as their spirits were being drained of confidence to continue the illusion of enjoyment. Meanwhile, somewhere in the bowels of Norway, two brothers stared into each other’s eyes and laughed.
