T H E - Creating a Viral Meme
It was just a simple word. And yet, it started a meme that fans still use nearly a year later.
In April of 2020, we wanted to promote some older series to newer audiences. One way we had done this in the past was uploading an episode to YouTube and putting some ad spend behind it for a couple of weeks at a time. The campaigns usually had relative success, so we decided to do it for one of our series, Dive Olly Dive.
Dive Olly Dive is a 3D animated series that was created in 2005. It features the adventures of a little yellow submarine named Olly and his friends as they learn about the ocean ecosystem and the importance of saving the environment. Dive Olly Dive is primarily geared towards preschoolers, and has won many awards. But Olly and his friends, like all of us, unfortunately suffer from the cruelness of time - the animation technology that was once considered cutting edge has become obsolete, and the animation style now looks aged and outdated. Because of this aging and its target demographic, Dive Olly Dive was considered difficult to sell to viewers. So it was important that in creating this promotion we did everything we could to grab viewers’ attention and interest them in clicking on the advertisement.
Image Description: Two yellow 3D animated submarines sit in front of an archway. One submarine has a pink bow, eyelashes, and a heard shaped light for a nose. The other is a plain submarine with blue eyes. Fish, a turtle, bubbles and shells can be scene in the background. In between the two submarines and on the archway is a blue and green logo that reads “Dive Olly Dive”.
Throughout various campaigns, we had found that our viewers enjoyed “randomness”, or the unexpected. They reacted positively to it and were always looking for the next twist. So, we talked over various elements that could produce randomness. Coming up with the ad title was difficult, but we decided to just keep it simple - we called it “The”. It had no other element of surprise, and the thumbnail was just the normal image for the episode. We decided to monitor the “click-bait”-ness of the title, and let it sit for a few days. We did not expect what happened next.
Image Description: A screengrab from the YouTube ad. It features a green circle with a white “K” icon, and the title is simply called “The”. In the thumbnail, Olly, a yellow animated submarine, floats underwater while a hermit crab sits on his nose.
Things were quiet at first. But then, after a few days passed, suddenly we were receiving an influx of comments on the video. Viewers questioned why the title was called “The”. Some wondered if Kabillion was hacked. But above all else, most simply commented, “the”.
After receiving thousands of comments, we decided to turn them off. We wanted people to come to our YouTube channel to check us out, and that they did. No longer having a place to state the word “the”, new viewers came to our channel to comment it on our other videos. Confused regular viewers asked in the comments of those videos what was going on, to which people linked the ad. Now, we had reached a point where word of mouth was spreading the series. But it didn’t stop there.
Viewers posted the ad to various subreddits. Those subreddit visitors found us on other various social networks. Many joined our recently created Discord server to post their love for and ask questions about the video. Some shared fan art, one of which became a featured emote on our Discord channel (with permission of course).
Image Description: The THE emote, a very pixelated version of Olly with white glowing eyes and the word “the” typed underneath in white.
As more people asked about the mystery of THE, we continued to play upon fans’ curiosity. We hid THE in various YouTube videos, and fans became even more excited as they found the hidden clue. See if you can find it in the videos below!
Video description: A person offscreen shows the process of themselves making a pancake version of a skwid. Towards the end of the video, a glitching effect occurs for a brief moment.
Video Description: A person films a tutorial of themselves making a skwid out of cardboard. The skwid has shoes, a phone, a drink and a hat. The video is edited to look like it was filmed on a VHS camera.
Memes usually die down in popularity after a few weeks, and THE followed suit. We expected this, but then a couple of months later something new happened:
Image Description: A screen shot of a YouTube video called “r/Comedyheaven | The” by EmKay. In the thumbnail, the THE ad is featured.
A YouTuber named EmKay did a review of some memes on a subreddit called r/Comedyheaven. He had named his review video after the advertisement and featured a screenshot of the ad in the thumbnail. The meme was revived.
We commented underneath the video and interacted with new fans that way. People came through to our channel and we saw a new bump in subscribers and followers across all of our social media platforms.
Image Description: A screenshot of the Kabillion Channel commenting: “the is one of our favorite videos as well”. It has 1.5k likes and 178 comments.
Fans have continued to enjoy being a part of the meme, and Kabillion still regularly receives questions and comments about it. Below are some screenshots of comments as recent as February 2021 (some Discord usernames blocked out for privacy reasons).
Image Description: A conversation on the Kabillion Discord server about the THE ad. An individual posts a screenshot of the ad, then posts the THE emote and asks “Omg who remembers this”. Four individuals react with the THE emote. One user response “idk what your [sic] talking about, the meme is still here like a whole year later”. Another user responds “It’s still iconic”.
Image Description: A comment thread on YouTube of 4 different users commenting “The” on an unrelated video.
THE has lived an exciting life and is still going strong. We do occasionally release shout outs to this viral meme, so long as the audience enjoys it. Want your own piece of THE pie? You can click below on this Valentine’s Day card we made for our viewers and download it yourself!
Image Description: A clickable coloring page that features a Valentine’s Day card. On the front features Olly surrounded by bubbles in the shape of a heart. The text on the top of the front of the card says “THE” and on the bottom says “Happy Valentine’s Day!” On the back of the card, text reads “Watch ‘Dive Olly Dive’ On Kabillion”. There are instructions on the top of the coloring page on how to use the sheet.
Long live THE.