Techno Viking

Techno Viking is an internet phenomenon or meme based on a video from the 2000 Fuckparade in Berlin, Germany.The 4-minute video shot by experimental video artist Matthias Fritsch at the Fuckparade on 8 July 2000 begins with the title "Kneecam No. 1". The camera is on a group of dancing people with a blue haired woman in front. A man stumbles into the scene grabbing the woman shortly. A bare-chested man wearing a Thor's hammer pendant enters the scene while turning to that man. He grabs him by the arms and the camera follows showing the confrontation. The bare-chested man pushes the guy off with pointing the finger to the direction. He looks sternly after him and then he points again with the finger a little up to the guy being back on the truck. Then the scene is moving backwards as the techno parade continues. Another observer comes from the back of the scene offering an inverted bottle of water to the bare-chested man. As the situation calms down, the bare-chested man starts to dance down Rosenthaler Straße to techno music.Fritsch uploaded the video to the internet in 2001. Fritsch intended to raise questions of whether the action was real or staged. In 2006 he uploaded it to YouTube, and it went viral in 2007. According to Fritsch, its popularity began on a Central American pornography site. After being posted on Break.com, it peaked on 28 September at more than 1 million views per day and was watched by over 10 million people over 6 months. More than 700 responses and edited versions were posted. It was the #1 clip on Rude Tube's series-three episode Drink and Drugs. Mathew Cullen and Weezer wanted to include Techno Viking in their compilation of Internet memes for the "Pork and Beans" music video but were unable to. Techno Viking was also rendered in oils as part of a series on internet memes. By mid-2010, the video had generated over 20 million hits on YouTube alone;, the original version had more than 16 million views. Techno Viking has a Know Your Meme page, which documents aspects of the meme including derived images such as Techno Viking with his finger raised and the word "Obey", and an Encyclopedia Dramatica page.