There are videos of the Pokémon Farfetch’d who also carries a
leek (although his character predates the meme and most likely is spawned from
a Japanese idiom), [1]
people trying to sell clay ocarinas (陶笛),[2]
and a seven year old playing a piano solo version of the improvised scat
section.[3] An accelerated, and thusly higher-pitched, version
is played with the poster to the Alvin
and the Chipmunks movie as the visual in reference to high-pitched chipmunk
speech.[4]
It took about
four months from Leekspin’s first posting before the mobile phone content
provider, Jamba!, began selling Leekspin ringtones and released their Dolly
Song.[5] Dolly is an anthropomorphized, scantily clad,
computer-generated donkey avatar who sings a version of Eva’s Polka with an
accelerated tempo. The video features a
short clip of the original Leekspin.
In 2007,
Vocaloid, a vocal synthesizer application was released. The female vocalizer has a female persona
called Hatsune Miku. Videos with Hatsune
Miku’s voice singing the scat section of Eva’s Polka and her avatar equipped
with a leek surfaced on the web soon thereafter.[6] This led to the development of a type of
subgenre of pseudo-erotic videos in Japan (and subsequently China) depicting
girls dressed as Hastune Miku shaking leeks in front of Japanese businessmen.
Of the Leekspin related videos posted on YouTube, a majority involve girls,
animated or live action, dressed as Hatsune Miku and shaking leeks.[7]
In 2007, Eva’s Polka developed
popularity in Europe, albeit stripped of its newly developed erotic
connotations. A techno version became
popular in some clubs.[8] According to a fan-generated Wikipedia list,
the tune is used to celebrate the Finnish nationality of HC Kometa Bryno, the
goalkeeper of the Czech hockey club.[9] The melody also soundtracked a Wrigley Extra
Gum advertisement.
Recently,
Leekspin has inspired YouTube videos of choreographed group dances, usually females
featuring leeks as dance props.[10] In 2011, another video of Leekspin-inspired
dancing was posted online.[11] This featured a Chinese Kentucky Fried
Chicken restaurant’s staff dancing with leeks to the Ievan Polka. This is not as strange as it may first sound
to Western readers. Department stores,
fast food restaurants, and other work places across East Asia frequently begin
work days or shifts with yoga or a group dance to inspire unity. However, adding green onions and posting the
video on YouTube are not typical. The
comments on the video generally fall into two categories. There are comments calling the song or the
dancers cute, and there are comments that are sexually explicit. Many
commenters noticed the central dancer’s bent green onion and made double
entendres questioning his sexual stamina or alleging sexual impotence. Whether previous knowledge of Leekspin’s
meatspin-inspired origin is known or not, the green onion remains a phallic
symbol in at least some viewers’ dubs.
[8] http://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=_mdMb6bRXt4.
I base the popularity of this remix on the personal accounts of European
students studying at Oxford during the 2011-2012 school year who said they
recognized the tune from clubs in Continental Europe.
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ievan_Polkka.
My use of Wikipedia in this case is addressed in another section of this paper.
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