As so many other people do, I love memes, but how did they originate? With this series I will go through some popular memes, find out what they were based on, when they started and how.

In this article I will talk about the meme that blasted into 2018 like a tank though a battalion. I am of course talking about Ugandan Knuckles so click read more if you would like to know da wae.

Catchphrases.

Ugandan Knuckles has many catchphrases but the most noticeable is “Do you know da wae”. This catchphrase originates from a movie we were never meant to see. “Who Killed Captain Alex” is a low-budget Ugandan action movie from Wakaliwood Studios from 2010. The movie was an experimental project and was never meant to leave the small village in Uganda it was created in.

The budget for the movie was a tiny $200, and the creator made the movie on a PC he build himself from old 90s computer parts.

The result is hilarious and that was why the movie got leaked on YouTube. The version on YouTube contains the first ever “video joker” or VJ which basically is a guy commentating over the movie. This guy makes the whole movie as amazing as it is though due to his enthusiasm, accent, and goofy comments like “The movie is on”, “Everyone in Uganda knows kung fu”, and “He knows the way” throughout the whole movie. You can watch the whole movie here.

In 2016 a streamer named Forsen streamed the movie on twitch, which resulted in his community yelling out random lines from the movie with fake African accents over the voice-chat in the game Player Unknown Battle Ground (better known as PUBG).

Design.

I would like to begin on the design of Ugandan Knuckles. As implied in the name Ugandan Knuckles is based on Knuckles from the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise. Knuckles was first introduced in the game Sonic The Hedgehog 3 as a red echidna – a small spiky animal the originates from Australia and New Guinea. Knuckles’ role in the Sonic The Hedgehog Franchise is to protect the Chaos Emeralds, you can read more about Knuckles here.

The actual design of Ugandan Knuckles originates from a YouTuber/animater called GregZilla. GregZilla uploaded a review of the game “Sonic Lost World” in 2017, and in his video he had a brief appearance of a poorly drawn Knuckles for comedic effect: the character we now know as Ugandan Knuckles.

His Knuckles animation became a hit but did not go viral until his second appearance in a GregZilla video called Knuckles Sings, a short video of the character moving its mouth with The Ink Spots – I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire playing in the background. This spread to others making Knuckles Sings videos but you can watch the original here.

Due to the large popularity of GregZilla, a deviant artist who worked on the game VR-Chat (a bit like Habbo but in virtual reality), uploaded the Knuckles character in the game. Forsen’s community took advantage of this platform and made the character we know today as Ugandan Knuckles.

Leave a comment below if you would like for me to look into a special meme for the next edition of the series, and let me know whether this is something you would read more of!

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