The buzzing pop culture hive mind that we collectively refer to as the Internet has always been fascinated with adorable animals. Spend a day surfing the web and you’re bound to stumble upon some ridiculous cat video or perhaps the latest update on Dogecoin, a popular cryptocurrency that bears the visage of a Shiba Inu dog (or "doge") as its emblem.
However, the meme-worthy team of grumpy cats, Shiba doges and the occasional burrito-eating hamster has been thrown out of whack recently with the emergence of a distinctly less cute and cuddly dark horse – or should I say, dark goat? That’s right, petting zoo enthusiasts: your favorite smelly farm animal is pop culture’s new hot item, and it's kind of difficult to say why.
The domesticated goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) initially trotted its way onto the viral scene in August 2010, when a YouTube video splicing clips of talk show host Oprah Winfrey with a goat bleating in a remarkably human-like fashion first surfaced. The video subtly suggests that Oprah, ever the enthusiast, sounds a bit too much like a shrieking goat when introducing guests onto her show. There's a mean-spirited streak to this, to be sure, but it's also pretty funny, and there's no denying that a goat is the perfect animal to match Winfrey's powerful pipes.
Though “oprah and the yelling goat” has accumulated over a million views since it was first published online almost four years ago, the true proliferation of goats in popular culture – and the “yelling” goat meme in particular – didn’t really hit its stride until early 2013. At the time, pop country singer-songwriter Taylor Swift’s infectious single “I Knew You Were Trouble” still lingered at the top of the music charts and in the minds of the masses. As with the Oprah video, some genius with Final Cut Pro decided that Ms. Swift’s loud proclamations of “Oh!” in the song's chorus sounded akin to the hellish yelling of goats. Eventually a YouTube video overlaying Swift's lyrics with distinctly less pleasant goat noises got passed around, and the rest is history.
Swift wasn’t the only Top 40 musician to have her voice equated with the banshee-like wails of everyone’s favorite horned animal: Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” Psy’s “Gentleman” and One Direction’s “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” all eventually got skewered with their own goat treatment. It wasn’t too long before the market for these videos became saturated with the same lazy, repetitive parodies. The novelty of the joke evaporated.
As is the case with a lot of memes – the aforementioned grumpy cat or doge phenomena come to mind – it seemed as though the goat craze was going through the Internet motions, hitting its fevered peak of ubiquity, quickly becoming grating and then flaring out entirely. But this may not be the case for our furry little friends. While it has been a while since a goat video hit viral status, the plucky animal has since found a home in an unlikely, decidedly more niche market: independent video games.
Goat Simulator, created by the alternative Swedish game developer Coffee Stain Studios, is, according to the company’s website, “the latest in goat simulation technology.” Of course, this description is followed by the disclaimer: “Goat Simulator is a completely stupid game and, to be honest, you should probably spend your money on something else, such as a hula hoop, a pile of bricks or maybe pool your money together with your friends and buy a real goat.”
NBN’s own Tanner Howard described the experience of playing Goat Simulator as one of “pure, unadulterated joy” in his review, and countless others have latched onto Coffee Stain’s bizarre, wonky creation. Play-throughs and video reviews of Goat Simulator by popular YouTube channels like PewDiePie and the YOGSCAST have gotten millions of hits in the past month alone, and the game has sold like goat cheese through Steam, Valve Software's digital game distribution platform. The winking self-awareness and rougher edges of the game and the goat that stars in it have made for a surprisingly winning formula, broadening the appeal of the animal in the public eye.
In March of 2014, a little more than a week before Goat Simulator’s debut, indie game label MagicalTimeBean’s pushed its release of Escape Goat 2, a self-proclaimed “Goat-based Puzzle Platformer,” which has also become a minor success in the underground gaming world. Like Goat Simulator, the Escape Goat series takes a classic gaming genre – here the 2D side-scrolling platformer – and simply inserts a goat as the protagonist for laughs and added quirk.
Escape Goat 2's premise is strange yet funny and endearing, crystallizing much of goats' appeal for the pop culture masses. Here are animals that are tougher and uglier than your standard household pets, but still have an odd charm about them that, coupled with their terrifying/hilarious yelling habit, makes for meme-worthy character. Whether or not goats can maintain as strong a hoofhold in the mainstream as they have in the past year remains to be seen, but with the surge in popularity of games like Goat Simulator, it would seem as though these goofy animals are here to stay.