What's the deal with that wild Pen Pineapple Apple Pen video?

It's just so damn catchy.
 By 
Johnny Lieu
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The internet every so often brings up moments of wild genius. The Pen Pineapple Apple Pen song is one of them.

It's an incredibly addictive and catchy number created by a Japanese caricature of a singer-songwriter called Piko-Taro, who has a YouTube channel dedicated to his work and musings.

If you haven't seen the original video, it features Piko-Taro singing and fusing an apple, a pineapple and a pen, ultimately forming a Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen. It makes no sense whatsoever, but that's why it is so utterly hilarious and magical.


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The song has somehow ended up being replicated by a whole heap of Japanese teenagers, attracting covers from popular internet stars from the country such as MakoMina, plus Riko and Rika on MixChannel -- a Japanese social media platform for sharing short-form videos.

According to Spoon & Tamago, Piko-Taro is a character created by comedian and DJ Kosaka Daimaou, whose real name is Kazuhiko Kosaka.

The character was first introduced in the comedian's live performances, but become popular enough that he developed the character further, culminating in Piko-Taro's first YouTube video in August.

But thanks to Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen parodies, Piko-Taro's video has started to make inroads into Western internet circles. If you're lucky enough, the comedian will reply to curious English speakers on his Twitter account.

Piko-Taro also has a number of other music videos on his YouTube page, but they're mostly in Japanese, of course. But he's already got a hectic remix of his original hit.

It still doesn't make sense.

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Johnny Lieu

Mashable Australia's Web Culture Reporter.Reach out to me on Twitter at @Johnny_Lieu or via email at jlieu [at] mashable.com

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