From avatar editor to a life of its own
The Wii came out in 2006, and the Mii Channel let players build small digital people: choosing facial features, hairstyles and other appearance details. Its musical theme was composed by Kazumi Totaka. It accompanied an activity in which one did not have to hurry or defeat an opponent. The player could spend a long time moving eyes around and choosing a nose shape while the same melody returned on each loop.
Recordings of the theme appeared on YouTube as early as 2007. Among the well-known early reworkings are remixes from 2010, and in 2011 brentalfloss turned the instrumental music into a song with words. Later came numerous performances and edits where the theme was laid over other people's videos. In 2017 such soundtrack swaps gained new visibility, and in spring 2018 a dance by Kida Burns and Jabari Timmons supported the #TheWiiChallenge wave. These are several stages of distribution, not a single moment of the meme's birth.
A screen that recalls the sound
The image shows the Mii Channel startup screen. At the top is a large title; below, a crowd of avatars with different hair, faces and clothes. At the bottom are the light Wii Menu and Start buttons, and a hand-shaped cursor is positioned over the left button. Faces fill almost the entire screen and recede far into depth. For a viewer familiar with the Wii, this still crowd serves as a visual cue for the melody and for the calm activity it accompanied.
How the backdrop changes the character of a scene
In the ordinary menu, the music promises no great drama. Therefore moving it to a solemn, tense or excessively serious video changes the relationship between image and sound. The characters may continue an important speech, while the accompaniment seems to invite them to carelessly choose a new nose. What's funny is not any single gesture but how out of place the whole scene now looks so lighthearted.
The dance version has a different task. The performer takes the modest backdrop seriously and shows how much movement can be drawn from it. In a remix, the recognizable theme may get a new tempo, instruments or vocals; in an edit, it remains a familiar commentary on someone else's actions. Words are not required for this. Sometimes it is enough to correctly align a short movement with a musical accent for an ordinary job to turn into a small performance.
Three invented clips
In the first scene, a person prepares a spot for a board game with the gravity of a master of ceremonies: straightening chairs, placing glasses, smoothing out the game board. The Mii Channel theme turns the stately preparation into the serene activity of an avatar editor. The turn of each chair can be synchronized with the next musical accent; the table gradually comes together as calmly as a virtual character.
In a second fictional clip, a cat takes a long time deciding which of three empty boxes to sit in. He checks one, walks around the second, and returns to the first. The repeating melody makes the indecision resemble searching for the right menu item. Here the joke relies on the anticipation of a choice, which the familiar theme lets stretch out without any sense of catastrophe.
The third variant is a specially staged dance by the staff of a small workshop. One passes a brush, another lifts a frame, a third unrolls a sign; simple work gestures add up to a sequence. What is transformed is no longer someone else's seriousness but everyday routine: the console's backdrop gives it a rhythm to which the participants can move together.
