Naruto is arguably one of the most well known animes out there, but after its recent exposure even those who don’t watch anime are familiar with the show. These days, becoming a meme can lead to going viral. In this case, Naruto’s claim to fame was the unique way that the ninjas run on the show. Apparently, this type of run struck quite a chord in people because it played an important role in the famous Area 51 raid that happened last month. Let’s take a look at how the Naruto run rose to fame on the internet.

Long before the Area 51 raid was a thing, videos of people doing the Naruto run started surfacing on the web. It became increasingly popular over the years leading up to the raid. KnowYourMeme.com has a timeline of the evolution of the Naruto run as a meme. It all started with a 30 second Youtube video of someone doing the Naruto run, posted on Sept. 6, 2006. After Youtube was crawling with all kinds of Naruto run videos, Facebook events started to pop up. On Aug. 8, 2017, a Facebook event was created for a group Naruto run that would take place in Philadelphia on Sept. 10. The event had over 7,000 interested people and, soon enough, Naruto runs like this were being organized all over the world. 

On June 27, video game streamer SmyleeKun posted an event to Facebook titled "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us." In the event he writes, "If we Naruto run, we can move faster than their bullets. Let’s see them aliens." The event was posted as a joke, but of course we all know just how much attention it got. On Sept. 20, the day that the event was supposed to take place, about 150 people showed up to the entrance of Area 51. They weren’t there to break into Area 51, though; they were there to Naruto run and participate in the joke. I never thought I would see major news outlets talking about the Naruto run but I guess that’s the power of the meme. Naruto’s Wikipedia page now has a section called the Naruto Run and the popular game Fortnite even incorporated the Naruto run into the game. Get ready fellow nerds, because this thanksgiving you won’t be the only one in your family talking about anime. 

Mary McCann

Mary is in her second year of the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. During her spare time Mary enjoys skateboarding, listening to music, petting dogs and eating Mexican food. She is working towards graduating from college and starting her writing career.