Loituma Girl (also known as "Leekspin") is a

Flash animation Adobe Flash animation (formerly Macromedia Flash animation and FutureSplash animation) is an animation that is created with the Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional) platform or similar animation software and often distributed in the SW ...

set to a

scat singing Originating in vocal jazz, scat singing or scatting is vocal Musical improvisation, improvisation with Non-lexical vocables in music, wordless vocables, Pseudoword#Nonsense syllables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, t ...

section of the Finnish song " Ievan polkka," sung by the Finnish quartet Loituma on their 1995 debut album '' Things of Beauty''. It appeared on the Internet in late April 2006 and quickly became popular. The animation consists of four frames showing the ''

Bleach Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color from (i.e. to whiten) fabric or fiber (in a process called bleaching) or to disinfect after cleaning. It often refers specifically t ...

'' anime character

Orihime Inoue is a fictional character in the Japanese manga series '' Bleach'' and its anime adaptation created by Tite Kubo. She is one of Ichigo Kurosaki's friends. Like the many other characters in the series, she quickly develops powers of her own af ...

twirling a

leek A leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek (synonym (taxonomy), syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of Leaf sheath, leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a "s ...

, set to a 27-second loop from the song.

Content

The animation of Loituma Girl is taken from episode two of the ''

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

series, between the twelfth and fourteenth minute (depending on the version). In the clip,

is twirling a

while talking to

Ichigo Kurosaki is a fictional character in the ''Bleach'' manga and anime series and its adaptations created by author Tite Kubo. He is the main protagonist of the series, who receives Soul Reaper powers after meeting Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper assigned to ...

and

Rukia Kuchiki is a fictional character in the anime and manga series ''Bleach (manga), Bleach'' created by Tite Kubo. In the series, she is a Soul Reaper, (死神, Shinigami, literally 'Death God'), in charge of slaying and eradicating corrupted souls called ...

. The scene is an instance of a recurring joke surrounding her character, in which she wants to cook something so unusual that it seems almost inedible. The music used consists of the second half of the fifth

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. ...

(four lines) and the complete sixth stanza (eight lines) from " Ievan polkka". Unlike the rest of the song, these two stanzas have no meaning, consisting mostly of phonetically inspired Finnish words that vary from performance to performance and are usually made up on the spot by the singer (compare

in jazz). These stanzas are therefore not generally listed on lyrics pages, causing confusion for people looking for lyrics that match the animation.

Popularity

On 10 July 2006, the Finnish newspaper ''

Helsingin Sanomat , abbreviated ''HS'' and colloquially known as , is the largest subscription newspaper in Finland and the Nordic countries, owned by Sanoma. Except after certain holidays, it is published daily. Its name derives from that of the Finnish capital ...

'' reported that Loituma Girl had caused a resurgence in Loituma's popularity, and the band had received thousands of fan letters from around the world. Band member Timo Väänänen describes his initial reaction to the video: The meme's author is widely believed to be the Russian Livejournal user "g_r_e_e_n", having posted a link to the meme on his LiveJournal feed on 23 April 2006 at 15:40. However, mentions of the meme online go as far back as April 20th of the same year. The song clip soon enjoyed overwhelming popularity in Russia as a ringtone. PRI's '' The World'' radio program covered the animation in a segment, in which they noted the clip's trance-inducing qualities. Patrick Macias, who was interviewed in the program, described the animation: As with most

Internet meme An Internet meme, or meme (, Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''MEEM''), is a cultural item (such as an idea, behavior, or style) that spreads across the Internet, primarily through Social media, social media platforms. Internet memes manif ...

s, numerous videos, remixes, and parodies have been inspired by the Flash animation. These may feature the animated background, the song clip, or otherwise reference the style of the animation. In August 2010, Disney Channel aired " Summer Belongs To You!", a one-hour television special for ''

Phineas and Ferb ''Phineas and Ferb'' is an American animated series, animated Musical film, musical-television comedy, comedy television series created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh for Disney Channel and Disney XD. The series originally aired on t ...

''. During the segment of the special where the cast visits

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

, Phineas and Ferb convince Stacy to participate in a dance and tune with them similar to " Caramelldansen". During the dance, Isabella can be spotted waving a leek in her hand, similar to the Loituma Girl. In December 2010, Operation Leakspin played off the "Leekspin" meme during efforts to raise awareness of potentially important documents leaked by

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

Commercialization

In August 2006, German

ringtone A ringtone is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming telephone call. Originally referring to the sound of electromechanical striking of bells or gongs, the term refers to any sound by any device alerting of an incoming call. On p ...

provider Jamba! began selling a collection of media based on the animation. The video shows an

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

donkey (called '' Holly Dolly'') dancing to the animation which is displayed (flipped horizontally) in the background. The animation is marketed as the "Dolly Song", and the music is played faster than the original Loituma version. It was also given an extra 30-second drum preface. In January 2007, a similar video entitled "Holly Dolly – Dolly Song (Ieva's Polka)" appeared in the Google Video Top 100, though it had already been present on the Internet for some time. It features the same donkey, along with some dancing sheep and a snowman, but the leek-spinning girl in the background is only there briefly. In April 2007, a Dutch power company ( Eneco) used the melody of Loituma's Ievan Polkka in its TV commercial for "ecostroom" (green energy). The Dutch company Artiq Mobile launched a website where people can upload homemade Loituma Girl spoof videos. TV commercials state the best video will win 500

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

s. The Romanian company Romtelecom uses the song in one of their commercials for Dolce, a satellite television service. In October 2007,

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

used this song in a Hungarian TV spot for their McCafé coffee. Typing "Loituma Girl" in the 2009 DS game ''

Scribblenauts ''Scribblenauts'' is a series of Action game, action Puzzle video game, puzzle video games primarily developed by independent studio 5th Cell. The series is owned and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The first game in the seri ...

'' results in a red-haired girl spinning a leek.

Vocaloid adaptation

In September 2007, a cover of "Ievan polkka" was made, sung by

Vocaloid is a singing Speech synthesis, voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project between Yamaha Corporation and the Music Technology Group at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. The s ...

Hatsune Miku, with Otomania arranging the music and providing Miku's voice manipulation. It was accompanied by an animation of a chibi version of Hatsune Miku waving a Welsh onion. To date, the video has over 12 million views on

Nico Nico Douga , known before 2012 as , is a Japanese video sharing service based in Tokyo, Japan. "Niconico" or "nikoniko" is the Japanese ideophone for smiling. As of 2021, Niconico is the 34th most-visited website in Japan, according to Alexa Internet. ...

and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

combined, and as a result, Miku's fame for the Welsh onion-twirling outshone Orihime's. The popularity of the Vocaloid version of "Ievan polkka" has led to the chibi-Miku featured in the video being treated as a separate character known as Hachune Miku. Good Smile Company produced a

Nendoroid The series is a brand of plastic figures created by the Japanese Good Smile Company since 2006. They typically depict characters from anime, manga or video games and are designed with a large head and smaller body to give them a cute appearan ...

action figure version of her.Good Smile Company – Nendoroid Miku Hatsune: Hachune Face Ver.
/ref>

References

External links