Comedy music duo Hard 'n Phirm (Chris Hardwick, Mike Phirman) put out a new video last week that's pretty special. The pair was inspired by the Ermahgerd meme to write a midtempo love song.
Not familiar with the meme? It's a silly image macro that started last March on Reddit. Someone found an old photo of a preteen girl with braces, pig tails, and an exaggerated excited expression passionately responding to a fistful of Goosebumps books. The image was captioned "Gersberms! Mah fravrit berks!," in an attempt to capture the lisp created by heavy orthodontic gear. It quickly went viral, with the Ermahgerd (Oh my God) dialect applied to everything from pugs chasing tennis balls to random movie stills.
According to the Know Your Meme database, the popularity of Ermahgerd actually began to decline in September. I think that's more a reflection of image macro sites moving onto new subject matter. From my own experience, I see this spreading over a wider swath of the online world and even sneaking into the daily speech of some of my students. The image macro creation might be falling, but the play on language is possibly becoming more widespread.
This loops us back around to the Hard 'n Phirm video. Hardwick and Phirman got a number of notable guests to participate in the insanity of "Gersberms (Yer Gervin Mah)." Hayley Williams, lead singer of the Grammy award nominated band Paramore, sings the hook in Ermahgerd speak and appears in the video. The Big Bang Theory's Melissa Rauch plays a grown-up version of the original Ermahgerd girl and is almost unrecognizable. Artist Crystal Natsuko has a quick cameo as Bjork in the swan dress.
Then there's the Swedish Chef. Every good throwback midtempo love song needs a guest rapper. Who better to bring the incomprehensibility of the Ermahgerd vowel swapping dialect to life than Mr. BorkBorkBork himself?
The video is mercifully subtitled so you can get all the jokes. It really classes up the whole thing.