Beam Attack

Submission 9,404

Part of a series on Kirby. [View Related Entries]

About

Beam Attack refers to a series of videos recreating and redrawing a scene from a June 2022 video by YouTuber Failboat where a Waddle Doo from Kirby: Planet Robobot tries to kill Kirby using his beam attack but fails, resulting in him being sent to meme heaven. The scene was first used in a meme in July 2022, peaking in early August.

Origin

On June 25th, 2022, YouTuber^[1] Failboat posted a video titled, "The most Terrifying Kirby game" where he plays through Kirby: Planet Robobot while giving humorous commentary, voicing characters throughout. At timestamps 2:34, Failboat voices a Waddle Doo enemy trying to use its beam attack on Kirby, saying "beam attack!" After a second attempt, Kirby slide-attacks the Waddle Doo and kills it (shown below). The video gained over 852,000 views in just over a month.

The scene was cut and reuploaded by YouTuber^[2] Egg egg that day. On July 2nd, YouTuber^[3] OrangeCloudDreamer posted recreation of the scene using a pixelated Waddle Doo and version of Kirby, gaining over 190,000 views in a month (shown below). This is the earliest known edit of the scene.

Spread

On July 14th, 2022, YouTuber^[4] Ch_390 reposted the isolated scene from the original video, titled, "Why Waddle Doo Isn’t in 'Kirby and the Forgotten Land,'" garnering over 461,000 views in four weeks. On July 29th, YouTuber^[5] Archie posted an animated version of the video, gaining over 26,000 views in a similar span of time (shown below, left). On the same day, YouTuber^[6] ItsKirbinTime posted a similar animation, gaining over 161,000 views (shown below, right).

On August 2nd, YouTuber^[7] Super Kirby posted a video based on the clip, gaining over 200,000 views in a week (shown below, left). On August 6th, YouTuber^[8] muffin snake posted an animation based on the clip, gaining ver 464,000 views in three days (shown below, right. On August 8th, YouTuber^[9] Lessons in Meme Culture posted a video about the meme, gaining over 150,000 views in a day.