Mariah Carey Defrosting

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Part of a series on All I Want For Christmas Is You. [View Related Entries]

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About

Mariah Carey Defrosting refers to a series of memes referencing the holiday song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey being played in public places increasingly more and more as Christmas approaches as if Carey begins to defrost some time around Halloween. The meme often also includes Canadian singer Michael Bublé, also associated with the return of Christmas music around the holidays.

Origin

The authorship of the joke is currently unconfirmed. On October 2nd and 3rd, 2017, Twitter^[1]^[2] users @erod47 and @aphextw1nk_ made the two earliest known posts with the joke (shown below), with none of the tweets gaining significant traction.

More reposts of the joke were made by users on Twitter^[3] in October and November 2017. For example, a November 1st, 2017, tweet^[4] by @_jonathanpicard received 10 retweets and 29 likes in four years.

On October 11th, 2018, Twitter^[5] user @lixmrobert posted the first tweet with the joke to achieve some amount of traction, with the post gaining 49 retweets and over 180 likes in three years (shown below, left) On October 31st, 2018, Twitter^[6] user @Bailey_Hunter24 tweeted the joke, with the post gaining over 13,200 retweets and 58,100 likes (shown below, right).

Spread

In November 2018, image macros based on the joke were posted by accounts on Instagram^[7]^[8] and other social media platforms.

Following the viral spread in 2018, the joke became an annual trend, with users posting variations of it every year, mainly in October and November. For example, on November 3rd, 2019, Twitter^[9] user @Sophia_Bah made a tweet that gained over 7,700 retweets and 24,500 likes in two years (shown below, left). A November 1st, 2020, tweet^[10] by @legendarihhhh received over 14,800 retweets and 70,200 likes in one year (shown below, center). An October 26th, 2021, tweet^[11] by @_niazzzz_ gained over 88,800 retweets and 439,200 likes in one week (shown below, right).

In 2021, the joke inspired videos and images based on it. For example, on October 30th, 2021, Twitter^[12] user @HoshizoraOW posted a video that gained over 310,500 views, 10,700 retweets and 30,600 likes in three days (shown below). An October 31st repost^[13] of the video gained over 1.9 million views, 51,900 retweets and 260,900 likes in two days.

Mariah Carey Goes Into Hibernation

In addition to memes about Carey defrosting, memes about Carey returning to her hibernation state until the following Christmas became an annual tradition in the days following Christmas. For example, on December 28th, 2019, Imgur^[15] user anenglishmaninprague posted an image showing Carey returning to the sea until the following Christmas (shown below, left). On December 26th, 2021, Redditor squili posted a Prequel Meme to /r/PrequelMemes,^[14] gaining over 200 points (shown below, right).

Other examples include a December 26th, 2021 tweet by @browtweaten^[16] that gained over 240 retweets and 3,000 likes (shown below, left). The same day, user @MatttGfx^[17] posted a meme showing Mariah Carey getting sealed in crystal, gaining over 580 retweets and 8,000 likes (shown below, right).

Mariah Carey's "It's Time!"

On November 1st, 2023, Mariah Carey posted a humorous video based on the meme, recognizing the joke. In the video, people in Halloween costumes are using hair dryers to defrost Mariah Carey from a block of ice, and the singer proceeding to perform "All I Want for Christmas Is You" once she's been freed. The video received over 4.3 million views on YouTube^[18] in one week (shown below).