After nearly 20 years, the ‘Numa Numa’ guy brings back his iconic dance (to promote his music)

If, like me, you lived your teenage years during the pre-YouTube era of online video, let me share a fact that will probably make you feel old: Gary Brolsma is now twice as old as he was when he first released his legendary “Numa Numa” video.

Brolsma rocketed to internet fame in 2004 when he uploaded an exaggerated lip sync set to the song “Dragostea Din Tei” by Moldovan pop group O-Zone. Nearly 20 years after that memorable moment in web history, Brolsma is back. The New Jersey resident, now 37 years old, has shared a new version of his “Numa Numa” routine as he looks to attract listeners to his original music.

The new take on “Numa Numa” arrived on Brolsma’s YouTube channel on August 11. The internet icon has grown facial hair and purchased better recording equipment since 2004, but his signature dance hasn’t changed much.

Ten days after its original upload date, the 2023 version of “Numa Numa” has received about 80,000 views. That’s a far cry from the traffic Brolsma generated when his Romanian-language lip-sync first went viral. Pre-YouTube viewership counts are erratic, but the description of the original “Numa Numa” video estimates that Brolsma’s magnum opus received about 700 million hits on platforms like Newgrounds, with another 68.4 million views coming on YouTube.

Like many people who became internet stars in the early aughts, Brolsma struggled to make sense of his sudden fame. Eventually, he became a recurring character in the early YouTube community, even building a since-abandoned venture called the Numa Network. As the years wore on, “Numa Numa” entrenched itself as an emblem of Millennial nostalgia.

Brolsma, who works in web design in New Jersey, now has a new creative gig: Music. Under his own name, he has dropped several albums full of dancey tunes. His first release, Weird Tempo, arrived in 2008. He added synthwave vibes for the 2019 collection Haunted House of Pancakes and included vocal collaborations on his 2021 album Simple Machines. The latest addition to his Spotify catalog is 2022’s Frosting Covered Cakes, which includes a mix of new and previously-released tracks.

The description of the new “Numa Numa” video includes links to Brolsma’s music. His long-awaited sequel could provide a boost to his original compositions, but one group that probably won’t cover his songs is O-Zone. The band that played a pivotal role in the original “Numa Numa” video broke up in 2005 and has had only two official reunions over the past 18 years.