Numa numa guy, what happened, in one paragraph: on December 6, 2004, Gary Brolsma uploaded a video of himself lip-syncing and dancing to O-Zone's "Dragostea din tei" to the website Newgrounds, under the username Gman250, according to Wikipedia. YouTube's first video would not appear until April 23, 2005. The clip spread anyway, copied from site to site, and a company called The Viral Factory later estimated it had been viewed 700 million times by November 2006. Brolsma released a produced sequel in 2006 and, in August 2023, a new version to promote his own music.
That is the short answer. The better question, and the reason this video still matters, is how anything went viral before there was a YouTube to go viral on. Numa Numa is one of the clearest case studies of that first wave of web video, and its story explains why nobody will ever know exactly how many people watched it.
This article covers the video, the song and the public record. Outside his public work Brolsma is a private individual, so we stick to what he released and what was reported at the time.
What the Numa Numa video actually was
The video is simple. A young man sits in front of a webcam and performs a pop song with total commitment: eyebrows, arm waves, head bobs and every lip-synced word, in Romanian. The nickname "Numa Numa" comes from the song's refrain, "nu mă, nu mă," as Wikipedia notes.
The song had its own remarkable journey before Brolsma ever pressed record. According to Wikipedia's article on "Dragostea din tei," it was released around June 2003 by O-Zone, a Moldovan Eurodance group, and sung entirely in Romanian. In 2004 it reached number one in Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.
It then crossed to Japan. The same article says an anonymous user named Ikari posted a Flash animation on the Japanese forum 2channel, pairing the song with a cat-like character, Monā, and playfully reading the Romanian lyrics as Japanese phrases. Brolsma himself said, as quoted by Wikipedia, that he found the song "in another (I believe it was Japanese) flash animation with cartoon cats."
So one of the best-known American viral videos of 2004 and 2005 was a lip-sync of a Moldovan song, discovered through a Japanese cartoon. That chain is the first wave of web video in miniature.
Timeline: from a Moldovan pop hit to a 2023 remake
Every date and figure below names its source.
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Around June 2003 | O-Zone releases "Dragostea din tei" | Wikipedia |
| December 2003 | Romanian singer Haiducii releases an unauthorized cover | Wikipedia |
| 2004 | The song reaches number one in nine European countries | Wikipedia |
| December 6, 2004 | Brolsma uploads "Numa Numa Dance" to Newgrounds as Gman250 | Wikipedia |
| February 2005 | The New York Times covers him as an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity" | Wikipedia, citing The New York Times |
| April 23, 2005 | "Me at the zoo," YouTube's first video, is uploaded | Wikipedia |
| September 2006 | "New Numa," a produced sequel, launches with a contest offering US$45,000 in prizes | Wikipedia |
| November 27, 2006 | The Viral Factory estimates 700 million views | Wikipedia |
| May 2008 | Brolsma appears in Weezer's "Pork and Beans" music video | Wikipedia |
| 2008 | T.I. and Rihanna's "Live Your Life" samples the song | Wikipedia |
| November 2022 | A Fortnite emote collaboration | Wikipedia |
| August 11, 2023 | Brolsma posts a new version of the routine on YouTube | Tubefilter; Wikipedia |
How a video went viral before YouTube
Today, going viral means one upload, one link and one view counter. In late 2004 none of that existed for ordinary video.
There was no default home for a clip. Newgrounds, where Brolsma posted, was best known for Flash animations and browser games, not webcam footage. It was simply a place that would host what you made. That fit the moment: his own route to the song had been a Flash animation.
Copies did the traveling. Once a clip was out, people downloaded it and put it up again on other sites, attached it to emails and linked it from blogs and forums. Each copy lived on its own, with its own counter or none at all. Discovery tools of the era, such as StumbleUpon's random-page button, sent people to whatever was being passed around, wherever it happened to live.
Social sites were young. The networks people now picture when they hear "viral" did not exist yet, or were only starting. The web of 2004 and 2005 was a patchwork of forums, personal pages and early communities, many of which have since vanished entirely. Profiles on sites like MySpace were places to embed and share, but there was no single feed carrying one video to everyone.
Television finished the job. Wikipedia lists coverage on ABC's Good Morning America, NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and VH1's Best Week Ever. In 2005, crossing into broadcast TV was still how an internet moment reached people who were not online in the same places.
The result was a hit with no center. That is exactly why its numbers are so slippery.
Numa Numa Guy: What Happened to the View Count
Ask how many people watched Numa Numa and you will get answers that differ nearly a hundredfold. Here is what each figure actually measures.
| Figure | Number | Source | What it counts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Estimated views, all copies | 700 million by November 27, 2006 | The Viral Factory, via Wikipedia | An estimate across many sites |
| Newgrounds views | Over 8,000,000 | Wikipedia | The original upload's own counter |
| Video description estimate | About 700 million hits on sites like Newgrounds, plus 68.4 million on YouTube | Tubefilter, 2023, quoting the video description | A restatement of the estimate, plus YouTube copies |
The 700 million figure is an estimate, made across countless copies that nobody tracked centrally. The Newgrounds counter is a real measurement, but only of one copy. YouTube views arrived later, after the clip was reposted there.
Neither number is wrong, and neither is complete. The honest answer is that Numa Numa was seen by a very large audience that cannot be counted, and any site quoting one precise total without that caveat is overstating what anyone knows.
Why it caught on
Several ingredients made this clip stick when thousands of other webcam videos did not.
- Commitment. The performance is funny because it looks sincere. There is no wink at the camera, only someone fully inside the song.
- A hook you could not understand but could sing. Most English-speaking viewers had no idea what the Romanian lyrics meant, which made "numa numa" a sound rather than a word, and easy to repeat.
- Instant imitation. Anyone with a webcam could make their own version, and many did. The 2006 "New Numa" sequel leaned into this with a contest that, per Wikipedia, offered US$45,000 in prize money, including a $25,000 award to the winner.
- A song already primed. The track was a proven hit across Europe in 2004, according to Wikipedia. American viewers were hearing it for the first time, but the hook had already been road-tested.
Fame before anyone had a playbook
Early viral fame arrived with no manual. There was no creator program, no brand deal market and no talent agency built around internet stars. When Numa Numa broke, The New York Times described Brolsma in February 2005 as an "unwilling and embarrassed Web celebrity," according to Wikipedia's summary of that coverage.
We do not go beyond that published description. The point for internet history is structural: in 2005 a person could become widely recognizable from one upload without choosing to, and without any system to support or pay them. Later platforms built those systems.
Where it stands now
Brolsma kept working in public. He returned in September 2006 with "New Numa," appeared in Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video in May 2008, and was part of a Fortnite emote collaboration in November 2022, all according to Wikipedia.
On August 11, 2023, he posted a new version of the routine to his YouTube channel. Tubefilter reported on August 21, 2023 (we read it on September 24, 2026) that he made it to attract listeners to his original music, and that it had about 80,000 views in its first ten days. Wikipedia later recorded 1,771,125 views for the remake as of October 17, 2024.
The song has had its own long life. Wikipedia notes that T.I. and Rihanna sampled "Dragostea din tei" in their 2008 number-one single "Live Your Life." Years later, another foreign-language pop song would travel the world through imitation and parody: Gangnam Style in 2012 followed a path Numa Numa had sketched out, this time with YouTube's single counter to measure it.
FAQ
Who is the Numa Numa guy?
Gary Brolsma, who uploaded the "Numa Numa Dance" video to Newgrounds on December 6, 2004, under the username Gman250, according to Wikipedia.
What song is used in Numa Numa?
"Dragostea din tei" by O-Zone, a Moldovan Eurodance group, sung in Romanian and released around June 2003, according to Wikipedia. The nickname comes from the refrain "nu mă, nu mă."
Was Numa Numa on YouTube first?
No. It was posted to Newgrounds in December 2004. YouTube's first video, "Me at the zoo," was uploaded on April 23, 2005, according to Wikipedia.
How many views did Numa Numa get?
Nobody knows exactly. The Viral Factory estimated 700 million views across all copies by November 2006, while the original Newgrounds upload shows over 8 million, according to Wikipedia. The two figures measure different things.
Did the Numa Numa guy make a new video?
Yes. He released "New Numa" in September 2006, and on August 11, 2023, he posted a new version of the original routine to promote his music, as Tubefilter reported.
