Screaming cowboy Jimmy Barnes in black hat wailing against a desert sky from the Big Enough music video

Big Enough

2017viral videoclassic

Published August 16, 2026

Big Enough is a 2017 electronic country-pop song by Australian musician Kirin J. Callinan whose music video features Jimmy Barnes as a translucent cowboy screaming in the sky. Clips of the surreal scene turned into viral remix material on YouTube and Tumblr, with edits placing the screaming cowboy over Jurassic Park, Rick and Morty and Game of Thrones scenes.

music video memes mashup video memes audio memes australian memes 2017 memes

Overview

Big Enough is a viral video meme built around a clip from the music video for Kirin J. Callinan's 2017 song of the same name, featuring guest vocalist Jimmy Barnes appearing as a translucent, wailing cowboy floating in the sky1. The clip shows Barnes' face and torso ghosted over sweeping shots styled after the American Old West as he holds a piercing high note1. Online, the character was widely nicknamed the "Screaming Cowboy"3.

The meme format usually strips Barnes' vocal from the original video and layers it over another scene, letting the giant see-through cowboy loom over an unrelated backdrop3. The absurd contrast between his operatic wail and mundane or dramatic settings turned the audio into a favorite tool for YouTube remixers in late 20172.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube / Tumblr (viral spread)
Creator
Kirin J. Callinan
Date
2017

The KirinJCallinanVEVO YouTube channel uploaded the music video for "Big Enough" on August 16, 20171. The track pairs Callinan with Alex Cameron, whistler Molly Lewis and Scottish-Australian rock singer Jimmy Barnes, whose screaming falsetto anchors the meme-friendly section of the song3. In the clip, Barnes is shown as a sky-sized translucent figure singing over shots styled after old Western films, which is the exact moment later isolated for remixes1.

How It Spread

The meme took off on September 8, 2017, when the Tumblr blog paper-mario-wiki posted an isolated clip of Barnes' section, which pulled more than 109,000 notes inside a month2. That same day, YouTuber Adam Downer reuploaded the excerpt, and it soon landed on the Know Your Meme front page under the title "Screaming Cowboy"3.

Remixes followed quickly. On September 24, YouTuber r0wd3 posted a version that dropped the screaming cowboy into a Jurassic Park scene, pulling over 157,000 views in two weeks3. The next day, Jake Hobbs mashed the audio into the Screaming Sun sequence from Rick and Morty3. On September 26, Redditor Boogi29 submitted the full music video to r/listentothis, pushing the track out to a wider audience4.

By October 4, 2017, the format was mature enough for compilations. YouTuber MakeItStop edited Barnes over a fire-breathing dragon in Game of Thrones, while Red Lama posted a montage of screaming cowboy remixes on the same day3.

How to Use This Meme

A typical Big Enough edit pastes the transparent, screaming Jimmy Barnes into the sky of another scene, often keeping his original wail as the audio track3. Common targets are dramatic film or TV moments where a huge sky-bound figure feels comically out of place, like the Jurassic Park kitchen or a Game of Thrones battle3.

Frequently Asked Questions