What is Call Me Maybe?

"Call Me Maybe" is Carly Rae Jepsen's 2011 dance-pop single whose chorus fueled a viral lip dub video trend in 2012.

Where did Call Me Maybe come from?

Jepsen released the song in Canada on September 20, 2011, and Justin Bieber's December 30 tweet turned it into a global hit and viral video template.

What does Call Me Maybe mean?

The chorus is a flirty pickup line about handing a phone number to a crush, later rewritten by fans into thousands of joke variations, often sexual or absurd.

How do you use Call Me Maybe?

Group up for a car or hallway lip dub, or rewrite the chorus into your own rhyming punchline for an image macro or a business card.

Is Call Me Maybe still popular?

The song was a top-charting 2012 pop hit whose lip dub template dominated online video that spring and summer.

Call Me Maybe

2011viral video / catchphraseclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Call Me Maybe is Carly Rae Jepsen's 2011 dance-pop single that turned into a viral lip dub video trend of 2012. Justin Bieber's December 30, 2011 tweet triggered a wave of celebrity, athlete, and fan tributes, plus a snowclone catchphrase built on its chorus.

lip sync memes viral song memes snowclone memes earworm memes 2012 memes

Overview

"Call Me Maybe" is a bubblegum dance-pop single by Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen that turned into a defining lip dub video trend of 20121. The chorus line, "Hey I just met you, and this is crazy / Here's my number, so call me maybe," was the launching pad for thousands of amateur video tributes and celebrity parodies uploaded to YouTube1.

Fans then took the meme offline, printing "call me maybe" on flirty business cards handed out to strangers3. The track hit number one in more than a dozen countries and reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 by late April 20122.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Canadian radio / YouTube (viral spread)

Creator

Carly Rae Jepsen

Date

2011

Jepsen wrote "Call Me Maybe" with Josh Ramsay and Tavish Crowe, releasing it on September 20, 2011 as the lead single of her EP Curiosity through Canadian indie 604 Records4. A former Canadian Idol runner-up, Jepsen had no U.S. deal at the time, and the song stayed a regional Canadian hit through fall1.

That changed on December 30, 2011, when Justin Bieber tweeted that the song was "possibly the catchiest" he'd ever heard, having caught it on Canadian radio while home for Christmas1. Within weeks Bieber's manager Scooter Braun signed Jepsen to his U.S. label Schoolboy Records, and the song began climbing American charts1.

How It Spread

The tipping point was a homemade lip dub uploaded to YouTube on February 18, 2012, starring Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ashley Tisdale, and their friends dancing around in sunglasses and fake mustaches1. The clip cleared 25 million views by early March and helped push the song into the Billboard top 25 that same month1.

Copycats piled on fast. Katy Perry posted her own friend-group version on April 16, 2012, James Franco filmed a backseat singalong the next day, the Harvard Baseball Team's van dance from May 6, 2012 cleared 10 million views inside a month, and the USA Swimming Team recorded a version ahead of the London Olympics4.

The chorus also spawned image macros using the snowclone "Hey I just met you, and this is crazy / But I'm your X, so Y me maybe?"4. Fans printed the "call me maybe" line on real business cards passed to strangers, a trend Jezebel began documenting on May 22, 20123.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a chorus rewrite: keep "Hey I just met you, and this is crazy," then swap "here's my number, so call me maybe" for two rhyming lines describing a specific relationship or joke3. Video versions typically pack a group into a car or hallway lip syncing along the beat, often with props like sunglasses or fake mustaches1.