Mariah Carey New Year's Eve Performance FAIL

2016viral videoclassic

Published September 5, 2026

On December 31, 2016, Mariah Carey's Times Square performance at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve fell apart when her in-ear monitors failed during 'Emotions' and 'We Belong Together,' leaving her pacing the stage while backing vocals played without her. The awkward footage spawned one of the defining meme moments of early 2017, and a redemption appearance a year later produced a second viral cycle known as the 'hot tea' meme.

fail memesscandal memescringe memeslip sync memes2017 memes

Overview

The clip that spread everywhere shows Carey pacing the stage, occasionally reaching out to fans while a backing track played her vocals for her1. She stopped attempting to lip-sync partway through 'Emotions,' told the crowd she couldn't hear the music, and mostly gave up trying to sing along with 'We Belong Together'2. The most-shared six seconds came during that second song, when Carey walked across the stage smiling awkwardly as her recorded voice sang without her3.

The format that emerged treated the performance as shorthand for anything falling apart in public. Twitter users paired the clip with captions blaming 2016 or their own struggles from that year3. Edits often used still frames of Carey looking confused or holding the microphone away from her mouth, and a Vine by user Randy Mawse distilled the moment into six seconds that traveled fast through early January3.

A second, softer wave arrived exactly one year later when Carey returned to the same broadcast and asked for hot tea onstage that never came5. That moment produced a separate meme cycle, one built on Carey shrugging off a tiny inconvenience with practiced diva calm and delivering the line 'they told me there would be tea'5.

Origin & Background

Platform
ABC broadcast (source event) / YouTube and Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
scubafeet
Date
2016

The performance aired live from Times Square on December 31, 2016, closing out Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest on ABC6. According to Carey's manager Stella Bulochnikov, her team told stage managers the in-ears weren't working ten minutes before the show, techs swapped the battery pack, and problems still hadn't been fixed four minutes before the live cut-in1. Carey pulled the earpieces out during 'Emotions,' told the audience she couldn't hear, and mostly stopped singing while the backing track kept playing.

Hours after the performance, a YouTuber posting as scubafeet uploaded a clip that pulled in more than 9.7 million views and 16,500 comments within its first day6. Carey addressed the incident that same night with a tweet reading 'shit happens' alongside a New Year's wish, which racked up 159,000 likes and 64,000 retweets within 24 hours7.

How It Spread

The video hit /r/cringe on New Year's Eve and climbed to the front page with roughly 30,900 votes and 1,200 comments in a day6. On January 1, a Redditor named CrimsonPig posted a photo of a train wreck to /r/funny with the caption 'Still image of Mariah Carey's New Year's performance,' feeding the disaster framing6. Bustle rounded up the funniest Twitter reactions and highlighted the Randy Mawse Vine that turned the 'We Belong Together' segment into repeat-play comedy3.

The blame war started immediately. Bulochnikov told US Weekly on January 1 that Dick Clark Productions 'left her out there to get ratings' and refused to cut to the West Coast feed2. She gave Billboard a more detailed timeline of the equipment failure and named DCP executive Mark Shimmel as the person she confronted after the show1. Jezebel added that Bulochnikov later told Page Six she didn't think the equipment was intentionally sabotaged, but that producers exploited the mishap for ratings once it started4. Dick Clark Productions called the sabotage claims 'outrageous and frankly absurd' and denied Bulochnikov's account of the follow-up phone call2.

The following year Carey returned to Times Square on December 31, 2017, to sing 'Vision of Love' and 'Hero,' a set widely framed by the press as her redemption5. Between songs she paused to ask for hot tea that hadn't been delivered to the stage, delivering the line 'they told me there would be tea'5. She followed up hours later with a photo of herself drinking tea, and CNN called the tea moment the first meme of 2018 after the post pulled in more than 27,000 retweets in the immediate aftermath5.

How to Use This Meme

The 2016 clip works as a reaction to public failure of any kind, especially technology letting someone down in front of a crowd. The typical format pairs a screenshot or the six-second Vine loop with a caption about a personal disaster, a bad year, or a work moment going sideways. The 2017 'hot tea' spinoff runs on a different tone, a diva-shrug reaction to a small inconvenience, and often gets deployed when someone wants the last word on a petty grievance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Mariah Carey New Year's Eve Performance FAIL

2016viral videoclassic

Published September 5, 2026

On December 31, 2016, Mariah Carey's Times Square performance at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve fell apart when her in-ear monitors failed during 'Emotions' and 'We Belong Together,' leaving her pacing the stage while backing vocals played without her. The awkward footage spawned one of the defining meme moments of early 2017, and a redemption appearance a year later produced a second viral cycle known as the 'hot tea' meme.

fail memes scandal memes cringe memes lip sync memes 2017 memes

Overview

The clip that spread everywhere shows Carey pacing the stage, occasionally reaching out to fans while a backing track played her vocals for her1. She stopped attempting to lip-sync partway through 'Emotions,' told the crowd she couldn't hear the music, and mostly gave up trying to sing along with 'We Belong Together'2. The most-shared six seconds came during that second song, when Carey walked across the stage smiling awkwardly as her recorded voice sang without her3.

The format that emerged treated the performance as shorthand for anything falling apart in public. Twitter users paired the clip with captions blaming 2016 or their own struggles from that year3. Edits often used still frames of Carey looking confused or holding the microphone away from her mouth, and a Vine by user Randy Mawse distilled the moment into six seconds that traveled fast through early January3.

A second, softer wave arrived exactly one year later when Carey returned to the same broadcast and asked for hot tea onstage that never came5. That moment produced a separate meme cycle, one built on Carey shrugging off a tiny inconvenience with practiced diva calm and delivering the line 'they told me there would be tea'5.

Origin & Background

Platform
ABC broadcast (source event) / YouTube and Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
scubafeet
Date
2016

The performance aired live from Times Square on December 31, 2016, closing out Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest on ABC6. According to Carey's manager Stella Bulochnikov, her team told stage managers the in-ears weren't working ten minutes before the show, techs swapped the battery pack, and problems still hadn't been fixed four minutes before the live cut-in1. Carey pulled the earpieces out during 'Emotions,' told the audience she couldn't hear, and mostly stopped singing while the backing track kept playing.

Hours after the performance, a YouTuber posting as scubafeet uploaded a clip that pulled in more than 9.7 million views and 16,500 comments within its first day6. Carey addressed the incident that same night with a tweet reading 'shit happens' alongside a New Year's wish, which racked up 159,000 likes and 64,000 retweets within 24 hours7.

How It Spread

The video hit /r/cringe on New Year's Eve and climbed to the front page with roughly 30,900 votes and 1,200 comments in a day6. On January 1, a Redditor named CrimsonPig posted a photo of a train wreck to /r/funny with the caption 'Still image of Mariah Carey's New Year's performance,' feeding the disaster framing6. Bustle rounded up the funniest Twitter reactions and highlighted the Randy Mawse Vine that turned the 'We Belong Together' segment into repeat-play comedy3.

The blame war started immediately. Bulochnikov told US Weekly on January 1 that Dick Clark Productions 'left her out there to get ratings' and refused to cut to the West Coast feed2. She gave Billboard a more detailed timeline of the equipment failure and named DCP executive Mark Shimmel as the person she confronted after the show1. Jezebel added that Bulochnikov later told Page Six she didn't think the equipment was intentionally sabotaged, but that producers exploited the mishap for ratings once it started4. Dick Clark Productions called the sabotage claims 'outrageous and frankly absurd' and denied Bulochnikov's account of the follow-up phone call2.

The following year Carey returned to Times Square on December 31, 2017, to sing 'Vision of Love' and 'Hero,' a set widely framed by the press as her redemption5. Between songs she paused to ask for hot tea that hadn't been delivered to the stage, delivering the line 'they told me there would be tea'5. She followed up hours later with a photo of herself drinking tea, and CNN called the tea moment the first meme of 2018 after the post pulled in more than 27,000 retweets in the immediate aftermath5.

How to Use This Meme

The 2016 clip works as a reaction to public failure of any kind, especially technology letting someone down in front of a crowd. The typical format pairs a screenshot or the six-second Vine loop with a caption about a personal disaster, a bad year, or a work moment going sideways. The 2017 'hot tea' spinoff runs on a different tone, a diva-shrug reaction to a small inconvenience, and often gets deployed when someone wants the last word on a petty grievance.

Frequently Asked Questions