Where did Party Parrot come from?

The animation was released in January 2016 through the Cult of the Party Parrot website, which built a Slack emoji set around footage of Sirocco from the BBC series Last Chance to See.

What does Party Parrot mean?

In Slack use, dropping a :partyparrot: emote signals celebration, hype or good news; the site behind it calls Sirocco "the hardest partying parrot ever".

How do you use Party Parrot?

Users typically add the animated emoji named :partyparrot: to a Slack workspace or Discord server and post it to celebrate wins; a Chrome extension and mobile keyboards let people use it outside Slack too.

Is Party Parrot still popular?

Party Parrot became a classic 2010s workplace emote; the Cult of the Party Parrot catalog and the iOS "Cult of the Party Parrot" sticker pack keep the format accessible.

Party Parrot

2016animated emoteclassic

Published September 21, 2026

Party Parrot is a rainbow-cycled animated Slack emote based on Sirocco the kakapo, the parrot filmed humping zoologist Mark Carwardine's head in a 2009 BBC documentary. The Cult of the Party Parrot website launched in January 2016 and turned that clip into one of the defining tech-workplace emotes of the 2010s.

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Overview

The core loop is a single kakapo bobbing its head while its plumage cycles through saturated rainbow colors on every frame, giving the impression of a raving bird2. Cult of the Party Parrot hosts dozens of variants such as fast-parrot, sad-parrot, aussie-parrot and coffee-parrot, all reusing the same head-bob loop with different props, speeds or filters2. The emote spread first inside Slack workspaces at startups and open-source projects, where it worked as a light-hearted way to mark merged pull requests, shipped features or Friday afternoons.

Its appeal came from a specific mix: absurd source footage of Sirocco aggressively mating with a human head1, a deliberately low-fi looping animation, and near-infinite remix potential visible across the Cult of the Party Parrot catalog2. That combination made Party Parrot readable in group chats where a static reaction image would fall flat.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Slack (via Cult of the Party Parrot website)

Creator

Cult of the Party Parrot

Date

2016

The source footage aired on the BBC nature series Last Chance to See, hosted by Stephen Fry, in 2009. On September 29th, 2009, the BBC's official YouTube channel posted the clip as "Shagged by a Rare Parrot," showing Sirocco, a critically endangered kakapo, vigorously humping zoologist Mark Carwardine's head while Fry laughs off camera1.

The animated emote form arrived in January 2016, when the Cult of the Party Parrot website launched with a set of downloadable Slack emojis built around a looped, color-cycled crop of Sirocco2. The site describes him as "the hardest partying parrot ever" and credits him as a member of the endangered Kākāpō species2.

How It Spread

On June 8th, 2016, the /r/PartyParrot subreddit was created for discussion of the emote and the BBC clip3. That summer a Universal Party Parrot Chrome extension shipped, letting users render :partyparrot: shortcodes across any subreddit3. On November 10th, 2016, Party Parrot emoji keyboards arrived on both the iOS App Store and Google Play; the iOS "Cult of the Party Parrot" sticker pack by developer Kevin Chen picked up positive reviews from users who had previously paid for similar GIF packs4.

Party Parrot kept expanding sideways in 2017. In early April, Minecraft added parrots that flash colors and dance next to jukeboxes; on April 3rd, 2017, Redditor onnuwhere posted a GIF titled "Sirocco the Party Parrot" of the new mob that gained more than 1,800 upvotes in 72 hours on /r/Minecraft3. The Cult of the Party Parrot site kept growing alongside the meme with community-contributed variants, a text-to-parrots generator and the curl-able parrot.live CLI2.

Timeline

2009-09-29

BBC's YouTube channel uploads "Shagged by a Rare Parrot," the Last Chance to See clip of Sirocco the kakapo humping Mark Carwardine's head.

2016-01

Cult of the Party Parrot website launches with downloadable Slack emojis built around Sirocco.

2016-06-08

The /r/PartyParrot subreddit is created for discussion of the emote.

2016-07-19

Universal Party Parrot Chrome extension released, enabling :partyparrot: rendering across all subreddits.

2016-11-10

Party Parrot emoji keyboards launch on the iOS App Store and Google Play.

2017-02

A Party Parrot-themed 2048 clone appears on 2048 Online.

2017-04-03

Redditor onnuwhere posts "Sirocco the Party Parrot," a GIF of Minecraft's newly added color-flashing parrots, which pulls over 1,800 upvotes on /r/Minecraft.

How to Use This Meme

People typically install a :partyparrot: custom emoji in a Slack workspace or Discord server and drop it to celebrate wins like shipped features, closed tickets or Friday afternoons. Cult of the Party Parrot offers dozens of variants such as fast-parrot, sad-parrot or coffee-parrot for different moods, plus tools like a text-to-parrots generator and the curl-able parrot.live CLI for use outside chat apps2.