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.

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

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.

Frequently Asked Questions