Composer Máni Svavarsson wrote the song, originally under the working title "Villain Number One"1. The track's fast tempo came at the request of *LazyTown* creator Magnús Scheving, who always wanted the show's music to be energetic. Svavarsson later said he never once heard Scheving ask for a song to be "slower"1. The musical style drew inspiration from "Baggy Trousers" by the band Madness1.

The song premiered on October 3, 2014, in the 107th episode of *LazyTown*, titled "Robbie's Dream Team"3. Many lyrics were cut from the final version. Stefánsson joked that the unedited song would have run at least ten minutes1. The official music video was uploaded to the LazyTown YouTube channel on July 25, 2015, and has since pulled in over 170 million views4.

The charity campaign around Stefánsson's cancer treatment turned a silly meme into something genuinely moving. Over $151,000 was raised through GoFundMe, exceeding the original $100,000 goal by more than 50%1. This made "We Are Number One" one of the rare memes that directly translated internet popularity into real-world financial support for its creator.

Reddit's r/dankmemes choosing the song as Meme of the Year 2016 was itself a cultural moment, sparking arguments about what qualifies as a "real meme" versus a heartwarming cause2. The Daily Dot covered the controversy, with some voters arguing Harambe's broader cultural reach should have won2.

The petition for a Robbie Rotten statue and the campaign to reach one million YouTube likes both showed how the meme community adopted Stefánsson as one of their own4. His December 2016 live performance with the original cast became a bridge between the show's creators and the internet remix culture that had given the song a second life4.

*LazyTown* was no stranger to internet virality before "We Are Number One." The show's earlier track "You Are a Pirate," also performed by Stefánsson as Robbie Rotten, became a meme back in 20051. Another song, "Cooking by the Book," saw its own wave of internet remixes in 20091. But neither achieved the scale or emotional weight of what happened in 2016.

The remix ecosystem around "We Are Number One" evolved from SoundCloud edits into a full-blown YouTube subgenre. The format traced its lineage to mid-2000s YouTube Poop editing traditions, where creators would replace dialogue in video game cutscenes (often from *Hotel Mario*) with clips from other media4. This approach had seen a nostalgic revival through the *Nutshack* opening theme memes, also popularized by SiIvaGunner4. "We Are Number One" inherited that tradition and scaled it up dramatically. The Verge described these remixes as "weird solipsistic creations"4.

The charity dimension gave the meme a narrative arc that most internet jokes never get. Stefánsson first encountered the remixes while lying in a hospital bed, recovering from the effects of morphine. His wife told him about the song's sudden internet fame and showed him one of the edited videos1. He took to it immediately. He later quipped that morphine "can substantially increase your enjoyment" of watching such memes1. In a more reflective moment, Stefánsson said: "It's amazing to watch the song travel from person to person inside this culture where everyone is connected by shared ideas. This is something that can only happen online. And that's the whole beauty of the Internet"1 (translated from Russian source).

On December 11, 2016, Stefánsson held a live stream on Facebook to thank the meme community. He performed "We Are Number One" alongside the original actors from the music video: Björn Thors, Bergur Þór Ingólfsson, and Snorri Engilbertsson4. During the stream, composer Máni Svavarsson also appeared for an interview and revealed the song's original cut lyrics for the first time4. The recording was later uploaded to Stefánsson's personal YouTube channel1.

Stefánsson died on August 21, 2018, after a two-year battle with cancer4. The r/dankmemes community responded by restricting the subreddit to only allow memes featuring Robbie Rotten as a tribute1. During this mourning period, someone posted a fake screenshot designed to look like a BuzzFeed article titled "Why Stefán Karl Is Actually Number Two." This set off what became known as the "Reddit vs. BuzzFeed war," with users flooding the subreddit with memes mocking BuzzFeed1. The backlash subsided once the screenshot was revealed as fabricated1.

After Stefánsson's death, fans campaigned to get the official "We Are Number One" video to one million likes on YouTube, and they succeeded4. A Change.org petition to erect a Robbie Rotten statue in Stefánsson's hometown of Hafnarfjörður collected over 100,000 signatures4. The song also made an unexpected chart impact, debuting on the Icelandic Singles Chart and briefly appearing on Spotify playlists driven by meme-fueled listening4.

The official *LazyTown* YouTube channel leaned into the meme, posting an hour-long loop of the original song and other related content4. Comedy punk band Radioactive Chicken Heads recorded a proper cover version4. On the show's side, "The Mine Song," another *LazyTown* track, rode the coattails of the "We Are Number One" wave into meme territory as well1.