What is Love? — YTMND Soundtrack Volume Five album cover with the Roxbury Guys and YTMND logo

What is Love?

2005viral videoclassic

Published October 5, 2026

'What is Love?' is Haddaway's 1993 eurodance hit that found a second life as internet comedy when YTMND users paired a looped GIF of the Saturday Night Live 'Roxbury Guys' head-bob with the song's chorus in June 2005. The combo kicked off one of early YTMND's defining fads, spawning more than a hundred remixes and later YouTube montages that pulled the gag well into the next decade.

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Overview

The meme pairs the chorus of Haddaway's 1993 eurodance single 'What is Love?' with a looped clip of Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell bobbing their heads in sync inside a car, taken from the Saturday Night Live 'Roxbury Guys' sketches1. The audio drop on 'Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more' lines up with the head-bob, which is what sold the joke for a generation of early-2000s web users3.

On YTMND, users ran the format through every costume change they could think of, with pixel art remakes, chiptune covers, and crossover edits dropping the Roxbury head-bob into unrelated games, movies, and TV scenes3. The humor is in the loop itself, the song never ends, the heads never stop, and the joke sits somewhere between the sincerity of the original SNL bit and the absurdity of its endless repetition.

Origin & Background

Platform
SNL (source clip) / YTMND (viral spread)
Creator
ligamentx
Date
2005

Haddaway, a Trinidad-born eurodance artist, released 'What is Love?' in 1993 as a club single2. The clip that fuels the meme comes from Saturday Night Live, where the first 'Roxbury Guys' sketch aired on March 23rd, 1996, with Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell as the Butabi brothers joined by guest Jim Carrey, all three nodding to the song in a car4.

The meme itself was born on June 2nd, 2005, when YTMND user ligamentx uploaded a page titled 'What is love' that paired a GIF of the car scene with a looped audio clip of the Haddaway chorus3. The page became one of YTMND's most-trafficked uploads of the era, drawing well over a million views over the following years3.

How It Spread

YTMND users jumped on the format within weeks. On June 23rd, 2005, user leileilol posted 'What is NES?', a pixel art remake with a chiptune cover of the song, kicking off a wave of imitators that eventually produced more than 125 'What is Love?' YTMND pages3. The song was added to Volume 5 of the fan-compiled YTMND Soundtrack on October 29th, 20053.

The fad migrated to YouTube as YTMND's traffic faded. On December 30th, 2007, the channel YTMNDsGifCollections uploaded a montage of standout 'What is Love?' pages, and a follow-up montage went up on April 2nd, 200956. Both racked up hundreds of thousands to over a million views, keeping the gag alive for viewers who had never used YTMND. By May 18th, 2012, Crave Online ran a roundup of eight notable 'What is Love?' YTMNDs, framing the collection as a snapshot of mid-2000s remix humor3.

The SNL clip itself kept the song in cultural rotation outside the YTMND bubble, with 'A Night at the Roxbury' releasing as a feature film in 1998 and keeping the Butabi brothers and their head-bob tied to the Haddaway chorus for mainstream audiences4.

Timeline

1993

Haddaway releases 'What is Love?' as a eurodance single.

1996-03-23

First 'Roxbury Guys' sketch airs on Saturday Night Live with Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell, and guest Jim Carrey bobbing to the song in a car.

2005-06-02

YTMND user ligamentx uploads 'What is love,' pairing the Roxbury car-scene GIF with a loop of the Haddaway chorus.

2005-06-23

YTMND user leileilol posts 'What is NES?', a pixel art remake with a chiptune cover, kicking off the remix wave.

2005-10-29

'What is Love?' is added to Volume 5 of the YTMND Soundtrack.

2007-12-30

YouTube channel YTMNDsGifCollections uploads a montage of standout 'What is Love?' YTMND pages.

2009-04-02

A second 'What is Love?' YTMND montage is uploaded to the same YouTube channel.

2012-05-18

Crave Online publishes a roundup of eight notable 'What is Love?' YTMNDs.

How to Use This Meme

The template is simple: take the Roxbury Guys head-bob GIF, loop it, and play Haddaway's chorus underneath. Common variations swap the background scene, replace the song with a chiptune or genre-shifted cover, or recut the GIF so the head-bob syncs to someone else entirely5. The joke typically works best when the new context is wildly incompatible with eurodance, which was the whole point of the YTMND remix wave6.

Frequently Asked Questions