Bing Bong: The wild New York meme that made it to the White House

The meme comes from a Coney Island rapper named Nems

A screen grab of a White House vaccine PSA released on Friday, 17 December, 2021. (Screen shoot of White House PSA)

What do you get when you combine the White House, the sound of a subway door closing, a worldwide pandemic, and the New York Knicks? Not the weirdest setup to a joke in the world, but instead, the explanation for a very strange vaccine PSA from Joe Biden that was released on Friday.

In the clip, pop stars the Jonas Brothers goof around in the White House, lip-syncing to a chaotic audio track where an interviewer can be heard asking someone if they’re vaccinated and who’s the president, to which a man responds, “Byron!” There’s also a joke about the words, “Bing bong.” At the end of the video, Joe Biden is seen holding a cell phone with a smile, saying, “We got it.”

If you’re wondering just what, in the infinite sea of the cosmos, explains the providence of such a video, you need to go to New York City.

The audio in the White House clip comes from the viral web series Sidetalk, created by New York University students Trent Simonian and Jack Byrne, which features (often deeply NSFW) man-on-the-street style interviews with the many characters who call New York City home.

In a series of videos recorded in the Coney Island neighbourhood in September, rapper and content creator Gorilla Nems interviews a homeless man named TJ, who spouts the famous line about “Byron,” and a number of different people say “bing bong” into the camera.

(Each Sidetalk video opens with the signature “bing bong” that accompanies the New York subway doors opening and closing, and Nems released a song called “Bing Bong” in August.”

Since then, “Byron” and “bing bong” have travelled quickly to the heart of the meme machine.

The “bing bong” joke got added visibility in October, when a Sidetalk video of New York Knicks fans going bananas after a win against the Celtics went viral, featuring a fan looking directly into the camera and saying, “Bing bong.”

Knicks fan Jordie Bloom was familiar with Sidetalk, and wanted to share his excitement with the fans gathered outside Madison Square Garden (MSG).

"I was leaving MSG to a sea full of happy and joyful Knick fans ... I felt the need to walk over to them (the Sidetalk hosts) and rip a ‘Bing Bong,’" Mr Bloom told ESPN.

The two words then became a chant at games, and the Knicks and their players started adopting the slang too.

Meanwhile, a number of celebrities like Lil Nas X and Drew Barrymore released social media videos clowning over the audio about Joe “Byron.”

Nems, the rapper who started it all with Sidetalk, responded to the surprising life of his words in an Instagram post on Friday.

“EVEN GOT THE WHITE HOUSE BINGY YU HEARD. SALUTE TO MY GUY PREZIDENT #BYRON,” he wrote.

While it’s not entirely sure what that means, it’s clear the trend has had a major impact.

New Yorkers have written in “Bing Bong” for mayor in the most recent election, and TikTokers helped TJ, the man who says “Byron” in the original video, raise more than $35,000 to buy food and shelter.

The Jonas Brothers are slated to perform in PBS’s In Performance at the White House: Spirit of the Season, a musical holiday special featuring artists like Camila Cabello, Eric Church, and Pentatonix, which airs on 21 December.