My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard

About

“My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard” is a lyric from American recording artist Kelis’ 2003 R&B single “Milkshake." Following the commercial success and critical reception of the song in the early 2000s, the lyric has been frequently referenced and parodied both in popular culture and on the web.

Origin

On August 25th, 2003, the song “Milkshake” was released on August 25th, 2003 as the lead single for Kelis’ third studio album Tasty. During the chorus, Kelis repeats the phrase “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” in alluding to her own sex appeal.

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The lyric was subsequently referenced in the Family Guy episode “Sibling Rivalry”, originally aired on March 26th, 2006, in which Peter Griffin sings the chorus of the song for a group of convicts (shown below). On June 12th, 2007, Yahoo Answers^[4] user blue_eyed_mikey1980 submitted a post questioning the meaning of the Kelis song lyric.

On August 14th, 2009, YouTuber nerdz4L uploaded a parody of “Milkshake” titled “My Subway” (shown below, left), which accumulated more than 250,000 views and 1,100 comments in the following four years. On May 15th, 2010, YouTuber melguadalupe uploaded a video of a man singing the Kelis song in a high-pitched voice (shown below, right). In the first three years, the video garnered upwards of 250,000 views and 940 comments.

On November 3rd, Urban Dictionary^[1] user that-spooky-kid submitted an entry for the phrase, defining the word “milkshake” as a metaphor for a woman’s sex appeal. On February 22nd, 2012, Redditor iskreamsocial submitted a Conspiracy Keanu image macro to the /r/funny^[3] subreddit, which speculated that Kelis’ milkshake did not actually bring the boys to the yard (shown below, left). On December 3rd, Redditor diNZy submitted a picture^[2] of an IRL troll poster featuring the Star Trek character Spock’s dry and verbose interpretation of the lyric. Prior to being archived, the post gained over 3,900 up votes and 30 comments.