Work in progress
About
Take A Closer Look At That Snout is a phrase spoken over a video of an Elephant shrew. After the phrase is spoken, the Elephant shrew opens it’s mouth seeming to scream, though no sound can be heard. The video has become the subject of many parodies, often inserting different sounds when the animal opens it’s mouth.
Origin
The oldest known video was uploaded to YouTube on April 27th, 2010 by user LiLAH4.[1] The true origin source of the video is currently unknown, but it is likely to be a nature documentary.
Despite being the origin for the meme, the video only accumulated less than 300,000 views nearly 5 years. By comparison, a Tumblr video version of the source video gained over 65,000 notes in 30 days.[2]
Spread
The oldest know variant of the video was uploaded on May 12th, 2014 by YouTube user ZippAgain.[3] The video shows the original clip, and inserts the classic Godzilla roar sound effect, as well as a blue beam emitting from the Elephant Shrew when it’s mouth opens.
The video remixes also became popular on blog site Tumblr[4] in the later half of 2014, often utilizing the Tumblr Video Player which was released on October 23rd, 2014. The most popular one was posted by Tumblr user “Trained-Chimpanzee” which gained over 140,000 notes in ten days [5].
Various Examples
External References
[1]YouTube – the elephant shrew!
[2]Tumblr – Trained-Chimpanzee
[3]YouTube – Take a closer look at that snout!
[4]Tumblr – Take a closer look at that snout!
[5]Tumblr – trained-chimpanzee