Definition
All Star is a 1999 song by American rock band Smash Mouth. It was released as the lead single from their album Astro Lounge and became a massive hit, reaching the top 10 in multiple countries. The song’s upbeat melody, catchy chorus, and slightly nonsensical lyrics about self-improvement and individuality made it an instant pop culture staple. But “All Star” achieved immortality in the 2010s, when it became the internet’s favorite meme song. It was used in remixes, mashups, and ironic edits, often paired with unrelated footage or slowed down to sound melancholic. The song became a meme about memes — a self-aware joke that never stopped being funny.
Why It Matters
“All Star” is the internet’s favorite song because it is both sincere and ridiculous. The lyrics are earnest (“Hey now, you’re an all star, get your game on, go play”) but the delivery is so earnest it becomes camp. The song was featured in the opening of the movie Shrek (2001), which gave it a second life as a symbol of early 2000s nostalgia. By the mid-2010s, YouTube creators were making “All Star” covers using only the sound of a single toilet, or mashing it with the Star Wars theme, or replacing every word with “someBODY.” The song’s meme status became so powerful that Smash Mouth themselves embraced it, performing ironic versions and acknowledging their role as internet gods. “All Star” is proof that a song can be a hit, a joke, a nostalgic artifact, and a piece of internet folklore all at once.
Example
“He heard ‘All Star’ at a party in 1999. He thought it was a fun song. He heard it in Shrek in 2001. He thought it was a funny song. He heard a remix where every word was replaced with a cat meow in 2017. He laughed for 20 minutes. He didn’t know why. He still doesn’t. The song has transcended meaning. It is now pure internet.”
Related Terms
- Smash Mouth — The band that created All Star
- Shrek — The movie that immortalized the song in meme culture
- Meme Song — The genre All Star helped define
- Internet Remix — The art form that transformed All Star
- 2000s Nostalgia — The cultural force that keeps All Star relevant