How Shannon Noll Became a Meme

The Shannon Noll story follows an unusual trajectory. A series of wooden performances and a limited vocal range somehow landed the boy from regional NSW second place on the inaugural Australian Idol series. This lead to a wildly successful run of top-ten singles and an estimated 1.3 million records sold.

After four years at the top spawning three highly successful albums, the wild ride ended abruptly for Noll, who plummeted to cringeworthy Radio Rentals TV ads, universally-hated State Of Origin pre-game entertainment and allegedly performing ‘compulsory concerts’ for third graders.

Through the magic of social media, the Noll story isn’t done yet. A steady groundswell of entirely ironic support has been building for the voice of regional Australia. Entire Facebook groups have been established for the gradual memefication of Shannon Noll. It culminated recently with the well-publicised petition to have Noll perform at Groovin The Moo 2016, which has blown this whole thing up and taken the meme mainstream.

How did we get here? Let's recap.

Driving your big, black shiny car through the archives for the rarest of Shannon Noll memes, all dusty rural roads seem to lead to Shit Memes. The Facebook page is more well-known for their pre-occupation with Guy Sebastian, but Noll is no stranger to playing second fiddle to Guy.

The Noll memes seem to have started here. After Shit Memes came pages such as 'Shannon Noll Was Robbed Of Winning Hit TV Show Australian Idol 2003', and the more conservatively-titled 'Shannon Noll Appreciation Page'. Shit Memes was also an early supporter of the #ShannonNollforGTM2016 movement.

The Groovin The Moo petition is what blew the lid off the whole Noll story. What was once a small but dedicated group of Facebook users trolling event pages for Noll's regional shows quickly became national news, after Ethan Adams-Norris created a change.org petition to have the festival include the man behind Lift.

There are shades of Shane Warne's Instagram account all through the Noll saga. Where it appears Warne's sizeable ego reassures the former cricketer that the comments are all in support of good mate Warnie, it’s interesting to see how Noll responds to this sudden spike of attention.

Is he in on this joke? It’s hard to tell. As more people Tweet the singer, he replies back with an enviable naivety “Would be a great gig!", "We'll see how it goes!"

If the Aussie battler’s back-catalogue just wasn’t quite up-tempo enough for you already, producer George Gurdjieff decided to gift the world with this mash up. The song boasts the successful combination of Nollsie, still an up-and-comer in the meme world, and a tried and true method of achieving immediate dankness in Darude’s Sandstorm. George interpolates Nollsie’s classic “What About Me” into the techno staple, weaving the two songs together to create a heavenly double helix of a track. The song has driven the meme forward in a significant way, and appears to be an integral cog in the Grooving The Moo campaign machine, giving it serious traction in the realm of social media – but let’s be honest, this track just doesn’t have enough Shannon Noll in it for true blue fans to latch on to. But then again, is there any quantity of the man that could ever really quench fans' undying thirst for the Nollster?

Professional whip-cracker and apparent world record holder Nathan “Whippy” Griggs blessed us with the above video, which is possibly the most Australian thing that has ever graced this Earth. See if you can count the exact reasons why: a bloke named Whippy, with a rockin’ mullet, wearing a blue wifebeater, boardies and thongs, was on his way to Tamworth Country Music Festival. In what can only be attributed to fate or the work of bogan Gods, Whippy hears 'Drive' on the radio at the precise moment he drives by a turn off for Shannon Noll’s home of Condobolin.

Really, don’t feel ashamed if you lost count.

Thankfully, if you need a bit of help, one Facebook user quite sharply pointed out “Condobolin Shannon's home town”, just in case the entire concept of the video didn’t provide enough of a hint – great work, Linda. When you finally realise that Griggsy’s ability to crack his whip in precise time to the song indicates that he has absolutely done this routine before, and then take a brief moment to breathe and realise exactly what’s happening on your screen and why, it’s easy to see why this would only contribute to the meme’s momentum.