The 'Symphony' dolphin meme explained

Have bright colourful images of dolphins popped up on your TikTok For You page recently?

It's all part of a new viral trend that sees people upload images and videos of rainbow dolphins to the tune of Clean Bandit and Zara Larsson's 2017 song Symphony.

Rather than adding motivational messages alongside the image of the dazzling dolphins, people are hilariously doing the exact opposite.

For example, one which first bucked the trend was by TikToker @heiratet on August 18 where there was an image of the dolphin jumping out of the water, while the chorus of Larsson’s song - "I just wanna be part of your symphony" - is played, and the text overlay simply read: “I’m depressed.”

This clip has received over 1.2m views, and the creator has since posted similar content with different messages accompanying the dolphins such as "I have social anxiety," "I love alcohol," and "I overthink everything".

Others joined in on the trend, to share their own humourous messages in the meme such as "I just took a s***," "I would sell you for one single beer," and "I want to get my boyfriend pregnant".

The colourful dolphin image that has been widely used as part of the meme was painted by Christian Riese Lassen and the artwork is called “Enjoy Sunshine”.

According to his website, his work is a "blend of the real and the imaginary, with magnificent underwater scenes with dolphins and other sea animals, as well as seascapes and landscapes of unparalleled beauty and harmony".

The meme soon caught the attention of pop singer Zara Larsson who sings the track Symphony as she decided to join in on the joke by creating her own to ask "What the f*** is happening" and the video has over 61.7m views.

Taking it a step further, she then used similar dolphin graphics as LED visuals on stage when performing the song at one of her concerts - much to the delight of TikTok viewers as the clip has been seen 43.7m times.

In the comments section, people shared their amusement at how the meme has taken on a life of its own.

One person wrote: "Why is Zara Larsson actually gonna make a comeback from this meme if she rides this wave correctly the internet is willddd".

"I JUST WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR SYMPHONY. 🐬🌈" another person said.

Someone else added: "Please make the dolphins the album cover of your song symphony."

"I hope you realise just how iconic this is," a fourth person commented.

Thanks to the meme, Symphony ranks at Number 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart, as of August 31 - seven years after it was originally released back in 2017.

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