About
Moon Man is the name given to an alternate interpretation of Mac Tonight, a former mascot of the McDonald’s fast food chain. Moon Man is usually accompanied by text-to-speech voice synthesis which speaks of racism and violence against minorities.
Origin
Mac Tonight was created by the McDonald’s fast food chain in 1986 and was portrayed as a lounge singer with a moon for a head. Commercials featuring the character originally ran from 1987 to 1990, though later commercials featuring Tonight were occasionally produced.[1]
On May 31, 2007, YTMND user farkle released a YTMND featuring a GIF of Mac Tonight and the song “Chacarron Maccaron”, which is usually considered the first Moon Man YTMND.[2]
Spread
Several Moon Man YTMNDs were created in the days following the original. The first one to be made by a user other than farkle was uploaded on June 2, three days after the original. The first song sung by Moon Man was uploaded on September 3, 2007 by YTMND user hypersaxon, featuring the song “Money in the Bank” by Lil Scrappy.[3] In 2008, the Moon Crew was created as a group dedicated to the creation and spread of Moon Man-based media.[4] On October 2, 2009, a Moon Man version of the song “Hypnotize” by The Notorious B.I.G. was uploaded by YTMND user MuMluxMlan, where it was viewed over 70,000 times, making it the most viewed Moon Man YTMND on the site as of 2015.[5]
Revival
Moon Man remained fairly contained to YTMND until 2015, when the character saw a revival with the rise of race-based humor such as that found on 4chan’s Politically Offensive board. A YouTube mirror of the “Hypnotize” YTMND was uploaded on May 24, where it was viewed over 200,000 times in the following two months before being removed from the site for violating hate speech rules. On June 1, an album of Moon Man rap parodies was released under the name WhiteTopia; a YouTube version of the album has been viewed over 130,000 times.
Search Interest
External References
[1]Wikipedia – Mac Tonight