Welcome to Chili's

About

“Welcome to Chili’s” is an expression uttered in a short video by Viner Adam Perkins which inspired a series of parody and remix videos on YouTube and Vine starting in late March 2015.

Origin

As early as 2007, the chain restaurant Chili’s Grill & Bar began airing commercials featuring a jingle with the phrase “welcome to Chili’s!” (shown below).

On March 21st, 2015, Viner Adam Perkins uploaded a video titled “I’m really proud of this one,” in which he approaches the mirror in his bathroom while wearing boxer underwear and says “Hi, welcome to Chili’s” (shown below). In the first month, the video gained over 8.05 million loops, 104,000 likes, 59,000 revines and 13,000 comments. Over a year, the vine gained over 20 million loops.

Spread

On March 29th, 2015, YouTuber TheRareD reuploaded Perkins Vine.^[3] On April 10th, Viner irham uploaded a video in which Perkins is edited on to an image of a Chili’s restaurant, garnering more than 4.1 million loops and 64,00 likes in the next week (shown below, left). On the following day, Viner Wallum Cray uploaded a clip of himself reenacting the original Perkins video (shown below, right). On April 12th, YouTuber Osiris^[4] reuploaded irham’s remix, which was submitted to the /r/youtubehaiku^[5] subreddit on April 15th.

On the following day, Tumblr^[6] user death--420 posted a picture of an iPhone background featuring a screenshot of the Perkins Vine, which gained over 4,900 notes in the next 72 hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Other Viners have submitted parodies of the Perkins video under the tag “#Welcometochilis.”^[2]

Search Interest

External References