A protest chant against Argentine President Mauricio Marci that was called the “hit of the summer” in 2018 is an example of a sonic meme, a phenomenon in which an innocuous melody is re-signified through parody. The melody of the protest chant comes from the opening verse of a 1973 Carnival march by Raul Fernández Shériko Guzmán, Es tiempo de alegrarnos. The tune then became a popular cantito, or soccer chant, with the lyric formula “[opposing player name], la puta que te parió” (son of a whore). During a match in February 2018, a spontaneous chant of Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió broke out in the stands, naming the sitting president of Argentina. The chant quickly spread among Argentine soccer fans and was sung in stadiums across the country. Classical pianist Juan Roleri inadvertently created a viral video with a Romantic-pastiche fantasia on the Mauricio Marci tune. Subsequently, social media users created iterative videos, combining Roleri’s audio with other video sources. Other users build on Roleri’s basic idea and created versions of Mauricio Marci in other genres and styles, culminating in a brief tarantella version performaned by the César Pavón Orkestra on Argentine public television, causing a scandal and derailing the band’s career. This flurry of iterative creativity makes Mauricio Marci a sonic meme akin to online image-based memes. The memetic transformations of Mauricio Marci demonstrate a kind of musical parody, dressing up profane source material with more respectable trappings. The participatory nature of sonic memes allowed users to protest at a distance in an attenuated form, but Cesar Pavón’s performance on state television shows that parody can be politically dangerous in certain venues.

Works: César Pavón Orkestra: Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió Tarentella (116-18, 130-32); Anonymous: La puta que te parió Cantito (120-22), Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió (121-22, 129); Juan Roleri: Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió Fantasia (124-7, 130).

Sources: Anonymous: Mauricio Marci, la puta que te parió (116-18, 124-7, 130-32); Raul Fernández Shériko Guzmán: Es tiempo de alegrarnos (120-22, 129); Anonymous: La puta que te parió Cantito (121-22).

Index Classifications: 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet