Yee is a popular misheard phrase (as it is actually "Peek") originating from the German animated film Dinosaur Adventure (Abenteuer im Land der Dinosaurier).
Dinosaur Adventure is a knock-off of the 1988 animated film The Land Before Time made by German studio Dingo Pictures, known for its low-budget mockbuster animated movies with also poor voice acting in almost all its international versions. On June 6, 2010, youtuber Celyciah uploaded a shortcut clip titled Dinosauri antropomorfi dalle voci ambigue ("Anthropomorphic dinosaurs with ambiguous voices") from the Italian version of the film, in which Peek the Ankylosaurus makes a statement, and Oro the T-Rex scolds him. The scene in which Oro calls Peek by his name was popularly misheard as "Yee" due to pronunciation and poor audio.
Yee
On February 29, 2012, Italian YouTuber Revergo uploaded an edited version of the video with the title "Yee" accompanied with instrumentals from the movie itself. The video remained relatively obscure until August 23, 2014, when it was submitted to the r/youtubehaiku subreddit, where it received more than 2,190 votes (93% upvoted) and 110 comments in the first two weeks. The phrase "yee" was subsequently adopted by Tumblr users, who began posting fan art and photoshopped images of the dinosaurs from the video. Within three years, the video gained over 2 million views, and as of 2021, it has reached over 82 million views.
On January 31, 2015, YouTube gamingchannel TVOngamenet uploaded 2015 SBENU League of Legends Championships video material. After IM vs NaJin II competition, a Korean woman is seen holding a Yee sign with Oro's picture
Trivia[]
- In the scene, Oro actually says "Peek", which is the name of the Ankylosaurus character. This was misheard as "Yee" due to pronunciation and poor audio.
- Yee is the first video on the Important Videos Youtube playlist.
- Yee also a homage with the "E" meme.