When the Bee Movie came out, no one expected the animated children’s film to be particularly buzz-worthy. Created and voiced by Jerry Seinfeld of Seinfeld fame, the film centers on a bee who seeks to sue the human race for stealing bees’ honey.
Lukewarm reviews and moderate box-office success meant that the Dreamworks film was shy of a B-rating. But instead of disappearing into obscurity like countless other animated films, Bee Movie memes and internet lore revived the film and thrust it into mainstream media, often in the form of memes.
Here is everything you need to know about Bee Movie memes.
What’s the Bee Movie about?
Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Seinfeld dreamed up the premise of the Bee Movie. It centers on Barry B. Benson, a honey bee who graduates from college and laments at the thought of having only one career choice: making honey.
After venturing from the hive and learning the truth about the human race stealing bees’ honey, Barry passionately tries to sue them. He has some help from his human florist friend, Vanessa (voiced by Renée Zellweger). In a now-infamous twist, she ends up leaving her human boyfriend for Benson who is, well, a bee.
Where did the memes originate?
Bee Movie memes first found an audience on Tumblr. This happened in December 2012, five years after the movie premiered to lukewarm reviews (it only scored 50 percent on Rotten Tomatoes).
Many of the memes focused on the absurdity of the “beestiality” relationship between the bee Benson and the human Vanessa. In the movie, Vanessa’s boyfriend, Ken, tries to kill Benson, causing Vanessa to leave her lover for the insect.
What was the Bee Movie script prank?
The Bee Movie script prank helped catapult the Bee Movie into elite meme territory. This first occurred in 2013 when a Tumblr user uploaded the movie’s entire script onto a friend’s Facebook wall.
Soon, people started to replicate it, eventually resulting in t-shirts for sale on Etsy that had the script printed on it. The prank always included the first line, “according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly.”
It was considered a funny, but cruel prank since it would cause the victim’s phone to crash.
Since 2013, the script has become a classic meme, often being posted in comment sections, and even being used to spam a website instituted by the governor of Missouri, where users were encouraged to share “concerns” about gender affirming care.
Do ya like jazz? remix
This is a quote Benson said in the movie that has spawned into a hoard of Bee Movie remixes. This includes the one by James Nielssen titled, “Barry Benson saying ‘ya like jazz?’ 1,073,741,824 times.” As of now, the video has been viewed more than 23 million times.
Will there be a Bee Movie 2?
Bee Movie memes hit their stride in 2016 when Seinfeld tossed around the idea of a Bee Movie 2 on an Reddit AMA.
He even tweeted about the idea to see if there was interest.
What about "Bee Movie 2"?
— Jerry Seinfeld (@JerrySeinfeld) July 30, 2016
What's going on with that?
Should I?
Any interest?
Around this time, Bee Movie meme became mainstream after comedian Darcy Grivas posted his now-infamous video on YouTube titled, “Bee movie trailer but every time they say bee it gets faster.”
The video was an instant hit, receiving over 11 million views in just two weeks. Having thrust Bee Movie into mainstream media, suddenly everyone was talking about it. Vanity Fair published an article titled, “Bee Movie won 2016.”
Later, Seinfeld admitted he wasn’t actually too keen on making a sequel to Bee Movie, as he worried it would make the first film less iconic. As of 2024, the possibility of the film happening still seems up in the air—but, either way, we’ll always have the memes.
How can I use this meme?
If you want to create some unbee-lievable memes, you can create a whole collection of memes using meme generators or prank your friends with the Bee Movie script.
Editor’s note: This article is regularly updated for relevance.
