Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Russell Brand: 'PARKLIFE!' emerges as the internet's favourite way to mock comedian-turned-revolutionary

Excerpts from Brand's speeches get Blur chorus

Christopher Hooton
Tuesday 04 November 2014 13:07 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Russell Brand's tendency towards verbosity has led his detractors to find a succinct way to palm off his talk of revolution: just stick the chorus of Blur's Parklife on the end.

You may remember the 1994 song featured lines spoken by actor Phil Daniels like "Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as…" that were echoed by Damon Albarn with the titular word.

Update: The Russell Brand 'Parklife' full video is here

Well @paperclipracket and later, to many thousands of retweets, @danbarker discovered the word was a good fit for excerpts from Brand's book (above).

Instantly, Brand's tweets were met with an inevitable and unrelenting response:

Then came the Amazon reviews:

And now a deluge of Vines:

This meme could go on for some time, given the host of tweets, columns, interviews and books from Brand there are to revisit.

"Just as Craig David eventually found peace with his Bo Selecta taunters, I hope Russell Brand can eventually forgive me, along with Damon Albarn, Phil Daniels, and @paperclipracket who pointed out he’d made the observation before I did (his was funnier too)," Barker told BuzzFeed.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in