Imagine going to the movie theater on a typical Friday night. You pick a film that’s about that Minecraft video game. You’ve never played the game, but Jack Black’s in it, how bad could it be? The film starts. It’s not great, not bad, but you’re enjoying it overall. In one particular scene, a baby zombie riding a chicken appears, prompting Jack Black’s character to utter two words; “chicken jockey.” Suddenly, the audience explodes into a frenzy. Popcorn flies everywhere, people leap from out of their seats, cheers erupt from the crowd. And as you sit in your seat watching the chaos unfold, you are left with only one thought: “What the hell just happened?”
If this was your experience while watching A Minecraft Movie, you’re not alone. This scenario is playing out in theaters around the world. What seems like spontaneous chaos is, in fact, a signal of something deeper. It’s a shift in how audiences engage with culture, content, and each other. And it’s a shift marketers need to understand.
As we celebrate our 25th anniversary at Innovations Branding House, we are looking back on how the world of marketing has changed over the years. The insanity surrounding A Minecraft Movie is a snapshot of the current marketing landscape. The rise of social media as a dominant force in both advertising and culture has contributed to the fascinating weirdness of recent trends. A new blend of irony and post-irony has materialized as a dominant factor of the current marketing zeitgeist. Throughout our 25 years in business, social media has now existed for longer than it hasn’t. Somewhere along the way, we ended up at “chicken jockey.” Let’s figure out how.
The Rise of Chicken Jockey
In September of 2024, Warner Bros. released the first teaser for A Minecraft Movie. Initial reactions were mixed, with YouTube comments like “Aren’t trailers supposed to make you want to see the movie?” and “My expectations were low. They should’ve been lower.” But then something changed. Later trailers revealed scenes of Jack Black dramatically naming off random Minecraft items. Almost immediately, the memes exploded. TikTok, Instagram, and X were flooded with “flint and steel,” “ender pearl,” “the nether,” and of course, “chicken jockey.” It seemed like everyone was making fun of this movie’s cringe factor. That is, until they weren’t making fun of it anymore.
As fans were relentlessly making fun of the film, anticipation for its release grew. And when it finally came time to watch the movie, they came in droves. Moviegoers flocked to theaters and cheered for their favorite quotes. Social media was filled with clips of chaotic theaters and the efforts of cinema staff to keep the peace. A Minecraft Movie is currently the second highest grossing video game film of all time. So what changed?
What caused the reception to go from cringeworthy to beloved? The film’s director, Jared Hess, even seemingly embraced the theater chaos as part of the fun. This 180 is even more baffling when you consider that it took place before the film was even released. The truth is, after the reaction from the trailers, it didn’t matter how good or bad the movie was. It was the biggest meme on the internet, and that was enough. People would ironically quote cringey lines from the trailers until they weren’t cringe anymore. The ironic humor crossed over to post-irony, and that was that.
Commentators were quick to compare the craze surrounding the film to the #GentleMinions trend that took place during showings of 2022’s Minions: The Rise of Gru. Teenagers would dress in formal attire to see the film, causing mischief similar to what has been seen at A Minecraft Movie screenings.
It’s Morbin’ Time
While Minions: Rise of Gru and A Minecraft Movie were embraced as ironic spectacles, not every film with meme momentum finds success. Morbius, a Marvel-Sony vampire film from 2022 starring Jared Leto, also went viral, but for all the wrong reasons. The film was panned by critics and fans alike, and failed miserably at the box office. Social media users then spread memes that mockingly hailed Morbius as the greatest film of all time, and claimed that it was the first film to make over a “Morbillion” dollars. Instead of understanding that audiences were joking about the movie, not celebrating it, Sony misread the room. They re-released the film in theaters thinking they had a hit on their hands. Leto even joined in on the memes to promote the re-release. The result? It bombed again.
So why did Morbius fail where Minions: Rise of Gru and A Minecraft Movie succeeded? The answer lies in sincerity. Sony mistook memes for genuine hype and tried to cash in. When they re-released Morbius in theaters, they tried to outsmart the internet and profit from a joke they didn’t understand. Audiences were either quick to spot the obvious cash grab, or they simply didn’t care to watch the silly vampire movie they had spent months mocking.
Happy Birthday Grimace
Extreme social media trends are not exclusive to movies. In 2023, McDonald’s released the Grimace Shake, a berry flavored milkshake meant to commemorate the birthday of their purple character, Grimace. Despite the seemingly innocent origins of the drink, the subsequent social media craze was the exact opposite. People would start by filming themselves innocently trying the shake, then abruptly cut to a grisly scene of their apparent demise, with the purple shake splattered everywhere. The darkly comedic implication was that Grimace had committed a gruesome murder.
The way that audiences interact with products and marketing has experienced a metamorphosis since the introduction of social media. Comparing the Grimace Shake trend to McDonald’s advertising of the past, we find a stark contrast. 20 years before the Grimace Shake, McDonald’s launched the “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign in 2003. The jingle was simple, earnest, and easy to get stuck in your head. Back then, brands controlled the story. Today, in some cases, the audience does.
What Can We Learn from the Memes?
So how does this relate to companies outside of the movie or fast food industry? The truth is, smaller businesses can learn a lot from these trends. Social media is a tool. It can be unpredictable, but it’s necessary for running a successful business today. These trends teach us how to interact with reactions from social media. After a social media success, your first instinct might be to adjust your strategy to better respond to your audience. However, you risk losing what initially caused the positive reaction, alienating those who were drawn in.
In the case of A Minecraft Movie, each trailer continued to double down on what fans were responding to. Even though the reaction was initially negative, they stayed the course, and came out successfully. McDonald’s responded to the Grimace Shake trend with a meme of their own; a simple close up of Grimace with the caption “meee pretending i don’t see the grimace shake trendd.”
Guillaume Huin, McDonald’s senior marketing director said “We then discussed what was the right thing to do about the trend : saying nothing felt disconnected, encouraging it felt self-serving, so we just decided to show our fans that we see them and their creativity in a sweet, candid and genuine way, as grimace would.” They didn’t change what made the trend successful to begin with. They didn’t try to be smarter than their audience. They simply joined the moment. Control is not the goal. Connection is.
Over the course of our 25 years in business, we have seen many changes in the world of marketing. It will continue to evolve as new technology and cultural shifts arise. But through all the change, one thing has remained constant: the importance of understanding your audience. Learning from the “chicken jockey” trend, we can see that audiences on social media can take a campaign and transform it into something new entirely. Even if your marketing isn’t at a global level like A Minecraft Movie and the Grimace Shake, you still have a presence. The most successful brands show up where their audience is already spending time and find ways to join in authentically. When you lean into the conversation with a little humility and a willingness to play, it builds trust. Sometimes the best strategy is knowing when to let the audience take the lead.
Embrace the fun. Embrace the weird. Embrace the “chicken jockey.”
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