El Risitas (Spanish for “the giggles”, real name Juan Joya Borja) is a Spanish actor and comedian. In recent years, video of an interview with El Risitas has become a popular source of parody-subtitled videos akin to the “Downfall / Hitler Reacts” meme, with the videos often titled “interview with an employee of [some organization]”.
Origin
The original video is of Jesús Quintero interviewing El Risitas on Quintero’s show “Ratones Coloraos”. The video features El Risitas laughing as he tells a story of when he was a kitchen helper and how he was told to tie 20 pans together and throw them in the ocean to be cleaned, though he only returns with one. The earliest upload of the interview was to YouTube on June 25, 2007. As of February 18, 2015, this video has almost 1.2 million views.[1] A video with English subtitles was uploaded for the first time on February 3, 2015.[2]
Popularity
Investigating.
Viral Instance
One of the more popular videos was a video related to the controversy around the NVIDIAGTX 970. The video, titled “SHOCKING interview with nvidia engineer about the 970 fiasco”, was uploaded to YouTube on January 30, 2015, and contained subtitles related to how the GTX 970 was deliberately gimped. As of February 18, 2015, the video has almost 1,000,000 views.[3]
Another popular video was related to the city of Ottawa, Canada’s public bus system, OC Transpo. The video, titled “Interview with an OC Transpo employee”, was uploaded to YouTube on February 4, 2015, contained subtitles relating to the buses often running late or skipping stops entirely. As of February 18, 2015, the video has almost 100,000 views.[4]