"This all started a few weeks ago, on January 3rd, 2022 when a Sesame Street Clip from 2004 went viral on Twitter." -- Jif dillemuth, 9th grade
You may be familiar with Elmo, the fluffy red muppet of Sesame Street. However he has had a recent change to his usually friendly personality and has been fighting a rock (and totally winning). Twitter and TikTok users have been posting old clips of Elmo and the rock, named Rocco, all over social media recently. Elmo is enraged which has caused a series of hilarious events to unravel on social media.
This all started a few weeks ago, on January 3rd, 2022 when a Sesame Street clip from 2004 went viral on Twitter. In the clip, Zoe— one of Elmo’s puppet friends— asks the adult for an oatmeal raisin cookie and hands it to her pet rock, sitting on the table next to her. As everyone knows, Elmo’s favorite cookie is an oatmeal raisin cookie. When asked for his cookie, he is told that this is the last one, so he reaches for the one that Rocco has, only to be told off by Zoe. Zoe informs Elmo that Rocco wants the last cookie, causing Elmo to fly into a rage. The video was unearthed and posted on twitter gaining over 297,000 likes in two days. In response to the footage going viral, Elmo tweeted “Has anybody ever seen a rock eat a cookie? Elmo is just curious.”
With that, the ridiculous drama escalated. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson replied to Elmo’s tweet stating “This Rock devours cookies” and continued, challenging none other than the Cookie Monster. Pretty much saying that he’s The Rock and is alive, answering Elmo’s question in a really aggressive way. He signed the tweet “- Rock” and finished it with a bull emoji.
This all started a few weeks ago, on January 3rd, 2022 when a Sesame Street clip from 2004 went viral on Twitter. In the clip, Zoe— one of Elmo’s puppet friends— asks the adult for an oatmeal raisin cookie and hands it to her pet rock, sitting on the table next to her. As everyone knows, Elmo’s favorite cookie is an oatmeal raisin cookie. When asked for his cookie, he is told that this is the last one, so he reaches for the one that Rocco has, only to be told off by Zoe. Zoe informs Elmo that Rocco wants the last cookie, causing Elmo to fly into a rage. The video was unearthed and posted on twitter gaining over 297,000 likes in two days. In response to the footage going viral, Elmo tweeted “Has anybody ever seen a rock eat a cookie? Elmo is just curious.”
With that, the ridiculous drama escalated. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson replied to Elmo’s tweet stating “This Rock devours cookies” and continued, challenging none other than the Cookie Monster. Pretty much saying that he’s The Rock and is alive, answering Elmo’s question in a really aggressive way. He signed the tweet “- Rock” and finished it with a bull emoji.
Just as you think the situation couldn’t get funnier, the Cookie Monster replied to the tweet, accepting The Rock’s dare with “Me say cookie challenge accepted!!!”
Elmo posted yet another tweet about the cookie incident between him and Rocco. He first stated that he and Zoe learned how to share and are still friends. After some joyous laughter in the form of h’s and a’s he then said “Elmo doesn’t want to talk about Rocco.” You can almost see his face straighten and scowl behind the screen. Starting with a Twitter user’s reply “We don’t talk about Rocco…” a chain of comments formed making a parody of the popular song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Disney’s Encanto. The catchy song made by Lin Manuel Miranda seems to be stuck in everyone’s head recently. The song continues for a while, each person contributing a line of the lyrics, substituting Bruno with Rocco of course.
In a final show of how far the meme has spread, SNL even made a skit starring the two. Elmo is played by Chloe Fisherman in a huge kind of creepy, Elmo costume. In the skit, Elmo is being interviewed but it escalates as Rocco is brought up.
There are a few reasons why this clip might have gone viral. Our minds are constantly looking for something new and unusual, so maybe a puppet from a kids show being angry and aggressive caught enough people’s eyes to allow it to take off like this. Elmo has had a few moments in the past, causing the creation of the Elmo fire meme you might be familiar with (shown below), similar to how angry he got with rocco. So maybe it was how relatable he acts, enraged by the way Zoe treats this rock like it’s alive, despite his efforts to show everyone the truth. It’s as if he is the only sane person on Sesame Street. It can give the viewers something to agree on. Also it might just be because it’s just a funny video.
Elmo posted yet another tweet about the cookie incident between him and Rocco. He first stated that he and Zoe learned how to share and are still friends. After some joyous laughter in the form of h’s and a’s he then said “Elmo doesn’t want to talk about Rocco.” You can almost see his face straighten and scowl behind the screen. Starting with a Twitter user’s reply “We don’t talk about Rocco…” a chain of comments formed making a parody of the popular song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Disney’s Encanto. The catchy song made by Lin Manuel Miranda seems to be stuck in everyone’s head recently. The song continues for a while, each person contributing a line of the lyrics, substituting Bruno with Rocco of course.
In a final show of how far the meme has spread, SNL even made a skit starring the two. Elmo is played by Chloe Fisherman in a huge kind of creepy, Elmo costume. In the skit, Elmo is being interviewed but it escalates as Rocco is brought up.
There are a few reasons why this clip might have gone viral. Our minds are constantly looking for something new and unusual, so maybe a puppet from a kids show being angry and aggressive caught enough people’s eyes to allow it to take off like this. Elmo has had a few moments in the past, causing the creation of the Elmo fire meme you might be familiar with (shown below), similar to how angry he got with rocco. So maybe it was how relatable he acts, enraged by the way Zoe treats this rock like it’s alive, despite his efforts to show everyone the truth. It’s as if he is the only sane person on Sesame Street. It can give the viewers something to agree on. Also it might just be because it’s just a funny video.
But Elmo and Rocco’s cookie confrontation wasn’t the beginning of what the internet is calling “the greatest rivalry of all time.” Rocco first came to Sesame Street in episode 3,809 on January 7th, 1999. Since then Rocco has returned many times and Elmo has shown his disbelief that the pet rock is alive or has any feelings. The eyebrowless puppet is still able to express so much frustration. But Elmo himself is still a puppet after all, claiming that Rocco is not alive because of his lack of a mouth and eyes though they are both inanimate. There might be more to this than we think, but for now here are some more clips showing the rock and Elmo.
https://twitter.com/MOBSMOSTHATED/status/1478416989144104963
https://twitter.com/jonnyjukeboxx/status/1478414085662384134
https://twitter.com/jonnyjukeboxx/status/1478417205956165633?s=20
https://twitter.com/MOBSMOSTHATED/status/1478416989144104963
https://twitter.com/jonnyjukeboxx/status/1478414085662384134
https://twitter.com/jonnyjukeboxx/status/1478417205956165633?s=20