The "Are ya winnin' son" meme has been around since 2014, but recently it has grown into a viral music format with dozens of videos getting millions of views. Today we talk with Are Ya Listen, one of the biggest accounts using this format, about how they do it differently. Are Ya Listen has always believed that listening to a song is just half the experience, so they create custom music video-like visuals for each song they cover. Creating powerful video edits and synchronized lyric videos that focus on the visceral feeling of the song.
Find their account below and keep reading to see the full interview.
Interview with Are Ya Listen
How did you come up with the idea for Are Ya Listening, is there any story attached to that?
"It all started one evening when I was hanging out with friends and scrolling through our phones. I kept coming across the “Are You Listening?” meme, but most of the content I saw focused on the meme itself. I started thinking, What if I built a character around this idea and used it to
create music edits? I began experimenting with editing and syncing the characters to the music. Then another idea came to me: what if I created a unique visual experience for every song, matching the background,
lyrics, transitions, and overall atmosphere to what you hear? That small thought completely changed the direction of the project. I posted my first video on Instagram, and it went viral, surpassing a million views overnight. I gained
a huge number of followers, and seeing how people responded to the concept made me even more passionate about developing it. My early videos were much simpler, with basic effects and less precise synchronization. Over time, I taught myself new techniques and started paying closer attention to the details of each track.
Today, I build my edits around the song itself, syncing transitions and visual changes to different bass and treble sections, emphasizing lyrics, and translating the emotions of the music into visuals. I want every edit to feel like its own experience rather than just a video playing over a song.
As the page grew, opportunities came that I never would have imagined when I first started. I've worked with established marketing agencies, and one of the most surreal experiences was getting noticed by Breaking Benjamin. We ended up creating a collaboration video together, following each other on Instagram, and chatting. Their music was something I'd listened to since childhood, so having that connection through something I created myself was an incredible feeling.
That journey made me realize how far a small idea can take you. Today, Are Ya Listening has grown to over 260,000 followers and millions of monthly views. Seeing artists and well-known people watch and share my videos still makes me happy. What started as an experiment has become something I'm genuinely proud of, and I want to keep pushing the concept further."
How do you go about picking songs for your content? Are there specific things you listen for?
"My followers know my videos for their explosive moments. When I'm choosing a song, one of the main things I listen for is a bass drop, a sudden build-up, or a shift in intensity that creates a strong emotional impact. I want to find that moment where the music really hits and synchronize it with the “Are Ya Listening, Son?” moment in the video. Sometimes, I'll even make small adjustments to the track itself to achieve the right impact. High-energy rock and metal songs often have these moments naturally, but I don't limit myself to those genres. I can create the same feeling with many different types of music, as long as there's something in the track that I can translate into a powerful visual experience. Tame Impala's “Let It Happen,” for example, is a great example of how that feeling can work outside traditional rock or metal.
There's also a community aspect to how I choose the songs. I organize my videos into an “EP.” series, with each post having its own episode number and song title. Rather than choosing every track myself, I ask my followers to suggest songs in the comments. Sometimes I'll randomly pick a suggestion, and other times I'll choose the comment with the most likes. I also share the selected person's comment in my Instagram Stories so people can see whose suggestion made it into an episode.
For me, the community is just as important as the content itself. I want people to feel that they're part of what I'm building, not just an audience watching from the sidelines. A lot of pages don't highlight individual followers in that way, but I want to give credit to the people who support me. We're growing together, and I want that to remain part of the identity of Are Ya Listening. Ultimately, I'm looking for a musical moment that makes people feel something, while giving my audience a say in the music we experience together."
Do you have experience with visual content outside of Are Ya Listen? Do you have any other art you're working on currently?
"I'm actually a software engineer by background, but I've been managing social media pages since high school. Over the years, I've developed my skills in video editing, illustration, and digital content creation through hands-on experience.
Before Are Ya Listening, I managed several gaming pages focused on titles like League of Legends and Among Us, among others. Those projects gave me valuable experience, but I never committed to them as consistently as I have to Are Ya Listen. This one felt different. It became more than just another social media page; it became a bridge between me and the people who connect with the music and visuals I create. Currently, I'm expanding the project beyond Instagram videos by designing and sharing GIFs featuring the Are Ya Listening character across different social media platforms. It's exciting to see people using these GIFs in their own posts and conversations, and millions of people have already started using them.
I like the idea that the character can exist beyond my own videos and become something people use to express themselves online. It's another way to bring the identity of Are Ya Listening into internet culture, and I'd love to continue developing that side of the project alongside the music edits."
Were you the first account to do the Are Ya Listening Son idea, or did you evolve it?
"There were one or two other accounts using a similar “Are Ya Listening, Son?” concept when I started, so I wouldn't claim to have invented the original meme. What I wanted to do was take the idea in a completely different direction and build something more elaborate around it. Some of the other accounts used relatively simple formats, such as placing automatically generated song lyrics over a static image. I wanted to create something much more immersive. I draw and color the characters myself, build the room layouts and backgrounds from scratch, and
manually synchronize the lyrics with the music, adjusting the positioning, colors, transitions, and effects along the way.
Every song becomes its own vertical music video, with visuals designed specifically around that track. It's a very hands-on process, and a lot of work goes into even the smallest details. I want the visuals to feel like they belong to the music rather than simply being something playing in the background. That's what I believe sets Are Ya Listening apart. The original meme gave me the starting point, but the format I've developed around it is my own creative interpretation. I genuinely love putting that work into every episode, and seeing my followers respond to the details and effort makes it worthwhile."
How do you feel that visual content editing can change the way people experience music?
"I think visual editing can completely change the way someone experiences a song. Music already has the power to make you feel something, but when you combine it with visuals that match the lyrics, the rhythm, and the emotion of the track, you can take that experience to another level. For me, it's about translating what I hear into something people can see. A bass drop, a change in intensity, or a particular lyric can mean so much more when the visuals emphasize that exact
moment. I want people to feel the impact of the music, not just hear it. Sometimes, the right visual can even make you pay attention to a lyric or a detail in a song that you might have overlooked before.
I also think visual content can help people discover music in a different way. Someone might come across one of my videos without knowing the song or the artist, connect with the moment I've created, and end up listening to the full track. That's one of the things I love most about what I do: creating a visual experience that makes someone want to explore the music further. Ultimately, I don't see the visuals as something separate from the song. I see them as another way
of expressing what the artist has already created. My goal is to make the music and the visuals feel so connected that, for a moment, you can't imagine one without the other."
Thanks for reading!
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