About

"I Like Turtles" is a phrase first uttered by ten-year-old Jonathan Ware during a local news interview at the Rose Festival in Portland, Oregon. Following its broadcast and the subsequent upload to YouTube in late May 2007, Jonathan's curt response to the reporter's lackluster question went viral, inspiring a video remixes, memorabilia and further memes referencing the video over the following years. In July 2023, Ware participated in an advertisement for the animated movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, where he recreated the original meme as an adult.

Origin

On May 31st, 2007, ten-year-old Jonathan Ware was visiting the Rose Festival in Portland, Oregon. During his visit to the fair, Jonathan had his face painted to look like a Zombie and was approached by the KGW local news correspondent Nancy Francis. When asked to comment about his face paint on camera, Jonathan tersely responded "I like turtles." A copy of the KGW newscast was uploaded by YouTuber^[1] CaptJax458 on June 11th, 2007, garnering over 72 million views in 16 years (shown below).

Nancy Francis: "Back here live at the Waterfront Village with my friend the zombie, Jonathon. You're looking good, Jonathon. Jonathon just got an awesome face paint job. What do you think?"

Jonathan: I like turtles!

Spread

Throughout June 2007, the clip went viral on YouTube, inspiring parodies and mashup videos featuring Jonathan's one-liner (examples shown below). Around the same time, several t-shirts bearing the catchphrase emerged on e-merchandise sites like Zazzle^[2], Snorgtees^[3], CafePress^[4], Screened^[5] and Shirtstastegood.^[6]

Although the boy and his family were initially unaware of the viral sensation during its onset, Jonathan's sister eventually discovered her brother's fame on Myspace in early July. By August, the local news station KGW had reunited with the Wares family for a follow-up interview to hear their reaction to Jonathan's newfound internet (shown below, re-upload).

On November 3rd, 2007, an entry for "I like turtles" was submitted to Urban Dictionary^[7], which defined the phrase as "a response to a boring question that you don't feel like answering. It may also, in rare cases, express one's true love of turtles." Even years after the video went viral, Jonathan's legacies were recognized by the now-defunct viral media news site Urlesque^[8] in its column series "The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos" in April 2009.

On September 15th, 2010, Jonathan appeared on an episode of Tosh.0 as part of the "web redemption" series.^[9] He explained that on the day the video was recorded, he had just seen a turtle exhibit before having his face painted, and that was why he had turtles on his mind.

Gaming Channel

In September 2013, Ware launched the ItsTurtleTime YouTube channel, featuring various Let's Play videos showcasing various video games.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Advertisement

On July 27th, 2023, the Parammount Pictures YouTube^[10] channel posted an advertisement for their animated film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem where Ware reprises his role as the "I like turtles" kid, recreating the video, garnering over 21,000 views in under 10 hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References