Scott Shriner would admit that he was never really a YouTube guy.
That's pretty understandable. When you are in a band that has been plying your trade since the early 90s, just like Weezer had been, becoming the figurehead of the most insecure and awkward elements of emo and alternative rock, you would be amiss to not feel very set in your passions and ways of the world by the time that 2008 rolls around. And though you have spent plenty of your career making music videos, they would usually be found on TV screens, played during your appearances on MTV's TRL and whatnot, rather than on computers, laptops and, as modern as it can get, mobile phones.
But the tides were turning. Celebrity was no longer just reserved for musicians, actors and socialites. If you had a camera (or webcam), an idea, and enough bandwidth to upload your creation to the World Wide Web, you too could become an overnight sensation. From the lip-syncing prowess of Gary Brolsma the Numa Numa Guy, to the unique songwriting talents of Tay Zonday, the unfortunately timed acrobatic abilities of Mark Allen Hicks the Afro Ninja, to the impassioned pleas of Cara Cunningham begging people to leave Britney Spears alone, YouTube was the home of it all.
But despite it being a brave new world for Weezer to discover, they went one better than just trying to understand what was going on. They made a whole music video around these new-age stars.
The video is based on the YouTube phenomenon, and we really took it to a whole other level," the bassist told Buzznet. "We brought a bunch of YouTube celebrities into L.A. and shot a video with them, and it was really insane and surreal. I'm pretty excited about it. Even to someone who's not that interested in YouTube, it's still a really interesting video. It's gonna be a trip."
Though before the band could comprehend such a project, there had to be a song for it to accompany. The song in question, Pork And Beans, wasn't even originally part of what the quartet had put together for their sixth full-length record, known as The Red Album. Serving as the third record in their discography to be filed under the Weezer name, after 1994's Blue Album and 2001's Green Album, vocalist Rivers Cuomo stated that they "Put a lot of emphasis on blowing our minds with creative freakouts" for it.
Unfortunately for the band, pushing the boundaries wasn't enough to please the executives at their label, DCG. Off the back of the commercial success of 2005's Make Believe, home to sunshine smash Beverly Hills, they were after more of the same, ordering the band to squeeze out a few more tracks that could give them the same result. Rivers was not best pleased.
"I came out of it pretty angry. But ironically, it inspired me to write another song," he told Rolling Stone, and the result was a song that felt as much a tongue-in-cheek reply to such demands as a reminder that they knew how to get the job done. From the classic chug of the chorus to the biting references to the production of rapper Timberland, blowing up the charts at the time with his work with the likes of Nelly Furtado and One Republic, Pork And Beans is as silly as it is sentimental. A reminder that you should never dull your sparkle for anyone, and that creative freedom and unashamed expression will always come out on top. An assertion of artistic independence and personality.
"The words that Rivers wrote just kind of draw you in," Scott told Buzznet. "The clever way that he writes and then the chorus, to me, is just classic, killer Weezer. Big guitars... edgy-sounding, classic Weezer rock. It's a great formula. It's taken it to another level of Weezer as well, without repeating the old. The song has captured the spirit of Weezer, but taken it to another place."
Putting such a sentiment at the forefront of a song that was to lead the Red Album campaign pointed the band towards including others who have refused to dull their shine in the face of success. And that is where the YouTube community comes in.
"Weezer sent us this song, and we immediately got the idea," director Matt Cullen, from production company Motion Theory, told Wired back in 2008. [Pork and Beans] is this amazing song about being happy with who you are. That’s exactly where it came from. There’s never been a time like now, thanks to YouTube, where people can put themselves out there. So I embraced that concept."
It's a sentiment that has clearly rubbed off on the creatives, involved, too. "I’ve gotten a lot of nice emails over the years from many people that the video cheered them up when they were in bad places,” Gary Brolsma told Consequence in 2023 when asked about his Numa Numa moment. “Looking back, I’m glad I was able to help some people, and generally just make some people laugh.”
And laughter played a big part in the individuals that Matt collected for the occasion, inviting a plethora to LA to make the video live rather than via submitted segments. This allowed people who would never have crossed paths to meet in the middle, hang out, party and see beyond the clip. The result, according to Matt, was fascinatingly surreal to say the least.
"Everyone was talking about the effect that YouTube has had on their life and the differences between celebrity and web celebrity," he continued, telling Wired. "I witnessed very intelligent conversations about what their place is in the fold, and pop culture entertainment, and what the rippling effects of what they’ve done and what their future holds…. They were all really fascinated with each other."
Watching the Pork and Beans video is like seeing as many familiar faces as alien ones. It depends on your own Internet experience. For everyone who has seen Tay Zonday sing Chocolate Rain, there is someone who hasn't, instead sharing the Dramatic Chipmunk or Charlie the Unicorn with their friends. It covers every bit of ground that it can, with appearances from Liam Kyle Sullivan playing guitar as Kelly, Judson Laipply bringing the Evolution of Dance to the table, and Tay Zonday swapping bars with Rivers and looking like he's having the best time whilst doing it. It's unique in its approach and timing, whilst never losing sight of its original intention.
The sheer depth and dedication to the cause that Matt and the band put into crafting a moment that would live forever may not have been driven by the pursuit of accolades. But it did draw the attention of some very big and shiny eyes. On top of going viral in its own right, the video, sitting pretty at 34 million views on YouTube in 2025, was also awarded the GRAMMY for Best Short Form Music Video at the 2009 ceremony. That is a gong that guitarist Brian Bell told Tay Zonday was, "A lifelong achievement" and, "A goal of mine that we have now achieved, thanks in part to a great idea."
More than anything, it is a piece of media that has ensured that the stories of so many people can continue to be told. Between the video's release and now, the whole scope of not just YouTube but also social media and our consumption of it has shifted tenfold. More digital than ever before and with attention spans at an all-time low, the chance for virality to make a different to someone's life in the way it once did is so much harder and more complex. Pork And Beans harks back to a time when a beautiful accident could stick out from the crowd and make you a star for more than 15 minutes.
Though for Matt, it was also about something much more human and lasting longer than any viral clip.
"It was learning more about who these people are and beyond what we know from the 15-second or two-minute effect on our lives," he concluded within his chat with Wired. If that was the intent, then it succeeded in shining colours.
