A Word for Kevin (French: Un mot pour Kevin) (better known as Bonne fête Keven) is a 2008 viral video that was posted to YouTube. The video, filmed in a backyard in Saguenay, Québec, Canada, consists of a group of party-goers paying tribute to Keven Lavoie for his 24th birthday. As of 2025 the video had over 2.2 million views.

History

The video was posted on YouTube by the channel Soper666 on September 28th 2008. Over the course of abour 4 miniutes, the video takes place in a residential backyard decorated mainly with promotional beer paraphernalia in Saguenay, Quebec. The cameraman goes around to guests, and taking turns in front of the camera the guests give Kevin well wishes for his 24th birthday. Kevin doesn't appear in the video until the very end where he is found sitting in a hot tub[1] with friends.

The video showcases all sorts of interactions between the cameraman and the guests. Each interaction is coloured by the interviewed personalities who spew nonsense about hotdogs, give thanks, and hand out funny childish insults. One person even seems to confirm the sale of a snake, a message presumably meant for the cameraman. The most viral part of the video occurs around the 45 second mark where Claudue Asselin spontaneously says: Envoye Kevin, [...] continue comme ça ! ("Dear Kevin, [...] keep being like that!) continues to be the phrase the video owes its success to[1].

Impact

The video originally reached one million views on YouTube in 2018[2], doubling to two mllion by 2023[1].

Jean-Michel Berthiaume, a professor of semiotics and an expert in pop culture, considers the video as the most important quebecois short film of the 21st century. According to him, A Word for Kevin is an ethnographic documentation to explain the Quebecois identity in all of its complexity and ambiguity[3].

Without necessarily being able to prove the correlation, since the video was posted, the annual number of newborns named Kevin dropped below 100 for the first time since the 1970s, and five years after the number had dropped below 50[2].

References

  1. ^ a b c Dupuis, Stéphanie (2023-09-28). "« Envoye, Kevin, continue comme ça! » : le mème « Bonne fête Kevin » a 15 ans". Radio-Canada (in Canadian French). Retrieved 2025-03-04.
  2. ^ a b de l'Église, Justine (2018-09-27). "La vidéo « Bonne fête Kevin » fête ses dix ans aujourd'hui". VICE. Retrieved 2025-03-04.
  3. ^ Bouthillier, Julien (2023-09-28). "«Bonne fête Kevin» a 15 ans : «le plus important court métrage du 21e siècle pour le Québec»". Noovo Info (in Canadian French). Archived from the original on 2024-12-25. Retrieved 2025-03-04.
Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:A_word_for_Kevin
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