Often referred to as “the Queen of Christmas,” Mariah Carey has made a name for herself with her festive songs, in particular her most popular one “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” released in October 1994. The upbeat and catchy tune has proved its popularity by continuing to rule the season for almost 30 years and is one of the most famous Christmas songs to date. Now the musician’s annual return to airwaves and Airpods has become a viral joke turned real-life experience, embraced by Carey herself.
“I found out about this joke through social media. I clearly remember seeing a video of Mariah Carey inside an ice cube and I started hearing the instrumentals to her Christmas song as the ice gradually melted. It was definitely something,” sophomore Amira Iqbal said.
The joke slowly started gaining more recognition after 2017 when people started posting different comments about the meme on X (formerly known as Twitter), but the specific phrase “Mariah Carey Is Defrosting As We Speak” became well known around Fall 2020 when X user @HoshizoraOW posted a viral video displaying the singer trapped behind ice with the phrase as the caption. Many other users joked that Carey was frozen or in hibernation for the entire year, and only started defrosting when it was time to release more holiday hits.
“Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ is played on a loop every year in shops and on the radio along with other Christmas songs. It’s become a meme of sorts; even Carey has become aware of it,” junior Saanvi Eluru said.
Carey’s annual unfreezing every holiday season has only increased in reputation as the years pass. Even the vocalist has addressed the craze, recently posting a TikTok contributing to it. The video shows a huge safe with a countdown set to open at midnight on Nov. 1. Inside the vault, a group of people in Halloween costumes use hair dryers to melt a huge block of ice, in which Carey is frozen. Suddenly, the ice shatters and the singer belts out her famous line, “It’s Time!” with its signature high note. Her trademark song “All I Want For Christmas Is You” follows after the big entrance and accompanies a group of elves and Carey’s own children as they start dancing in the snow with the celeb.
“I think knowing about this [yearly event] made me like Mariah Carey a little more because it makes her seem pretty humorous, which I think is always nice to see in celebs. Her song definitely got stuck in my head, as well as when she sang her ‘It’s Time’ part,” junior Alaina Garcia said.
The musician’s acknowledgment of the trend occurred last year too, when Carey posted a short video to her Instagram, first showing herself dressed up as a witch in a spooky forest, then transitioning to her in a Santa bodysuit atop a reindeer with snowflakes flurrying down.
Carey’s participation in the joke shows that she accepts and even encourages others to declare her breaking out of the ice as the first and possibly the largest sign that Christmas is on the way.
“This joke might be reinforcing her music career by bringing back her reputable song every Christmas… but I find it pretty funny [too], as it seems as though everyone just unanimously decided to choose Mariah Carey as some sort of mascot for Christmas,” Iqbal said.
The renowned singer is certainly a prominent symbol of the holly jolly season, and her contagious enthusiasm in hurrying along Christmas’s arrival prompts everyone to be in a festive mood a month earlier than expected.
