A chicken, the animal associated with the popular ‘Chicken Jockey’ meme and trend. (James Wainscoat, Unsplash.)

Over the past few weeks, the new release of ‘A Minecraft Movie’ has become a large topic of conversation because of its fun characters and great humor, regardless of the mediocre plot.

The Minecraft movie follows four misfits who are pulled into the Minecraft world. They team up with Steve to find a way back home while facing challenges and quests in the Overworld. 

The main cast must get back to the Overworld by finding the Orb of Dominance locked away in the woodland mansion. The main villain, Malgosha, a Piglin Leader, wants to conquer the Overworld out of revenge for being criticized in the Piglin’s Got Talent.

With the premiere and being a topic of conversation, the movie made a revenue of $720M globally (as of this article being posted).

With comedian and actor Jack Black being casted as the role as ‘Steve’ with his lines from the several trailers becoming memes such as, “I am Steve”, “Flint and Steel”, “Chicken Jockey”, “The Nether”, and “Water Bucket Release” the comedic side of this film has drawn attention from audience members. 

However the most popular meme line of them all is “Chicken Jockey”. 

Steve says the line during the scene where Garrott (played by Jason Momoa) has the evil villagers force him to fight a Chicken Jockey, a baby zombie riding a chicken. Steve is tied up at one corner of the boxing ring near where Garrott is, and as soon as the Chicken Jockey is revealed; Steve hollers, “Chicken Jockey!”

With being caught by surprise, many viewers found that line to be humorous which sparked lots of parodies and memes across the internet.

“It is funny and the shared experience of this meme is enjoyable but the chaos of it can lead to some negative interactions,” William Rayner (9) said.

Multiple clips posted on TikTok show teenagers, and even adults, throwing entire buckets of popcorn at the screen, cheering incredibly loudly at the scene, vomiting all over the floor, setting off fireworks in the movie theater, and even bringing live chickens and setting them loose in the movie theaters.

Getting out of hand, theaters put up signs telling people not to do this kind of thing in the movie theaters as well as kick people out and shut down the movie showing early, and even calling law enforcement. 

When students were polled on their thoughts of the movie, many expressed their happiness for the Chicken Jockey meme but discussed their concerns for the mass amounts of chaos being caused through the movie theaters.

Many students believe that it’s fun to joke around and laugh out loud, but it’s important to be respectful towards others.

“I think it is bad in some circumstances when it comes to vandalism, but it is funny when everyone sings to the Lava Chicken song,” said Isabella Carty (9)

Some viewers are very upset and critical of the outcomes from the Chicken Jockey trend.

“I think that it’s absolutely stupid. There’s zero reason for why people should be throwing stuff in the cinema and trashing the place. Thankfully my theatre was super respectful and nobody threw anything or did anything, but it’s crazy to me how people are throwing things,” Bailey O’Day (11) said. 

Some people suggest measures to prevent this kind of chaos from happening again. 

“Personally, I would’ve had police officers on standby every time the film was running, but they really didn’t do anything to prevent the cataclysm. They should’ve done more than just yell at people,” Trevor Markus (9) said.

Adam Lawson (12), a worker at a local movie theatre, expressed how this trend could actually benefit the theatre industry. 

“I work at a theater so I’m cleaning that messed up theater and I think that allowing people to do this creates marginal growth in sales so if I were the owner, I’d allow it,” Lawson said.

One student has plenty of things to say on this trend as a whole, and the people involved with it.

“I think the chaos derives from the fact that the game that the movie is based off of is a game that my entire generation grew up playing, so the game is extremely iconic. [Some] people have been waiting for this movie for like 16 years as of this point,” Jaxton Barber (10) said.