'Gotta Go Fast' is a catchphrase attached to a crudely drawn Sonic the Hedgehog fan art that started spreading through forums like YouChew and Fanboys in 2008. Fans grabbed the line from the English Sonic X theme song and paired it with the ugly Sonic sketch, and the joint template became the go-to way to draw characters badly on Tumblr and deviantArt.
Origin
The song "Gotta Go Fast" opened every episode of the English Sonic X dub, which aired from 2003 through 2006[2]. The original artist is not known.
- Platform: YouChew Forums / Tumblr (viral spread)
- Creator: Unknown
- Date: 2008
Overview
"Gotta Go Fast" is a catchphrase paired with a crudely drawn Sonic the Hedgehog fan art. The line comes from the opening theme of the English dub of Sonic X[1], the anime that first aired in 2003 as part of Sega's Sonic franchise[2]. Fans smashed the song lyric and the ugly Sonic sketch together, and the pairing stuck.
The picture shows Sonic with mangled proportions, twitchy eyes, and a lazy blue paint job. Derivatives of the drawing later picked up the nickname "Sanic," a purposely worse redraw that spread across Tumblr and deviantArt. People pull out the phrase whenever anything moves quickly, from tool-assisted speedruns to unrelated fast objects and animals[4].
How It Spread
About a month later, on February 19, 2008, a Fanboys Forum user reposted the drawing in a thread titled "Hilariously bad fanart"[3]. On April 22, 2008, deviantArt member ingridarcher uploaded the earliest known parody, Scout from Team Fortress 2 drawn in the same broken style. That set the template for redrawing other characters badly and slapping the phrase on them.
By April 2009, Fanboys ran a follow-up thread called "The Hilariously Bad Art Thread" that pulled in more than 4,500 replies over the next four years[3]. The phrase was already floating around 4chan by May 2008, and the earliest archived posting of the image on the site hit the /r9k/ board on August 4, 2010. In October 2010, someone dropped the picture into the Tumblr blog Fuck Yeah Terrible Art, and a Facebook fan page opened November 27, 2010.
The joke got its own single-topic hubs in the years that followed. The Tumblr blog Gotta Go Fanart launched on July 8, 2011, collecting fan redraws of other characters in the same botched Sonic style. A second Tumblr, sanic-hedgehog, followed in July 2012 and pushed the "Sanic" nickname across the site. Urban Dictionary entries piled up too, applying the line to speedrun clips and to anyone in a hurry[4].
How to Use
The template is typically a character redrawn in the same lopsided cartoon style as the original Sonic sketch, then paired with the caption "Gotta Go Fast" or a stretched-out version like "GOTTA GO FASTER FASTER FASTER"[4]. People often swap Sonic for a different fast subject: a car, an animal, a speedrun clip, or an unrelated character mid-sprint.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Gotta Go Fast?
It's a catchphrase pulled from the English Sonic X theme song[1] that got attached to a crudely drawn piece of Sonic the Hedgehog fan art in 2008, becoming a template for drawing other characters badly.
Where did Gotta Go Fast come from?
The phrase is the opening lyric of the Sonic X English dub theme, which ran from 2003 to 2006[2]. The bad Sonic drawing showed up on the YouChew forums on January 26, 2008, when a poster named Cortes reposted it from the Sonic Central fan gallery.
What does Gotta Go Fast mean?
It's used ironically to comment on anything moving quickly, from Sonic speedruns to random fast objects, animals, or people in a hurry[4].
How do you use Gotta Go Fast?
Redraw a character in the same lopsided style as the original Sonic sketch and caption it with the phrase, or use the line as a reaction to something speeding up[4].
Is Gotta Go Fast still popular?
The meme peaked between 2010 and 2013 across Tumblr, deviantArt and 4chan and settled into a classic Sonic fandom in-joke, with the Sanic redraw carrying it forward on Tumblr from July 2012[3].
