Nek minnit is an Internet meme made popular by New Zealand skateboarder Levi Hawken. Hawken appeared in a viral video which shows his scooter, apparently destroyed outside a dairy. The "nek minnit" video spawned many parodies and has become a popular slang term among the people of New Zealand. In a 2019 interview with RNZ, Hawken discussed the effects of the video on his well-being and his attempts to look for a 'silver lining'. He has had a passion for skateboarding since a young age, and works on using concrete as a medium for building sculptures.
The video
Levi Hawken is a professional skateboarder from Dunedin, New Zealand who suffers from ectodermal dysplasia. The condition caused his hair and teeth to grow abnormally, which resulted in him being bullied as a child. In the "nek minnit" video, Hawken appears shirtless with a shaven head; his missing teeth have also been noted by many viewers. The video takes place in a Fairfield, Otagoskatepark; Hawken announces, "Left my scooter outside the dairy; nek minnit...", the camera then tilts to show Hawken's broken scooter. The nine-second-long clip was recorded for South in Your Mouth, an independent skate film by Colin Evans, Hawken's friend; however, the "nek minute" video was uploaded separately. The video was popularised in mid-2011, and was viewed on YouTube 600,000 times by late September 2011; at December 2011, the video had received over 1.5 million views. By August 2018, it had reached 4.4 million. The phrase "nek minute" was the sixth most searched term in New Zealand on internet search engineGoogle in 2011, and was voted the runner-up in the 2011 "Word of the Year" poll by website Public Address.
Parodies
The TV3 show The Jono Project ran a segment on one episode titled Food in a Nek Minnit each segment featured Levi Hawken and parodied the advertisements seen weeknights on TV One called Food in a Minute. The first clip had Hawken cooking a rather complex dish in a minute. A later clip had Hawken cooking two-minute noodles and after saying Nek minnit, Hawken decided the noodles might need another minute. Hawken also appears in a separate parody of another TV3 show, "60 Nek Minnits", as "Mike McMinnits". The phrase nek minnit has been parodied by many people and organisations:
The New Zealand Drug Foundation wrote on Twitter: "In 2009 we conducted research into NZ drug driving habits, nek minnit we kicked off our driving high info project."
Band Youth Empire released a single titled "Nek Minnit" on 7 October 2011.