YMMV / Pharrell Williams

• Common Knowledge: Despite what many claim, he did not invent the term "bae". In fact, Genius cites the word dating back all the way to 2005.
• Harsher in Hindsight: “Don’t Don’t Do It”, which is about unarmed Black people who have been killed by police, becomes this when Pharrell’s own cousin, Donovan Lynch, was killed by a cop in 2021.
• Ho Yay: On the intro to Kelis’s debut album Kaleidoscope, Pharrell details how he and Chad (as space explorers) found Kelis as an infant on the planet Kelapolis, while “showing” Kelis at different ages throughout the song. Given that this intro implies that Pharrell and Chad adopted and raised Kelis, wouldn’t that also be implying that Pharrell and Chad are Kelis’s dads?
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Pharrell is a vampire ^note  A common response by fans as to why he never seems to age and why he's more or less looked the same for the past 30 years
  • Pharrell looks like a sewer rat ^note  A tweet that was featured in the "Mean Tweets" segment of Jimmy Kimmel's show.
  • My love is kung-fu ^note  A lyric video to his song "Hunter" interpreted the lyric "my love is calling" as this, causing many fans to mock the creator of the video for it.
  • GUESS YOU AIN'T HEARD THAT WE SWALLOW GUYS ^note  A somewhat infamous line from N.E.R.D's song "Rockstar". It's actually a (very badly executed) metaphor for "eating M Cs", however, many fans ended up interpreting it another way...
  • When Pharrell had bright orange hair back in late 2017, fans nicknamed it "hot cheeto hair".
  • Pharrell needs Chad ^note  Basically the Neptunes fandom’s way of saying that Pharrell’s solo work sucks. Chad is more liked by Neptunes fans than Pharrell, which is why many fans believe that in order to make good music, Pharrell needs Chad. Expect to see this phrase anywhere Pharrell’s solo work is being discussed
• Narm Charm: One thing that Pharrell is known for is his somewhat amateurish singing voice, specifically his screechy falsetto. While this may not always be pleasing to the ears, many fans prefer his more amateurish style of singing from his early work over his more heavily auto-tuned vocals from his later work, as they find it has more charm and personality to it.
• Older Than They Think: Many younger people think that he was a new name in the music business when "Happy" rose to prominence in 2013, but Pharrell actually broke out into the scene as a lead artist in 2003 with "Frontin'" featuring Jay-Z, and was even a featured artist on "Drop It Like It's Hot" long before "Happy" was even made. In fact, some people didn't even know that he was featured in "Blurred Lines" despite having heard that song before "Happy".
• Signature Song: "Happy" undoubtedly serves as this for him, becoming his first (and so far only) #1 hit as a lead artist and remaining at the #1 spot for ten weeks. It's an extremely iconic song that everyone knows all the lyrics to and tied to an immensely successful animated movie. It ended up as the #1 song on the 2014 Billboard Hot 100 Year-End charts.
  • For N*E*R*D, it's either "Lapdance" or "She Wants to Move".
  • For the Neptunes, it's "Frontin'".
• Song Association: For anyone who's seen the movie, it's impossible to hear "Happy" without thinking of Despicable Me 2.
• Title Confusion: Because of the way the titles were arranged on the album art (combined with the fact that the album itself saw no promotion at all save for a few news articles), many listeners were left confused as to whether the title of his 2024 release was “Virginia”, “Black Yacht Rock”, or “City Of Limitless Access”. Though Genius lists the title of the album as being Black Yacht Rock Vol. 1: City of Limitless Access, with Virginia being the artist name it was released under, it is still common to see people refer to the album itself as “Virginia”.
• Tough Act to Follow: People who liked "Happy" did not treat Pharrell's follow-up "Come Get It Bae" as well. This was mainly due to popularizing a moronic Internet slang term, being less kid-friendly than its predecessor, its repetitive melody, and featuring the then-controversial Miley Cyrus.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Despite his Signature Song being extremely kid-friendly and working on the family-friendly Despicable Me franchise, the rest of his material is not kid-friendly, as he's sung about or been featured in songs about sexualized women, drugs, and gang violence.

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