Hollywood has needed a huge hit for a while now, and out of nowhere, the Minecraft movie is delivering.
After crushing its opening weekend, the movie has become a pop culture phenomenon, with viral screenings, insane crowd behavior, and movie theaters left figuring out how to both embrace ticket sales and not have a mess on their hands.
At the center of all this is the Chicken Jockey Trend, a thing that I had no idea what it was until I saw some wild Instagrams and heard some kids talking about it.
Today, I want to unpack that, its effects, and how theaters are dealing with it.
Let’s dive in.
What Are Minecraft Chicken Jockeys?
I don’t know much about the Minecraft Movie aside from the fact it has a huge lesson for Hollywood.
So I had to really put some research into this topic. I talked to a few kids and tried to Google. If I am wrong about this stuff, I apologize.
In Minecraft the game, a Chicken Jockey is a rare hostile mob combination. It consists of a Baby Zombie (or variant like Baby Zombie Villager, Baby Zombified Piglin, Baby Drowned, or Baby Husk) riding a Chicken.
They have a small chance of spawning naturally where chickens and baby zombies (or their variants) can spawn. They can also be created if a baby zombie variant attempts to ride a nearby chicken.
Now, according to some kids I know, these are not like good things to come across in the game.
They’re really rare occurrences that means you’ve been playing for a while or are experiencing something not many people do.
Key Characteristics and Behaviors in the game:
- Rarity: They are uncommon encounters compared to standard mobs.
- Hostility: The combination is hostile and will attack players, villagers, and iron golems on sight.
- Speed: The Baby Zombie controls the movement, making Chicken Jockeys surprisingly fast and agile, just like a standalone Baby Zombie.
- No Fall Damage: Crucially, the Chicken prevents both itself and its rider from taking any damage from falls, no matter the height.
- Size: They retain the small hitbox of the Baby Zombie rider, making them harder to hit.
- Egg Laying: Like normal chickens, the chicken part of the jockey can still lay eggs occasionally.
- Sunlight: The zombie rider will burn in sunlight unless it has a helmet or is in water/shade (though Baby Husks and Baby Zombified Piglins are immune to burning). The chicken is unaffected by sunlight.
- Separation: If the chicken is killed, the baby zombie rider survives (unless killed by the same blow). If the rider is killed, the chicken becomes passive.
According to the Minecraft game wiki: “Each baby zombie, baby husk, baby zombie villager, baby zombified piglin, or baby drowned that spawns as a 5% chance to check for an existing chicken within a 10×6×10 box centered on the baby’s spawn location and spawn riding one of those chickens if there are any.”
It continues, “If it fails that 5% chance, there is an additional 5% chance of the baby zombie spawning mounted on a new chicken,” the wiki entry adds. “In a chicken-free environment, each spawned zombie has a 0.25% chance of becoming a chicken jockey; if chickens are present, the chance increases to 0.4875%.”
The Chicken Jockey Trend in The Minecraft Movie
Okay, so if you went to see the Minecraft movie, you know there is a famous scene where Jason Momoa’s character has to face off against a chicken jockey. and during that scene, audiences in theaters go absolutely nuts.
There is a “Chicken Jockey Trend” sweeping the entire Minecraft community in the way some other memes or challenges have.
When this happens, you form your own chicken jockey by hopping on someone’s back and going bonkers in the theater. People are throwing popcorn, bringing in real chickens, and screaming.
Like many things in gaming, a funny or unexpected encounter with a Chicken Jockey captured on video can go viral on platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Reddit.
This mirrors when a popular Minecraft streamer or YouTuber has a significant or amusing encounter with a Chicken Jockey in the game, their large audience might start talking about it, creating a trend within that specific community.
I really feel like an old man explaining kids having fun to you guys, but here’s where we are.
What Are Movie Theaters Doing About It?
Movie theaters are not so enthusiastic about people going nuts in their theaters. The sea of popcorn and debris is hard to clean up, and theater owners are worried about kids getting hurt.
Up top, I’m sure you saw the video of the guy with the actual live chicken, that also presents some worried about animal cruelty and safety in and of itself.
There have been reports of theaters kicking people out, stopping the movie, and patrons who bring kids to just watch having to deal with people being disruptive.
But also…ticket sales.
We need these kids in movies having a blast and having a communal experience they can’t get at home. So there’s a lot of give and take here.
Summing It all Up
So, in the end, this is just a viral trend of kids being kids, having fun with one another, and making kind of a mess. I would judge them, but I had many of these experiences in my youth and it made me love and want to work in movies.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Author: Jason Hellerman
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
