Gen Z is nothing if not dedicated in their endless crusade to baffle and confuse older generations. Now, with the surprisingly not-terrible A Minecraft Movie making huge waves in theaters, a certain scene in the movie has gone viral.
This is known as the “chicken jockey” scene. If you are taking your children to see the movie, or for some reason making a trek out with friends to see it for yourself, expect chaos to erupt the moment Jack Black screams the words “chicken jockey!”.
Multiplexes have reported gigantic tubs of popcorn being thrown over the entire crowd, people screaming and running up and down the aisles, and general widespread chaos. In the U.K. the cops were even called after one chicken jockey moment got out of hand! So, what in the heck is a chicken jockey and why is everyone losing their minds over it?
What is a chicken jockey?
As you might expect, a “chicken jockey” arises from the video game Minecraft. It is pretty much what you’d expect: someone riding a chicken in the manner of a person riding a horse. However, this is a relatively rare occurrence in-game. As per the Minecraft wiki:
“Each baby zombie, baby husk, baby zombie villager, baby zombified piglin, or baby drowned that spawns has 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.
If it fails that 5% chance, there is an additional 5% chance of the baby zombie spawning mounted on a new chicken. 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%.”
Whatever else you think of A Minecraft Movie, nobody can deny that the writers aren’t intimately familiar with relatively obscure things within the game and things popular with the Minecraft fan community. As such, seeing the chicken jockey make it into the movie is exactly the kind of fan service we like.
Why is everyone losing their minds?
The over-the-top reactions in theaters appear to be an attempt at mimicking popular Minecraft streamers. As a chicken jockey is a relatively rare enemy to see, streamers tend to have a big reaction to one spawning. But even those unaware of that origin will almost certainly have seen the snowballing meme videos all over TikTok and X from theaters showing this moment, and be copying that:
the minecraft movie is truly one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen but the universal reaction to “chicken jockey” im seeing made it all worth it. pic.twitter.com/0mxgliSYEp
— ollie 🧡🤍🩷 (@ollie_twt) April 5, 2025
I need to know, are there people who actually enjoy watching a movie like this? pic.twitter.com/v9NSSe0sqd
— Andrew (Toycat) (@ibxtoycat) April 5, 2025
Though I feel sorry for the poor cinema workers who have to clean this up, A Minecraft Movie is a very silly experience, and if you absolutely have to act up in a movie theater, this is definitely one movie where you’re unlikely to be “shushed”.
Published: Apr 7, 2025 09:35 am