The clip comes from a YouTube upload titled with the question of whether Clarkson uttered the world's first 'yeet' in 1998, and it spread from there as a found-footage joke. During that era Clarkson was at the height of his fame as a Top Gear presenter, which made the coincidence irresistible to car-culture meme pages and Clarkson fans. It became shorthand for claiming anyone did something before it was cool. The gag works because the modern 'yeet' meme only exploded in the mid-2010s, making the clip feel like a time-travelling artifact rather than a genuine catchphrase.