Christian singer Rich Mullins used the cup game to accompany his song "Screen Door" on his 1987 album Pictures in the Sky.
[2] It was used by Palavra Cantada (Paulo Tatit & Sandra Peres) in 1998 with the song "Fome Come" from their album "Canções Curiosas".
In 2011 the cup game was again used by Anna Burden to accompany the song "When I'm Gone" in a YouTube video that went viral.
Anna Kendrick taught herself to copy Burden's video, and this was worked into her performance in the 2012 film Pitch Perfect, her version "Cups (When I'm Gone)" in turn becoming widely copied with a 2013 video after the single from the soundtrack rose on the national and international charts.
One such game is called "Acitrón de un fandango" (or various alternate spelling), and is said to originate in Mexico.