About

#FullMcIntosh is a Twitter hashtag primarily used by the pro-GamerGate camp to mock various arguments put forth by pop culture critic Jonathan McIntosh and other social justice bloggers in the gaming world that they perceive as being illogical and absurd.

Origin

The term #FullMcIntosh was coined on October 16th, 2014, after Jonathan McIntosh retweeted an article posted by Badass Digest author Devin Faraci.^[2] That same day, Twitter user @Sargon_Of_Akkad took a screencap of the tweets and criticized both McIntosh and Faraci, while coining the hashtag #FullMcIntosh in the process,^[3] in reference to the expression “You Just Went Full Retard”. The message was favorited 92 times and was retweeted 85 times.

Jonathan McIntosh

Jonathan McIntosh, the subject of the hashtag, is a producer and writer of the divisive “Tropes VS Women” video series hosted by Anita Sarkeesian. His presence on Twitter^[1] exploded during the events of the GamerGate controversy, which he became involved in.

Spread

On October 20rd, Twitter user @Scrumpmonkey^[9] posted a line chart illustrating the range of the so-called McIntosh Scale, which garnered over 110 retweets and more than 100 favorites in less than a week.

In the following days, the usage of the hashtag increased exponentially when McIntosh compared the colors on Vivian James’s t-shirt to Piccolo Dick, implicitly equating the color scheme to rape.^[4] In response, many detractors began mocking his statement by indiscriminately labeling characters that are drawn in green-and-purple color scheme as rapists.

#BeyondMcIntosh

In addition to #FullMcIntosh, similar hashtag #BeyondMcIntosh is used for particularly extreme statements.^[5] The hashtag spread to Tumblr shortly afterward, where one post that explained the significance of the term gained 12 notes.^[6] The hashtag eventually caught Jonathan McIntosh’s attention on October 27, 2014, at which point he objected to the criticism.

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About

Espurr^[10] is a Psychic-type Pokémon introduced in the 2013 Nintendo 3DS role-playing video games Pokémon X and Pokémon Y. Upon the titles’ release in October 2013, the character quickly developed a fan following online for its vacant stare and aloofness. Its popularity is reminiscent to that of Snivy, a starter Pokémon introduced in Black and White, that earned the fan name “Smugleaf” for its seemingly conceited facial expression.

Origin

On May 18th, 2013, PokeBeach^[1] and GoNintendo^[5] both released a number of details about Pokémon X and Y considered “insider information.” One of these tips was the introduction of a Psychic-type Pokemon named Espurr that evolves into Meowstick, which the poster assumed would be a cat.

The Character

Espurr is the only character in the species of Restraint Pokémon. They can be captured in the wild on Route 6 and will either have the ability Keen Eye, which makes the user immune to accuracy-reducing moves, or Infiltrator, which allows the user to bypass the effects of the moves Reflect, Light Screen, Safeguard and Substitute when used by the opponent. InX, Espurr is described as having an organ that emits its psychic power covered by its ears while in Y, its description suggests the creature’s energy can destroy everything within 300 feet of itself. At level 25, it evolves into Meowstic, which has two different move sets depending on the creature’s gender.

Spread

Also on May 18th, a screenshot of the PokeBeach article was shared on 4chan’s /vp/^[2] (Pokémon), where a poster pointed out the name “Espurr” was already being used for a fan-made Fakémon created by members of the Bulbagarden Oekaki forum in November 2012. Posters initially believed that the existence of Espurr as a Fakémon was proof that the rumor about Espurr in X and Y would be false.^[4] However, this was disputed on the GameFAQs^[11] boards, where posters found other examples of official Pokémon whose names had been used previously by fans. Throughout the month of May, dozens of posts about Espurr were made on /vp/^[6], as some artists on deviantART^[7] began drawing their interpretations of what the Pokémon would look like (shown below).

On October 1st, an Instagram user who got a copy of the game early leaked a now-deleted photo (shown below) of Espurr’s appearance in the Pokédex. That day, the screenshot was reposted to PokemonXandPokemonY.com^[12] and fan art based on this design began appearing on deviantART.^[13] On October 2nd, the image was reshared on the /r/Pokemon^[14] subreddit, where it received 218 upvotes, 159 points overall and 27 comments

Pokémon X and Y were released worldwide on October 12th, 2013. The same day, a screenshot of an Espurr mid-battle was submitted to /r/Pokemon^[15] with the title “Espurr has seen some shit.” The post accrued more than 1,000 upvotes, nearly 850 points overall and more than 100 comments all discussing the character’s blank stare. On the 14th, an image macro titled “Espurr, are you okay?” showing the character having a war flashback (shown below) was shared on both /r/Pokemon^[16] and /r/Gaming^[17] where it received more than 24,00 and 1,500 overall points respectively. The image was also reposted on FunnyJunk^[18], Pokememes^[19] and Dorkly.^[20]

On October 20th, the role playing blog Actual-Deranged-Espurr^[21] was created on Tumblr, posting as if the creator was an Espurr. The same day, @Espurr_eBooks^[22] launched on Twitter as a parody of Horse_Ebooks. On the 21st, the single topic blog espurrs-face-on-things began posting photoshopped images of other characters with their eyes or other facial features replaced with those of the Pokémon (shown below).

Notable Examples

Additional fan art of Espurr can be found on Tumblr^[7], deviantART^[8] and Pixiv.^[9]

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About

Keyhole Turtleneck (Japanese: 胸開きタートルネック, lit. “Open-Chest Turtleneck”), also called “That Turtleneck” (例のタートルネック) or “That Sweater” (例のセーター) in the same manner of That Pool, is a sexy turtleneck sweater which chest is open. Triggered by a female cosplayer’s tweet on Twitter, the sweater suddenly became a new fetish item in the Japanese Otaku culture on December 2014.

Origin

On December 4th, 2014, a Japanese cosplayr Myako (みゃこ)^[1] tweeted photos of a keyhole turtleneck sweater and herself wearing it (shown below).^[2] This turtleneck is listed in a catalog under number CNT-124 and was released by Japanese fashion brand COMFILAX with the price of 5,500 yen without tax. The tweet by the famous sexy cosplayer was immediately shared on the social web, and managed to earn over 40,000 retweets and 30,000 favorites within the first 5 days after posting.

今ってこんなタートルネック売ってあるんだね…！ pic.twitter.com/yfgolr7GLd

— みゃこ (@myakkomyako) December 4, 2014

Fetishisms of “Breasts Sack” and “Ribbed Sweaters”

Prior to the craze of the keyhole turtleneck, there were 2 pre-existing otaku fetishes or Moe trends that raised in the Japanese otaku culture in the past few years: “Chichi Bukuro” (乳袋, lit. “Breasts Sack”) and “Tate-Seta” (たてセタ or 縦セタ), an abbreviation for “Tatesen Sētā” (縦線セーター, lit. “Vertical-Lined Sweaters”). The former, Breasts Sack, refers to an illustration style which depicts clothes line along with the shape of underboob. This came to be often featured in otaku illustrations after 2009. The latter, “Tate-Seta”, refers to a fetishism of ribbed sweaters which fits to big boob’s sexy lines and its vertical-lined textures emphasize it. The allure of ribbed sweaters, especially turtlenecks, became well-known by this term circa late 2011, and it has been a very popular item in the Breasts Sack fetishism. Nowadays, there are tons of illustrations for these fetishes on online illustrators communities such as pixiv^[3] and Nico Nico Seiga.^[4]

Examples of Breasts Sack by Ribbed Sweater
Left: Rinko Iori from Gundam Build Fighters | Right: Azusa Miura from THE iDOLM@STER

Therefore, the online storm of this keyhole turtleneck was not a completely new one, but partly derived from the ribbed sweater fetishism, and was boosted by people’s surprise to the fact that such item actually exists in real life.

Spread

Inspired by this sexy keyhole turtleneck, amateur, and even professional, illustrators began creating their own illustrations featuring or parodying it on Twitter^[5], pixiv^[6] and Nico Nico Seiga.^[7] The amount of those illustrations had reached over 1 thousand within its first week. Additionally, some of coplayers bought and took selfies with it.

This online storm by the sexy turtleneck was covered by Japanese online gossip news media ITmedia^[8][9] as well as Crunchyroll^[10] and English news blog RocketNews.^[11]

Various Examples

Twitter Feed

Editor’s note: This Twitter Feed may include mature contents.

Images

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos/illustrations listed in this section.

About

“Bae Come Over” is an expression typically used by teenage couples to invite one’s significant other (“bae”) over to his or her home, especially in the absence of parental supervision. On Tumblr, such call for intimacy, or more commonly referred to as “the booty call,” is most often parodied in the form of fictional dialogues in which the boyfriend undertakes a perilous journey to his girlfriend’s place upon being informed that her parents aren’t home.

Origin

On January 11th, 2014, the earliest known example of the meme was posted by the @FunnyPicsDepot^[4]Twitter feed, featuring a man pushing his car in order to reach his girlfriend (shown below). In 10 months, the tweet gained over 2,400 retweets and 1,600 favorites.

Spread

On March 23rd, 2014, Viner Jack Leonard uploaded a video titled “When the bae texts you to come over,” in which a boyfriend transformed into a turtle attempts to climb over a fence to reach his girlfriend (shown below, left). On April 12th, Leonard posted a second video featuring a boyfriend driving his entire house over to see his girlfriend (shown below, right).

On June 13th, the Internet humor site Mandatory^[2] highlighted several notable examples from the series. On September 19th, Tumblr^[4] user a-sylveon posted a mock conversation in which a boyfriend rushes to see his girlfriend after informing him she is about to sign a contract (shown below, left). On June 21st, BuzzFeed^[3] highlighted multiple Twitter examples of the meme. On November 21st, Tumblr^[5] user imabeast78 posted a mock conversation in which a boy rushes over to see his girlfriend after she informs him that she has the game Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

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About

“Copy That” is a memorable quote said by an actor portraying a store clerk at the American computer and video game retailer EB Games in a video advertisement for the 2014 first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Upon its online debut in mid-December 2014, both the screenshot of the store clerk and the phrase from the commercial went on to inspire a series of parody illustrations and photoshopped images on 4chan and Tumblr.

Origin

The 30-second spot commercial was first released online via the official YouTube channel for EB Games Canada on December 16th, 2014 (shown below). In the video, two fans of the Call of Duty franchise race to an EB Games store to purchase the eleventh installation in the series, Advanced Warfare, which was released for PC, Xbox and Playstation in November 2014. Upon arriving at the store, the customers immediately ask for copies of Advanced Warfare, to which a store employee with a visibly lanky neck and soft-spoken voice enthusiastically responds “copy that,” an affirmative expression typically used in military radio communications and frequently heard throughout the video game series.

Spread

On December 19th, a link to the EB Games commercial video on YouTube was submitted to Reddit’s /r/videos community^[15], where it soon reached the frontpage of the site after accumulating more than 3,800 upvotes and over 2,200 comments prior to its archival. On the following day, the video advertisement was highlighted by MemeCenter in a post titled “EB Games Makes The Absolute Worst Ad – Copy That!” In the next 48 hours, the video was re-submitted at least twice to Reddit, first to /r/xboxone on December 21st and then to /r/poetry on December 22nd. Throughout the month, the original advertisement, as well as various screenshots of the EB Games store clerk, were posted on several sub-boards of 4chan, including /v/ (video games), /tv/ (television) and /s4s/ (shit4chansays), not to mention its appearance on general video game discussion forums like GameFAQs. On December 27th, a Facebook page was launched to curate a series of photoshopped images based on the exploitable image, and on the next day, a single topic blog was created on Tumblr with a similar purpose.

Notable Examples

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About

Everyword (@everyword) is a novelty Twitter account which tweets out one word every 30 minutes from an alphbetical list of over 100,000 English language words. Launched in November 2007, the account is scheduled to complete the list in June 2014.

Origin

The Twitter account @Everyword^[1] sent out its first tweet on November 30th, 2007, which featured the first word in the English language, “A.” The account was created by poet and computer programmer Allison Parrish^[3][12] as her graduate project for the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.

The account is run by a Python script that consistently tweets one word every thirty minutes. It gets the words from a list Parrish found online which contains 109,229 words.^[4] As of June 2014, the account has tweeted more than 109,0000 words in the English language and managed to gain over 95,000 followers. The account completed its task on June 7th, 2014.

Spread

On October 8th, 2011, Gawker^[6] published a profile of @Everyword creator Adam Parrish titled “One Man’s Quest to Tweet Every Word in the English Language.” In it, Parrish explained his motivation for beginning the account saying:

“It began as kind of a snarky stunt---a parody of (what I perceived to be) the needless verbosity of Twitter. ‘You like posting words on Twitter? Well, here’s a thing that is posting EVERY word! ha HA!’”

On April 24th, 2012, Nick Bilton^[7] wrote about @everyword in a blog post titled “The Letter “P” and the Everyword Bot,” which revealed that, at the time of the writing, the account’s most shared favorited tweets all began with the letter “P," possibly due to an exceptionally visible presence of profane language in them. However as of June 2014, the three most shared and favorited tweets^[13] are sex, weed and vagina.

On September 4th, 2013, Artcritical^[8] published a post titled “The Geeky Singularity is Near: Carla Gannis Shares Her Bookmarks,” which included @Everyword. On May 23rd, 2014, The Washington Post published an article titled “What happens when @everyword ends?” which examined the account’s history and legacy in light of its upcoming completion. In early June 2014, several websites reported on the account’s end date, including Buzzfeed^[2] and The Wall Street Journal.

Notable Examples

SearchEveryWord

On April 19th, 2013, John Holden^[10], self described “projectist,” launched searcheveryword/for-sentences^[11], a search engine for @Everyword tweets which allows the user to enter a sentence and see the @Everyword tweets containing the words which make up the sentence. A few months before the sentence search engine was launched, Holden released a basic, single word search^[9] for @Everyword tweets.

Derivatives

After the original script gained popularity, many other Twitters undertook the basic concept of @Everyword, either expanding it for parody or humor, or writing a script to tweet individual portions of a similar database. Developers like Ramsey Nasser and vogon have distributed scripts via Github that enable people to create their own style of Twitter bot. Developers of these types of Twitter bot often include when the script will cease running in the profile of the Twitter account – some theoretically extend hundreds of years into the future. Some examples include:

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: This entry may be offensive to some users. View it with your own discretion.

About

Happy Merchant is a cartoon portraying a male Jew based on anti-Semitic views, giving it characterizations such as greed, manipulative, and the need for world domination. Mainly posted on political imageboards such as 4chan’s /pol/ and 4chon’s /new/, it is used both ironically and seriously.

Origin

The original artist who drew the character that would later become the Happy Merchant was drawn by an artist going by the pseudonym A. Wyatt Mann,^[1] in a racist and anti-Semitic piece promoting a world without Jews and blacks (shown below). The cut-out character was first posted on the 4chan board of /new/, prior to its dismantling for its rampant racist sentiment and political incorrectness.

Spread

Common themes found in Happy Merchant comics are mostly based on anti-Semitic ideas such as: a Jewish conspiracy to control the world; greedy Jews, or blaming corporate greed on Jews; fabricating the Holocaust; and blaming the Jewish conspiracy for promoting feminism, homosexuality, “racemixing”, or causing any current calamity. Though long used as a reaction image, it’s unknown when it first gained the title “Le Happy Merchant”, a mocking reference to Reddit users’ ubiquitous usage of “le” as a prefix in rage comics; the earliest example found so far is in a May 2012 /vg/ thread on 4chan.^[6] Posts accompanying the reaction image often take the form of sardonically roleplaying a Jew who gleefully and transparently manipulates the “good goyim” who are duped by his deceptions and as a consequence buy his overpriced products or hold politically liberal views.

Spinoffs derived from the meme on some antisemitic forums around the web^[3] when they reached new boards on 4chan,^[2] particularly on /v/, /r9k/ and /b/. Ylilauta’s /int/ also managed to blend spurdo spärde with the merchant, and produced a somewhat less controversial friendly partnership between “Le American Bear,” a character based on spurdo spärde representing a stereotypical American, and Le Happy Merchant. A page on the satirical website Encyclopedia Dramatica was also submitted.^[7]

Notable Examples

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About

“I Crave That Mineral” is an expression stemming from a captioned photograph of an ibex licking salt off the side of a mountain that was submitted to Tumblr in late October 2014.

Origin

On October 27th, 2014, Tumblr^[2] user sixpenceee posted a photograph of an Alpine ibex licking salt deposits off a mountainside with the caption “They crave that mineral” (shown below). In the first two months, the post gained over 283,000 notes.

Spread

On December 14th, 2014, Tumblr^[3] user Meladoodle submitted a text post saying “Me giving head: I crave that mineral,” which gathered more than 4,400 notes in 72 hours. On the following day, YouTuber Suicide Balloons uploaded a parody of the 2011 pop song “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction titled “Crave That Mineral” (shown below).

On December 16th, a Wikipedia^[1] page titled “I crave that mineral” was created, which was subsequently selected for deletion. The same day, Tumblr^[4] user floozys declared that the catchphrase was “the most unexpected, late entry meme of 2014.” Also on December 16th, Tumblr user Mikasa-Ackerman posted a screen capture from the anime Attack on Titan with the caption “she craves that mineral,” garnering upwards of 9,400 notes in 24 hours (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Tumblr^[5] user santakuroo uploaded a photoshopped version of the original ibex image featuring That Feel Guy and Sad Frog, gaining more than 21,300 notes over the next day (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

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About

Smug Frog, also known as Smug Pepe, is a reaction image of a smug-looking frog based on an original cartoon illustration of Pepe, better known as Feels Good Man and Sad Frog, drawn by webcomic artist Matt Furie.

Origin

The oldest known archived post containing the original derivative (pictured below)^[1] can be dated back to June 2nd, 2011, to a thread on 4chan’s /tv/ (television and film) board, whose purpose was to make fun of the style of humor of the television show The Big Bang Theory.

Spread

The image had been used on 4chan throughout 2011 to 2013^[2]. However, in 2014 the image became used much more frequently than in the previous years, and numerous derivatives based off it had been spawned. Despite having a similar origin, Sad Frog and Smug Frog are often considered to be two different characters. While Sad Frog is often depicted as a friend or a companion of Wojak a.k.a. That Feel Guy, Smug Frog is shown to be abusive or antagonistic towards him.

The first known meta-discussion over Smug Frog occurred on August 13th, 2014, on 4chan’s /v/ board, in a thread discussing the indie game developer Phil Fish.^[3] A few examples of the meme were posted to the thread, triggering conversation regarding Pepe’s transition from Sad Frog to Smug Frog.

Several theories were put forward for Pepe’s change in attitude, ranging from simple newfound optimism,^[4] to the possibility that Pepe represents the average netizen adjusting to the culture of 4chan.^[5]

Notable Examples

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About

Starter packs, sometimes known as starter kits, are a series of multi-panel photo sets meant to illustrate the archetype of a celebrity, company or subculture through a recommended selection of fashion articles, multimedia and other consumer products, much similar to steal her look fashion guides.

Origin

The multi-panel image series on Twitter began to take off in late September 2014, when @ItsLadinaPlis tweeted a photoset consisting of three images showing a top knot bun hairstyle, oversized golden hoop rings and a madonna-style piercing.

Precursors

The term starter kit, defined as “a set of articles or equipment providing the essential items and instructions for taking up a particular activity or process for the first time,” have long been used in commercial and educational literature to describe manuals or instructional guides for beginners; for instance, during the 2014 Brazil World Cup, Twitter unveiled a special starter kit service as a crash-course on the specs of the 16 finalist teams in the tournament.

The earliest known use of the term “starter kit” in internet humor can be traced back to a LOLcat image macro featuring a box full of kittens and the caption reading “THANKYOUFORORDERINGTHECRAZYCATLADYSTARTERKIT” (shown below), which began circulating cute animal blogs and humor sites since as early as December 2011.

Spread

Beginning on November 12th, Twitter^[16] ran wild with hundreds of photoset posts under the names “starter pack” and “starter kit,” with each receiving more than 5.4 million and 640,000 mentions over the course of a week, according to Topsy.^[24]

On November 15th, the first Twitter account dedicated to curating starter kit memes was launched at @starterkits_^[4], followed by @itsStarterKits^[5] and @itsStarterPacks^[15] on the next day. On November 17th, the meme was picked up by several viral media and entertainment news sites, including BuzzFeed^[3], MTV^[7], Hip Hop Wired^[9] and The Atlantic^[6], among others. On the following day, the single topic blog Starter-Packs was created on Tumblr.^[22]

Notable Examples

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About

Press F (X) to Pay Respects is an action prompt from a quick time event featured in the first-person shooter Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Following the game’s release in November 2014, many players mocked the event online for forcing interactivity into the cut scene.

Origin

On November 4th, 2014, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was released. In the opening scene from the game’s second mission, the protagonist Private Jack Mitchell attends the funeral of his best friend who died fighting in South Korea. The player is then asked to “Press F to Pay Respects” if they are playing the game on a PC, or to press the “X” button while playing on a console (shown below).

Spread

On November 2nd, YouTuber doku uploaded a video of the Call of Duty sequence titled “Press X to pay respects,” in which the player is promoted upon touching the casket (shown below, left). On November 3th, Late Night show celebrity Conan O’Brian^[2] reviewed the Call Of Duty game advanced warfare on his clueless gamer episode and criticized most of the gameplay including the “Press X to pay respects” scene.
On November 4th, Redditor ZyreHD submitted a post asking why people were mocking the action cue to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[1] subreddit. On November 10th, YouTuber NFKRZ uploaded a montage parody video titled “COD Advanced Weedfare: Intense Respect Paying” (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

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About

XD is an emoticon of a smiley face guffawing with its mouth open and eyes closed, which is commonly used to convey loud laughter in a similar vein to the use of the acronym “LOL.” On some discussion forums and imageboard communities, the use of the emoticon, along with its phonetic transcription ecks dee, have been met with negative reception and even stigmatized as a form of “shitposting”.

Origin

The exact origin of the emoticon is unknown. The earliest Urban Dictionary^[2] entry for “XD” was submitted by user Johnson on March 29th, 2003, defining it as a “laughing face.” Over the next 12 years, the submission gained over 9,600 up votes.

Spread

On December 23rd, 2003, Urban Dictionary^[5] user Serel submitted an entry for “ecks dee,” defining it as a phonetic spelling of the XD emoticon. On March 19th, 2010, a Facebook^[1] page titled "For all those who hate the “xD” emoticon!" was launched. On September 5th, 2011, YouTuber PronunciationOrator uploaded a video titled “What does XD face mean?”, describing the emoticon as a depiction of a “closed eyes smile” (shown below, left). On May 12th, 2012, YouTuber Not an Alternate Channel uploaded a video titled “Ecks Dee,” featuring a Facebook comment using the XD emoticon (shown below, right).

On March 27th, 2013, League of Legends Forums^[4] member Tempname8956 submitted a thread proposing that the emoticons “XD” and “D:” be banned from multiplayer game chat. On January 16th, 2014, IGN Forums^[6] member RodHumble submitted a post claiming that people who use the XD face are “12 years old”, “aspies”, “forever alones”, “bronies” or “betas.” As of March 2015, the “XD” Interest page on Facebook^[3] has accumulated upwards of 348,000 likes.

Search Interest

External References

About

Bad Luck Brian is an image macro series featuring a photo of a blonde teenage boy wearing a plaid sweater vest and braces, accompanied by captions that describe a variety of embarrassing and tragic occurrences.

Origin

On January 23rd, 2012, the original instance of the meme was submitted to Reddit^[5] by Ian Davies, a long-time friend of Kyle since elementary school, using a yearbook photograph of Kyle with the caption “Takes driving test . . . gets first DUI.” The original post received less than 5 up votes. Later that day, another macro was posted to Reddit^[2] with the caption “Tries to stealthily fart in class / shits” (below right) which reached the front page of the /r/adviceanimals subreddit accumulating over 3,300 up votes in less than 2 months.

Identity

The identity of the subject in the photograph was later revealed as Ohio college student Kyle Craven.^[19]

Spread

On January 29th, 2012, a collection of notable examples were posted on the digital marketing blog Twenty Something.^[11] On March 12th, the series saw a resurgence in popularity when Redditor Very_Juicy submitted a macro to the /r/adviceanimals^[3] subreddit with the caption “Falls asleep in class / wet dream.” Within one week the post had received more than 2,900 up votes.

On March 19th, this instance was reposted to humor site 9gag^[8] where it received more than 48,000 likes within 24 hours. The same post was subsequently pinned on the social photo sharing website Pinterest^[10] the same day. Later that month, additional collections were hosted on Buzzfeed^[13] and Funny or Die.^[14]

The series has continued to spread on sites like FunnyJunk^[7], Tumblr^[7] and the /r/adviceanimals^[12] subreddit. As of June 2012, the Quickmeme^[1] page has received more than 104,047 submissions. Several Facebook pages have also been created for the character, with the largest^[15] having more than 29,000 likes and the second^[16] having more than 24,000.

Motif: Incontinence

Like other advice animals Bear Grylls and College Freshman, a caption trend arose in which the text on the bottom remains consistent. After the “Tries to stealthily fart in class / shits” macro was submitted to Reddit, many other derivatives were produced with “shits” as the bottom caption.

Various Examples

Many examples in the series describe embarrassing situations involving sexuality, bodily functions or current events.

Identity Revealed

On April 11th, 2012, a Redditor claiming to be Bad Luck Brian attempted to do an AMA thread in the Ask Me Anything subreddit, but the thread was removed. The moderator who removed the post left a lengthy comment^[18] explaining why, which received more than 35,000 downvotes, making it one of the most downvoted comments on Reddit of all time. Redditor coyotecarl came back on May 8th with an AMA thread^[17] on the Advice Animals subreddit. The post received 24,722 upvotes and 2017 points overall.

During the thread, he revealed his name is Kyle and the photo was taken as his seventh grade school photo, but the principal made him take it over again because he was under the impression Kyle was making the face on purpose. Over the course of the 3763 comments, Redditors quickly made Bad Luck Brian instances based on stories Kyle told. He also stated that he’s had relatively good luck in his life, once winning an XBox 360 and a PSP within two weeks (below left), he was recognized by actor Seth Rogen in public (below center) and played the hand chimes. (below right)

Template

Search Interest

Search query volume for “bad luck brian” picked up in January of 2012, the same month the first Quickmeme submissions were created.

External References

About

Death Grips is an experimental hip hop group ^[1] originating from Sacramento, California, consisting of drummer Zach Hill, producer Andy “Flatlander” Morin, and vocalist and frontman Stefan “MC Ride” Burnett.^[2][3] The group grew popular in Internet-based music circles for their combination of noise music, industrial music and hip hop. The group’s rise in popularity is mainly credited to the users of 4chan/mu/ board.

Online History

Death Grips released their first single, “Guillotine (It Goes Yah)”, originally from their mixtape Exmilitary, on August 3, 2011.^[5]

The single received positive reviews. The video garnered over two and a half million views, remaining their most popular song to date.

Soon after, the group signed with major label Epic Records. Their album The Money Store was released on April 21, 2012 to heavy acclaim. Pitchfork^[6] gave the album an 8.7 and labelled the album Best New Music. /mu/-based music critic Anthony Fantano gave his first perfect score^[7] to the album.

No Love Deep WebARG and Leak

After the release of The Money Store, the group suddenly cancelled all of their scheduled concerts. Later, they announced on Facebook that the cancellations were due to the fact they were working on a new album called “No Love” (later named No Love Deep Web). A few hours later, a thread was anonymously posted on /mu/ (which later was revealed to have been made by band’s producer Flatlander) with an edited photo from a Pitchfork article, and a link to an encrypted photo only accessible by Tor Network. Those who followed the photo found a note reading “NO LOVEDEEPWEBCOMING OCTOBER23 M0RE TO COME”, along with an unmastered version of The Money Store.

No Love Deep Web was scheduled for release on October 23, 2012. However, on September 30, 2012, Death Grips announced that Epic delayed the release indefinitely. The next day, the band leaked the album to several sources, including Soundcloud and BitTorrent. Epic immediately suspended their contract^[8].

Disbandment and Jenny Death

After the release of their third studio album, Government Plates, on November 13, 2013, and the first half of their album The Powers That B (subtitled Niggas on The Moon), the band posted an image to Facebook and Twitter with handwritten note. The note announced the release of the second half of The Powers That B, subtitled Jenny Death, would come soon. It also claimed that the band had broken up.

“We are now at our best and so Death Grips is over. We have officially stopped. All currently scheduled live dates are canceled. Our upcoming double album The Powers That B will still be delivered worldwide later this year via Harvest/Third Worlds Records. Death Grips was and always has been a conceptual art exhibition anchored by sound and vision. above and beyond a ‘band.’ To our truest fans, please stay legend.”

On December 9, 2014, the band unexpectedly released the first single from Jenny Death, titled “Inanimate Sensation” on their official YouTube channel.

On January 14, 2015, the band released a surprise album^[9] titled “Fashion Week”^[10], consisting entirely of instrumental tracks with titles referencing the Jenny Death When] in-joke (see below).

On March 12, 2015, Death Grips announced that Jenny Death would be released the following Tuesday. The album was leaked onto 4chan’s /mu/ (Music) board on March 19, 2015.^[9]

Related Memes

No Love Deep Web Album Cover Parodies

No Love Deep Web Album Cover Parodies are parodies of No Love Deep Web‘s album cover, which features an image of Zack Hill’s penis with the name of the album written on it. The parodies are often used when discussing the album, especially on web sites that would consider the original album art to be offensive.

Noided

MC Ride uses the term “Noided” in two Death Grips songs,“I’ve Seen Footage” and “Hacker”. The word is an abbreviation of “paranoided”, meaning feeling paranoid, or being influenced by constant beliefs of persecution. The word is normally used as a shout-out to the group, normally in the form of the hashtag or the phrase “Stay Noided”.

Jenny Death When

Jenny Death When is a phrase used by fans who have become impatient for the release of the group’s upcoming album Jenny Death. The phrase was referenced by the group on their 2015 release Fashion Week, which featured a track listing where each track name ended in a letter spelling out the phrase.

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About

The Sabin Train Suplex refers to a scene in the 1994 role-playing game Final Fantasy VI for the Super Nintendo console in which the character Sabin performs a suplex professional wrestling move on an enemy boss called the Phantom Train. The scene gained notoriety for an absurd battle animation showing the monk character picking up the entire train to perform the suplex.

Origin

Final Fantasy VI^[1] was released in Japan on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in April 1994, followed by a North-American release in October of the same year. In the game, the player encounters the Phantom Train,^[2] a dungeon and boss fight with a sentient train locomotive. During the fight, in which the party is running away from the still moving train, the monk Sabin^[4] is able to perform his move “Suplex” (renamed “Meteor Strike”^[3] in later versions) on the locomotive, lifting the entire train up into the air and slamming it into the ground. The fact that Sabin is able to perform this move on the train can be considered an oddity within the game,^[10] as most other large enemies and bosses are immune to the attack.

Spread

On February 12th, 2008, YouTuber MoogleBoss uploaded a video^[8] of the boss fight in which Sabin defeats the train with a single suplex (shown above), which managed to gather nearly 500,000 views in the following 6 years. On July 7th, 2011, web artist Zac Gorman posted a comic^[5] on his art blog showing Sabin preparing to suplex the Phantom Train accompanied by the caption “I’m Motherfuckin’ Sabin” (shown below), a popular term used by fans of the monk character. As of March 2014, the post managed to gain over 1,700 notes.

On July 29th, 2013, DeviantArt user EiffelArt uploaded an illustration of Sabin lifting up the Phantom Train (shown below, left),^[6] which managed to get over 10,000 views and 750 in eight months. On October 23rd, Redditor Jin_Winspear uploaded an image to the r/gaming^[7] subreddit showing Sabin performing the suplex on the Phantom Train (shown below, right), which gathered upwards of 3,000 upvotes in five months. On November 9th, 2013, Tumblr user 1986tigerlion^[9] posted an image showing several pieces related to the Suplex, two being Zac Gorman’s comic and Jin_Winspear’s image, which managed to gather nearly 12,000 notes within the first three months after posting.

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About

Sweet Apple Massacre is a grimdark fanfiction set in the world of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (MLP: FiM), in which the colt Big Macintosh rapes and murders the juvenile Cutie Mark Crusader ponies. The story bears many similarities to another infamous MLP:FiM fanfiction Cupcakes, in which the pony Rainbow Dash is viciously murdered by her friend Pinkie Pie.

Origin

On June 28th, 2011, the story “Sweet Apple Massacre” was submitted to the fanfiction archive site Fanfiction.net^[2] by user bigmacintosh20111. In the story, the MLP:FiM colt Big Macintosh kidnaps the ponies Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and proceeds to torture, rape and disembowel them. The story was subsequently removed from Fanfiction.net for violating the terms of service, but has since been reposted on several other websites.

Spread

On July 1st, 2011, the Pony Fiction Archive forums^[9] member De Magics claimed to be the author of “Sweet Apple Massacre” in a thread about sexual MLP: FiC fanfictions called “clopfics.” On July 5th, the fanfiction review blog Harpseal2^[6] posted a review of the story, claiming that it had “sucessfully overturned Cupcakes in the worst fanfiction section.” On September 5th, a Facebook^[10] page for “Sweet Apple Massacre (Fanfic)” was created, which received 190 likes within nine months.

On September 21st, an entry for “Sweet Apple Massacre” was created on the database TVTropes^[5], which listed elements of the story as an example of the “High Octane Nightmare Fuel”, “Complete Monster” and “EyeScream” tropes. On October 16th, YouTuber MicTheMicrophoneZero uploaded a dramatic reading of the fanfiction in two parts (shown below). The same day, the reading was submitted to the MLP: FiM grimdark subreddit /r/MyLittleNoSleep^[4] in a post titled “Oh… God… Dramatic reading of ‘Sweet Apple Massacre’.” On February 7th, 2012, DeviantArt user Bleedingraptorclaw submitted a poll titled “Which grimdark My Little Pony FIM fanfic is the worst?”^[7], which listed “Sweet Apple Massacre” as the top answer.

Notable Examples

Reaction Videos

Dramatic Readings

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About

Deadpool is the alter ego of Wade Wilson, a mentally unstable and disfigured anti-hero created by Marvel Comics writer Fabian Nicieza and penciller Rob Liefeld.

Backstory

Deadpool was a Canadian soldier and mercenary who joined the mysterious organization Weapon X after being diagnosed with cancer. He underwent different experiments which cured his cancer, gave him an extraordinarily fast healing-factor (faster than Wolverine’s), but cost him his sanity and left his entire body horribly disfigured. He was captive of Weapon X for many years until he managed to escape. He decided to return to the mercenary business using his healing powers as an advantage over competition, creating his own costume similar to those of the superheroes in comic books.^[2]

Personality

In his first appearances, Deadpool’s character was framed as unflappable and wise-cracking, always expecting violence, with money as his main motivation in life. Over the years, he has been depicted as insane with extreme moments of angst, bitterness and self-loathing. He has an extremely characteristic voice, and it is said to be very annoying by many characters, which along his wise-cracking personality makes him a very irritating person to be with.^[3] He developed an absurd sense of humor and an awareness of being a comic book character, often breaking the “fourth wall” and talking directly to the reader.

History

Comics

Deadpool made his first appearance in The New Mutants #98 as a mercenary hired to attack the protagonists of the series. Deadpool’s creator Rob Liefeld has stated that the Teen Titan villain Deathstroke served as an inspiration for the character.^[1] Deadpool started appearing as a recurrent character in the series X-Force and as his popularity raised he appeared in other Marvel series. In 1993, the first Deadpool mini series launched titled “Deadpool: The Circle Chase”.

In January 1997, the ongoing series “Deadpool” was released, written by Joe Kelly and penned by artist Ed McGuinness, in which Deadpool’s allies and rogues gallery were firmly established. The series ran until September 2002. In November 2008, Deadpool Vol. 2 was released, which ran for 63 issues until December 2012. In January 2013, Deadpool Vol. 3 was launched.

Other Media

Deadpool has been featured over the years in various video games, including X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Super Hero Squad Online, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimension, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and Marvel: Avengers Alliance, he made a guest appearance in the animated movie Hulk and in an episode of X-Men: Anime.

Deadpool the Video Game

Activision, Marvel, and High Noon Studios announced a Deadpool video game^[21] live at San Diego Comic-Con 2012. The Deadpool video game was released on June 25, 2013 and received mixed reviews, with some praising the humor and original story but criticizing the repetitive gameplay, controls and combat. On July 5th, 2013, YouTuber Pewdiepie uploaded footage of himself playing the game, which received upwards of 8.8 million views and 60,000 comments (shown below, right).

Film

On February 1st, 2010, YouTuber silverlightsaber uploaded a fan made trailer for the Deadpool film, using scenes featuring Ryan Reynolds from various films (shown below). In four years, the video garnered more than 5 million views and 6,700 comments. In July 2014, leaked test footage from a 21st Century Fox film about Deadpool was leaked online, in which the anti-hero attacks an SUV full of armed men (shown below, right).

On September 18th, 2014, FOX officially announced that the Deadpool film will get a release date^[21] at February 12th, 2016, after hearing a massive amount of positive reviews and feedback.

Online Presence

Deadpool has been referenced in media on various different websites, including Memebase^[5][6] and 9gag.^[7] Images of Deadpool are often present in the comments section of Know Your Meme entries due to the “deadpool” category reserved for rejected entries. A Facebook^[8] page dedicated to Deadpool has received more than 115.000 fans. The tag “#deadpool” is fairly active on sites like Tumblr and Twitter.^[11] There is an official Deadpool Twitter account^[12] and more than 51,000 pieces of fan art on deviantArt^[14][15][16].

His popularity over the Internet inspired Marvel Comics to create various variants covers of Deadpool mashups with memes for many #1s of their “Marvel NOW!” revamp including Deadpool Call me Maybe for “Uncanny Avengers” #1, Gangnam Stlye Deadpool for “The Avengers” (Vol. 5) #1 and “Deadpool is unimpressed” for “All-New X-Men” #1.

On June 29th, 2013, the batinthesun YouTube channel uploaded an episode of the web series “Super Power Beatdown,” in which Deadpool battles the DC Comics superhero Batman (shown below). In the next year, that video gained over 7.3 million views and 28,000 comments.

D-Piddy

D-Piddy is one of Deadpool’s most famous cosplayers. On October 7th, 2012, he launched a YouTube^[16] channel that gained over 180,000 subscribers in the following two years. He is often featured in pictures from events such as Comic Con and created a music video parody of the song “Gangnam Style”, reaching more than 2,300,000 views.^[18]

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About

The Almighty Loaf is a series of remixes focused around the character Loafer the Living Bread from the Christian children’s show The Donut Man. Unlike his form from the show, the memetic Loafer is embodied as an evil, Satanic character.

Origin

The Donut Man is a Christian direct-to-video children’s show created by performer Rob Evans. In 1995, the episode The Repair Shop, was released. ^[1] One segment of the episode featured a bread puppet named Loafer, ^[2] who was made from being baked with “words from the Bible.” On September 2, 2009, YouTube channel EVERYTHINGISTERRIBLE uploaded a video named “JESUSDIEDFORYOURDONUTS”, which complied various moments from the episode into one video. ^[3]

On November 13, 2011, YouTuber ohokthen uploaded a video entitled “THEALMIGHTYLOAF”, a heavily edited version of the Loafer segments featuring dialog spoken by The Lord of Darkness, as portrayed by Tim Curry, from the 1985 fantasy movie Legend. ^[4]

Within a few years of being posted, the original Almighty Loaf video was viewed over a half-million times.

Fandom

On November 11, 2012, a Facebook page was created for the Almighty Loaf, featuring image edits of Loafer alongside various comments about bread. ^[6] Several Steam groups have also been created, with the largest two featuring over 100 members each. ^[7][8] The Loaf is also a common YouTube avatar.

Notable Examples

Videos

Images

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References

About

The Amazing Atheist is the YouTube handle of Terroja Kincaid, a vlogger who produces monologue videos expressing his opinions on controversial topics. Initially, he spoke mostly about atheism and anti-theism, but later branched out to cover a wider variety of political and social issues.

Online History

On November 20th, 2006, TheAmazingAtheist^[1] released his first video titled “Rant #1,” in which he discussed his views on various world religions and atheism (shown below). Many people criticized the video for Kincaid’s use of ethnic slurs, including “towel head” and “nigger.”

On January 7th, 2009, the @amazingatheist Twitter^[11] feed was created, which received over 26,000 followers within the next four years. On December 27th, 2010, “The Amazing Atheist” Facebook^[10] page was created, accumulating over 38,500 likes within the next two years. As of October 30th, 2012, TheAmazingAtheist YouTube channel has over 118 million video views, 320,000 subscribers and 530 video uploads.

On That Guy With Glasses

In 2009, TheAmazingAtheist joined the review team on Doug Walker’s website That Guy With The Glasses^[2], where he took the alias of TheDistressedWatcher.^[3] Among his contributions to the site were Trailer Failure,^[4] a show in which he would review numerous movie trailers, and Sour Note^[5] , which featured his sarcastic commentaries on music videos. His videos were poorly received by the audience, who created numerous petitions for him to be removed from the site. After being ousted from the site in September of 2011, he posted a video on YouTube stating that he understood why he was no longer part of the site’s review team.

Notable Videos

Books

Kincaid has written four books, including In Defense of Evil,^[12]Neckbeard Uprising,^[16]Scumbag: Musings of a Subhuman^[13] and The Final Revelation.^[14] Each book contains Kincaid’s beliefs on various topics written in a similar style to his YouTube videos.

Reputation

October 2011: Banana-Gate

In October 2011, a personal video of TheAmazingAtheist was leaked on the internet depicting him performing a sexual act with a banana. The video quickly spread across other internet culture blogs, soon leading 4chan users to mobilize a raid against his Facebook page and website. On October 31st, Kincaid posted a video titled “BananaGate 2011,” in which he attempted to explain the context of the banana video (shown below). The video was subsequently reblogged by IGN^[6], DailyDot^[7] and Escapist Magazine.^[8]

February 2012: Rape Joke Controversy

On February 8th, 2012, Kincaid mocked a proclaimed rape survivor on the social news site Reddit and was subsequently attacked by many members of the community. Kincaid reacted by deleting his Reddit account, but several screenshots of his comments were taken prior to their removal (shown below).

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On The following day, the Internet news site The Daily Dot^[15] published an article titled “The Amazing Atheist Quits Reddit After Rape Comments,” reporting that the controversy may have resulted in hundreds of people unsubscribing from Kincaid’s YouTube channel. The article also included a screenshot showing Kincaid’s apology to the Redditor he had insulted (shown below).

August 2013: Mysterious Takedowns

On August 19th, 2013, TheAmazingAtheist posted an urgent announcement (shown below) via his YouTube channel revealing that at least a dozen of his video commentaries were recently removed without an explanation. Although it still remain unclear as to what exactly prompted the mass removal, TheAmazingAtheist’s update instantly sparked a debate between his fans and the critics in the comments section of the video page, garnering more than 127,000 views and 9,200 comments within the first 24 hours.

Later that same day, TheAmazingAtheist posted a screenshot of a YouTube Community Guidelines warning notification he had received on the grounds of “hate speech.”

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External References

About

Gordon Ramsay is a British master chef, celebrity and restaurateur best known for saving troubled restaurant businesses in the television show Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and discovering talented chefs in the show Hell’s Kitchen. His perfectionist attitude and brash personality on screen have inspired the creation of many image macros and remix videos on YouTube.

Online History

The domain for the website GordonRamsay.com^[1] was registered on February 3rd, 2000. As of February 2013, the site is used to promote Ramsay’s restaurants in a variety of locations, including France, Italy, Ireland, Qatar, Japan, England and the United States. On May 7th, 2008, YouTuber moonblink uploaded a video of Ramsay demonstrating how to make scrambled eggs (shown below). Within five years of being uploaded, the video accumulated more than 2.3 million views and 3,900 comments.

On January 26th, 2010, a thread was started in the /ck/ (Food & Cooking) board on 4chan,^[2] featuring several photos of Ramsay with captions in character of his TV personality (shown below). Prior to being archived, the thread received over 125 responses. On February 1st, Ramsay’s official Twitter^[3] account was created, which accumulated more than 1.23 million followers in the next three years. On November 30th, a Facebook^[4] page titled “Gordon Ramsay” was launched, garnering upwards of 376,000 likes in the following three years.

On June 1st, YouTuber moonblink’s scrambled eggs video was submitted to the /r/Fitness^[5] subreddit, where it received over 1,400 up votes and 370 comments prior to being archived. On October 31st, 2011, YouTuber 80gumdrops uploaded a video titled “Gordon Talks Dirty,” featuring footage of Ramsay cooking a chicken edited to sound as if he were describing how to have anal sex (shown below). Within the next two years, the video received over 1.12 million views and 1,000 comments.

Advice Animal

In July of 2010, a Meme Generator^[11] page titled “Gordon Ramsay” was launched with an advice animal series in which Ramsay is shown deriding an apprentice for unsatisfactory results (shown below). Within the first three years, the page garnered upwards of 2,000 items. In December 2011, a similar Quickmeme^[7] page was created, gaining over 1,300 submissions in the next two years.

An ongoing theme that is often explored in the series is Ramsay’s frustration with undercooked meals and his hyperbolic tirades. On February 7th, 2013, Redditor okredrobot submitted an image macro with the caption “This chicken is so uncooked / that a skilled vet could still save him” (shown below) to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[8] subreddit, where it received more than 44,000 up votes and 1,000 comments in the first two months.

On March 20th, Redditor Arandmoor posted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[12] subreddit, which mocked a dish by claiming that it was unfinished enough for the video game developer Electronic Arts to try to publish it (shown below, left). In the following month, the post accumulated over 12,800 up votes and 100 comments, in part due to eclipsing with EA’s controversial release of SimCity. On April 8th, Redditor especiallynow submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[10] subreddit, joking that a salmon was raw enough to be cast in the 2003 children’s animated film Finding Nemo (shown below, right). Within eight days, the post gained more than 590 up votes and 15 comments.

Notable Videos

Reputation

Ramsay is known for being a culinary perfectionist who can be brash, pompous and overly critical. In October of 2006, Ramsay was voted to the top of a Radio Times poll of television’s most terrifying celebrities.^[6] In July of 2008, Ramsay became the target of animal rights activists after eating the raw heart of a dead puffin during a segment of his television show The F Word (shown below).

Personal Life

Ramsay was born on November 8th, 1966 in Renfrewshire, Scotland. At age 12, he was chosen as an Association Football player for Warwickshire and was chosen to play for the Rangers three years later. At age 19, he became interested in cooking and began working towards becoming a chef. Since then, Ramsay has been awarded 15 Michelin stars for culinary excellence.

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External References