About

FunnyJunk is a content aggregator website with user uploaded content in the form of images, video and animated GIFs. Advice animals and rage comics are frequently submitted to the site, some of which were originally created by FunnyJunk users.

History

The domain FunnyJunk.com was registered by an unknown party on July 29th, 2001. According to the FunnyJunk Wiki^[1], the site’s administrator is known only by his screen name “Admin.”^[4] In April of 2010, Admin claimed to have handed over the site’s administrative duties to the user TheDesigner^[3], while many speculated that it was just an alias being used by Admin.^[2]

Features

Content

The site allows users with registered accounts to post pictures, videos, animated GIFs, text and links. Posts can be thumbed up or down by registered users and the top voted content is featured on the front page. An image macro generator allows users to caption uploaded images and a comic creator provides a user interface for creating rage comics. The main section of FunnyJunk is considered “work safe”, but there is an entire “NSFW” section accessible to registered users.

Commenting

The commenting system includes a mechanic called “rolling”, which allows users to display randomly selected numbers, images and user names. The command “roll picture*” displays a random reaction image, the command “roll user” will display a random FunnyJunk user name and “roll (number)” will display a randomly generated number.

Several wordfilters have been implemented in the commenting system. The words “thumb” and “penis” becoming highlighted and capitalized and the word “Admin” has been changed to a variety of different words including “sadmin”, “badmin”, “Princess Celestia”, “man in the mirror”, and “the most beautiful man in the world.”

Traffic

From May 13th to June 12th, 2012, FunnyJunk received over 19,750,000 pageviews, 56,000 logged in users and 90,000 comments.^[14] As of June 13th, 2012, FunnyJunk has a Compete rank of 2,239, an Alexa^[13] rank of 2,933.

Controversy

Feud With 4chan

According to a post on online news site WebUpon^[15], on Feburary 28th, 2010, users from the image board 4chan led a raid against FunnyJunk in which the site was repeatedly spammed with images, but was considered a failure by the FunnyJunk community. On August 19th, 2010, YouTuber AngeloLakey uploaded an Xtranormal video titled “FunnyJunk vs 4chan”, which featured a mock conversation between a 4chan user and a FunnyJunk user.

Legal Dispute With The Oatmeal

On May 25th, 2011, Matt Inman, creator of the webcomic The Oatmeal, published a post titled “What should I do about FunnyJunk.com?”, which complained that many of his webcomics were being hosted without credit on FunnyJunk’s servers. On June 1st, Inman published a follow-up post titled “An update on the FunnyJunk situation”, which included a screenshot of a mass email sent by FunnyJunk’s owner urging members of the site to contact The Oatmeal (shown below).

The Oatmeal’s Facebook page was subsequently inundated with comments from FunnyJunk users attacking Inman for sending a cease and desist request to the site. Inman responded by posting a letter insulting the commenters’ intelligence (shown below, left) and claimed he had no intention of suing FunnyJunk or having it shut down. A year later on June 11th, 2012, Inman published a post titled “FunnyJunk is threatening to file a federal lawsuit against me unless I pay $20,000 in damages”^[11], which claimed FunnyJunk hired the attorney Charles Carreon to threaten Inman with a lawsuit for the wrongful accusation of willful copyright infringement.

Inman included an annotated version of the letter in the post (shown above, right) and outlined his plan to to raise $20,000 in donations to give to the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. He went on to reveal that after receiving the donations, he would mail a photo of the money to Carreon along with a drawing of his mother seducing a Kodiak bear (shown below).

The same day, Redditor BrettBr0wn submitted a post linking to Inman’s blog titled “This is how TheOatmeal responds to FunnyJunk threatening to file a federal lawsuit unless they are paid $20,000 in damages”^[10], which reached the front page accumulating over 32,000 up votes and 2,800 comments within two days. Inman subsequently tweeted that he had raised the $20,000 64 minutes after published the blog post.

Raised the $20,000 in 64 minutes. THANKYOUEVERYONE!is.gd/DgKP13

— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) June 11, 2012

On June 12th, MSNBC^[9] published an article titled “Cartoonist turns lawsuit threat into $100K charity fundraiser”, which reported that Inman had raised $117,000 in donations from over 8,000 people within 24 hours. The article included a statement from Carreon who was surprised by the Internet’s reaction to the legal dispute, revealing he would attempt to have the fundraising campaign shut down.

“I’m completely unfamiliar really with this style of responding to a legal threat. I don’t like seeing anyone referring to my mother as a sexual deviant.”

Highlights

Happy Hank

The exploitable photoshop meme Happy Hank uses a still image of the character Hank Hill from the Fox cartoon series King of the Hill edited over the faces of subjects in a variety of different images. The first photoshops were submitted by an unknown FunnyJunk user on December 10th, 2009.

Now Kiss

The rage comic face Now Kiss was originally created in an MS Paint comic by FunnyJunk user KimgGawjuss on February 16th, 2010.

Ladies, Please, Contain Your Orgasms

The expression “Ladies, Please, Contain Your Orgasms” is typically used to caption image macros of unattractive men exhibiting an aura of self confidence. The earliest known instance was submitted by FunnyJunk user butterpancakes on September 22nd, 2010.

Oh God Why

Oh God Why is a rage comic character that expresses remorse and shame when recounted embarrassing or disturbing childhood events. It was created by FunnyJunk user Diamondhead, who published the first examples of the character on July 23rd, 2011.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Ola K Ase” or “Ole Ke Ase” is a catchphrase that is a play on the Spanish expression “Hola Que Haces?”, which literally means “Hi, What are you doing?” While it can be colloquially used as “Hey, what’s up?” the phrase has been adopted as a Twitter hashtag and an image macro series, similarly to Whatcha Thinkin’ Bout?

Origin

One of the earliest instances of the phrase “Ola K Ase” in image macros appeared on the automobile enthusiast forum ForoCoches^[2] on November 1st, 2012. The first post contained a set of three photos featuring a llama and two different dogs with variations of the phrase overlaid on them.

Spread

The Twitter account @OlaKAseTu^[2] was created on November 11th, 2012, gaining more than 155,000 followers by December 19th. On November 15th, 2012, a Facebook page^[1] for the phrase was launched, gaining more than 45,000 likes in just over a month. A week later, A blog post appeared on the CocaCola Happing social network^[8] attempting to explain the images, linking the spread of them back to the @OlaKAseTu Twitter account. A few days later, a blogger named Antonio Ortiz looked into the trend on his personal blog, Error 500^[9], yielding discussion about the evolution of language memes, specifically in Spanish-speaking countries.

On November 29th, a question about the origin of the phrase was asked on Mexico Yahoo! Answers.^[7] By December 2nd, the news site SDP Noticias^[10] covered the trend, noting that the hashtags were Twitter trending topics in Mexico for two days. As of December 19th, the hashtag #OlaKAse^[3] has been used on Twitter more than 9000 times^[4] and #OlaKeAse^[5] has been used more than 5700 times.^[6]

Notable Examples

Twitter Feed

Search Interest

External References

About

Skullgirls is a fighting game featuring anime-influenced animation and several playable female characters. After its initial release in 2012, the development team launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to add additional characters and features to the game.

History

Skullgirls was formed as a collaborative project between illustrator Alex “o_8” Ahad, who had been designing video game characters since high school, and tournament player Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont, who had been developing a game engine in his spare time. A demo version of Skullgirls was put on display at the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo (shown below).

On April 10th, 2012, Skullsgirls was released through the PlayStation Network digital media delivery service and on Xbox Live Arcade the following day. In November, the entire Skullgirls development team reformed under the new company Lab Zero Games in response to being laid off after a series of lawsuits. On February 14th, 2013, the game was released on the PlaySation Network in Japan. On July 4th, a public beta test was launched for a Microsoft Windows version of the game. On August 22nd, the official Windows release was unveiled by the Japanese video game and anime company Marvelous AQL.

Online Presence

On January 31st, 2011, a Facebook^[2] page titled “Skullgirls” was created, which gathered more than 34,200 likes in the next three years. On June 2nd, the SkullgirlsGame YouTube^[7] channel was launched, gaining upwards of 1.98 million video views and 10,200 subscribers in the following 15 months. On June 11th, the Skullgirls Wiki^[6] was founded. On November 5th, the /r/skullgirls^[1] subreddit was launched by Redditor Klisk, which accumulated more than 3,300 subscribers in the next year. On January 30th, 2013, the “Official Skullgirls” Tumblr^[3] blog was created. As of September 2013, the @Skullgirls Twitter^[8] feed has garnered over 15,600 followers and more than 40 Skullgirls-related fanfictions have been submitted to the website FanFiction.net.

Indiegogo Campaign

On February 25th, an Indiegogo^[4] campaign was launched asking for $150,000 in funding to create a new character for the game. On February 27th, the video game news blog Giantbomb^[13] published an article about the the fundraiser, noting the development team’s past legal troubles. By March 27th, the fundraiser had reached over $828,000 in donations, allowing for the introduction of five new characters. On May 28th, the video game blog Kotaku^[5] published an article about the campaign’s success, which reported that the developers of a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic game would be allowed to use Skullgirls engine for free as a result of the fundraiser.

Fan Art

On DeviantArt, over 11,000 deviations have been submitted under the tag “#skullgirls”^[10] and the official Skullgirls page^[11] has more than 1,200 members.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Too Many Cooks” is an 11-minute parody of opening themes from various 1980s TV family sitcoms produced by and aired on Adult Swim in late October 2014. Upon its YouTube debut in early November, the video became an instant viral hit and received critical acclaims for its experimental comedy value and absurdist aesthetics.

Origin

The video was created by Casper Kelly, an Adult Swim producer who works on the network’s show “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell,” who shot the original footage in the course of 72 hours in late October 2013. Over the following year, Kelly worked on editing the video, with some help from friends and co-workers.

The final cut eventually premiered at 4 a.m. (EST) on October 31st, 2014 as part of Adult Swim’s ongoing “Infomercials” series. A week later, on November 7th, the clip was uploaded to the network’s official YouTube channel, garnering over 320,000 views and 7,000 likes within the first 24 hours.

Spread

On the day of its online premiere, discussions about the video virtually took over all major social media platforms, with the video’s title “Too Many Cooks” becoming trending keywords on Twitter^[14], Google, Tumblr^[15] and Facebook.^[16]

News Media Coverage

The video was subsequently declared as a must-watch item of the day by a wide spectrum of viral media news outlets in the blogosphere, including BuzzFeed^[10], Gawker^[8], IGN^[6] and Mashable^[9], as well as U.S. entertainment news sites, including E! Online^[11], Hollywood Reporter^[12], Entertainment Weekly^[11] and Rolling Stones.^[4] Soon, many of the aforementioned publications ran follow-up interviews with the creator of the video, Casper Kelly.

Analysis

In the following days, several entertainment news sites and major U.S. news outlets began running op-ed articles in analyzing the possible ingredients of the video’s viral success overnight, such as the Washington Free Beacon’s “What ‘Too Many Cooks’ Tells Us About 2016 and the Resiliency of the Patriarchy (GIFs),”^[19] The Guardian’s " Can You Spot All the References to Other TV Shows?,"^[22] The New Yorker’s "Looking for Meaning in “Too Many Cooks,”^[20] The Washington Post’s “Too Many Cooks’: What you’re in for with the viral video of the week”^[21] and Vanity Fair’s “This Insane “Too Many Cooks” Flow Chart Just Might Blow Your Mind,”^[18] which featured artist John Hogan’s two free thought-association flowcharts based on his own viewing experience of the original video.

Covers and Parodies

On November 10th, YouTuber Doky9889 uploaded a teaser trailer for a Minecraft-rendered remix of “Too Many Cooks.” On November 11th, YouTuber Rush Coil released an 8-bit NESchiptune remix of the theme song. On November 12th, YouTube comedy troupe Tough Pigs uploaded the first known parody of the video starring the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Later that same day, The Pet Collective released a similar parody of the video featuring kittens (shown below, from top left, clockwise).

Search Interest

External References

About

Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character in films noted for being shallow, quirky, feminine and providing inspiration for brooding protagonist male characters.

Origin

The term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin in a review of the 2005 comedy-drama film Elizabethtown published on The Onion’s A.V. Club^[1] on January 25th, 2007. In the article, Rubin uses the term to describe the character Claire (played by Kirsten Dunst):

“Dunst embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for another prime example). The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

Spread

On August 4th, 2008, A.V. Club^[6] published a list of 16 films featuring MPDG stock characters, including Claire (Kirsten Dunst) in Elizabethtown, Sam (Natalie Portman) in Garden State and Penny (Kate Hudson) in Almost Famous. On October 21st, 2009, the We Love Media Criticism^[7] group blog published a post on the MPDG character, comparing it to the “Magical Negro” stock character which similarly serves the sole purpose of aiding white protagonists in film. On August 4th, 2010, an MPDG entry was created on the trope database TV Tropes,^[8] connecting the character with the “Loners and Freaks,” “Blithe Spirit” and “Silly Rabbit, Cynicism is For Losers” tropes. On December 5th, 2011, YouTuber KyletheDingbat uploaded a video in which he meets a MPDG while sketching at the park (shown below, left). On March 1st, 2012, YouTuber NaturalDisastronauts uploaded a sketch taking place in a mental health facility for MPDGs (shown below, right).

On July 24th, Flavorwire^[4] published a montage of MPDG characters in films from the past 75 years (shown below, left). On December 4th, YouTuber Adam Sacks uploaded a sketch in which a man hires a prostitute to pretend to be a MPDG (shown below, right). On the following day, Slate^[5] reblogged the video in an article questioning whether or not the MPDG trope was vanishing.

Criticism

The stock character has often been called offensive to women for being one-dimensional and having no interests or desires of her own, similar to the criticisms surrounding Mary Sue, a female stock character that is romantically idealized to be a projection of the author in fanfiction stories. On August 6th, 2008, the women’s interest blog Jezebel^[2] published an article arguing that MPDG characters were the “scourge of modern cinema,” singling out the character Sam (played by Natalie Portman) in the 2004 film Garden State as “the most pernicious of these cinematic sweethearts.” The article went on to refer to the male romantic interests of the MPDGs as “Whimpsters,”^[3] a type of manipulative, selfish and insecure man who appears to be sensitive and vulnerable on the outside. On March 22nd, 2011, YouTuber Anita Sarkeesian uploaded a video criticizing the trope, arguing that it perpetuated offensive stereotypes that women are only useful as creative inspiration for men (shown below).

Nathan Rabin Apologizes

On July 15th, 2014, Salon^[9] published an essay titled “I’m sorry for coining the phrase ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’" written by Nathan Rabin, the film reviewer credited with coining the term. In the article, Rabin explains his surprise and sometimes disbelief at the spread and pervasiveness of the term saying:

“And last year I had the surreal experience of watching a musical called Manic Pixie Dreamland, about a fantasy realm that produces Manic Pixie Dream Girls. Sitting in the dark theater, I thought: “What have I done?!”

He then went on to apologize for creating the term that had now become an inescapable trope, saying:

“So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to pop culture: I’m sorry for creating this unstoppable monster. Seven years after I typed that fateful phrase, I’d like to join Kazan and Green in calling for the death of the “Patriarchal Lie” of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope.”

That same day, Rabin’s apology was covered by many websites, including The Wire^[10] and Jezebel.^[11] Also on July 15th, Bustle^[12] posted a counter argument to Rabin’s apology in an article titled “Manic Pixie Dream Girl Inventor Apologizes for Coining the Term 7 Years Ago But He Doesn’t Need To":

“While I appreciate wholeheartedly Rabin’s apology, I would like to offer my own gratitude, for the original permutations of the term, and for addressing it again now, seven years later. Let’s keep the MPDG discourse going, because while writing fully formed, individual women into fictitious works is the ultimate goal, the MPDG -- whether we call her (or him) by that name or something else -- will likely exist for years to come.”

Search Interest

External References

About

“Scrub”, or “skrub”, is an Internet slang term commonly used as a pejorative for someone who needlessly complains about unfair tactics used in multiplayer video games. The term is associated with players who lack the skill to overcome certain strategies, bearing many similarities to “noob”.

Origin

According to an article on the Internet humor site Cracked,^[6]“scrub” originated as a term for bad basketball players in the late 1990s. In January 1999, the R&B group TLC released the track “No Scrubs” as the first single off their third studio album FanMail. The song derides men who cannot afford their own residence and transportation, referring to them as “scrubs” (shown below).

In October 2008, the gaming site Sirlin^[9] published an article titled “Intermediate’s Guide,” which contained a section on “scrubs” defining them as players who are “handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about.”

Spread

On June 10th, 2008, the gaming blog Insomnia^[7] published an article about tactics used in the Street Fighter fighting game series considered unfair or “cheap,” referring to those who complain about them as “scrubs.” On December 29th, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Chirus_Fire submitted an entry for the term “Scrub”, defining it as someone who performs poorly in video games. The entry also cited the “scrubbing” practice of button mashing in the game Street Fighter 2 as the term’s origin in the context of gaming. On February 4, 2011, League of Legends^[5] forum user Urban Ranger submitted a thread asking why he kept being called a “scrub” in the online game. On December 16th, GameFAQs Forums^[3] member Sumo_Thug posted a thread asking for other members to define the word “scrub” in the context of fighting games, to which several users claimed it applied to those who whine about game mechanics rather than learning to overcome them. On June 25th, 2013, an entry for “Scrub” was created on TV Tropes, defining the term as a video game player who criticizes certain gaming strategies for being overpowered or unfair.

Search Interest

External References

About

Crazy Ukrainian Kid, also known as No New Memes Kid, is the nickname given to the Ukrainian child Sasha Fokin, who appeared in a television show pleading with his mother after his computer was taken away. The video is often remixed or paired with parody subtitles in a similar vein to the 420 MLG Montage Parodies. and Hitler Reacts videos.

Origin

On December 6th, 2011, the Ukrainian television series Кохана, ми вбиваємо дітей (Honey, We’re Killing the Kids) aired an episode in which Sasha is shown fighting with his mother after his computer is taken away. On December 12th, YouTuber bergamonts uploaded the episode, which gained over 1.09 million views and 8,100 comments in the first three years (shown below).

Spread

On December 22nd, 2011, YouTuber ProdderingOfficial uploaded a dubstep remix video featuring clips from the episode (shown below, left). On February 17th, 2012, YouTuber arsenalgrinch uploaded a Counter-Strike gameplay video in which he uses Voice FX for Sasha’s voice.^[3] On March 26th, 2012, YouTuber AContrariProject uploaded another dubstep remix video featuring Sasha, which garnered more than 1.93 million views and 5,600 comments within two years (shown below, right).

On May 13th, 2014, YouTuber Pananoz uploaded a video titled “No New Memes!”, which featured clips of Sasha with parody English subtitles (shown below, left). Within four months, the video accumulated upwards of 150,000 views and 590 comments. On June 15th, the OfficialREKT YouTube channel uploaded a similar parody subtitle video, which gained over 230,000 views in the next three months (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

In addition to video remixes, Internet users have created illustrations and photoshops featuring Sasha (shown below).

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Ed, Edd and Eddy is an original animated television series created by Danny Antonucci and produced by Canadian-based a.k.a. Cartoon, about the exploits of “the Eds,”, a group of three adolescents who constantly make up plans to get money, usually failing. It has received positive reviews from critics since the first day the show aired and has gained a cult following.

Premise

The show revolves around three adolescent boys collectively known as “the Eds,” who hang around in a suburban cul-de-sac in the fictional town of “Peach Creek”. Unofficially led by Eddy, the Eds constantly scheme to make money off their peers in order to purchase their favorite confectionery; jawbreakers. However, their plans usually fail, leaving them in various predicaments that go astray.

History

The original concept from the show comes from a sketch of three characters that pleased Danny Antonucci, making him work on the concept for a kid series, faxing a concept sheet to Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon in 1996, getting a quick response from both.^[9] It officially premiered on Cartoon Network on January 4, 1999, lasting 6 seasons. The show later ended on November 8, 2009 with the premiere of the TV movie “Ed, Edd n Eddy’s Big Picture Show”, which is recognized as the series finale. To this date, Ed, Edd n Eddy still remains the longest running original Cartoon Network cartoon series and the longest running Canadian-made series.

Online Relevance

At some point, screencaps from the show started being captioned with humorous and absurd internal monologues on 4chan, in similar vein to 60’s Spider-Man macros. The earliest archived use of it, though, comes from a Funnyjunk compilation submitted on May 2nd, 2010.^[8]

Arround 2009, a theory about how all of the characters came from different time periods and settled within the cul-de-sac, respective to their time, suffering a gruesome death which takes them to the cul-de-sac from in the show, which can be determined as some sort of purgatory, unable to accept their untimely demises started circulating on 4chan’s /x/ paranormal board, though the first registered version of the story can be found on a Boxden post from July 26th, 2009.^[1]

In late-December 2011, Kevin Lordi released “The Bro Show”, a non-canon spinoff of Ed, Edd n Eddy. The show goal is to show origins of certain things from Ed, Edd n Eddy, most of which will be Eddy’s brother’s fault. the characters and story were developed according to details and facts citted in the original show, like for example “Take This Ed and Shove It” (Season 4, Episode 13) and “Mission Ed-Possible” (Season 5, Episode 1).

Fandom

The series has followings on websites like Tumblr,^[7] Reddit^[4], or 4chan.^[5][6] There’s also an official Wikia about the series.^[10] As of June 3rd, the online artist community DeviantART has over 13,600 submissions submitted under the keywords “Ed Edd N Eddy”,^[2] and over 31,600 submissions submitted under the keywords “Ed Edd And Eddy”.^[3]

Related Memes

Life Has Many Doors, Ed-Boy!

Life Has Many Doors, Ed-Boy! is a photoshop fad based on an exploitable image of the character Rolf. The series typically features Rolf redrawn in the guise of different character or superimposed into other base images of various contexts.

Kevin’s TV

Kevin’s TV is a Youtube and Photoshop fad, based on the edition of the images that appear on Kevin’s TV which appears in the episode “A Town Called Ed”.

Double D’s Epic Doorbell

Double D’s Epic Doorbellis a YouTube fad, based on the replacement of the doorbell melody for another recognizable melody, ranging from video game to popular song references.

Give Planks a Face

Give Plank a Faceis an exploitable similar to Give Pikachu A Face, that replaces Plank’s face with another that of another.

A Dickie?

A Dickieis a Youtube fad based on a scene from the Christmas special “Ed, Edd n Eddy’s Jingle Jingle Jangle”

Eddy Shoop

Eddy Shoopis the name of a reaction image, featuring Eddy raising his hands in displeasure, similar to the “Y U NO” guy.

We’re Watching Infomercials.

We’re watching infomercials is a series of YouTube videos which involve the Kanker sisters watching TV in which the screen has been changed to view different scenes from different movies, shows, or even the same show. Then towards the end of the video, Lee Kanker blurts out “That junk wrecked my clothes”.

Search Insights

External References

About

Laughing Tom Cruise refers to a series of photoshopped images and remix videos based on a press photograph of the famous American actor laughing manically during his on-stage appearance as a guest speaker at a Yahoo! conference in early 2006.

Origin

On March 26th, 2006, Flickr^[1] user Maximum Mitch uploaded a photo of Tom Cruise manically laughing during a conference at the Yahoo! headquarters^[7]. As of October 2014, the photo has gained over 5,000 views.

Spread

On January 16th, 2008, YouTuber Suburban Hicks^[6] uploaded a video titled “Tom Cruise Maniac Laugh (REMIX)” which features a clip of Tom Cruise manically laughing taken from an interview with Cruise produced by the Church of Scientology, which was leaked to YouTube the same month, the same interview the church tried to have removed, sparking Project Chanology. As of October 2014, the remix has gained over 250,000 views.

On April 20th, 2008, Funny or Die^[10] published a video titled "The Ultimate “Laughing Tom Cruise” Viral" which featured the Scientology interview clip mixed in with footage of other people laughing manically, seemingly in response to Cruise. As of October 2014, the video has gained over 3,000 views.

On July 13th, 2011, Reaction Face^[11] published a photo of Cruise laughing.

On December 15th, 2012, MemeGenerator^[12] created a page of Tom Cruise Laughing macros.

On December 11th, 2012, the Facebook^[8] community page “Tom Cruise Laughing” was created, as of October 2014, the page has gained over 1,000 notes. On March 18th, 2013, the Tumblr blog tomcruiselaughing^[9] was created.

Notable Examples

Parodies

Macros

External References

About

Javert Reaction GIFs, also known as Javert Your Eyes, is a series of reaction images based on a scene from the 2012 musical film adaptation of Les Misérables in which the main antagonist is seen staring through a window with a distressed look on his face. Similar to other well-known reaction GIF memes, these images are often featured in My Face When posts, especially on the image-sharing community Imgur.

Origin

The feature film adaptation of the 1980 musical Les Misérables, which is based on Victor Hugo’s 1862 French historical novel with the same name, was released on December 5th, 2012. In one scene from the film, the police inspector Javert (played by Russell Crowe) is shown peering through a window while wearing a bicorn hat (shown below).^[3]

On April 7th, 2013, Imgur^[4] user Mysterion1209 uploaded an animated GIF of the scene as a reaction image in a post titled “When I am too old to play in the ball pit,” which gained over 7,000 points and 170 comments in the next two years (shown below). On the same day, Redditor ghair submitted the GIF to the /r/reactiongifs^[6] subreddit, where it gathered more than 2,200 votes (96% upvoted) prior to being archived.

Spread

On June 2nd, 2013, Redditor GeneralHales submitted the GIF in a post titled “MRW the parents have company over and I want to get into the kitchen” to /r/reactiongifs.^[7] Before it was archived, the post received upwards of 2,700 votes (93% upvoted). On November 29th, Redditor Goorab posted the GIF with a title describing his reaction to being scolded for trying to “participate in the toy lightsaber battle” at Thanksgiving dinner to /r/reactiongifs,^[8] where it garnered over 3,800 votes (96% upvoted) prior to being archived. On November 30th, 2014, Imgur user MjingaSana revived the GIF by uploading a rotated version titled “MRW my Mom says I can’t open the oven to see if the turkey is done” (shown below, left). On December 1st, 2014, Imgur^[9] user gismar uploaded a combined version of the GIF, featuring the character Worf from the science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation wearing a bicorn hat (shown below, right).

On December 9th, 2014, Imgur^[2] user Zechling uploaded a large compilation album titled “How to Javert”, including many popular examples along with information regarding the meme’s spread. That day, the /r/javertgifs^[5] subreddit was created for users to submit notable Javert GIF examples. In the coming days, the tech news sites Mashable^[10] and The Daily Dot^[11] published articles on the animated GIF series.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Skrillex is the stage name of the American electronic music producer Sonny John Moore (born January 15th, 1988). He has gained notoriety for his distinctive style of dubstep, his unique hairstyle, as well as the memes that he has inspired.^[1]

Musical Career

Discography

Skrillex originally joined the band From First to Last as a lead singer before leaving for a solo career in 2007. He released Gypsyhook EP, his first tenure into electronic music, in 2009, under the name Sonny.

Although he had been producing music for a few years previously, Skrillex’s first release under the current name, My Name is Skrillex, came in 2010 as a free download on his MySpace page. Since then, his music has been picked up by dubstep DJs around the world, and he has exploded onto the scene to become one of the most popular dubstep artists today. He won three and was nominated for an additional two Grammy awards in 2012. He has also been credited for bringing the genre into the American market. His most recent release is the EP Bangarang, which released December 23, 2011. His first full length album, Voltage, is scheduled to come out sometime in 2012.

Stylistically, his music tends to be “fidgety,” often juxtaposing harsh synths against gritty beats and basslines. It is widely popular, and has become synonymous with mainstream dubstep. Because of this, he has garnered some hate for being too commercial-sounding (see Hipster for more information).^[1][2]

Reputation

Skrillex is known for being one of the most polarizing artists in the music industry today. He has simultaneously received much criticism and acclaim for similar reasons. The top voted Urban Dictionary^[3] rating was submitted November 30th, 2010 by user crashride, praising his musical ability, which has garnered over 800 upvotes and 400 downvotes.

One of the hottest dubstep artists currently out. Signed to Mau5trap recordings

However, another highly rated submission was submitted October 9th, 2011 by user Dexcell, criticizing his ability. This definition has garnered almost 100 upvotes and over 70 downvotes

Skrillex is part of a wave of American producers coming into dubstep from other genres. More often than not, these beatmakers make a violent racket characterized by overwhelming midrange “wobble” basslines, and have a general obsession with gore, macabre and the almighty “filth.” It’s “mosh” music as opposed to dance music… His sound is overbearingly plain and simple. While he has a firm grasp on melody that eludes many of his peers, they’re usually coated in headache-inducing layers of abrasive muck. The trancey hook of Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’ title track is equal to nails on a chalkboard, and the less said about its onomatopoeic bass growls the better.

Related Memes

Cooking with Skrillex

Cooking with Skrillex is a Photoshop meme originating from a single-topic Tumblr of the same name. It is presented in the style of instructional videos that might appear on the Food Network; it takes images of Skrillex DJing and photoshops in cooking equipment. Its popularity comes from it’s juxtaposition of Skrillex’s often wild facial expressions while DJing with the mundane act of cooking.

Tribute YTPMVs

In the manner of many dubstep remix videos, Skrillex’s song Kill EVERYBODY has inspired a large number of YTPMVs. The first such video was uploaded by YouTube user McMaNGOS on December 9th, 2011.^[3] Since then, it has remained one of the most popular subjects for YTPMVs.

Search Interest

Search interest for Skrillex and terms related to Skrillex first began rising in September 2010.

External References

^[1]Wikipedia – Skrillex

^[2]The Guardian – Is Skrillex the most hated man in dubstep?

^[3]Urban Dictionary: Skrillex

About

niconico^[1], formally known as Nico Nico Douga (Japanese: ニコニコ動画, which means “Smile Videos”), is a Japanese media hub site well-known for its large video remixing community and the real-time display of user comments during the playback. The site was founded by Niwango^[2], a child company of the Japanese media company Dwango^[3]. And Hiroyuki Nishimura^[4], the founder of the Japanese textboard community 2channel, had joined Nico Nico Douga as a board member till February, 2013.

History

Launched on December 12th, 2006, the earliest form of Nico Nico Douga relied on YouTube as its video-hosting service. But as the community continued to grow in traffic and bandwidth usage, YouTube blocked access from Nico Nico Douga beginning on February 23rd, 2007. Consequently, the site was forced to shut down the service but it was relaunched as “Nico Nico Douga Y” with its own video-hosting server less than a month later in March. In May 2007, the Nico Nico Douga for mobile phone users was announced. Since August 9, 2007, “Nico Nico Douga (RC) Mobile” has serviced mobile phones of NTT DoCoMo and au. Its nickname is “Niconico” or “Nico-dō”, where “nikoniko” is the Japanese ideophone for smiling.

On May 1st, 2012, Dwango changed the brand name for the whole of its services to “niconico”. Nico Nico Douga restarted as its video-sharing service section and its spelling was changed into “niconico Douga”.

Features

Nico Nico Douga was the first website introduce a way to embed tags and comments directly into the videos, allowing comments on 2channel and the YouTube clip to be displayed simultaneously. The feature enabled video posts on Nico Nico Douga with a sense of a shared watching experience.

niconico Live

niconico Live (ニコニコ生放送,Nico Nico Namahousou), formally spelled “Nico Nico Live”, is a personal live-streaming service in niconico. It was launched as a trial service on December 25th, 2007 and opened to all premium users in December 12th, 2008.

The total quantity of aired programs had reached 1 million within its first half year since user programs started, and it had reached 100 million on July 11th 2012.^[5] Nowadays, hundreds of thousands of user broadcasting programs are aired in a day.

Nico Nico Seiga

Nico Nico Seiga (ニコニコ静画) is niconico’s illustrators community section launched in late 2009. Nico Nico Seiga shares the tags with niconico Douga and has a Futaba channel style image board section named “Theme” (お題). In contrast of the popularity of niconico Douga, it hasn’t got a much presence on the web, and left in the dust of pixiv.

Nico Nico Pedia

Nico Nico Pedia (ニコニコ大百科, Nico Nico Daihyakka) is an internet encyclopedia section in niconico. All entries has 2channel style comment board in the bottom of articles for all registered users. But only premium users can edit articles. Since Nico Nico Pedia doesn’t require notability nor neutrality to the articles, the atmosphere of this service is quite similar to Encyclopedia Dramatica and YTMND wiki.

Traffic

From Wikipedia:

As of October 31, 2011, Nico Nico Douga has over 23,690,000 registered users, 6,870,000 mobile users and 1,390,000 premium users. The website is written in Japanese and the majority of the site traffic is from Japan, although approximately four percent is from outside of Japan, notably one percent from Taiwan. A Taiwanese version of the site was launched on October 18, 2007. In July 2008, the website was localized to German and Spanish. The Taiwanese localization was significantly improved in the process. Nico Nico Douga is the thirteenth most visited website in Japan.

Related Memes

For the complete listing of memes originating from niconico, check out KYM Collection – niconico

External References

Background

On September 26th, 2012, American child actor Cole Sprouse^[1], best known for his work with his twin brother Dylan in the Disney Channel sitcom series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, launched a Tumblr blog titled “Coleture Concept.” He tweeted about it twice that day^[2][3], asking his followers on Twitter to use his blog as a platform to “discuss things that matter.” In its beginning, Sprouse featured some of his own photography works^[4] on the site, but soon became pre-occupied with answering fan questions.

Notable Developments

The same day that Sprouse unveiled his Tumblr blog, the child actor’s fan site Sprouseland^[5] linked to the blog in a post. Throughout October, Sprouse continued to interact with his fans on the blog by answering user-submitted questions and even posting photos and audio of himself per request. On October 23rd, Livejournal gossip blog Oh No They Didn’t!^[6] posted screenshots of Sprouse’s blog posts, which was positively received with more than 300 comments from the LiveJournal community. On the following day, celebrity news site Crushable^[7] reported on Sprouse’s blog, detailing his witty reactions to being discovered as a celebrity and citing a post in which Sprouse stated he loved Tumblr’s likes and reblogs “in the same way I love a nursery filled with kids who defecate on themselves.”^[8]

Account Deletion

On November 18th, Sprouse published his last Tumblr post^[9] featuring a photo of himself with his hair over his face, one hand over his heart and the other in a two-fingered salute, along with the text explaining that he had accomplished his goal of running a social experiment through the microblogging platform and that his account would be removed. The post gained nearly 18,000 notes in the first 72 hours. This announcement was followed by a series of tweets (shown below) further explaining his project as a way to see how people would react to the idea of being observed.

Though Sprouse’s tweets were soon deleted, he left one^[10] post intact with a link to George Michael’s 1984 hit single “Careless Whisper.” (shown below)

Shortly before the deactivation of his Tumblr account, the blog Coleture Concept Archive^[13] was created by his fans to archive every post Sprouse had created. Following its removal, an unknown Tumblr user picked up the same URL and continued to field questions from Sprouse’s fans while impersonating his character. More discussions about his blog and reactions to its deletion can be found under the Tumblr tags Cole Sprouse^[11] and ColetureConcept.^[12]

On November 19th, Oh No They Didn’t!^[14] published a follow-up post explaining the context of Sprouse’s Tumblr experiment, which generated more than 400 comments in the first 48 hours. The same day, Sprouse tweeted an image macro of a small gray animal sitting in a box of pastries with the caption “Do what you must, I have already won.” The tweet utilized the hashtag #TumblrOzymandias, referring to Percy Byssshe Shelley’s 1818 poem “Ozymandias”^[15] that focuses on how all leaders and empires fall over time. It was retweeted more than 375 times and favorited nearly 550 times in the first 48 hours.

#TumblrOzymandiastwitter.com/TheOleKingCole…

— Cole M. Sprouse (@TheOleKingCole) November 20, 2012

Search Interest

External References

About

“R.I.P in Peace” is an online slang expression marked by its redundant phrasing which can be used to commemorate an individual who has either passed away or some who has been a target of an Internet death hoax. The phrase is often cited as an example of the “redundant acronym syndrome syndrome” (RAS syndrome).^[7]

Origin

The earliest known use of the phrase “RIP in peace” was posted in a thread titled “RIP in Peace Shane Cross” by Newgrounds Forums^[3] member Glue-Sniffer on May 12th, 2007, which lamented the death of professional skateboarder Shane Cross.

Spread

On October 24th, 2007, Urban Dictionary^[1] user purple_february submitted an entry for “R.I.P. in peace,” noting that the phrase is often used in Internet forums. On September 27th, 2008, GRcade Forums^[4] member Peter Crisp posted a thread asking why other users add “in peace” to the abbreviation “RIP,” to which several members replied that it was a common expression used on Internet forums. On April 2nd, 2010, UTD Forums^[5] member Sloppy posted a thread claiming the phrase “RIP in peace” originated from a page titled “RIP Grandad” on the teen blogging platform Piczo^[6] (shown below).

On December 18th, 2011, YouTuber KernelGaddafi uploaded a video titled “RIP in peace,” featuring a photograph of deceased North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il with a death hoax slide falsely identifying him as actor Jackie Chan (shown below).

On March 7th, 2013, Path of Exile Forums^[8] member DavosTheOnionKnight submitted a thread questioning why people used the phrase “RIP in peace.” On February 1st, 2014, YouTuber Mjau uploaded a Gordon Hurd testimonial video titled “RIP in peace, bro” (shown below). The same day, the video was posted to the /r/nl_Kripparrian^[2] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 380 up votes and 40 comments in two months.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Spiny Shell, also known as the Blue Shell, is a type of projectile weapon that can be used in Nintendo’s racing video game series Mario Kart to attack and impede the racer leading in the first place. Due to its high success rate and game-changing ability, the item has gained much notoriety as a major source of frustration and rage among the fans of the game.

Origin

The spiny shell was first introduced in Mario Kart 64, which was originally released for the Nintendo 64 console in Japan on December 14th, 1996. In the game, the shell target the person in first place, making them immobile for a few seconds after being hit. In Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, released for the Nintendo GameCube on November 7th, 2003, the shell was given wings and the ability to fly to the racer in first place to skip any obstacles along the way.

Spread

On March 10th, 2004, Urban Dictionary^[6] user Toadster submitted an entry for the blue shell. On March 6th, 2005, the spiny shell appeared in a sketch from Season 1 Episode 3 of the animated television series Robot Chicken, in which the video game character Mario uses the blue shell against a racer while the character Wario explains its function (shown below).

On July 16th, 2007, the webcomic Xkcd^[3] published a comic titled “Fucking Blue Shells,” featuring a pie graph of things that cause his use of profanity (shown below).

On June 16th, 2008, the video game blog GamesRadar^[1] listed the blue shell as the “worst part” of the Mario Kart video games. On August 23rd, 2009, Robot Chicken featured the blue shell in another sketch in which the shell destroys the video game character Toad while he is driving a getaway car for a group of bank robbers (shown below).

On March 9th, 2011, the video game blog Kotaku^[4] published an interview with Mario Kart producer Hideki Konno, who claimed the shell was introduced to the series to make the games more unpredictable. On May 11th, 2012, YouTuber CorridorDigital posted a video titled “Art of the Instakill,” which included the spiny shell among other video game items that kill players instantly (shown below). In the first two years, the video gathered upwards of 7.2 million views and 31,000 comments.

On August 17th, Redditor oh_rotanes submitted an image macro featuring the spiny shell superimposed over a screenshot of actor Liam Neeson from the 2008 action film Taken to the /r/gaming^[8] subreddit (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gathered more than 7,900 upvotes and 85 comments.

On March 6th, 2014, it was announced that people who lived in Europe and Australia could pre-order a limited edition of Mario Kart 8 and receive a spiny shell statue. Later, the offer was made available for people buying the game from the Nintendo World Store in New York City.

Super Horn

On April 30 2014, the new “super horn” item for Mario Kart 8 was revealed, which sends out a shockwave that flips other racers and destroys items, including the spiny shell. After being announced, many fans reacted positively to item’s ability to destroy the powerful spiny shell.^[7]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

#ThisCouldBeUsButYouPlayin is a hashtag used ironically to highlight unglamorous or awkward photographs of couples on Twitter and Tumblr, similar to the usage of the phrases “Like a Boss” and Haters Gonna Hate in image macros.

Origin

The phrase most likely originated from the 2012 Manio song “This Could Be Us,” as the chorus repeats the phrase “that could be us.”^[5] The hashtag was first used on Twitter by @blackgalaxshe^[2] on January 18th, 2014. It’s been mentioned on Twitter over 1.9 million times as of February 2014.^[3]

Spread

On January 25th, the Facebook page^[9]“This Could Be Us But You Playing” was created. On January 26th, the Twitter account @ButWhyYouPlayin^[5] was created with various image macros featuring unremarkable or awkward-looking couples and the caption #ThisCouldBeUsButYouPlayin. On January 29th, Bossip^[4] collected the best photos paired with the hashtag, and on February 6th, The Daily Dot^[1] published a post titled “#ThisCouldBeUsButYouPlayin is the greatest hashtag” which included a collection of the awkward photos used to accompany the hashtag and highlighted the existence of the trend of NSFW photos accompanying the hashtag.

On March 29th, 2014, Urban Dictionary^[8] user FimogenFeels submitted an entry for “This could be us but you playin’” which defined it as:

“A joke, often in meme form, that has a picture of an unattractive or ghetto couple (or a couple doing weird things) that says, ‘this could be us but you playin.’”

On May 21st, Complex^[10] published an article titled "To the Grave: Time to End the “This Could Be Us, But You…” Meme" which called for the end of the meme.

Prince’s “This Could Be Us”

On June 23rd, 2014, Minneapolis Star Tribune^[7] published an article about Prince’s yet-to-be titled upcoming solo album, which featured a quote from the artist saying that one of the tracks in the album, titled “This Could Be Us,” was inspired by an image macro parodying a still shot of him and Apollonia Kotero riding on a motorcycle from the 1984 film Purple Rain^[6] (shown below).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Façade is an interactive story game created by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern that uses artificial-intelligence (AI) to react to the player’s typed responses. The game has been the subject of parody online due to its low quality graphics, glitches and odd responses.

History

Façade was released for the Windows operating system as a free download on the Interactive Story^[1] website on July 5th, 2005. The Apple product news blog Macworld^[8] reported that a Mac conversion of the game had been produced by programmer Ryan Gordon on August 23rd, 2006.

Gameplay

The player assumes the role of a guest visiting the married couple Grace and Trip at their apartment. It becomes clear that the couple’s marriage is in decline and the player can attempt to resolve the conflict by typing in responses. These discussions can result in a variety of scenarios where the couple gets back together, leaves each other or asks you to leave. The game is notable due to its complex artificial intelligence which allows for a wide range of responses and interpretations of the player’s input.

Reception

When the game was initially released, it received a mostly positive response due to its innovative gameplay mechanics. An incomplete version of the game made it to the the finals of the 2004 Independent Games Festival. On June 7th, 2005, the game was covered in the New York Times^[9] arts section calling it “the future of video games.” It went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 Slamdance Independent Games Festival and was featured in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die in October of 2010.

On YouTube

The game has been featured in several humorous “Let’s Play” videos on YouTube. One of the first was uploaded by YouTuber kazztawdal on September 14th, 2009, in which he plays as if he were Genghis Khan, the Great Khan of the 13th century Mongol Empire (shown left). The video was submitted to Reddit^[7] on July 19th, 2010 and received 504 up votes prior to being archived.YouTuber Cr1TiKaL^[3], known for his video game “Game-play and Commentary” videos, uploaded a Façade video (shown right) on April 29th, 2011. With over 2,428,210 views as of February 24th, 2012, it is the most viewed Façade video on YouTube.

On Tumblr

The game saw a resurgence in popularity in late January 2012 on Tumblr, with the launch of Ask Trip and Grace^[6] blog where users could ask the fictional characters questions. The Unpopular Façade Opinions^[5] blog, which features image macros related to the game, was created on January 29th.

Fandom

Melons

Throughout the game, the word “melons” is interpreted as a euphemism for breasts by the game AI, making it difficult for players to differentiate between the euphemism and the fruit in literal context. Since the couple have bizarre, over-the-top reactions to any mention of the word, “Melons” has become a popular source of parody.

Mods

Modified fan versions of the game have been produced, in which certain elements have been altered or added to the rooms including decorations, characters and the view through the window.

Notable Images

The game has also inspired numerous works of fanart and photoshopped images drawing on some of the game’s interesting elements.

Search Interest

External Links

About

Michael Bay is an American film director known for directing several blockbuster action films, including Bad Boys, The Rock and Transformers, and his signature style of filmmaking marked by liberal use of special effects and explosions.

History

Film Career

When Bay was 15-year-old, he began interning for filmmaker George Lucas during the production of the 1981 action-adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he credits as his inspiration for becoming a film director.^[10] In his early career, Bay directed commercials and music videos for Propaganda Films. In 1994, Bay began shooting his first feature-length film Bad Boys, which was a box office success grossing $141 million during the summer of 1995 (shown below, left). In 1996, Bay directed the action film The Rock starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage (shown below, right).

In 1998, Bay directed and co-produced the science fiction disaster film Armageddon, which was subsequently nominated for four Oscar awards (shown below, left). In 2003, Bay directed Bad Boys II, a commercial success grossing $273 million worldwide.

In 2005, Bay directed the science-fiction film The Island as his first film directed without producer Jerry Bruckheimer (shown below, left). In 2007, the science fiction film Transformers was released (shown below, right), which was followed by two sequels released in 2009 and 2011, all of which were directed by Bay.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

In May 2011, the film production company Paramount announced that Bay had been chosen to produce a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. In March 2012, Bay revealed that the new ninja turtles would actually be from an “alien race,” departing from the franchise’s original sewer mutation origins.

“When you see this movie, kids are going to believe, one day, that these turtles actually do exist when we are done with this movie. These turtles are from an alien race and they are going to be tough, edgy, funny and completely lovable.”

On March 18th, Redditor TeamOommiZoomi submitted a post titled “Michael Bay is going to totally ruin TMNT” to the /r/movies^[1] subreddit, which gained over 3,300 up votes and 1,000 comments prior to being archived. On the following day, The Huffington Post^[3] published an article reporting on the growing Internet backlash towards Bay. Also on March 19th, Bay responded to the criticism in the Shoot For the Edit^[2] Forums:

“Fans need to take a breath, and chill. They have not read the script. Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of Ninja Turtles to help expand and give a more complex back story. Relax, we are including everything that made you become fans in the first place. We are just building a richer world.”

On March 20th, the SourceFed YouTube channel uploaded a video in which hosts Joe and Ron discuss the online criticism of Bay’s choice to make the ninja turtles an alien race (shown below).

On March 27th, Redditor Cruelsader submitted an image macro of Bay standing in front of an explosion with the caption “Destroys childhood memories, / one movie at a time” to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[8] subreddit, where it garnered more than 3,600 up votes and 150 comments prior to being archived.

Samsung Press Conference

On January 6th, 2014, Michael Bay appeared as a guest speaker at Samsung’s Consumer Electronic Show press event. After walking onstage, the teleprompter failed to display Bay’s lines correctly, causing Bay to apologize and walk off stage (shown below). The same day, Redditor wormyrocks submitted a post about the incident to the /r/cringe^[9] subreddit, where it gained upwards of 8,200 up votes and 1,100 comments in the first month.

Reputation

Michael Bay is often mocked online for using explosive special effects and overly-dramatic sequences. On March 12th, 2006, YouTuber Decimus13 uploaded a video titled “Michael Bay is Epic,” featuring a montage of car chases, explosions and destruction sequences from various Bay films (shown below).

On January 4th, 2009, YouTuber Chris Capel uploaded a video titled “Michael Bay Eating a Bowl of Cereal,” in which a man is shown pouring and eating a bowl of cereal in slow-motion accompanied by dramatic background music and a concerned-looking woman (shown below, left). On August 11th, 2011, the Screen Junkies YouTube channel uploaded a supercut of spinning camera shots from Michael Bay films (shown below, right).

On April 1st, 2012, YouTuber CardGamesFTW uploaded a video titled “Michael Bay’s YGO Abridged,” featuring scnes from the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! edited with a superimposed cut-out image of Shia Labouef and several explosions (shown below).

On March 20th, Redditor Jurstin submitted several scanned images of a parody script for the 2008 Batman film The Dark Knight to the /r/movies^[7] subreddit. Prior to being archived, the post received over 4,600 up votes and 440 comments.

Related Memes

“Directed By Michael Bay”

“Directed By Michael Bay” is an expression often paired with animated GIFs that have been edited with gratuitous explosions. On April 17th, 2013, Redditor wildman50 submitted an animated GIF of a skateboarder landing a trick with a giant explosion titled “Skateboarding: directed by Michael Bay” to the /r/funny^[4] subreddit, gathering upwards of 3,400 up votes and 120 comments prior to being archived (shown below, left). On October 4th, Redditor ArcherJF posted an animated GIF featuring scenes from the 1997 period drama film Titanic edited with explosions titled “Titanic, as directed by Michael Bay” to /r/gifs,^[5] accumulating over 5,400 up votes and 75 comments in four months (shown below, middle). On February 15th, 2014, Redditor HowIChrgeLazer submitted a GIF of two bees colliding into a giant explosion titled “So I heard Michael Bay is getting into nature documentaries” to /r/gifs,^[6] garnering more than 2,400 up votes and 25 comments in the next 10 days (shown below, right).

What If Michael Bay Directed…

What If Michael Bay Directed… is a series of movie trailer remixes in which a variety of well-known films across different genres are re-imagined as heavily CG animated and visually spectacular Hollywood action-adventure movies associated with the director. On February 8th, 2010, YouTuber Sindri Johannsson^[12] uploaded a video titled “If Michael Bay Directed the Super Bowl” which featured clips from the Super Bowl edited to include large-scale explosions, slow motion photography and other styles of cinematic techniques frequently used by Bay. On July 23rd, 2011, YouTuber MrStratman7^[11] uploaded a video titled “What if Michael Bay Directed ‘The Shawshank Redemption?’” featuring clips of the movie edited in the style of a high-octane Hollywood sci-fi action blockbuster.

On September 13th, 2013, Cracked^[13] uploaded a video titled “If Michael Bay Directed Heartwarming Documentaries – Action Movie Parody” which featured a documentary parody about a man trying to kill the mountain where his father died. On August 15th, 2014, YouTuber MrStratman7 uploaded a video titled “What if Michael Bay Directed “UP”?” The video was featured on several websites including UpRoxx^[14] and MTV.^[15]

Search Interest

External References

About

“See? Nobody Cares” is a catchphrase uttered by character Dennis Nedry in a dialogue scene from the 1993 science-fiction film Jurassic Park. On the Internet, the phrase has been frequently used as a reaction image to convey indifference or apathy towards someone soliciting unwarranted attention.

Origin

The memorable quote was originally featured in a dialogue segment from Jurassic Park wherein park employee and computer programmer Dennis Nedry (played by Wayne Knight) teases the head of research lab Lew Dodgson (played by Cameron Thor) for wearing a disguise while meeting at the terrace of a restaurant. A clip of the scene was uploaded to YouTube on July 11th, 2009 (shown below).

Dennis Nedry: [waving] “Dodgson!”
Lew Dodgson: [sitting down] “You shouldn’t use my name.”
Dennis Nedry: [loudly] “Dodgson, Dodgson, we’ve got Dodgson here! Nobody cares. Nice hat. What are you trying to look like, a secret agent?”

On March 13th, 2007, the earliest known online parody of the scene was uploaded to YTMND user keatonkeaton999 in a page titled “Dodgson (fun times mix),”^[7] which garnered nearly 180,000 views over the next seven years.

Spread

Between 2007 and 2009, more than a dozen additional YTMND pages^[8] featuring Dennis Nedry’s quote were submitted to the site, though none of them were able to live up to the popularity of the original remix. Then on November 25th, 2012, a two-pane image macro template depicting the dialogue scene was submitted to Memegenerator^[1], where it went on to spawn more than 50,000 variations, as of December 2014, during which the rhetorical question “See?” was added for additional emphasis. In 2013, the series continued to proliferate through a number of other image macro generator sites, including Quickmeme^[2] and Imgflip^[4], with several notable instances making appearances on WeKnowMeme^[5], MemeCenter^[6] and Car-memes.com.^[3]

Notable Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References

About

Wolverine Crush is a two-panel exploitable comic series featuring the Marvel superhero Wolverine gazing longingly at picture frame, which often contain various humorous images superimposed over the original photograph.

Origin

In Season 1 Episode 5 of the animated television series X-Men, originally aired on January 30th, 1993, the character Wolverine is shown jealously looking at a picture of the superheroes Cyclops and Jean Grey (shown below).

The earliest known instance of the exploitable comic featured a nude selfie of actress Scarlett Johansson and was submitted by Redditor Jamy18 to the /r/funny^[5] subreddit on September 18th, 2011 (shown below, right). Prior to being archived, the post accumulated over 1,000 up votes and 20 comments.

Spread

On April 10th, 2012, BuzzFeed^[1] highlighted a Wolverine Crush image featuring a superimposed photograph of Ridiculously Photogenic Guy. On the following day, Redditor xchaos submitted a comic of Wolverine holding a photograph of Valve founder Gabe Newell to /r/gaming^[2] (shown below, right).

On July 8th, 2013, Reddit Samisneat submitted a comic of Wolverine caressing a picture of actor Nicolas Cage to the /r/onetruegod^[3] subreddit, where it gained more than 1,700 up votes and 15 comments before it was archived. On September 10th, Redditor dinojoe posted a Wolverine Crush image featuring a photograph of marijuana to the /r/trees^[4] subreddit, garnering upwards of 2,800 up votes and 45 comments prior to being archived.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References