About

“Roundabout” is a 1971 progressive rock song by the British rock band Yes. Due to its heavy usage in the first two arcs of the popular manga-anime series Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the song has been frequently used by JJBA fans in various Vine and YouTube remixes, along with the “to be continued” graphic logo featured in the manga-anime series, typically at the climax of the video for comedic and suspenseful effects.

Origin

“Roundabout”^[1] was originally released in 1971 as the lead single of the British rock band Yes’^[2] fourth studio album Fragile, which peaked at 14th place in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, though it gained much of its online popularity through its inclusion in the 2012 anime adaptation of the Japanese manga series Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure^[3].

In the anime, the song can be heard during the final few minutes of the “Phantom Blood”^[4] and “Battle Tendency”^[5] arcs to get the viewer hyped up for the next episode, before it was subsequently replaced by “Walk Like an Egyptian”^[6] in “Stardust Crusaders”^[7].

Spread

The earliest known usage of this meme stems from “Danksmash” remix of the Squidward Dab (shown below), which was uploaded to Vine on January 27th, 2016.

The Vine clip has over two million loops, which in turn led to the creation of derivative remixes based on Marge Krumping and Spoons Rattling, among others.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Wew Lad” is an obfuscatory expression associated with circle jerking or shitposting, which is often accompanied by a poorly-drawn illustration of a man’s face known as the “Wrinkle Face” or a digitally altered picture of the Doge Shiba Inu.

Origin

On December 14th, 2012, the network security blog SecurityMatters^[3] reported that a 13-year-old student from Philippines was murdered for replying to a Facebook post with the word “wew.” The earliest known use of the phrase “wew lad” was submitted in a thread on 4chan’s [s4s]^[1] (shit 4chan says) board on December 14th, 2013.

Spread

On May 29th, 2014, the single serving site Wew Lad^[2] was launched, featuring a photoshopped picture of Doge with an animated Wrinkle Face character^[5] spinning in the center and a remix of the theme song from the television show Hawaii Five-0 playing in the background. On January 21st, 2015, Redditor mememaster420xx submitted the page to the /r/FreshMemes^[4] subreddit.

On March 31st, a post featuring an illustration of the toast man’s face along with the description “wew lad is 4chan’s newest meme” was submitted to /s4s/ (shown below). On the following day, World of Warcraft Forums^[4] member Amberly submitted a thread titled “wew lad.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Bertstrips is an image macro series featuring screenshots of characters from the American children’s television show Sesame Street captioned with humorous and often inappropriate descripitons in the style of Bitstrips webcomics.

Origin

The original collection of Bertstrips was submitted by Redditor BillNyeDeGrasseTyson to /r/funny on November 5th, 2013. The post gained more than 2,000 upvotes^[1] prior to its archiving.

Precursor

On the Internet, Bert has been portrayed as a sinister character since as early as 1998 with the birth of Bert Is Evil, a website highlighting photographs of the Sesame Street character captioned with made-up descriptions characterizing the iconic Muppet in a nefarious light.

Spread

A subreddit dedicated to Bertstrips was created the same day as the original post was made. As of March 2015, the subreddit has over 40,000 subscribers and averages 5-10 posts per day.^[2]

Examples

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References

Editor’s Note: This entry contain spoilers to Fate/stay night.

About

Unlimited Blade Works refers to the noble phantasm of the character Archer and Shirou Emiya in the Type-Moon Fate series. Since its introduction in 2004, the ability became popular among fans, spawning parodies and a copypasta based on the noble phantasm’s incantation.

Origin

Unlimited Blade Works was first introduced in the 2004 visual novel game Fate/stay night, specifically in one of the game’s story routes under the same name as the noble phantasm. The noble phantasm is a reality marble that acts as a magical factory for creating replicas of various weapons including other noble phantasms. To summon the reality marble, Archer must use an incantation to facilitate the invocation. The incantation reads:

Shirou Emiya has an alternate version of the incantation which he uses to summon the reality marble. The incantation is as follows:

Spread

Discussions regarding Unlimited Blade Works began as early as 2006 with posts appearing on a number of sites such as reddit,^[1] Tumblr,^[2] 4chan,^[3] Gamefaqs,^[4] TVTropes,^[5] and Zetaboards.^[6] On December 8th, 2008, Urban Dictionary user Arblast submitted an entry regarding the noble phantasm.^[7]
On July 31st, 2013, Youtube user ExiaFr posted a video showcasing Archer using Unlimited Blade Works which was taken from the 2010 Movie adaptation of Fate/stay night (shown below, left). Within 2 years, the video gathered over 276.000 views. On May 10th, 2015, Youtube user TheSzadow posted a video comparing Archer’s Unlimited Blade Works ability between the 2006 and the 2014 anime adaptation of Fate/stay night (shown below, right). Within a year, the video gathered over 199.000 views.

Unlimited Essay Works

Unlimited Essay Works refers to a notorious 4chan post that was submitted by a user known as “Mike”. The post shows an essay which was written in the same manner as the copypasta which resulted in the user getting a D+ and ultimately failing his semester.
The original thread was posted on 2nd August, 2006, on 4chan’s /a/ board. In the thread, the original poster delivered a promise he made in a previous topic to turn in his final exam in the form of the Unlimited Blade Works copypasta (shown below).^[13]

The thread gained traction among users and was subsequently stickied by a mod.^[11] The image of the essay gained popularity on a number of sites such as Funny Exams,^[9] Dark Mirage,^[8] and FunnyJunk.^[14] The thread also spawned a number of edits that pokes fun at the event(shown below).

Various Examples

Images

Copypastas

Search Interest

References

Editor’s Note: This entry contain spoilers.

About

Interstellar is a 2014 science fiction movie directed by Christopher Nolan and Starring Matthew McConaughey.

Premise

The story takes place in the near future where due to global famine and climate change, humanity is in danger of becoming extinct. Meanwhile, a mysterious rip in the space-time continuum is discovered near Saturn which is seen as an opportunity by NASA to travel beyond the solar system and search for a new habitable planet so that the human race can survive.

History

On December 14th, 2013, the official Interstellar Youtube channel uploaded a teaser for the movie, which gained over 5.2 million views and 3.300 comments within a year (shown below, left). On May 16th. 2014, the first official trailer was uploaded, which gained over 1.5 million views and 1.100 comments within a year (shown below, right).

On November 4th, 2014, Interstellar was released across theaters in the USA. The movie grossed over 47,5 million dollars on its opening weekend.

Reception

As of May, 2015, Interstellar holds a score of 74 on Metacritic^[1], a 72% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes^[2], and an 8.7 user rating on IMDb^[3]. Interstellar was nominated for over a hundred awards, including an Oscar win for best achievement in visual effects^[4].

Online Presence

On April, 2013, the Interstellar Twitter account was launched and within 2 years gathered over 55.180 followers^[5]. On December, 2013, the Interstellar Facebook page was launched which gathered over 1.3 million likes within a year^[6]. On June 6th, 2014, the Interstellar Wiki was created and currently holds 110 pages regarding the movie as of May, 2015^[7]. The Interstellar subreddit which was launched to discuss about the movie currently has over 10.600 readers as of May, 2015^[8].
On November 13th, 2014, the Business Insider Youtube channel uploaded a video in which fame Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains the ending of Interstellar (shown below, left). In 5 months, the video gained more than 1.1 million views and 1.998 comments. On November 18th, 2014, the Fox 5 NY Youtube channel uploaded a video which Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about his views on the movie, remarking how realistic the science behind the movie compared to real life (shown below, right). In 5 months, the video gained over 1.1 million views and 4.669 comments.

Related Memes

Interstellar Docking Parodies

Interstellar Docking Parodies are a series of YouTube spoof videos featuring the climactic docking scene in the movie.

Matthew McConaughey Reaction Videos

Matthew McConaughey Reaction Videos refers to a series of parody videos based on a scene wherein the main protagonist Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughey) reacts emotionally while watching a backlog of video messages sent from his family over the course of decades.

Search Interest

External References

(Note: This Entry Contains Major Spoilers!)

About

Interstellar Docking Parodies are a series of YouTube spoof videos featuring the climactic docking scene from the 2014 science fiction movie Interstellar directed by Christopher Nolan.

Origin

In the movie, after Dr. Mann tricks the spaceship captain Cooper and his crew into coming to his planet, he attempts to escape by docking his ship onto the team’s satellite. This attempt ultimately fails because Dr. Mann lacks the training to properly attach his ship onto the satellite. His error causes an explosion that tears some of the satellite apart, killing Mann instantly. Cooper then attempts docking on the satellite. He succeeds in a triumphant scene scored by Hans Zimmer and noteworthy for its special effects.

Spread

On November 14th, 2014, reddit user submitted a post titled “Docking scene. [Spoiler]” on /r/interstellar. The post has since gathered 270 points and 129 comments as of March 2015^[3]. In December, a similar discussion was started on 4Chan’s /tv/ board^[4] and received over 50 comments.

The first instance of the parody was on November 17th, 2014 by Youtuber Draftgon, titled “Interstellar imperfect usb dock (Imperfect Lock).” The video featured a dramatic re-staging of the scene, complete with soundtrack, substituting a USB cable and port for the ship and satellite. As of March 2015, the video has garnered more than 285,000 views^[1].

On November 26th, 2014, youtuber KazuyaPP uploaded a video titled “Interstellar Docking Scene [SPOILERS]” where he replicates the scene using a standing fan as substitute for the ship and the satellite. The video has received more than 526,000 views as of March 2015^[2].

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: This entry contain major spoilers from the movie Interstellar.

About

Matthew McConaughey Reaction Videos refers to a series of parody videos based on a scene from the 2014 science fiction film Interstellar wherein the main protagonist Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughey) reacts emotionally while watching a backlog of video messages sent from his family over the course of decades.

Origin

In the film, after a reconnaissance mission on the planet Miller goes horribly wrong, Cooper and the rest of the group return to their spaceship only to discover that 23 years had passed during their hours-long operation on the planet due to the heavy time dilation caused by its proximity to a blackhole. What follows afterwards is a highly emotional scene, wherein Cooper begins watching all of the video recordings that were transmitted to the spaceship from his children on Earth over the course of the last two decades.

On December 28th, 2014, the McConaughey Reacts YouTube channel was created. On the same day, the channel uploaded its first videos which features Matthew McConaughey Reacting to Keyboard Cat. On December 29th, the channel uploaded another video in which Matthew McConaughey Reacts to Grape Stomping Lady. Together, both videos accumulated over 9.000 views as of May 2015.

Spread

On April 16th, 2015, YouTuber oskararnarson uploaded a video which shows an edited version of the scene which shows Matthew McConaughey reacting to the second teaser trailer of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Within a month, the video gathered more than 9.7 million views. The video was posted on the /r/videos subreddit the next day where it gathered around 4.933 points and 1.171 comments as of May, 2015^[1]. The video was also covered by various news sites such as Hollywood Reporter^[2], The Verge^[3], Moviefone^[4], Hollywood Life^[5], and Slash Film^[6].

On April 17th, 2015, YouTuber Tyrone Magnus uploaded a video of himself reacting to the Star Wars reaction video. Within less than a month, the video gathered over 39.000 views. On April 20th, 2015, the YouTube channel The Reel Rejects uploaded a video that shows Ryan and Sally reacting to the Star Wars reaction video. As of May, 2015, the video gathered more than 43.000 views.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Shantae is a series of platformer metroidvania video games created by Matt and Erin Bozon; and developed by WayForward Technologies. In it, you play as Shantae, a half-genie who tries to protect her hometown Scuttle Town and the surrounding Sequin Land from evil.^[1][2]

History

The character “Shantae” was created in 1994 by Erin Bozon after coming back from a camping trip. Erin named her after one of the campers there. Matt Bozon then took the character and worked on the world and other characters to go in it.^[3] After multiple delays, the game was developed by WayForward Technologies and published by Capcom for the Game Boy Color in 2002.^[4]

Shantae: Risky’s Revenge

In 2008, WayForward sent out a newsletter in which they announced they were working on a Shantae game for Nintendo DS.^[5] It was later announced, with the title, as part of Nintendo of America’s 2009 holiday lineup, with a Q4 release date.^[6] It was delayed, and eventually released on October 4th, 2010.^[7]

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse

Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse was announced in the November 6th, 2012 edition of Nintendo Power, as coming to the Nintendo 3DS eShop.^[21] On June 9th, 2014, an exclusive interview by Nintendo Life with Matt Bozon revealed that it was also coming to the Wii U eShop.^[22] It was released roughly two years later, on October 23rd, 2014.^[23]

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

Funded by a Kickstarter launched September 4th, 2013,^[24]Shantae: Half-Genie Hero (sometimes stylized as Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero) is an upcoming sequel to Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, and continuation of the Shantae games. It was fully funded on September 23rd, 2013,^[25] and continued to reach stretch goals until it closed on December 17th, 2014.^[26]

Reception

The Shantae series has generally be critically acclaimed all around. Shantae has made it onto multiple top-lists for the best Game Boy games, such as one by Game Informer,^[30] and another by GamesRadar.^[31] In 2010, Shantae: Risky’s Revenge was chosen for Best Visuals and Best DS Game by IGN.^[32][29]Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse was nominated for IGN’s Best 3DS game and Best Platformer in 2015.^[27][28]

Online Relevance

On August 23rd, 2015, YouTube user MowtenDoo uploaded a mashup video (below, right) of the Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse section “Run Run Rottytops” and Terry Crews Old Spice commercials titled “Run Run Bodywash”. It obtained over 1,250,000 views in less than a year. On January 1st, 2016, YouTube user JelloApocalypse uploaded a comic dub by him and user LittleM Mistress, titled “Shantae Fandom”. It obtained over 300,000 views about half a year.

The Shantae series has gathered a notable following. On DeviantArt, searching “Shantae” garners over 10,000 results.^[16] On Youtube, the same search brings about 119,000 results.^[17] On September 15th, 2013, the /r/Shantae subreddit was created. In two and a half years, it gained nearly 400 subscribers.^[18] Fandom presence can be also found on sites such as Tumblr^[19] and Twitter,^[20] with fanart and discussion.

Shantae For Smash

Shantae For Smash (also known as Shantae 4 Smash, Vote For Shantae, and other names) refers to a campaign to help Shantae win the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot. As it was taking votes, Shantae emerged as one of the most popular characters. WayForward showed support for the idea, encouraging fans to vote for Shantae.^[33]

Search Interest

External references

About

Piero Scaruffi’s Beatles Commentary refers to a copypasta taken from an analysis about The Beatles by the Italian software engineer and music critic. Online, the quotation has gained notoriety for its critical attitude toward the band, as well as its perceived air of pretentiousness. The quote is also often used to infuriate people that are so-called “music defeners” or to critique artists of other genres.

Origin

Beatles, a retrospective article on rock group The Beatles, was published on Piero Scaruffi’s website in 1999.^[1] In the article, Scaruffi makes the claim that The Beatles are overrated by many other critics due to their fame. The copypasta, which was translated to English from its original Italian, is taken from its first paragraph, reproduced below.

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as “the greatest or most significant or most influential” rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

Spread

The copypasta was first posted onto 4chan’s music board (/mu/) on June 23rd, 2012, in a thread about The Beatles.^[2] It has since been reposted onto the board over 2,000 times in various incarnations since then. A video of Tyrone reading the copypasta was uploaded to YouTube in January 2014.

Variants

Search Interest

References

About

Topkek is a brand of small Turkish cupcakes produced by the ETi Company. The snack became popular with regulars of the imageboard 4chan’s [s4s] board due to the use of “kek” in its name.

Origin

In Turkish, kek means cake, and Topkek, a brand of cupcakes, was first produced in 1990 by ETi, a Turkish confectionery company.^[1] In 2011, the television show Workaholics aired an episode in which the character Adam Demamp wears a hat embroidered with Top Gun, and as this phrase spread in use, one of the mutations incorporated the phrase kek, creating “Topkek.” In May of 2013, an /s4s/ board user under the name “prime minister face” created a thread featuring the cake, which received over 6,000 replies before it was archived.^[2] In 2014, the meme aggregator site Top Kek was created.^[4]

Spread

An Encyclopedia Dramatica entry on Topkek was created on May 18th, 2013, around the same time of the original thread on /s4s/. An Urban Dictionary definition for “topkek” was created in September of 2013.^[3] Sometime in 2013, a Flash video was created which heavily features the cake; a censored version of this Flash was uploaded to YouTube where it has been viewed 90,000 times. In 2014, an edited clip of a Based Tyrone video in which he says “top kek” was uploaded to YouTube, were it has been viewed over 365,000 times. In addition, the subreddit /r/topkek was created in July of 2013.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

“MOMHOLYFUCK” is a quote featured in a fan-drawn comic inspired by Disney’s animated children’s TV show Phineas and Ferb, wherein the character Candace kicks a door open and yells the phrase in an over-the-top manner. Since surfacing on Tumblr in June 2013, the illustration has been parodied with dozens of characters from other well-known fictional universes, quite similar to the development of the “It’s Goofy Time” parodies.

Origin

On June 21st 2013, Tumblr user Juniorbizarre uploaded a hand-drawn parody comic as a tribute to Phineas and Ferb, directly scanned from the blogger’s personal sketchbook. In the series, the older sister of the main characters, Cadance, tries to tell their mother of her brother’s exploits, while in the fan comic many of the common features of episodes in the series are parodies or overblown. This posted gained over 275,000 notes in two years ^[1]

On June 28th of the same year, Juniorbizzare later posted the full comic in its entirety^[2] and said “this was just a silly thing i did quite a while ago to make myself laugh :D i’m so glad other people think it’s funny too omg”. The artist also has also called it the “crumpets comic” in reference to yet another odd quote featured in the same comic.

Spread

On November 20th, 2014 Tumblr user Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuurdock uploaded a version they had made from an anonymous request about the-then upcoming Marvel movieAvengers: Age of Ultron.^[3] Later that same day, Robert Downey Jr., the American actor well-known for his portrayal of Tony Stark and the superhero alter ego “Iron Man” in The Avengers, reblogged this image with the caption “The most accurate portrayal of Tony in Age of Ultron I’ve seen” and attribution to the original Tumblr blog on his Facebook page. The post garnered over 178,000 likes in less than one year.^[4] On April 30th, 2015, artist and voice actor Kylee Henke uploaded a dramatic reading of the scripted dialogue via her personal blog on Tumblr, where it gathered over 51,000 notes in the following four months.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Carter the Banana Boy is a photoshop meme based on a picture of a young boy in sunglasses and looking at the camera while eating a banana. In this series, an exploitable cutout of the boy is photoshopped into a variety of base images to portray him as the star of an action film, in somewhat similar vein to The Action Movie Kid.

Origin

On May 12th, 2014, Redditor Theone211 submitted a photograph of a little boy eating a banana in a post titled “This is Carter. He knocked on my door to ask if he could have a banana then left” to the /r/funny^[1] subreddit (shown below). In the first 24 hours, the post gained over 73,100 upvotes and 2,600 comments.

In the comments section, Redditor FuriousGeorge06 suggested someone should “photoshop an explosion behind him,” which was promptly followed up by a set of three “explosive” photoshopped parodies from Redditor Saurongetti, along with a blank template of the boy eating the banana (shown below, far right).

Spread

That same day, Reddit sodelll posted an image macro of the photo with the caption “I’m here to fuck bitches and eat bananas / and I’m almost done with my banana” to /r/funny^[2] (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Redditor dayofgreed submitted the picture of Carter to the /r/photoshopbattles^[3] subreddit, where several Redditors posted images with Carter superimposed into the backgrounds of film posters (shown below, right).

Also on May 12th, 2014, other photoshopped images featuring Carter reached the front page of Reddit,^[4][5][6] many of which earned upwards of 10,000 upvotes in 24 hours (shown below). Later that day, compilations of notable examples were subsequently posted on BuzzFeed^[7] and Mashable.^[8]

On May 13th, actor Wil Wheaton tweeted that Carter was his “favorite person on the Internet today,” receiving over 240 favorites and 85 retweets in less than 12 hours.

3D-Printed Figurine

On May 23rd, a 3D-printed figurine of Carter was added to the 3D printing marketplace Shapeways^[9] (shown below).

Various Examples

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External References

About

Lauren Mayberry “Leave a Trace” Controversy is a debate in which posters of the music board of 4chan, /mu/ attacked Lauren Mayberry, lead singer of the band Chvrches, for her appearance in a music video for the band’s 2015 single “Leave a Trace.” The controversy spread to Twitter when a board poster invited Mayberry to join.

Origin

On August 17th, 2015 the official Chvrches Vevo uploaded a music video to the song “Leave A Trace,” the second single off their album Every Open Eye.

On the same day, a thread on /mu/^[2] was created showcasing the video. Much of the comments in the thread focused on two criticisms: firstly, that Lauren Mayberry was being sexually provocative in how she was clothed and styled in the video, and secondly, that the other Chvrches members Iain Cook and Martin Doherty were barely featured in the video, despite Mayberry’s previous claims that she was intent on not focusing on being a female figurehead for the band.^[8] Before it was archived, the post received 819 replies.

A few hours after the post went up, after it had accumulated several hundred replies, one poster tweeted a link to the thread to Mayberry(the account who did this has now been banned due to multiple reports from users). She responded by blocking the user who sent it, retweeting the link and writing: “Dear anyone who thinks misogyny isn’t real. It is and this is what it looks like.”

Spread

After Mayberry tweeted the thread, multiple news outlets, including the Mirror^[3], Music.mic^[4], Daily Records^[5], The Sidney Morning Herald ^[6] and The Independent^[7] wrote opinion articles commenting on the misogyny and abuse of the 4chan users, as well as their sexual objectification of Mayberry. The official Chvrches Twitter tweeted in support of Mayberry on the same day, along with fellow Chvrches member Martin Doherty, and Stuart Braithwaite, the lead guitarist of the post-rock band Mogwai.

External References

About

Make America Great Again is a slogan adopted by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump for his 2016 United States presidential campaign. The phrase first gained online fame in July 2015 after Trump was photographed wearing a hat bearing the slogan during a visit to the Mexican border, and since then, it has been used by both Trump supporters and critics in various discussions about the candidate.

Origin

Donald Trump adopted “Make America Great Again”^[1] as his official campaign slogan and simultaneously launched merchandise bearing the phrase in June 2015, shortly after announcing his bid for the Republican Party’s nomination in the 2016 United States presidential election. However, the slogan went largely unnoticed until Trump donned a hat during a visit to Laredo, Texas near the Mexican border in July 2015.

Precursor

“Let’s Make America Great Again” was first used as a campaign slogan by Ronald Reagan during his 1980 election campaign. Since then, it has often been used as a GOP refrain, most recently as part of the title of the 2011 book on Tea Party politics by Christine O’Donnell.^[2] Trump has claimed to have authored the phrase, but has not produced any proof.^[3]

Spread

Soon after photographs of Trump wearing the hat appeared in the mainstream media, users both began photoshopping new text onto the front of the hat, as well as ordering the hat in droves and using it in photographs, either ironically or not. The Washington Post reported on July 28th that the official hat had sold out from the retail location authorized to sell it; many bootleg versions became available online. ^[4][5]

Users on Instagram and Twitter began photographing themselves in the hat, often tagging the photo with the hashtag #MakeAmericaGreatAgain, which had over 7,600 posts as of August 10th, 2015 on Instagram.^[6][7] In addition, Funny or Die published a collection on July 24th, 2015, of other slogans photoshopped onto the hat, which inspired similar photoshops to become popular on Tumblr.^[8][9] On Reddit, user iamclaytonbigsby posted an image of Trump wearing the hat to /r/photoshopbattles, where it received 28 points.^[10]

The trend of people wearing the hat as a photo fad was covered in The Hollywood Reporter, and the Sun Times, while the photoshop editing was written about in E! Online and Bloomberg News.^{[11][12][13][14]} The hat itself has spawned two separate parody Twitter accounts, @trumphat, and @Donaldtrumphat, neither of which have more than a couple hundred followers as of August 10th, 2015.^[15]

Various Examples

People Wearing the Hat

Hat Photoshops

Search Interest

External References

About

I Wish I Could Talk to Ponies is an exploitable 4-panel webcomic featuring a young girl who wishes that she could speak to a pony, but upon its fulfillment, the talking animal blurts out a blunt or insensitive statement that leaves her disappointed and upset.

Origin

On February 21st, 2014, illustrator Jim Benton^[7] posted an original comic on Reddit in which a young girl is granted the power to speak with ponies by a magical fairy. In the final panel, a pony is shown tormenting the girl by asking her “why are you so ugly all the time” (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 2,000 votes (95% upvoted) on the /r/funny^[1] subreddit.

On November 8th, Redditor CloudCollapse posted an Imgur gallery featuring an exploitable template of the comic (shown below) along with several customized examples, purportedly collected from the /b/ (random) board on 4chan. In two months, the post accumulated upwards of 1,600 votes (90% upvoted) and 40 comments on the /4/chan^[4] subreddit.

Spread

The same day, Redditor Sir-SmokesALot submitted a version of the webcomic titled “Things a pony would say,” in which the horse informs the girl that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” in reference to an argument made by conspiracy theorists who claim that the September 11th, 2001 attacks were orchestrated by the United States government (shown below, left).^[2] On November 16th, Redditor Corruptacy posted a version in which the pony says “Hitler did bring up some pretty valid points” (shown below, right).^[3] In two months, the posts gathered more than 4,400 votes (92% upvoted) and 1,200 votes (82% upvoted) on /r/funny respectively.

On July 27th, Redditor Nodebunny posted another version in an /r/funny^[6] post titled “Be Careful What You Wish For” (shown below, left). On December 13th, IGN Forums^[5] member SkywardNord submitted a comic in which the pony says the Islamic Arabic expression “Allahu Akbar” (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Crack Kid is the nickname given to Viner Brady Hartwig^[2] after several video clips of the young boy squealing and pulling other antics went viral on the the mobile video-sharing platform in June 2014.

Origin

On June 5th, 2014, Viner Nathan Moszyk^[3] uploaded a video of his little brother Brady making high-pitched squealing noises while being hit in the head with a basketball (shown below). In the first week, the Vine gained over 233,000 revines and 225,000 likes.

Spread

On the same day, Viner MilesHRLY^[4] uploaded a new video of Hartwig yelling while banging a basketball with his forehead, accumulating more than 30,000 revines and 26,000 likes in the next week (shown below, left). On June 9th, Moszyk uploaded a new video of his brother performing a twerk dance (shown below, right).

The same day Viner Duke Thurston uploaded a remix video combining the original Crack Kid video with the 2012 hip hop song “Good Kid, M.A.A.D City” by Kendrick Lamar (shown below, left). In the next 72 hours, the vines garnered over 5,900 and 36,000 revines respectively. On June 10th, Viner Demontz uploaded a version of the Crack Kid clip edited to appear as if he were throwing a basketball at Hartwig’s head while babysitting him (shown below, right). In 48 hours, the video received more than 252,000 likes and 195,000 revines.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Be Like Bill is an exploitable stick figure illustration of a man named “Bill” using a desktop computer, accompanied by a parable praising Bill’s choice to simply carry on after being provoked by a trigger while browsing the Internet. Since its emergence through English-language humor websites in late 2015, the single-pane comic has gone globally viral and spawned a large volume of derivative illustrations with similar messages highlighting other socially intelligent behaviors on the web and in real life.

Origin

The origin of the drawing is unknown, but it began showing up on forums like Funnyjunk^[1] and Reddit^[2] in October of 2015. The earliest instance of the image was in English, and was meant as an ironic jab at social justice warriors.

Precursor

On March 30th, 2010, JoyReactor user Anon uploaded a stick figure illustration of a character named “Tim” and a public service announcement (PSA) message praising his indifferent reaction to seeing offensive content while browsing the Internet.

In September 2011, this particular style of illustrations went viral with the launch of Australia’s Queensland Rail PSA posters designed to educate the public on passenger etiquettes, which quickly became a subject of dozens of parodies (shown below).

Spread

On December 21st, 2015, an Italian Facebook page was created called Sii come Bill (Be like Bill).^[3] The page, devoted to posted Italian version of the Be Like Bill meme, has received more than 226,000 likes in less than three weeks. A Spanish-language page, called Sé como José, was launched on January 2nd, and in less than four days has received more than 405,000 followers. Sé como José has received the most attention in the Spanish-speaking press, who have deemed it one of the first “virales” (memes) of 2016. In an interview with BuzzFeed, the anonymous administrator of the Spanish-speaking page said he decided to translate the Bill meme from Italian after seeing its popularity there.

Various Examples

Top row: Italian examples. Bottom row: Spanish examples, some of which are translations of the Italian examples.

Search Interest

External References

About

Logical Fallacy Ref is an image macro series featuring photographs of sports referees with captions calling out the use of logically invalid arguments used in online debate.

Origin

On July 11th, 2015, a gallery was uploaded to Imgur^[1] containing 32 image macros of sports referees calling out various logical fallacies, which credited film critic Glen Welch as the creator of the series. Within two weeks, the gallery received more than 230,000 views.

Precursor: Your Logical Fallacy Is

On September 24th, 2011, the website YourLogicalFallacyIs.com^[6] was launched, which features explanations of many formal and informal fallacies often used in discussions on the Internet.

Spread

On July 12th, 2015, Redditor rtphokie submitted the Imgur gallery to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[3] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 4,600 votes (88% upvoted) and 480 comments in the first two weeks. The following day, a Logical Fallacy Referee image about the “strawman” fallacy was reposted on 9gag.^[4] On July 15th, the political news site Dangerous Minds^[8] published an interview with Welch about the creation of the series. On July 16th, the “Fallacy Ref” Facebook^[7] page was launched, which highlights notable examples of the meme.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

“Leaf a Like” is a catchphrase used by the fans of the popular vlogger LeafyIsHere to spam the comment sections of popular video pages on YouTube. Initially coined as part of a photoshopped parody series depicting the video game commentator as a reptile, the in-joke has also spawned a number of other related terms used in the comments section of YouTube, including the Reptilian Army, Reptilian Brotherhood and most notably “Hisss…”, an onomatopoiea of the high-pitched sound commonly associated with reptilian creatures.

Origin

The origin of the reptilian brotherhood joke goes all the way back to August 14th, 2015 where Leafy made a video titled “KIDS THATYOUTUBE 2”

In this video, he discusses conspiracy theorist Youtubers. Throughout the video, he frequently makes jokes about the Illuminati, and he says things that joke around with the thought of these YouTubers being reptiles or reptillians.

This continued to carry on to August 24th, 2015 when LeafyIsHere uploaded a video titled “REPTILIANS” in which he talks about discovering a variety of fan artworks and photoshopped parodies dedicated to him on Twitter. Most notably the ones depicting him as a lizard and other reptilian creatures.

Spread

On YouTube

Between October 12th and 13th, the YouTube comments section was flooded with repetitive use of the Hisss, Reptilian Brotherhood, and Reptilian Army phrase. Most notably used on bigger YouTuber’s videos, sometimes even beating out first^[1]. Comments like these were almost always in the Top Comments section, even with minimal likes. Sometimes, the phrase would even turn to a form of harassment, or calling out certain YouTubers for not being as good as LeafyIsHere and saying they should be attacked or “overthrown”^[2].

On Twitch

It continued to grow and began to be spammed in numerous Twitch chats. When Streamers on Twitch would stream their chats would be flooded with “HISSSS…” and other forms of LeafyIsHere spam. Some Streamers would go as far as to use Sub-Mode Only in their chats, meaning their subscribers could only chat. This however did not work as they expected because even the subs were in on the joke and would spam. Many Youtubers and Twitch Streamers have complained by tweeting to Leafy, some just poking fun and laughing at the spam, others were genuinely mad and wanting Leafy to control his fan base.

LeafyIsHere’s Response

On October 13th, LeafyIsHere posted a response video to share his initial thoughts on the spam comments (shown below, left). LeafyIsHere also provided his own explanation as to why this happened on the DramaAlert video released October 14th, 2015 (shown below, right).

Alongside on October 14th, LeafyIsHere tweeted a similar message to address the backlash directed at him as a result of the spamming on YouTube; also commenting about how it was starting to act similar to a cult.

When you make a joke about the reptilians, then they start calling you a reptilian. Month later you somehow become the leader of a cult???

— Leafy (@LeafyIsHere) October 14, 2015

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1]YouTube – LeafyIsHere’s Channel

^[2]YouTube – REPTILIANS

^[3]Facebook – Leafy’s Profile Picture

^[4]Twitter – LeafyIsHere’s Tweet

^[5]Twitter – LeafyIsHere’s Tweet

About

“Haha, Long Boy” refers to an instant message containing a clipart of an orange-colored cylinder that was sent by an anonymous Facebook user to the administrators of the Facebook group Special Meme Fresh in late February 2016. Shortly after receiving the message, the group posted a screenshot of the bizarre exchange to its blog on Tumblr, spawning a series of photoshopped parodies and other forms of shitposts on the microblogging platform.

Origin

On February 24th, 2016, Special Meme Fresh featured a Q&A post via its Tumblr blog^[1] in response to an anonymous user’s question about the layers of irony webcomic, which described a list of ten different levels in understanding ironic humor.

“Could you list the layers of irony? What happens on each level, and when does each layer of irony no longer is fresh plz, thank”

Among the different levels, the description of the fifth layer stood out as exceptionally odd, which read:

“you send your friend a pic of a cylinder and say “haha long boy.” they unfriend you"

Within the first two weeks, the group’s Tumblr blog post^[2] garnered more than 2,400 notes. That same day, Special Meme Fresh posted a screenshot of a Facebook Messenger dialogue fitting the description of the “fifth level” to its Facebook page, where it accrued over 1,300 likes and 163 shares over the same time period.

Spread

On February 26th, 2016, Special Meme Fresh posted a picture of the orange-colored cylinder captioned with the phrase “who are you? im you but longer” to its Tumblr blog.^[3] In less than two weeks, the post gained more than 10,000 notes.^[2]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References