About

Shit Was So Cash is an infamous copypasta from the latter half of 2007. Originating from a post on /b/, the copypasta is a sexually explicit rant in which the poster berates the community on which the copypasta is posted while portraying oneself as an alpha male; in a similar manner to the Navy Seal Copypasta. Shit Was So Cash to date remains one of the most famous copypastas on the internet and maintained steady usage almost a decade after it first came out.

Origin

The original post was made between mid to late 2007 on 4chan’s /b/ board. The original post (shown below) featured the copypasta along with an image of a young man holding a bottle of vodka with his arm around what appeared to be his girlfriend, as supported by the text.

“Hey Faggots,
My name is John, and I hate every single one of you. All of you are fat, retarded, no-lifes who spend every second of their day looking at stupid ass pictures. You are everything bad in the world. Honestly, have any of you ever gotten any pussy? I mean, I guess it’s fun making fun of people because of your own insecurities, but you all take to a whole new level. This is even worse than jerking off to pictures on facebook.
Don’t be a stranger. Just hit me with your best shot. I’m pretty much perfect. I was captain of the football team, and starter on my basketball team. What sports do you play, other than “jack off to naked drawn Japanese people”? I also get straight A’s, and have a banging hot girlfriend (She just blew me; Shit was SO cash). You are all faggots who should just kill yourselves. Thanks for listening.
Pic Related: It’s me and my bitch"

Notable Variations

4chan users found the rant amusing and began spamming the post all over the site. Over time there spawned several variations of the copypasta.

Identity

The man in the image was turned out to be a man named Paulie Carbone, who was killed in a car accident on October 7th, 2007.^[1] A number of memorial videos were posted on YouTube to his memory, which have since been deleted.^[2] These videos eventually ended up being trolled by 4chan users, by posting comments which were not well received by Carbone’s mother.^[2]

every thing you write will be deleted if you want to say something come say it to my face pauls father would like to meet you oh also his uncle and friends and etc so keep it up come on fucking scumbag with the big mouth come say it to us so i can have you head protruding from your anus oh wait is already is with all the shit you say dirtbag i will be waiting that goes for all writing nasty comments come say it to me his mother who lost her only child also have your parents come meet me^[2]

YOURELLYNEED TO STOPPNOW.. YOURALLJUSTJEALOUSCOZ HE WASLOVED BY ALOT OF PEOPLE ND YOUR A WORTHLESS PiECE OF SHiT ND TRUST ME YOUDNTWANT US TO FiND YOUCOZTRUST ME YOULLHAVE TO BE HOSPiTALiZED.. GET A LiFE SCUMBAGS =]^[2]

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Gonetosoon.org – Paulie Carbone

^[2]Encyclopedia Dramatica – So Cash

About

Moetron, known as KimeKona (Japanese: キメこな) or KimeKona-chan (キメこなちゃん) on the Japanese web, is a community-made character comprised of various features taken from anime characters. She was designed as a character that focuses on moe attributes, as well as general cuteness and purity. However, due to the mismatched features, many considered the resulting character to be an abomination. She is described as having multiple personality disorder as a result of all the different characters used to create her, and can go from being tsundere to kuudere to yandere in quick succession. The stitching on her body in certain artwork is used to illustrate the various parts she is comprised of. Her birthday is May 7th.

Origin

On Futaba Channel

According to Pixiv Encyclopedia^[1] and several wiki pages/blog posts,^[2][3] Moetron was first created on img, one of the /b/-like boards in the Japanese anonymous imageboard community Futaba Channel (2chan), in late 2009 or early 2010. She was made for Konashine (こな死ね), a well known troll who had been vandalizing Lucky Star threads in the board and sent “Die! Konata…Die!” to every single post with Konata Izumi’s pictures. Circa 2009, to poke fun at him, img users started creating a vast amount of mashups of Konata and other characters to test how much “Konata essence” was needed to stimulate his emotion. This mashup series is called “konachan”, “konachan!” or “konachang!” (purposely written in alphabet) and some of illustrations in the series are archived on Pixiv by the creators.^[4]

Early examples of konachan series

This series continued even after the troll was gone, and eventually a “moeblob”^[5] of Konata and several other characters, using a template image of Konata (shown below, left), came to be known as one established character: KimeKona (shown below, right). The name is an abbreviation for Kimee Konata (きめぇこなた, lit. “Creepy Konata”) or Kimera Konata (キメラこなた, lit. “Chimera Konata”). Also, this series of expolitables of that Konata template image is called KonaCora (こなコラ, lit. “Konata Collage”) in img as well as Pixiv.^[6]

On 4chan

The template of Konata had already become a popular exploitable on 4chan‘s boards outside of Moetron for various other characters. However, KimeKona was first posted on 4chan’s /a/ board on May 7th 2010, where she was swiftly dubbed as “Moetron” by the board’s users.

Spread

Various anonymous users would often create threads featuring just the original image. Initially they did not receive much attention, until users started posting artwork of her as well. Users on 4chan’s /a/ board tend to make posts celebrating her birthday, May 7th, each year.^[7]

Various Examples

Since creation, large amounts of fan-art have been created for the character. Moetron has spread to various places; primarily image hosting or fan-art sites such as DeviantArt,^[8] Pixiv,^[9] and Tumblr.^[10]

Search Interest

External References

About

League of Legends (or “LoL”), is a free-to-play MOBA (Multiplayer Online-Based Arena) game, based on the Defense of the Ancients mod for Warcraft III. League of Legends was developed for Windows, and later for Mac OS X by Riot Games, and is supported by micro-transactions.

History

As with all Moba games, League of Legends had its humble beginnings with DoTA, which in itself is the map “Aeon of Strife” ported for Warcraft 3 as a mod. DotA was originally designed by Eul, but later became DoTA Allstars when Steve “Guinsoo” Feak added a vast amount of content of his own to the game.

It was after Steve “Guinsoo” Feak had passed on the torch of DotA to Icefrog, and banded together with Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, as well as Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill to form Riot Games, did League of Legends finally come into fruition. Announced on October 7, 2008 and released on October 27, 2009 League of Legends had come a long way, and has since then grown to become one of the most popular games of all time.

Lore

The League of Legends takes place in Valoran. In the original lore, it was a mystical land ravaged by misuse of magic, where the League of Legends was created in order to restore balance. The players played robed magicians called summoners, who “summoned” battle ready warriors called champions into the “Fields of Justice”, where they fought for honor, glory, and the occasional political power struggle.

Recently, Riot has started revamping the entire lore into a more generic fantasy story, and most notably, has taken steps towards removing summoners, and the actual League of Legends itself from the lore. Many other older lore elements, such as the Journal of Justice and Champion Judgements, have also disappeared alltogether. However, many champions still have summoners mentioned in their lore, as well as in their dialogue, which will probably change once they go through a champion rework or re-release. The new and updated lore allows for larger scale events, such as the Shurima event, during which several champions were either released or udated, new general lore was intorduced via different media, and a new temporary game mode with limited rewards was implemented.

Gameplay

The following are game modes, from which the players can choose from:

• Classic: From the 120+ available champions, teams of 5, or alternatively 3 depending on the map, try to take out the Nexus of the opposing team. On their way to the enemy base, the players must lead and kill hordes of minions, and take out enemy towers, which guard the way to the opposing teams base. By killing minions, monsters, enemy champions, and towers, the champions gain gold, which can then be used to further increase their fighting potential. The Classic mode is available in two different maps, which are Summoners Rift (5v5), and Twisted Treeline (3v3). Both of these maps also allow players to play on a ranked ladder in a more competitive environment, with exclusive rewards waiting at the end of each season, depending on performance.
• ARAM: All Random All Mid is a 5v5 game mode played on the Howling Abyss map, in which every player is dealt a random champion. Players can exchange these champios with each other, as long as both of them have that same champion, or use up to two rerolls, gained by playing ARAM. The goal of the game, like in other modes, is to destroy the enemy Nexus, before they can destroy yours.
• Dominion: A capture the point game mode, released by Riot late in late 2011, taking place on the Crystal Scar map. Teams of 5 try to capture the 5 points on the map, alongside waves of minions. The team with more points captured, continue to automatically damage the Nexus of the opposing team. Whichever teams Nexus is destroyed first, loses.
• Co-op Vs A.I: A game mode where the players can practice the maps by battling A.I. This mode is available on Summoners Rift, The Twisted Treeline, and Scrystal Scar.
• Limited Time Modes: These are game modes that appear for short duration during special occasions, offering different gameplay gimmicks that are fun for a while, but might not work on a longer run. These modes have included games such as One For All in which every team member had the same champion, Ultra Rapid Fire (URF) in which the players had unlimited mana and 80% cooldown reduction, and Legend of The Poro King in which players were able to toss and summon poros, and teleport to them.

World Championship

The League of Legends World Championship is a tournament that has taken place annually since 2011 where professional League of Legends players compete for the Summoner’s Cup and a prize of one million US dollars.^[14] The tournaments have taken place all over the world, ant the finals having taken place in Sweden, Los Angeles, South Korea, and Berlin. It is an extremely popular event. The tickets to Season III World Championship in October 2013, were apparently sold out in an hour.^[12] The Championship was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which seats 15’000 viewers at the basketball matches, making it a huge events on the scale of E-Sports. The championship tournaments are the most watched E-sport, and regularly beat viewership for some of the largest American sporting events like the NBA Finals and the World Series. In 2015, the finals were watched by 36 million people worldwide. In 2016, they are taking place in cities across the United States, and the finals will again take place in the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Online Presence

The League of Legends subreddit hit 600’000 subscribers on Secember 2014, and is in the top 10 of the most active non-default subreddits. On the 7th of October 2012 during the Season 2 World Championship Quarterfinals the “Stream Off”^[1] thread had reached the top of /r/all in 8 minutes beating Jamie Hyneman’s AMA. League of Legends also has an ever growing YouTube community, built around famous YouTubers such as Dunkey and SivHD, providing new content in the form of gameplay videos, animations, etc. League of Legends is also the most popular livestreamed game on Twitch.tv. The League of Legends Wiki^[2] is also available for details on characters and stats, and the official Facebook page has over 12’000’000 likes as of December 2014.

Reception

League of Legends has gained a considerable following throughout the world, and has won multiple awards, such as the Golden Joystick award, as well as the Game Developers Choice online awards to name a few. IGN awarded League of Legends 8.0 out of 10. As of January 2014, over 67 million people play League of Legends monthly.

Fandom

Since its release, the game has gained massive popularity. By the end of Season 2, Riot had announced that League of Legends had become “By hours played by month, the most played PC game in the world.”. Being one of the powerhouses of E-Sports (Electronic Sports) along with Starcraft. It has also spawned an extremely creative community, which participates by producing content in the form of fanart, fanfiction, cosplay, animations, fan comics, gifs, gameplay videos, parodies, machinima videos, music, and much more.

The game’s forums are very active with normal players, and developers of the game (known as “Reds” on the forums, due to their red names). The active forums have spawned many memes within the community, based on the game.

Cosplay

Riot Games often endorses cosplay with prizes, so it is of no surprise that League of Legends cosplayers are often seen in many anime/gaming conventions, such as Dragoncon, Anime Expo, and the Penny Arcade Exposition.

Fan Art

The League of Legends community produces a massive amount of fanart. The deviant art group as of February 2014 has over 11,300 members and well over 700,000 page views.

Related Memes

Dance Master Phreak and Nerf Master Suck Town

On January 21, 2011, user ‘cbr1000rider3’ created a thread^[3] on the League of Legends forum, showing his patch preview comic, which was a comic using stills taken from Riot’s Patch Preview^[4]. In the 2nd comic, he gives Phreak (a Riot employee) the name “Dance Master Phreak” for his story of hitting on a girl at a club and dancing to Britney Spear’s “Hold It Against Me.” Like most of the old content, the original comic has since then been removed. User “Whist” also made a video adaption of Dance Master Phreak, which was later uploaded to Youtube on February 20th, 2011, where it gathered over 500,000 views as of February 2014.

From the same comic series spawned the nickname Nerf Master Suck Town for Riot employee Morello. This is because he is known to nerf champions (make them less powerful), whether or not it’s better for the game, making some community members mad. Morello has noted this nickname, and has even used it on the forums, although briefly.

“I ate some oranges and it was K.”

Starting out from a thread^[5] created by SantiagoBR on July 1, 2011. “I ate some oranges and it was K” is inspired by the champion Gangplank, who has an ability which allows him to remove any form of Crowd Control by consuming a large quantity of citrus, healing himself in the process. Because Gangplank is a pirate, “It was K” is often associated with pirate related media, and when it comes to Gangplank himself, it’s usually associated with his Sailor Gangplank skin. A band called “The Yordles” has also made a parody song called “It was K”^[6] in a reference to this meme.

ok

ok is a derailing meme on the League of Legends forums, but it is often seen on sites such as Reddit. The original thread^[7] started by user “DrowElfDrizzt” on September 11, 2010, started the whole thing.

Users say nothing but “ok” (properly all lower case, no punctuation) to resemble the character Rammus, who barely says anything else but “ok.” Users who don’t say “ok” are downvoted until their post is no longer viewable. The behaviour is meant to derail troll threads, or pointless threads. Noobs and trolls who try to derail good threads, are downvoted and usually ridiculed instead.

Mord es #1 HUEHUEHUE

See also: Huahuehuahue

On October 30, 2010, user “futebolBR” made a thread called “Brasil 5v5 Tier List”^[8], which parodied a well known player’s list of all the champions and how good they are.In the list, the most notable quote was for the champion Mordekaiser, which was listed as the best champion in the game. The description reads: “Mordekaizer (es the best, #1, best, shield es always win, never loose).”

This description of Mordekaiser became a very popular amongst the LoL fanbase. Any time someone brings up Mordekaiser it’s almost certain that one of the first replies will be “Mord es #1 HUEHUEHUE.” This has also spread to YouTube, with many videos dealing with Brazilians having “MORD ES #1 HUEHUEHUE” as a top comment.

Spin to Win

This meme originated from the champion Garen, who has an ability called Judgement, making him spin around with his sword. Upon release, he was generally overpowered, and the LoL community dubbed him “Spin 2 Win”, as you simply pressed a button to spin, and watched the enemy die. This also inspired the saying “Demacian justice hides in the brushes”, since it used to be a common tactic to wait in brushes until some unfortunate soul wandered into the same brush Garen was hiding in, and then just spin to win.

A popular forum thread^[9] was created by the user “DontShoot” on September 4, 2010 which holds a collection of MS Paint pictures showing Garen doing funny parodies of Spin 2 Win. In the League of Legends game files, Wukong’s ultimate ability Cyclone, is named “MonkeyKingSpinToWin” in a reference to Garen’s Judgement ability.

Jesse Perring

Jesse Perring is pretty much known as the Chuck Norris of League of Legends.^[10] Jokes about Jesse Perring are the same as Chuck Norris jokes, usually telling a story of how he does something that would normally be impossible. The meme came from a thread^[11] started by “Skribbles,” another Riot employee, on September 29, 2009.

Dunk Master Yi

Dunk Master Yi was created by YouTube user “notue” in his video “Pro as Heck Guide to Master Yi.” The video has since been removed, but was reuploaded by others (shown below). In the video, “notue” gives a guide to the champion Master Yi, that is both ridiculous, and incorrect to the game. He also gives items new names. For example, he calls Health Potions as Red Sodas, Madred’s Razor as X-Man Claws, and most notably, Zeal as Doubleswords. He also gives jungle monsters weird names, like “Rude Dudes” for Wraiths, “Stone Brothers” for Double/Twin Golems, and “Dog” for Wolves. Whenever he kills someone, he uses the catchphrase “Get Dunked”, hence the name Dunk Master Yi.

The champion Vi sometimes shouts “Get Dunked” when using her ultimate ability Assault And Battery, in a reference to the video. The champion Yasuo also has a unique taunt towards Master Yi, in which he says “Nice, sword… Boots?”, which also references the Dunk Master Yi video.

The word Dunking has become a common phrase to be used with champions with damaging leap abilities.There has also been an official Dunkmaster Bundle on sale, which included the champions Darius, Vi, and Jarvan, but actually excluded Master Yi himself. The players have also been requesting a “Dunkmaster Darius” skin for a long time, which was eventually turned into an actual skin.

Teemo Hate

Teemo is often considered the most hated champion in LoL by the fans of the game. He is one of the most annoying characters in the game to play against, due to his kit revolving around him poisoning you, and then running away. Not only is his kit annoying to play against, but he also sports one of the cutest looks in the game, and has a high pitched voice, which is sure to annoy many. He is often nicknamed Satan (or other similarly hellish name).

Teemo is jokingly said to have a “Global Taunt”, which causes people to want to kill him at all costs, even if they lose an objective, or die in the process of doing so. Killing Teemo is always considered worth it. He is sometimes used as a unit of measurement, and the number Teemo dies, is often stated in infographics.

Raise Your Dongers

Main Entry: Raise Your Dongers

“Raise Your Dongers” is a catchphrase coined by Michael Santana, better known by his online handle Imaqtipie, that is associated with the champion Heimerdinger. Although its precise meaning is unclear, the phrase has since been adopted by his fans on the live video chatting service Twit Chat, along with the ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ emoticon.

In the Visual Update of Heimerdinger, he recieved a new quote “Raise your… What?”, in a reference to this quote.

Draven’s Moustache / League of Draven

Main Entry: Draven’s Moustache / League of Draven

Draven’s Moustache, or League of Draven, is similar to the TenantFace (Doctor Who). It originated after the release of the champion Draven, who quotes “Welcome to the League of Draven.” This prompted summoners to start a photoshop meme where all champions, and eventually everything started having Draven’s face on it. It has become notorious on major League of Legends sites, as well as tumblr.

Variants and Additional Memes

• Soon™: Often used by Riot employees when they talk about upcoming content, which has no specified date of release, or is still in the making. It’s also often used by the community when something they want is taking ages to be released. When Riot is actually going to release content shortly, they often state that it is coming out “Soon”, and not “Soon™”.
• Better Nerf Irelia: Originating from Riot’s continuous nerfs to the champion Irelia due to her innate sustain, which was deemed harmful to the game. It is now believed that whenever anything occurs, the only logical solution is to nerf Irelia.
• Tons of Damage: Is a meme that started when rioter Phreak overused the term “Tons of Damage” in multiple champion spotlights. It is often said to be “dealt” by building a Trinity Force.
• I Play X as a Jungler: Another meme that started with rioter Phreak overusing a term. In conjunction to jungle nerfs, it was believed that any champion could be jungled (a role in the game) efficiently, and Phreak would undoubtly jungle with said character.
• Worth: Worth (sometimes Wurth or Wurf) is a phrase often said when one dies in the process of achieving something, whether or not it actually was really worth it. Apparently the phrase started out with Phreak on the Lee Sin Champion Spotlight^[13]. He turret dove Fiddlesticks at level 2, expending both his summoner spells in order to kill him, but still died in the process. He then said; “The turret kills me, but it was worth it, because I said so in chat”.
• I’m Jarvan, I’m Helping: This quote is often associated with poorly excecuted Jarvan IV ultimates. When a Jarvan IV player uses his Cataclysm skill, he creates an arena of impassable terrain around his chosen target, and himself. However, if a Jarvan IV player manages to trap his allies in his ultimate, they tend to become easy targets for high damaging area of effect spells, thus potentially losing entire fights on his own. When people say that Jarvan is helping, he certainly isn’t.
• The Unseen X is the Deadliest: Originally “The unseen blade is the deadliest.” is a quote from the champion Zed. The quote is often used on League of Legends subreddit, with the X replaced with whatever suits the situation at hand.

Search Interests

The search interest for League of Legends has been steadily increasing over time, shoving search spikes in times of the Seasonal Championships.

External Links

About

RuneScape is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released by Jagex Games Studios in 2001. In the game, players adventure across the world of Gielinor, where they complete quests, combat enemies and train a variety of skills.

History

In 1998, the multi-user dungeon game know as DeviousMUD^[2] was created and developed by British game development company Jagex.^[7] In 1999, the game was updated with multiple skills, a simple turn-based combat system and multiplayer interaction. In 2001, a web browser version of the game was released on open beta titled RuneScape. In 2004, an updated engine for the game was released titled RuneScape 2, which included a graphics overhaul and an improved combat system. The original version of the game became known as RuneScape Classic. In 2013, RuneScape was updated to work with HTML5, allowing WebGL utilisation, enhanced audio and fully customisable user interfaces changing its name to RuneScape 3.^[4] Meanwhile, Jagex released legacy servers for those wishing to play older variations of the game, which subsequently was referred to as “2007Scape.”

Online Presence

Aside from the main website, there are a variety of different sites related to the game, including player clan websites and experience tracking websites. Two different Wiki sites based on the game are maintained, one for RuneScape 3^[8] and the other for older variations. Two subreddits also exist for the current and legacy variants of the game known as r/runescape^[12] and r/2007scape^[13] respectively.

Fandom

A large online and offline fandom exists for RuneScape. Many fans sites have been created and videos related to the game are commonly uploaded to YouTube. Each year, Jagex hosts a RuneScape-themedfestival known as RuneFest^[10], which attracts players of all ages from both games to a weekend festival featuring RuneScape related content. Both variants of the game are also actively streamed on Twitch.tv, garnering thousands of viewers daily.^[11]

Related Memes

Rune Fag

Rune Fag is an advice animal image macro series created in early 2010, which consists of the Rune Full Helm in-game item along with text mocking various elements of the game.

Tehnoobshow

Tehnoobshow is a YouTuber known for creating RuneScape machinima videos with self-referential humor poking fun at his noob status in the game, while he ironically calls everyone the same name.

Gnome Child

Gnome Child (also known as Slayer) is a generic NPC featured in RuneScape. The chat-box head of the character is often associated with dank memes.

Buying GF

Buying GF is an ironic phrase occasionally said by players indicating an interest in purchasing a girlfriend with in-game money.

Search Interest

External References

About

Hillary Clinton is an American politician and former First Lady of the United States who represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 2001 to 2009 and served as the 67th Secretary of State under the Obama administration from January 2009 to February 2013. Since the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012, Clinton has been widely considered the front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016.

Political Career

Since first entering the public stage as the First Lady of the United States in January 1993, Hillary Clinton has been actively involved in the U.S national politics in both official and non-official capacities.

First Lady of the United States

Under the administration of her husband Bill Clinton, she chaired the task force for devising the Clinton Health Care Plan, a healthcare reform package officially known as the Health Security Act, though it ultimately failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. During the second term of Bill Clinton’s administration, she played an instrumental role in advocating and shaping the consensus within the Congress for a number of reform initiatives in healthcare and social welfare. Clinton’s strong presence and power of influence in political affairs during her years as the First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public, which were further compounded by her congressional subpoena regarding the Whitewater controversy in 1996, as well as the Monica Lewinsky Scandal in 1998.

U.S. Senator of New York

Following the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, she ran for the U.S. Senate election in the state of New York and won, entering the office in January 2001 as the first and only First Lady of the United States to have been elected to a public office.

U.S. Secretary of State

After Clinton’s defeat in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, she was nominated to be the U.S. Secretary of State by her former rival candidate and incoming president Barack Obama. During her service as the Secretary of State, Clinton visited more countries than any of her predecessors and advocated for the Arab Spring movement in the Middle East, including U.S. military intervention in Libya, though her diplomatic efforts were marred by the 2012 Benghazi attack that resulted in deaths of American diplomats and officials due to security lapses in the compound.

Online History

Hillary 1984

On March 5th, 2007, YouTuber ParkRidge47 uploaded a video titled “Vote Different.”^[16] The ad cut together elements from a 1984 Apple Mac ad first aired during that year’s Superbowl and Clinton’s announcement of her candidacy. The ad urged voters (or in the case of the original ad, consumers) to make up their own minds and resist conformity. It was later revealed the ad was created by Phil de Vellis, who worked for Blue State Digital, a company offering tech support to some of the presidential candidates. De Vellis left the company after he revealed he created the ad, and in an article he published on The Huffington Post^[17] he explained:

"The specific point of the ad was that Obama represents a new kind of politics, and that Senator Clinton’s “conversation” is disingenuous. And the underlying point was that the old political machine no longer holds all the power."

2008 Presidential Primary Campaign

Clinton announced she would be running for president in the 2008 election on January 20th, 2007.^[14] During her campaign both ads she ran and attack ads against her gained a wide audience online. She officially ended her candidacy on June 7th, 2008, putting her support behind Democrat candidate Barack Obama.^[15]

The Sopranos Spoof

On June 19th, 2007, political strategist Patrick Ruffini uploaded a Clinton campaign ad to his YouTube channel.^[20] The ad depicts Clinton with her husband Bill sitting down at a diner and flipping through music at a table-top jukebox and acts as a teaser for the reveal of her campaign song, which was Celine Dion’s “You and I.”^[21] The video also stars Soprano’s actor Vince Curatola and imitates the final scene of the show. As of January 2014 the video has over 510,000 views.

“Hot for Hill” Music Video

On July 2nd, 2007, comedian and singer Taryn Southern uploaded a music video on her YouTube channel^[18] titled “Hot For Hillary.” The video depicts Southern singing about her admiration of and attraction to Clinton, sometimes explaining it to a classroom full of children. The video was created as a kind of response to a similar video supporting then Senator Obama performed by the Obama Girl titled I Have a Crush on Obama^[19]. As of January 2014 the video has over 2.2 million views.

Dancing in South Africa

On a trip to South Africa in August 2012 Clinton danced at a dinner held in Malawi.^[7] A video of the dance, which involved Clinton doing a bit of grinding, was uploaded to CNN’s Youtube Channel^[8] on August 8th. As of January 2014 it has over 95,000 views. The video was broken down into GIFs in a Buzzfeed^[9] article published the same day titled “The Animated GIF Guide To Hillary Clinton’s Adorable Dance Moves.”

Meryl Streep / Clinton Selfie

On December 1st, 2012, Clinton attended a state department dinner for the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C.^[11] After the dinner she and actress Meryl Streep were photographed taking a selfie together on Streep’s iPhone. The photos were reported on across the web, and Streep ultimately made the photo available for purchase at Shuttertothink.org, a charity that allows celebrities to sell their photography and funnels the proceeds to charities that support education for girls.^[12]

2016 Presidential Bid Announcement

On April 10th, 2015, the Republican National Committee released a 30-second video titled “Stop Hillary,” featuring a silhouette of Clinton walking up to a lectern while voices criticizing her past political controversies play in the background (shown below). The same day, The Onion^[31] published a satirical “candidate profile” for Clinton,

On April 11th, Saturday Night Live aired a sketch parodying how Clinton would declare her candidacy for president (shown below, left). On the following day, Clinton announced her bid for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in an YouTube video titled “Getting Started,” in which she expresses her desire to be America’s “champion” (shown below, right).

Additionally, Clinton tweeted a link to her updated website,^[32] featuring her new logo designed as a blue letter “H” with a red arrow protruding out of the right side (shown below, left). On Twitter,^[27][28] many mocked the new logo for appearing amateurish (shown below, middle, right).

Also on April 12th, The Daily What and Bustle^[30] published round-ups of Internet reactions to the presidential candidacy announcement. The same day, Redditor Very_Creative invited viewers to photoshop a picture of Clinton pointing at a crowd with a wide-eyed, open-mouth expression on the /r/photoshopbattles^[34] subreddit (shown below, left). Within 24 hours, the post accumulated more than 4,200 votes (91% upvoted), 580 comments and many photoshopped variations of the image (shown below, middle, right).

On April 13th, Redditor ghostofpennwast submitted a video of Clinton speaking in support of a video game ratings system titled “Hillary Clinton speaking in support of video game censorship” to the /r/Libertarian^[33] subreddit, where it reached the front page gathering upwards of 1,300 votes (89% upvoted) and 200 comments in seven hours (shown below).

Body Double Conspiracy Theory

On September 11th, 2016, Clinton attended a memorial ceremony in honor of those who perished in the September 11th, 2001 attacks, where she abruptly left claiming she felt “overheated.” While waiting for her vehicle, Clinton appeared as if she were about to collapse before aides helped her into the van (shown below, left). After the incident, Clinton visited her daughter Chelsea’s Manhattan apartment, where she emerged hours later and was filmed by reporters (shown below, right).

That day, some conspiracy theorists on social media began speculating that a body double was posing as the presidential candidate after the incident, along with the hashtag #HillarysBodyDouble^[40] (shown below). Additionally, many argued that Hillary Clinton impersonator Teresa Barnwell was performing the body double role. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online conspiracy theory, including Snopes,^[35] New York Post,^[36]USA Today,^[37] The Daily Mail^[38] and Inquisitr.^[39]

Social Media Presence

Hillary Clinton joined Twitter on June 10th, 2013, and gained over 180,000 on her first day.^[13] As of January 2014 her account^[10] has over 1.08 million followers, though she herself only follows nine accounts including her husband and her daughter Chelsea.

Reputation

Among her supporters, Clinton has garnered a reputation as a role model for aspiring female politicians and a powerful figure in advancing women’s rights. She is also widely considered the overwhelmingly favored potential candidate for the Democratic Party’s nominee in the upcoming 2016 U.S. presidential election. In addition to her political stature on the national stage, Clinton has frequently been impersonated, caricatured and parodied in the news media and pop culture, most notably as a poker-faced, stoic female politician portrayed by Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries.

Related Memes

Texts from Hillary

Texts from Hillary is a single topic blog featuring a series of vertical, multi-pane image macros based on a photograph of Clinton^[1] sitting aboard a military aircraft while wearing sunglasses and reading from her smartphone. The image of Clinton was taken by Reuters photographer Kevin Lamarque while she was awaiting departure aboard a military C-17 Globemaster III^[2] flight from Malta to Tripoli, Libya on October 18th, 2011. The photograph was subsequently featured on the news site^[3] on October 20th, 2011. The Tumblr blog Texts From Hillary was created by friends Adam Smith^[4] and Stacy Lambe^[5] who both work in public relations in Washington, D.C. On April 4th, 2012, the first image was posted to to the Tumblr^[6], featuring Clinton’s photo paired with one of Obama texting (shown below). Within the first 48 hours of the post, the image received 9,094 notes.

New York Times Magazine Cover

Hilary Clinton’s New York Times Magazine Cover also known as “Planet Hillary,” refers to a magazine cover featuring a composite image of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s face superimposed on to the surface of a planet. On January 23rd, 2014, New York Times Magazine editor David Joachim tweeted the cover for its upcoming January 26th issue, featuring Hillary Clinton’s face on the surface of a planet in space. The same day on January 23rd, 2014, several other Twitter users began posting photoshopped images featuring cutouts of the Clinton planet edited into other base images of various contexts.

#HillarysLosers

On the evening of the U.S. midterm elections on November 4th, 2014, as the Republican Party’s takeover of the majority in the U.S. Congress became evidently clear, U.S. Senator of Kentucky Rand Paul^[26] tweeted a black-and-white photograph of Clinton posing at a rally with Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s incumbent Secretary of State and the Democrat challenger for U.S. Senate in Kentucky against the Mitch McConnell, captioned with the hashtag #HillarysLosers.^[22]

The tweet also linked to a photo album of additional images on Senator Paul’s Facebook page^[23], which show Hillary Clinton with other Democrat candidates who had failed to win in the midterm elections.

Search Interest

External References

About

Skeletor is the primary antagonist in the Masters of the Universe franchise. He is known for his complete disdain towards is subordinates, as well as his repeated failures at the hands of He-Man^[1].

Fictional Biography

Skeletor was originally known as Keldor^[2], brother of King Randor^[3], and uncle of Prince Adam^[4] aka He-Man. After feeling cheated from the throne by Randor, he would flee his home and raise an army to one day come back and conquer Eternos^[5]. When the time came for Keldor’s conquest, he found Randor and his forces awaiting him. During the battle Keldor’s face was severely burned by acid, and he was left on the verge of death. His partner, Evil-Lyn^[6] would plead with the extra dimensional being, Hordak^[7], to help save Keldor’s life. Hordak agreed but only under the condition that Keldor would later help him escape from his ethereal prison. Hordak then fused Keldor with the demonic Demo-Man^[8]. This drove Keldor insane, and he renamed himself Skeletor. Skeletor would then try many times to conquer Eternia^[9], but would fail everytime. Skeletor was responsible for kidnapping Prince Adam’s sister Princess Adora^[10] from the Eternos Palace and would offer her to Hordak. Princess Adora would later become She-Ra^[11]. Skeletor has had many clashes with He-Man, with nearly all of them ending in Skeletor’s defeat.

Fandom

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Online Presence.

Myaah

Myaah is a quote from the 2005 Masters of the Universe parody video entitled “Fabulous Secret Powers”^[12] better known as He-Man Sings. The quote has taken of on a popularity of its own aside from the original video, and has spawned many fan images and remix videos.

Inspirational Skeletor

Inspirational Skeletor refers to an image macro series in which Skeletor is shown giving helpful advice to the viewer, in a similar vein to Courage Wolf.

Skeletor Honda Takeover

Skeletor Honda Takeover refers to the event in December 2014 when Honda updated their Twitter account to feature images and quotes from an action figure version on Skeletor, whom was decreeing that nobody was safe from him.

External References

About

Bionicle is a line of construction toy action figures created by the LEGO Group.

History

Bionicle, short for Biological Chronicle, was conceptualized after LEGO decided to create a toyline with an overarching story. Following in the tracks of it’s failed predecessors, Slizer/Throwbots^[1] and RoboRiders^[2], Bionicle was first released in Europe in December of 2000 as an online game, before sets were launched in early 2001, reaching North American markets in the summer. Though initially facing some resistance from within the company thanks to its new storyline-based format and more war-themed premise, the line was well received upon release, making £100 million ($161.7 million) in its first year^[3]. It also went on to receive Toy of the Year Award for Most Innovative Toy in 2001 from the Toy Industry Association. On November 24th, 2009 BZPower posted an article titled: “An Important Announcement Regarding Bionicle”^[4]. The email detailed that the toyline would be discontinued for the “foreseeable future” and that the story would continue on BIONICLEstory.com. BIONICLEstory.com continued to receive story updates through 2011. The site was finally shut down along with Bionicle.com on June 19th 2013.

2015 Return

Beginning of July 2, 2014, an unknown image of a black and white display image surface the internet, the source is unknown and the community heavily speculate the content.^[5]

July 25, 2014, a colored display with a similar design appeared and build more belief on the leak content shown.^[6]

July 30th, 2014, various users across different fan sites noticed that when they typed in the term “Bionicle” into LEGO.com’s search engine, they would be redirected to a “Coming Soon Page.”^[7][8][9]

*

On September 8th, 2014, BZPower Reporter Adrian discovered a picture of the golden mask featured in previous “leaks” of varying authenticity on the Lego website’s servers.^[10]

On September 15th, Lego Announced on their Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages that “In 4 days time we´ll be revealing something very exciting.”

Brickset user Bricklover2013 noted on Brickset’s coverage of this^[11], that the URL for the image included at the end “Bionicle-4-new.jpg”, which again, essentially confirmed the theme’s return.

On September 19th, 2014, LEGO officially announced The return of Bionicle. LEGO Posted the announcement on Twitter^[12] linking to a video of a 3D view video of the Mask of Creation. The same video was also posted to LEGO’s Facebook^[13] and a description of the powers that it contains. The Facebook post gained over 4,000 likes in 24 hours.

On September 23rd, LEGO put a link to the “sneak peak” of the new Bionicle website on their “Products” page. The website was later updated over the months with character profiles, locations, and videos.

On January 1st, the LEGOBIONICLE Mask of Creation App was released for iPhone and iPad.^[14]

Generation 2 Animation

The writer have comprise a web-series for the 2 year run:
2015, Lego released a 1-5 minute long animation short that shows the Toa journey into the land of Okoto to collect their golden mask, work together, save Ekimu, and retrieve the Mask of Creation against skull villains.^[15] The whole premise is to make it easy to understand and easily visible for younger demographic.

2016, Unlike last year animation, Journey to One is a 4-part series that last around 20 minute episodes with a major animation redesign, new voice cast, and available only on Netflix.^[16] In this plot, the Toa’s must find elemental creatures and new golden mask to discover the Mask of Control hidden location before Umarak the Hunter can take it for Makuta.

The end of Generation 2 [2015-2016]

In July, 29 2016, Lego Group announce a press release that Bionicle will be discontinued again due to poor sales and will not complete a 3 year run. People who lives in Asia and the Pacific markets will not receive local shipment of the final set of Bionicle 2016.^[17]

Impact

Bionicle had a large impact on both the LEGO Group and the general public. Stephanie Lawrence, the global director of licensing for Lego, stated “We’ve created an evergreen franchise to complement the many event-based properties on the children’s market. An increasing number of category manufacturers want to tap into the power of the Bionicle universe, and the key for us now is to manage the excitement to stay true to the brand and the lifestyle of our core consumer.”

Since its launch, toy critics have said that Bionicle has changed the way children think and play with Lego products by combining “The best of Lego building with the story telling and adventure of an action figure”. Toy statistics have revealed that 85% of American boys aged 6–12 have heard of Bionicle while 45% own the sets.

Fandom

Over the years, Bionicle has amassed a a large following, the most of which discuss and celebrate the series on forums and wikis such as BZPower^[18] and BIONICLEsector01.^[19] On Tumblr Bionicle is tagged under at least two different tags,^[20][21] as well as inspiring several Bionicle themed single topic blogs such as BIONICLE Nostaligia,^[22] Custom BIONICLE^[23], thatbionicleblog^[24], Bionicle Captions^[25], as well as others.^[26][27][28] On Reddit there are several subreddits dedicated to Bionicles.^[29][30][31]

On YouTube there are various clips of official Bionicle animations, both unedited, as well as several that are edited in an AMV style (shown below).^[32][33] Many of these videos have near or over a million views.

Fan Films

Quite a few stopmotion and live-action series have been created on YouTube using official Bionicle sets and fan-made creations, in a similar vein to Brickfilms (shown below).^[34]

Fan Art

On DeviantArt there are various pieces of fanart depicting characters from the franchise,^[35] along with entire pages dedicated to Bionicles.^{[36][37][38][39][40][41]}

Notable Sub-memes

BONKLE

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I Didn’t Slip

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I Can Feel The Power!

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Search Interest

External References

About

Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (born September 8th, 1941) is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representative from 1991 to 2007 and currently serves as the junior United States Senator since being elected to the office in 2007. After over two decades of public service as an independent legislator for the state of Vermont, Sanders rose to national prominence with the launch of his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2016 presidential election on May 26th, 2015.^[1] During his campaign, Sanders firmly established himself as a dark horse for the Democratic Party with primary and caucus victories in 22 states. In July 2016, Sanders officially endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate after she secured the number of delegates required for the party’s nomination.

History

Political Career

Bernie Sanders was motivated to enter politics at an early age because his father’s family was killed during the Holocaust.^[42] Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. A self-described democratic socialist, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. Sanders served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to succeed the retiring Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords in the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected by a large margin, capturing almost 71% of the popular vote.^[1]

2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign

Sanders announced his intentions to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for President on April 30th, 2015. Unlike other presidential candidates, Sanders did not pursue funding through a Super PAC, instead focusing on small individual donations.^[1] He would be the first non-millionaire president since Harry Truman from 1945.^[39] Notably, much of his support comes from online, where so far he has received $15,000,000 in donations in his first quarter as a candidate as of July 2nd, 2015.^[8] On September 30th, 2015, Bernie Sanders stated his goal of 1,000,000 individual online contributions had been met and later that day it was revealed he had raised an additional $24,000,000 in donations in this third quarter as candidate, well surpassing Obama’s pace at this time in 2008.^[28][29] The individual online contributions have doubled to 2,000,000 with 800,000 of the donors donating a second or third time as of December 17th, 2015.^[37] This amount increased to 3,000,000 individual online contributions as of January 30th, 2016.^[41]

Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

On July 11th, 2016, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns announced that the pair would be joining each other at a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the following day. On July 12th, Sanders and Clinton appeared together at the Portsmouth High School, where Sanders officially conceded the presidential race to Clinton and endorsed her for the next President of the United States (shown below).

That day, several threads about the event reached the front page of the /r/politics,^[74] /r/The_Donald,^[75] /r/SandersForPresident^[76] and /r/PoliticalDiscussion^[77] subreddits. Meanwhile, Donald Trump posted a series of tweets condemning the endorsement and urging Sanders supporters to join his campaign (shown below).^[78]

Also on July 12th, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein released a statement about the endorsement, where she condemned Clinton’s voting record and urged Sanders supporters to throw their support behind the Green Party.^[79]

“I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton’s campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy.”

On Twitter, critics of the endorsement expressed their disapproval in tweets using the hashtags #SelloutSanders,^[80] claiming that Sanders had compromised his integrity by supporting his former rival (shown below).

Online Presence

The Sanders campaign maintains an official website, berniesanders.com, where supporters can contribute, learn about campaign events, and “join the revolution.”^[4] As of February 1st, 2016 the campaign’s Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,540,000 likes, the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,950,000 likes, the SenSanders account on Twitter has 1,305,000 followers, the BernieSanders account on Twitter has 1,264,000 followers, and the berniesanders profile on Instagram has 656,000 followers.^{[5][6][7][20][21]} The Bernie Sanders channel on Youtube has had notable success, gaining 91,000 subscribers and his five most popular videos all having over 250,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

On March 12th, 2014, Bernie Sanders posted a video on his youtube channel titled “Health Care: U.S. vs. Canada,” in which he and others debated the health care systems of the United States and Canada (shown below). This video garnered 1,383,000 views with 5,900 likes and 181 dislikes as of February 1st, 2016. It is the 9th most viewed result under the youtube search ‘Bernie Sanders’ as of February 1st, 2016.

On August 17th, 2015, the All In with Chris Hayes account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders: “Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you”" in which Bernie Sanders states (paraphrased) no matter who is elected, due to the power of Wall Street, corporations, and campaign donors, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing working families within the United States (shown below). As of August 19th, 2015, the video has 5,000,000 views with 62,000 likes and 91,000 shares.

On October 13th, 2015, the Occupy Democrats account on Facebook posted a video titled “Bernie Sanders Explains Why He Should Be President” in which Bernie Sanders delivers his introduction in the first debate of the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary in the Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas (shown below). The video quickly vent viral and has 10.8 million views with 160,000 likes and 234,000 shares as of October 15th, 2015.

Reddit

Even though Bernie Sanders early in the election had not been covered as strongly in the news as other candidates like Hilary Clinton, the popular online site Reddit was continuously showing a large amount of commentary and support for him. As of February 1st, 2016, the top 420 results for ‘Bernie Sanders’ on Reddit all have 2,000 upvotes, the top 25 results have 6,000 upvotes, and the top result has 12,000 upvotes.^[2] Notably, all the top 420 results for Bernie Sanders on Reddit are overwhelmingly supportive of him and his policies. The top 2 most commented results for the search ‘Bernie Sanders’ both have 20,000 comments and the top 5 each have 10,000 comments as of December 18th, 2015. In addition, the Bernie Sanders subreddit, /r/sandersforpresident, has 164,000 readers as of February 1st, 2015. Reddit was reported to have raised $750,000 for Bernie Sanders’s Campaign as of January 10th, 2016.^[38] That amount has since increased to $1,000,000 as of January 26th, 2016.^[40]

On May 19th, 2015, Bernie Sanders participated in an AMA on Reddit on the subreddit /r/IAmA under the account name bernie-sanders. Bernie Sanders had overwhelmingly positive reception, receiving 54,000 upvotes on his IAmA comments alone. There were 7,300 upvotes and 13,000 comments on his IAmA link as of February 1st, 2016.^[3]

On September 14th, the official Bernie Sanders Reddit account bernie-sanders posted to /r/SandersForPresident “Let’s talk about one issue that won’t get a lot of discussion in the media: income and wealth inequality. Reddit, I would very much appreciate your help in getting this video out to your friends and family, especially the Republican ones. -B,” which linked to a video posted by the Bernie Sanders Facebook account titled “Bernie Sanders: In-Depth Explanation of Income Inequality” (shown below). The Reddit post has garnered 5,300 upvotes and the video has garnered 6,080,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash

Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group page devoted to creating and distributing memes, generally image macros and exploitables in support of Bernie Sanders during his campaign for the nomination during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The group is well-known for producing memes about Sanders at a high rate of mutation.

Facebook Groups Removal Controversy

On April 25th, 2016, several Bernie Sanders-related Facebook groups were purportedly removed from Facebook after being flooded with sexually explicit content, including Bernie Sanders For President 2016,^[65] Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome,^[66] Bernie Sanders Activists,^[67] Bernie Believers^[68] and Bernie Sanders is my Hero.^[69] That day, Redditor jbher315 submitted a post about the removals to the /r/SandersForPresident^[70] subreddit, where it received upwards of 9,300 votes (75% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in 48 hours. In the comments section, Redditor BernieTron2000 speculated that the pages were removed due to “Hillary trolls mass-reporting” to take down the pages temporarily. Meanwhile, Facebook user Bee Jay submitted several screenshots to the Bernie Sanders for President 2016 Facebook group,^[71] which appeared to show a Facebook user bragging about reporting the Bernie Sanders Activists group for “containing a credible threat of violence” (shown below).

Also on April 25th, the Internet news site Heavy^[72] published an article about the controversy, which reported that members of the Facebook group Bros4Hillary were behind attacks aimed at inundating Bernie Sanders Facebook pages with false complaints and explicit content. Additionally, the article included a statement by Bros4Hillary Political Director Alex Mohajer, who disavowed any connection to the Facebook page raids. Additionally, Mohajer claimed the Facebook user connected to the harassment had been removed from the Bros4Hillary group.

“Bros4Hillary was created as a way to provide a positive and supportive community for supporters of Hillary Clinton to gather, and as a direct response to the hateful and divisive rhetoric used by other campaigns during this election cycle,” he said. “We have not and do not approve of or condone harmful or offensive rhetoric or harassing behavior targeting supporters of any other candidate in the race…”

By the end of the day, all the Facebook groups had been reinstated. The following day, the Sanders campaign Social Media Manager Aiden King responded to concerns about the closing, claiming that the pages may have been temporarily shut down due to a Facebook bug. Also on April 26th, Snopes^[73] published an article about the Facebook group controversy.

Support

Berniebros

“Berniebro” is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactic aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.

Rally Turnouts

Numerous news outlets and Reddit have reported Bernie Sanders drawing significantly large crowds for his rallies. “I am surprised by the size of the crowds. In Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday, we had close to a thousand people,” Sanders told reporters on June 11th, 2015, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C.^[15] These numbers were however dwarfed by another rally he had on June 21st, 2015, in the University of Denver, which had at least 5,500 Coloradans listening to him speak inside the gymnasium.^[16] Another rally Bernie Sanders had on July 19th, 2015, drew another larger amount of supporters, having over 11,000 people listening to him speak in downtown Pheonix, Arizona.^[17] On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders hosted a rally which gained over 15,000 people, after having been blocked from speaking at Westlake Center due to #BlackLivesMatter protestors disrupting him.^[18] A day later on August 9th, 2015, nearly double this number appeared at a Portland rally, with over 19,000 people inside the Moda Center and over 9,000 people outside it. On September 3rd, 2015, people filled the 26,000 person capacity inside the Boston Convention Center for a Bernie Sanders Boston rally, with a large quantity of people also outside the center.^[30] On March 21st, 2016, Bernie Sanders hosted 3 rallies across Washington which attracted a combined total of over 30,000 people.^[63]

Deez Nuts’ Endorsement

On August 23rd, 2015, the presidential candidate Deez Nuts (aka Brady Olson) endorsed Bernie Sanders. Brady Olson posted on Facebook “just gonna throw this out there now. This is not for the general election. My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.” In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Deez Nuts wrote that he didn’t want to “see Clinton, Bush, or Trump in the White House, so I guess I’m just trying to put up a fight.”^[23]

Reputation

Bernie Sanders has established a reputation for having highly progressive views and being consistent with his voting and political views throughout his lifetime. He is notably far left and has gained a reputation for garnering large crowds at his rallies.

Progressivism

Since his election to the Senate, Sanders has emerged as a leading progressive voice on issues like income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform. He rose to national prominence on the heels of his 2010 filibuster of the proposed extension of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy. Sanders is also outspoken on civil liberties issues, and has been particularly critical of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act.^[1]

Criticism

Bernie Sanders has faced two primary criticisms: his appeal to African Americans, and for his stance on gun control -the latter criticism often pointed out by Hillary Clinton. Sanders had blamed some of his issues with minority voters on the fact that he represents a state, Vermont, that is 95% white, and had planned to begin campaigning in the American South with an event in Charleston, South Caroline on the day after the 2015 Charleston Church Shootings, which he was forced to cancel due to the violence.^[12] He has a D-minus voting rating by the NRA and often points this out when defending from attacks on his moderate gun control stance. ^[62]

Black Lives Matter Protests

Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement have disrupted multiple Bernie Sanders rallies. On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders was supposed to give a speech, but was blocked by Black Lives Matter protesters in a fashion similar to the Black Lives Matter disruption he dealt with three weeks prior (shown below). Conspirists on Reddit have claimed Billionaire George Soros is influencing this behavior by giving millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously being a Hillary Clinton supporter. A likely motivation for this would be the fact Bernie Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.^[19]

Related Memes

Barnie Sandlers

@BarnieSandlers, a Twitter parody account of Bernie Sanders, posts a series of political advertisement parodies featuring fake quotes attributed to Bernie Sanders. The first example of the modern template used for “Barnie Sandlers” Quotes was posted via Bernie Sander’s official Twitter account on May 20th, 2015 (shown below).^[24]

The image has been frequently exploited for parodies online, especially on the @BarnieSandlers^[25] account on Twitter which has about 150 followers as of July 29th, 2015, and on the Barnie Sandlers profile on Facebook^[26] which has over 9,000 likes as of July 29th, 2015. The “Barnie Sandlers” quotes typically contain the words “dank” or “meme” or have a reference to weed. Oftentimes, the image used in the background is replaced with an image of Bernie Sanders having obnoxious hair or have memetic items photoshopped onto him. The name “Barnie Sandlers” is likely a pun made from combining the name Bernie Sanders with the names Barney (the Purple dinosaur) and Adam Sandler.

Feel The Bern

Feel The Bern is a heavily spread phrase and chant of Bernie Sanders supporters. The phrase’s origin is presently unknown but has strong roots in Reddit.^[43] This phrase has been heavily applied by the Bernie Sanders campaign for marketing purposes.^[44] The twitter hashtag #feelthebern has received a massive amount of retweets. An alternate hashtag, #feelthebarn, was inspired by the Barnie Sandlers meme. Numerous news outlets have been reporting on various important people and states feeling the bern.^{[46][47][48][49][50][51][52]} A notorious example of the phrase was displayed by Bernie Sanders himself on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, where Bernie Sanders briefly spoke about a ‘Feel the Bern’ mug.^[53] Another reference was made to the phrase when Bernie Sanders was shown dancing onto the stage of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to the song ‘Disco Inferno’ to the lyrics ‘burn baby burn’. His dancing from that appearance has since spread on the internet for being funny and cringe-worthy.^[54]

Bernie Sanders’ Hair

While discussion of his policy stances in the mainstream media has been comparably sparse, there have been several news media mentions of Senator Sanders’ hair, which often becomes unkempt during campaign events. On April 29th, 2015, the day before Sanders’ official campaign announcement, the Washington Post published an article titled “Great Moments in Bernie Sanders’ hair”, featuring photographs of his hair waving about accompanied by humorous captions.^[9] On May 15th, 2015, New York Magazine collected media quotes about the Senator’s hair, saying that the press had been obsessed with his physical appearance in a way that wasn’t present for any other candidate.^[10] On August 17th, 2015, Bernie Sanders berated a reporter for asking about his hair, stating “O.K., Ana, I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?”^[22]

#BernieSoBlack

#BernieSoBlack is a satirical hashtag created by social progressives in response to Bernie Sanders’ perceived excessive focus on economic issues to the detriment of social issues. It was created by Roderick Morrow, a podcaster and comedian, after an altercation between Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter protesters at a Netroots Nation conference (a convention for left-leaning political activists). Sanders’s supporters promptly defended his record on social issues online, pointing out in particular that he participated in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with Vox,^[14] Morrow explained the reasoning behind his creation of the hashtag.

Whenever he’s asked a question, he goes into a spiel on economics -- which is fine, obviously, people do want wage and class equality. But certain issues are race issues, and they do need to be talked about, at least from a candidate that I would like to vote for. […] And it seems like any time black people bring this up on Twitter, there’s all these people who, I don’t know, they’re just sitting around searching his name on Twitter or something, they just come and get in your mentions and start harassing you, they start saying the same things over and over to you, like, “He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King” […] I’m not denigrating that work, but it’s almost as if they’re trying to say, “You shouldn’t expect him to continue this” or, “Because he’s done stuff in the past, you shouldn’t question him now.”

The hashtag quickly began trending, spawning several notable examples.

#DamnEmails

During the first debate for the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary held on October 13th, 2015, Sanders addressed Hillary Clinton to comment on a political scandal regarding sensitive government emails sent via her personal email account, saying “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails” (shown below).

Immediately after, Twitter users began tweeting about the statement along with the hashtag “#DamnEmails,”^[32] gathering upwards of 1,800 mentions in the first 24 hours according to Topsy.^[31] Additionally, the @damnemails^[33] Twitter feed was launched, featuring tweets about the debate exchange. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Sanders comment, including Wired,^[34] Yahoo^[35] and NY Daily News.^[36]

Bernie or Hillary?

Bernie or Hillary? refers to a series of fake campaign posters supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary against Hillary Clinton in which Sanders is depicted as being more knowledgable than Clinton on a series of popular but apolitical topics.

“Bernie Sandwiches” and “Bernie Sandals”

Following Sanders’ victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary on February 9th, 2016, he was mistakenly referred to as “Bernie Sandwiches” by MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes and “Bernie Sandals” by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Immediately after, the Mashable News Vine feed posted clips of the gaffes (shown below).

That evening, Twitter user @jennychawla_^[55] posted a photoshopped picture of a pair of sandals with a Sanders campaign promotional image printed on the top (shown below, left). Meanwhile, other Twitter users posted photoshops and jokes about Bernie Sanders sandwhiches (shown below, right).^[56][60][61] In the coming days, several news sites reported on the online reactions to the gaffes, including The Daily Dot,^[57] UpRoxx^[58] and NPR.^[59]

Birdie Sanders

Birdie Sanders is the nickname given to a bird that flew onto the podium in front of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his speech at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon in late March 2016.

#BernieMadeMeWhite

#BernieMadeMeWhite is a hashtag used to joke about the media’s representation of Bernie Sanders supporters as Caucasian during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The hashtag became popular after media reports of Sanders victories depicted diverse states, including Hawaii, as being “white and rural.”

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks Hoax

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks is a viral hoax image aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks.

#BernieLostMe

#BernieLostMe is a hashtag used by supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to share their reasons as to why the rival candidate Bernie Sanders is the less suitable nominee for the Democratic National Convention, which began trending after Sanders refused to denounce some of his supporters who behaved violently at the Nevada Democratic Convention in May 2016.

Search Interest

External References

About

Professional wrestling is a form of entertainment that combines athleticism and theatrics. It portrays itself as a combat sport taking place for wrestling championships while predetermining the outcomes of the matches to focus on providing the most entertainment possible for the audience. Placed alongside the matches are promos, or skits that are meant to attract interest or develop a story-line put in place. The professional wrestling industry formerly portrayed itself as a legitimate sport, though when it became harder to hide the secrets of the business, it became an open secret for audiences. The choreographed nature of professional wrestling is not discussed during shows in order to help sustain a willing suspension of disbelief.

History

Wrestling as a sport has existed for centuries, dating back 2300 BC thanks to documentation in Egyptian tombs and artwork many years later. The most well-known form of wrestling is the Greco-Roman style, derived from traditional Greek wrestling. Greek wrestling was the first event added to the Olympic Games that were not a footrace, and became a popular staple of the ancient Games.

Professional wrestling, as a display of entertainment and not for serious sport, began in France around 1830, when showmen presented wrestlers under names such as “Edward, the steel eater”, “Gustave d’Avignon, the bone wrecker”, or “Bonnet, the ox of the low Alps” and challenged members of the public to knock them down for 500 francs.

The modern style of professional wrestling, popularized by the United States and United Kingdom during the late 19th century, was developed under different styles being mixed together. There was “catch-as-catch can”, which may have been developed by Lancashire style of wrestling, as well as the “collar-and-elbow” style created by the Irish. These different styles were mixed together and was developed into the modern day form of professional wrestling, classified as “Catch wrestling”.

Originally thought of as unorthodox and more lax in style, catch wrestling differs from Greco-Roman in its allowed grapples; Greco-Roman strictly prohibits grabbing below the waist, while catch wrestling allows holds above and below the waist, including leg grips. But, from the late 19th century onwards, a sub-section of catch wrestling changed slowly into the sport known worldwide as pro-wrestling, recognized as much for its theatrical antics and entertainment as wrestling ability. However, this change did not become predominant until following the Second World War, and there are still forms of Shoot wrestling existing in professional wrestling, in the present day.

The most notable foreign countries that have a rich history in professional wrestling are Mexico and Japan.
Luchadores, the common name for Mexican wrestlers, are known for their high-flying acrobatics and intricate submissions while puroresu was the genre of wrestling headed by Japan. Mexico indulges in some of the over-the-top antics of modern-day American pro wrestling while Japan is distinct in its psychology and presentation of the sport. It is treated as a legitimate fight, with fewer theatrics; the stories told in Japanese matches are about a fighter’s spirit and perseverance. In strong style, the style most typically associated with puroresu, full contact martial arts strikes and shoot submission holds are implemented. Both styles of wrestling implemented by these two countries, lucha libre and puroresu, have influenced American wrestling in presentation and in-ring ability, with stars such as Antonio Inoki, Rey Mysterio, and Eddie Guerrero having matches with American wrestlers or wrestling in United States promotions.

Professional Wrestling Slang

The professional wrestling business has a variety of different terms and phrases used in-business by fans, promoters, and other wrestlers that are normally not used during programming. The reason is mainly to maintain the image and helping fans suspend their disbelief to believe that the wrestling they are watching is legitimate. Below listed are the most commonly used terms:

Botch: A goof-up, getting something that was planned wrong.

Buried: A term for a wrestler whose reputation as a credible character is devalued beyond repair.

Face: The good guy in a story, wrestlers that the fans should cheer for.

Heel: The bad guy in a story, wrestlers that the fans should boo.

Kayfabe: Simply, the reality of the fictional world that professional wrestling puts forward.

Over: Established as a notable name in wrestling, a character fans care about.

Shoot: Going off of the script, being completely honest about something.

Work: A moment that is played out to fool the audience into thinking it was beyond real.

Impact

Professional wrestling began to flourish in the 1950’s, during the introduction of television. The man considered responsible for popularizing modern wrestling in American television was George Raymond Wagner, better known as “Gorgeous George”. In 1941 in Eugene, Oregon, Wagner debuted in his Gorgeous George persona, playing the role of a heel (or villain). He drew the ire of fans in attendance thanks to his exaggerated “pretty boy” behavior, quickly drawing in crowds in subsequent shows all wanting to see and ridicule Gorgeous George. Wagner developed his persona to be more antagonistic by cheating at every possible chance during his matches and having a snooty, pompous personality. When television was looking for programming to fill time slots, they looked toward professional wrestling. Gorgeous George made his first television appearance on November 11, 1947 and he immediately commanded the same star power as Lucille Ball and Bob Hope, revolutionizing professional wrestling from being just about the action to the theatrics and characters. George could also be credited with single-handedly establishing television as a worthy entertainment medium in the United States.

In 1942, the famous Mexican hero known as El Santo (The Saint) made his debut in Mexico City, dressed in silver tights and wearing a silver mask. El Santo won an 8-man Battle Royal and the public became heavily interested in the masked wrestler. His career went on for five decades, his popularity rising to the point of becoming a folk hero for the common man. El Santo appeared in comic books and over fifty-two movies, with the public interest becoming so great that El Santo was always wearing his trademark mask, wearing different masks that was designed for a specific scenario, even for sleeping. Much like Gorgeous George, El Santo brought much attention and profit to professional wrestling programming all over Mexico.

World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment

In March 1979, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), for marketing purposes. Vincent Kennedy McMahon purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. from his father, Vincent James McMahon, and began establishing his vision for the WWF. This included signing Terry Bollea as the top talent of the promotion, who would eventually become known worldwide as Hulk Hogan. Hogan was coming off of his popular role in Rocky III as Thunderlips, which McMahon saw as a marketing opportunity. Several notable icons of the wrestling industry that came to the WWF included “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, The Iron Sheik, and Andre the Giant.

McMahon was finding success with the WWF but needed something that would make his promotion stand out, and thus, created the WWF’s flagship show, WrestleMania. What helped separate WrestleMania from other promotions who had the same idea was that McMahon made it accessible to those outside of wrestling, bringing in Mr. T, Muhammad Ali, and Cyndi Lauper to be a part of the event, as well as signing a deal with MTV to provide coverage of the event. The peak of this period of wrestling traces back to WrestleMania III, in a match that could be argued to be the most significant match in the history of professional wrestling; Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, which was viewed by over 93,173 in attendence at the Pontiac Silverdome.

Due to several legal troubles in 1992 that both hurt the WWF in the public view and in their profits, Hulk Hogan along with several other WWF wrestlers left the company and headed to the main competition, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). This led to a group of new stars being pushed into the spotlight, billed as the “New Generation”, that group including The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Scott Hall (then known as Razor Ramon), and Kevin Nash (then known as Diesel). The WWF would find growing success with the debut of their weekly television program Monday Night RAW. Despite the talent involved in the New Generation, the WWF was still falling behind their rival, WCW. It appeared that the WWF was in critical danger of folding, until The Montreal Screwjob occurred, which led to the famous feud between “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon. Eventually, former boxing champion Mike Tyson was brought in to appear and have a role in the rivalry that would gain the WWF mainstream media attention and significantly boost ratings.

Along with Steve Austin, several other stars were being born thanks to the now-established “Attitude Era”, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who has been a part of a heated rivalry with Austin for years. Both men as well as the other popular WWF wrestlers would appear outside of wrestling, with Austin appearing as a recurring guest star in the claymation MTV series Celebrity Deathmatch (which included an episode where Austin fought Mr. McMahon in a Deathmatch) and The Rock becoming a host on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in 2000.

Following the acquisition of both WCW and ECW as well as renaming itself World Wrestling Entertainment thanks to a lawsuit by the World Wildlife Foundation, WWE saw the departure of two of their biggest stars, Rock and Austin. During what was referenced to as the “Ruthless Aggression Era”, it saw one wrestler who became established as the new face of WWE, John Cena. Cena’s original gimmick of a rapper was soon changed into a more marketable gimmick that has been criticized by dedicated wrestling fans, but it has brought much profit to the WWE, thanks to Cena’s merchandise and appearances in other media. Cena has also been a major part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting over 400 wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses, with Cena being the biggest wish granter in the charity’s history.

Undertaker’s WrestleMania Streak

Mark William Calaway, better known in the WWE as The Undertaker, held the longest reigning undefeated streak at WrestleMania, reaching up to 21 victories and 0 losses. The Streak began at WrestleMania VII, with Undertaker defeating “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka, and went on to defeat notable wrestlers such as CM Punk, Kane, Ric Flair, Randy Orton, Edge and Triple H. One of the most unorthodox matches to occur during the Streak was against Giant Gonzales at WrestleMania IX, being the only match where the Undertaker won by disqualification. At WrestleMania 25, Undertaker was challenged by Shawn Michaels, and the match went on to become one of the highest rated matches of all time by various pro wrestling reviewers. The next year, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had a rematch, with the added implication that if Shawn Michaels lost, he would retire. Undertaker managed to defeat Michaels once again and end Michaels’ career.

At WrestleMania XXX, the Streak was broken by former WWE and UFC champion Brock Lesnar, much to the shock of many in attendance and those watching from home. Many fans were outraged that Lesnar was the one chosen to be the person to end the Streak, and not give the notoriety to another wrestler who was much more active than Lesnar.

Controversies

The Montreal Screwjob

The Montreal Screwjob is the title of one of the most infamous incidents in professional wrestling with real-life implications. The incident mainly involves Bret Hart, Michael Hickenbottom (more popularly known as Shawn Michaels), and Vince McMahon, as well as Hart’s contract with the WWE (or WWF at the time). Hart won the WWF Championship at the pay-per-view “Summerslam” in August 1997. A week prior to the pay-per-view “Survivor Series”, Hart signed a contract with rival promotion WCW, in which he would perform for them in December of the same year. McMahon did not want Hart to leave the WWF and Survivor Series as the champion, but Hart refused, as the event would be held in his home country of Montreal, Quebec, Canada and he did not want to drop the title to Michaels, whom he had personal issues with on-and-off screen. All three men then came to the agreement that the match would be ended in a disqualification, which would mean that Hart would retain the title and he would lose it at a later time.

However, without Hart’s knowledge, McMahon ended up deciding that Michaels would be the WWF Champion by the end of the night. After the filming ended, Bret Hart caused destruction of various ringside equipment, angry at the outcome and the betrayal. After he was calmed down by his brother Owen, along with his in-laws and fellow wrestler Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, Hart traced the letters W-C-W in the air before leaving the arena.

The Montreal Screwjob affected not only the WWF from thereon, but WCW as well, as this moment would change the landscape of the WWF and bring Vince McMahon into his role as a heel, and subsequently, make new stars out of his wrestlers, namely “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. McMahon would embrace his persona as an “evil boss” who would screw wrestlers out of winning titles and McMahon would give them to wrestlers he saw fit to be the champion.

In 2006, nine years after the Montreal Screwjob, Bret was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and was seen as a sign that Hart and McMahon mutually came to an agreement about the events, although that already occurred in 2002, when McMahon checked on Hart during his recovery from a stroke. On January 4, 2010, Hart appeared on Monday Night RAW to “bury the hatchet” with Michaels. The two reconciled and apologized to one another, closing the book on their troubled relationship. McMahon would engage in a storyline feuding with Hart, which culminated at WrestleMania XXVI, with Hart defeating McMahon in a match.

The Fall of Owen Hart

Owen Hart, Bret’s brother, died on May 23, 1999 when an equipment malfunction occurred during his entrance from the rafters of Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., at the WWF’s Over the Edge pay-per-view event. Owen was performing under the character of The Blue Blazer, a “buffoonish superhero” who was supposed to be lowered down to the ring, where he was supposed to be “entangled” in the harness and release himself and fall for comedic effect, which needed to use a quick-release mechanism. However, due to unknown reasons, when performing the stunt at the pay-per-view, Hart was released from his harness and fell 78 feet, landing on the top rope chest-first and falling into the ring. Medical personnel were out to treat Owen while the broadcast showed nothing of the event, only leaving WWF television announcer Jim Ross to inform the home audience that Owen was badly hurt and that no storyline or staging is involved. Owen was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died of his injuries.

Jim Ross informed the TV audience of the tragedy after it occurred, and WWF management was forced to decide whether to continue the show or stop it altogether. They decided to carry out the show to the end, but no footage has been released and a lawsuit was filed by Martha Hart, Owen’s widow, along with the rest of the Hart family. A settlement was reached in November 2, 2000, with the WWF giving the Hart family $18 million. The manufacturer of the harness system also was involved in the case, though a settlement was reached and thus, dismissed. Martha would use millions of the settlement to establish the Owen Hart Foundation.

The following night after the event, Raw Is Owen was put on for the audience, as with the WWF wrestlers, managers, referees, along with the McMahon family, paying tribute to Owen Hart throughout the show, with shoot testimonies given by select wrestlers being shown for the audience. The show ended with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin performing his beer guzzling routine and leaving a beer can in the ring ‘for Owen’. The tribute was the highest-rated special history in Raw history and the third highest-rated show overall.

Chris Benoit’s Double Murder Suicide

On June 25, 2007, it was reported on WWE.com that Chris Benoit and his family was found dead in their home in Atlanta, Georgia. On that evening’s edition of Monday Night Raw, all storylines were dropped to present a tribute to Benoit with comments from other WWE wrestlers (similar to the testimonies during Raw Is Owen) and showcasing Benoit’s matches. However, before the program was over, reports surfaced that the case was being investigated under the idea that Benoit murdered his wife and son before killing himself.

The following night on WWE’s ECW program, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon appeared in a recorded statement prior to the broadcast, stating that “other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit’s name tonight.” Soon after, WWE quickly distanced themselves from any mention of Chris Benoit during programming or in related media, and an investigation was established into the WWE’s wellness policy. A study done by Julian Bailes, the head of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, showed “Benoit’s brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.”

The implications of the event are still felt today, as WWE strictly enforces the rule of “No chair shots to the head”, which was a popular stunt to perform prior to the death of Benoit. Outside of wrestling, the National Football League, among other sports leagues, has been creating and enforcing new rules that deal with concussions to a player and what to do when such an event occurs. With new cases arising of different athletes dealing with the side effects of concussions, efforts are being made to prevent lasting damage on those who have suffered from the injury.

On January 2, 2014, WWE started sending out memos for the upcoming WWE Network announcing that they will air footage featuring Benoit for the first time since the murders, but an advisory warning will be displayed by WWE before each archival airing featuring Benoit.

Online Presence

Botchamania

Botchamania is a on-going web series produced by Maffew Gregg, showcasing the botches (basically wrestling maneuvers, promos, and related matters ending up going wrong) of the past and present, from WWE, WCW, TNA, ECW, and various other promotions. Botchamania^[1] as a concept was originally created by a YouTuber named TheOriginalMikey. The videos were rather sub-par especially when other YouTubers tried to add their own spin to Botchamania. Maffew, believing that “I could make a better video than this in my sleep” released Botchamania 4, and then his own versions of Botchamania 1, 2, and 3.

Botchamania has several running gags within the series, based on more prominent and popular botches. One of these running gags (shown below) involves the promotion CZW (Combat Zone Wrestling) and its founder/wrestler, John Zandig. Zandig cuts a rather unintelligable promo on events that occurred prior to the segment, proclaiming in the first couple seconds “JESUS!!” in an exaggerated manner. Whenever a Botchamania is segueing into something involving CZW, there is an edit involving Conan O’Brian’s Chuck Norris Lever skit, with a sound bite of Zandig when the lever is pulled or there is a piece of popular media featuring Jesus or activating a button or lever and inserting Zandig. Fans are encouraged to submit their own “JESUS!” segments or endings for Botchamania.

Maffew had a website dedicated solely to Botchamania – botchamania.net – but towards the end of March 2010, there was a sudden surge in the cost of hosting, and Maffew needed $500 to cover the traffic the site was getting. Donations poured in, covering the cost in roughly two days, but other technical difficulties caused the site to basically stall out; Maffew eventually started up botchamania.com^[2] and it is still going. His Twitter can be found here. ^[3]

Jim Ross

Jim Ross is a WWE Hall of Fame ringside commentator who is best known for his emotion, his voice, and his slang while at the commentary table. Some of his phrases have become in-jokes, such as “slobberknocker” (meaning a hard fought match with certain brutality), “business is about to pick up here!” (usually referring to the sudden appearance of an unexpected person), and more. Specific moments from his career have also become legendary, such as The Undertaker and Mankind’s Hell in a Cell match at King of the Ring 1998 where he famously proclaimed upon the falls of Mankind, “Good God almighty! Good God almighty! They’ve killed him! As God as my witness, he is broken in half!” and “Will somebody stop the damn match?!”. Fans have taken these voice clips and others and dubbed them over different moments.

WWE Sign Guy

“WWE Sign Guy” is the nickname of Rick Achberger, a man who has been a longtime fan of WWE and follows the shows around the country, always wearing a red backwards cap and a blue workman’s shirt in order to be recognized. He has gained his own following within the wrestling community with his appearance and creative, provocative signs that he is able to display in the front row of any event he appears at. Achberger made an appearance on the game show Deal or No Deal, where he played for $1 million. His appearance on the show also featured John Cena and Bobby Lashley cheering on Achberger (in their role as faces), while Edge and Randy Orton were antagonizing Achberger (as they were heels).

E-Federations

E-Federations (also typeset as eFederation, e-fed or just referred as fed) is a fantasy wrestling league or promotion in e-wrestling, operated electronically and is based on professional wrestling. Formed in 1995 with a small group of people and four efeds that used email based feds. It uses roleplay aspects to shape events in the way it turns out in the real business. In modern day, these federations are mostly ran through the use of a message board, where everything is conveyed via text form with images, and sometimes videos, borrowed from other entities, contrary to when conducted by means of website, email, postal mail, dicing systems, and simulated or strategic gaming.

The most prominent type of E-Federations are ones used in professional wrestling video games, mainly the games using the WWE license. These gaming E-Federations typically use original characters, popular fictional characters, or celebrities, all created using the game’s Create-A-Wrestler mode.

Connor “The Crusher” Michalek

Connor Michalek was a young fan of WWE from Hampton Township, PA, that was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer and was able to meet wrestler Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He met Danielson in 2012 through Make-A-Wish and Connor was invited to several WWE events over the course of two years, his last event attended being WrestleMania XXX. Early in 2014, Connor’s father Steve told WWE that his son was losing his battle and WWE decided to invite the two to WrestleMania, where Danielson won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. After the match, he directly approached Connor at ringside and hugged him, telling him “Connor, you mean a lot to me. You give me a lot of strength. You helped me earn this, please keep on fighting.” Connor passed away from his brain cancer three weeks later and WWE released a tribute video dedicated to Connor that has been going viral, receiving over 2.3 million views on YouTube.

Jericho Invented X

Christopher Keith “Chris” Irvine, better known by the ring name Chris Jericho, has been praised for his different “personas” throughout his wrestling career, from the cocky “King of the World” gimmick to his brooding, slow-talking claims of being the “best at what I do”. Before Chris Jericho made a return to WWE programming on January 2nd, 2012, he conducted an interview with 411Mania.com where he made remarks about wrestlers stealing his moves.

“There seems to be a lack of respect for the forefathers who came in and did it first and it’s not just [CM] Punk, it’s a whole litany of guys from Miz to Cody Rhodes to Mason Ryan to Sin Cara to Kelly Kelly, everybody is stealing moves, looks, ideas."

While it was perceived that Jericho was serious about his statements, his comments reflected his in-ring character when he officially returned to WWE, feuding with CM Punk about Punk’s claims to being the “Best in the World”. As a result, images began to appear claiming various things that Chris Jericho also invented.

Infamous One-Liners

Several phrases and quotes uttered by different wrestling talent throughout the years have grown into their own meme in the wrestling fanbase, much like Zandig’s CZW promo, thanks to the outrageous or perfectly timed nature of the moments that have spawned these sayings.

“Hulk Hogan, We Coming For You, N***a!”

This quote is attributed to long-time wrestler Booker T, who said this infamous phrase at 1997’s WCW Spring Stampede in a promo about Hulk Hogan, who had joined the New World Order (nWo) faction at the time, and the wrestlers who aligned with WCW were against him.

In 2011, Booker T explained in an interview that the reason for the line was that he got caught up in the energy and emotion of delivering the promo, as well as his upbringing in an urban environment. He also said that he approached Hulk Hogan after the promo and apologized, meaning no ill will. Hulk Hogan replied, “But you know what? I’m a good N-Word.”

“You Have A Vagina!”

Around June 5th of 2011, Phil Brooks (better known as CM Punk) argued with a fan at a WWE house show in Australia, calling him a “homo” as well in the video that was placed on YouTube. TMZ circulated the video and CM Punk apologized for the comments he made in the video, saying, “I’m glad TMZ posted that video because everybody needs to be held accountable for their bullshit, me included. What I said was bullshit. I’m embarrassed. I own up to being a total douche in this situation and I offer a sincere apology to anybody I hurt with careless words.”

Scott Steiner Hates Fat People

Scott Steiner, a wrestler known for his heated and off-the-wall promos, has performed several promos that have caught into the wrestling fandom as infamous. However, two of his most exploitable promos revolve around the weight of his opponents.

David Flair Titantron

Titantrons are the videos that play during the entrances of wrestlers, depending on the organization. David Flair, son of Ric Flair, holds the distinction for one of the most infamous Titantrons of all time. The combination of the generic rock instrumental, bland videography, and the random edit to Ric Flair appearing disappointed inspired others to create their own David Flair style Titantrons with a similar formula.

Search Interest

Links

^[1]Maffew’s Botchamania Origin Story

^[2]Botchamania.com

^[3]Twitter – Maffew Gregg’s Twitter

About

Arthur is an educational television series, created by Cookie Jar Entertainment and funded in part by the No Child Left Behind Grant. The show is set in the fictional American city of Elwood City, and revolves around the lives of 8-year-old Arthur Read, an anthropomorphic aardvark, his friends and family, and their daily interactions with each other^[2].

History

The show is based from the illustrated series by the illustrator Marc Brown. Cookie Jar Entertainment group started to product the animated series in 1994 and the first episodes were aired in 1996. The television show includes a large cast of notable characters^[4]:

Reception

The show has earned 4 Daytime Emmy Awards since it’s debut in 1994. It is one of the longest running cartoons in the United States next to the Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants.^[3] The series has been praised for highlighting issues such as cancer, dyslexia, allergies, violence, and Asperger syndrome. The show has had guest stars ranging from the late Mr Rogers and Philip Seymour Hoffman to Lance Armstrong, Matt Damon, and YoYo Ma^[5].

Fandom

Arthur has generated both sincere and humorous appreciation on social media. In the former category, there are Tumblr blogs such as “Fuck Yeah, Arthur!”^[8] and “a-a-r-d-v-a-r-k,”^[9] and the Arthur Facebook^[13] page has over 1,000,000 likes. In the latter category, there are blogs such as “Arthur Out of Context”^[10] and the Twitter account @ArthurScenes,^[11] which as of July 28th, 2016, has over 15,000 followers. Both sites post Arthur screenshots that could be misinterpreted when taken out of context for humorous effect.

Arthur also has his own Wiki-style research website, Arthur Wiki,^[12] that has 3,651 pages.

Related Memes

Arthur Comic Creator

Arthur Comic Creator is an online comic series based on the educational children’s television cartoon Arthur^[2] made via a generator^[1] hosted by PBS Kids. Similar to Law For Kids PSA Parodies and Stop Bullying Comics, internet users began using the comic generator application to create humorous parodies with inappropriate messages.

He Does It For Free

He Does It For Free is an expression used to mock 4chan moderators, also known as “janitors,” who are accused of abusing their power or being overly sensitive. Is it often associated with images of the anthropomorphic cartoon dog John Morris from the cartoon television series Arthur, who is employed as an elementary school janitor on the show.

Go On the Internet and Tell Lies?

“You Really Think Someone Would Do That? Just Go On the Internet and Tell Lies?” originated in Season 9, Episode 2 “Buster the Myth Maker”, used sarcastically to mock another internet user’s gullibility.

Arthur Punches D.W.

Arthur Punches D.W. is an infamous clip from the childrens TV show Arthur, in which he punches his little sister D.W. The short clip eventually became a target of parodies, remixes, and YouTube Poop videos.

“You’ve Got To Be Kidding!” Parodies

“You’ve Got To Be Kidding!” is a quiz game on the PBS’s website. It showcases Arthur characters sharing a personal issue and presents 3 solutions. The player is rewarded when answering with the best decision and is meant to promote good choices. Photoshopped versions of the game have surfaced online however, giving a shocking question and presenting equally inappropriate answers.

Arthur on Black Twitter

On July 27th, 2016, Black Twitter began tweeting pictures from Arthur with relatable, mature captions.^[6] The next morning, Buzzfeed covered the trend in a listicle called “14 Times ‘Arthur’ Summed Up Your Struggles Perfectly.”^[7]

Arthur’s Fist

One picture of Arthur’s balled up fist was popularly used as an image to express anger, which soon enough spawned several twitter parody accounts, the most popular being “@ARTHURSFIST,”^[14] who has regularly gained between 10 and 50 retweets on their posts in its first day of existence.

Arthur and DW Slash Pairing

The Arthur tweetstorm also resulted in a high amount of sexual tweets. Some even implied incest; one image in particular, of Arthur putting on his pants while DW lays on his bed with her face in her hands, got popular enough that “Arthur and DW” were trending on Twitter the next morning.

Search Interest

References

Overview

Halloween is an annual event celebrated in many countries worldwide on October 31st, which is often associated with various themes involving the fall season, pranking and horror.

Background

Halloween may have origins in the ancient Irish pagan festival Samhain,^[2] which celebrated the end of summer with feasting, bonfires, sacrificial offerings and homage to the dead. The word “Halloween” means “hallowed evening” or “holy evening” and dates back to 1745. The mass Irish and Scottish immigration during the 19th century is believed to have brought the celebration of Halloween to North America, as many Christian denominations previous maintained opposition to the celebration.

Viral Costumes

2007

In 2007, Flickr^[6] user Stefanie Seskin uploaded a photograph of herself on Halloween dressed as a LOLCat (shown below, left). That year, software engineer Matt Cutts^[7] posted a photograph of himself wearing a LOLCat costume for Halloween (shown below, middle). Also for that year’s Halloween, Flickr^[9] user Alida Saxon posted a photograph of person dressed in a Lime Cat costume (shown below, right).

2008

On October 13th, 2008, the design blog CMD Shift Design^[10] posted several photographs of Internet-themed Halloween costumes (shown below). On October 29th, the Internet news sites Urlesque^[11] and BuzzFeed^[8] published a listicle of meme Halloween costume idea.

2009

In October 2009, several Internet news sites Neatorama and Thrillist highlighted various Internet meme costumes. Additionally, Know Your Meme temporarily launched a DIY“Hallow-meme costume builder.”^[15] That year, the first Hallowmeme event was held in New York City (shown below, right).

2010

On October 12th, 2010, MentalFloss^[13] highlighted a photograph of a man wearing a “Double Rainbow”: costume (shown below, left). On October 19th, Mashable^[12] published an listicle of “Social Media Halloween Costume Ideas.” That year, the online retailer BrandsOnSale listed an Antoine Dodson costume for sale (shown below, right).

2011

On October 31st, 2011, Redditor Snap_Judgement uploaded a photograph of himself dressed as Business Cat to /r/pics^[21] (shown below). That year, several news sites published articles about Internet meme Halloween costumes, including The Huffington Post,^[16] Oddee,^[17] Smosh,^[20] Nerve^[18] and Neatorama.^[19]

2012

On October 21st, 2012, Redditor The_Origami_Man posted a photograph of himself wearing a High Expectations Asian Father costume (shown below, left).^[23] On October 28th, Redditor hanako66 uploaded a photograph of himself wearing a Giorgio Tsoukalous costume (shown below, middle).^[24] On November 1st, Redditor Magnets_and_Ghouls uploaded a photo of herself wearing a Scumbag Steve costume (shown below, right).^[25] That year, several news sites published articles about Halloween meme costumes, including CNN,^[25] UpRoxx^[26] and The Daily Dot.^[27]

2013

On October 29th, 2013, Redditor Zangler posted a photo of a man in a Guy Fawkes costume described as “Adult 4chan Man costume” (shown below).^[32] That year, articles listing meme costume ideas were posted on Mashable,^[28] Smosh,^[29] Time^[30] and BuzzFeed.^[31]

2014

On October 25th, Redditor scarletregina posted a photograph of a Shiba Inu dressed as Doge (shown below, left).^[34] That year, several news sites published listicles containing meme Halloween costumes, including Time,^[35] Mashable^[36] and Refinery 29.^[37]

2015

In 2015, the online retailer Yandy^[38] placed a Pizza Rat costume for sale (shown below, left). On October 30th, Redditor Ryanwesley posted a photograph of himself costumed as Kim Davis for Halloween (shown below, right).^[39]

Highlights

Pumpkin Carving Art

Pumpkin Carving Art is the craft of carving images or patterns onto pumpkins. Traditionally known as jack-o-lanterns, photographs of intricately carved pumpkins are shared online every year around the beginning of autumn in celebration of Halloween.

The Pumpkin Dance

The Pumpkin Dance is a YouTube video of a man dressed in all black wearing a Jack O’Lantern mask dancing to the theme song from the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The clip, which originally aired on the KXVO news channel in Omaha, Nebraska during a Halloween broadcast in 2006, went on to spawn several mash-up videos, remixes and photoshopped GIFs.

He’s My Favorite

He’s My Favorite! is a Halloween-themed exploitable webcomic of a child trick or treating in a costume. While the original comic features an innocent dialogue between the treat giver and the trick-or-treater, it was soon turned into a fodder for parodies featuring other fan-favorite characters from popular video games and cartoons.

We’re a Culture, Not a Costume

We’re a Culture, Not a Costume was a poster ad campaign that features students of various ethnicities holding photos of people dressed in Halloween costumes that could be perceived as culturally insensitive. The campaign inspired a series of photoshop parodies depicting animals and fictional characters with photos of people wearing their respective Halloween costumes.

HallowMeme

HallowMeme is an annual Internet meme-themed costume contest and party held in New York City during the week of Halloween.

2Spooky

2Spooky is an abbreviation of the phrase “too spooky” that is typically associated with pictures and animated GIFs of skeletons and the song “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” by Andrew Gold.

Spoopy

Spoopy is an intentional misspelling of the word “spooky” which is associated with a Halloween sign written in a human skeleton typeface. The phrase is often associated with the abbrebiation 2Spooky on the microblogging site Tumblr.

Skeleton War

Skeleton War is an inside joke which originated in 2013 and circulated through Tumblr in October 2014, as a way to tag GIFs or pictures of skeletons used to celebrate the month leading up to Halloween, similar to 2spooky.

Nightmare Fear Factory Photos

Nightmares Fear Factory is a haunted house attraction located in Niagara Falls, Canada. Since the early 2000s, they have photographed the reactions of their visitors as they go through the venue to capture their candid fear. In the past few years, collections of these photos have gone viral every October.

Steal Her Look

Steal Her Look is a series of instructional posts for costume ideas on Tumblr that offer a list of high-end, boutique clothing items and fashion accessories required to achieve the look of an Internet meme, such as a fictional character, viral video celebrity or inanimate object, as a parody of the familiar “lookbook” format widely used in fashion magazines and seasonal catalogues.

Blackface Costume Controversies

Blackface Costume Controversies refer to a series of online backlashes prompted by Halloween costumes that entail painting one’s own face in black or brown as to emulate the darker skin tone of black people. Despite the widespread cultural stigma surrounding the practice in North America, many celebrities and other individuals have come under criticism for sporting the blackface as part of their costumes.

#HalloweenFail

On October 15th, 2014, late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon posted a tweet launching the hashtag #HalloweenFail to share “funny, weird or embarrassing0” Halloween stories (shown below).

In the first 24 hours, #HalloweenFail^[4] became a worldwide trending hashtag, with over 6,900 mentions according to the Twitter analytics site Topsy.^[5]

Search Interest

External References

About

Hulk Hogan’s Sex Tape Scandal refers to a sexually explicit video in which former professional wrestler Terry Gene Bollea, better known by his stage name Hulk Hogan, is shown engaging in sexual intercourse with Heather Clem, the wife of radio personality Todd Clem. Clips of the video were widely circulated online throughout 2012, which lead Bollea to file lawsuits against both the Clems and Gawker Media for violating his privacy. Many have speculated the lawsuit against Gawker could potentially bankrupt the company, as well as set important legal precedents in regards to privacy rights and freedom of the press.

Background

In April 2012, a 30-minute sexually explicit video in which Hogan and Clem engage in sexual intercourse began circulating online. In the video, radio host Todd Alan Clem (a.k.a. Bubba the Love Sponge) can be heard telling his wife Heather “If we ever need to retire, here is our ticket,” prior to Bollea entering the room. On October 4th, Gawker^[7] released a one-minute clip from the video titled “Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway.”

Notable Developments

Howard Stern Appearance

That month, Bollea was interviewed on the Howard Stern radio show about the tape, claiming he was covertly filmed without his consent (shown below).

Lawsuit Against the Clems

Also in October 2012, Bollea filed a lawsuit against the Clems for invading his privacy by filming him without his consent. On October 29th, a settlement was reached and Todd Clem issued a public apology to Bollea on his radio show.

“I am now convinced that Hulk Hogan was unaware of the presence of the recording device in my bedroom. I am convinced [Hulk Hogan] had no knowledge that he was being taped…It is my belief that Hulk is not involved, and has not ever been involved, in trying to release the video, or exploit it, or otherwise gain from the video’s release in any way.”

Lawsuit Against Gawker

On April 24th, 2013, Hogan sued Gawker for the post, and demanded they take the tape down. The site initially refused, citing their first amendment rights as journalists in the public interest, but a judge later required them to remove it.^[8] On October 21st, 2014, Redditor Alexxm posted an image juxtaposing Gawker headlines about the Bollea sex tape with headlines criticizing “The Fappening” iCloud leaks, accusing the online tabloid of hypocrisy (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 5,600 votes (94% upvoted) and 690 comments on the /r/TumblrInAction^[1] subreddit.

On July 6th, 2015, a civil trial against Gawker Media convened in Florida, in which Bollea is seeking $100 million in damages for violating his privacy, personality rights and intentionally inflicting emotional distress for publishing the sex tape. On July 24th, 2015, the National Enquirer^[3] and Radar Online^[4] published transcripts of Bollea’s statements heard in the background audio of the sex tape:

“I mean, I don’t have double standards. I mean, I am a racist, to a point, f*cking n*ggers. But then when it comes to nice people and sh*t, and whatever."

“I mean, I’d rather if she was going to f*ck some n*gger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall n*gger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player!”

On July 29th, Bollea filed a motion accusing Gawker of leaking the tape audio to compromise the lawsuit against them.^[5] In October, a judge granted Bollea access to Gawker’s computer system to allow a forensic expert to search for evidence that the company leaked a recording of Hogan to the National Enquirer. On March 5th, 2016, The New York Times^[2] published an article about the lawsuit, noting that it may set important legal precedents in regards to privacy rights and freedom of the press. On March 7th, Bollea appeared on the stand at the trial, where he claimed he was “in character” when questioned about the Howard Stern appearance, and that he was “completely humiliated” by Gawker publishing the video

On March 9th, former Gawker editor Albert J. Daulerio was questioned as a defendant in the case. When asked if he could “image a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy,” Daulerio responded “if they were a child” under the age of “four.” That day, Gawker claimed Daulerio was being “flippant” in the statement.^[6] On March 14th, YouTuber Court Chatter View uploaded footage of Daulerio being questioned about the remark (shown below). On the following day, Redditor The-Wing submitted the video to /r/videos. Within 24 hours, the video received upwards of 1.08 million views and the Reddit post gathered more than 8,500 votes (83% upvoted).

Verdict

On March 18th, 2016, a verdict was delivered awarding Hogan $55 million in compensatory damages and $60 million for emotional distress. By the end of the month, the six-person jury will decide if additional punitive damages will be awarded. Following the delivery of the verdict, Gawker CEO Nick Denton announced plans to appeal the decision, claiming that “key evidence and the most important witness were both improperly withheld” from the jury.^[11] That day, the tech news site Ars Technica published an article titled “$115 Million Verdict in Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Lawsuit Could Wipe Out Gawker.” In the coming days, several posts about the verdict reached the frontpage of the various subreddits, including /r/news,^[13][18] /r/technology,^[14] /r/squaredcircle,^[15] /r/KotakuInAction/,^[16] /r/The_Donald/,^[17] some of which celebrated Hogan’s victory in the case (shown below).

Peter Thiel’s Funding

On May 23rd, 2016, The New York Times^[19] published an article titled “Gawker Founder Suspects a Common Financer Behind Lawsuits,” reporting that Nick Denton suspected someone in Silicon Valley was financing various lawsuits against the media company, including Bollea’s defamation lawsuit. The following day, Forbes^[20] published an article titled “This Silicon Valley Billionaire Has Been Secretely Funding Hulk Hogan’s Lawsuits Against Gawker,” which named PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, whom Gawker outed as a homosexual in 2007, as the secret financier. On May 25th, The New York Times^[21] published an interview with Thiel, in which he admitted to financing the lawsuit against Gawker. That day, several posts about the news reached the front page the /r/news,^[22] /r/ProRevenge^[23] and /r/KotakuInAction^[24] subreddits. On Twitter, many claimed Thiel’s funding of the trial was a threat to freedom of the press, while others mocked the arguments as sanctimonious.

Settlement

On November 2nd, 2016, months after Gawker had closed due to bankruptcy as the result of the case, Hogan and Gawker reached a settlement in which Gawker would pay Hogan $31 million dollars after the judge awarded Hogan $140 million in damages after the case.^[28] The stories about Hogan were also removed from the site.

Gawker’s Sale Rumors

On May 26th, the New York Post reported that Nick Denton had “begun quietly soliciting bids for the sale of his company” in the wake of the verdict. That day, several other news sites reported on the story, including the Wall Street Journal,^[25]CNBC^[26] and Business Insider.^[27]

Search Interest

External References

Overview

The 2016 United States Presidential Election is the 58th quadrennial presidential election in the U.S., with voting scheduled to commence on November 8th, 2016.

Background

2016 Democratic Presidential Primary

The 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary is the preliminary round for the Democratic party to pick the candidate they wish to support for the 2016 general election. Online, most of the attention centered around the race has been focused on the conflict between candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders..

2016 Republican Presidential Primary

The 2016 Republican Presidential Primary is the preliminary round for the Republican party to decide which candidate they wish to support for the 2016 general election. It has gained much attention online, most notably for its inclusion of front runner Donald Trump.

Notable Developments

Super Tuesday

On March 1st, 2016, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia held primaries and caucuses for the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination. Additional Republican caucuses were held in Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming and a Democratic caucus was held in American Samoa. That evening, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won seven states with a total of 417 delegates and rival Bernie Sanders won four states with a total of 230 delegates. In the Republican race, Donald Trump won seven states with 203 delegates, Ted Cruz won three states with 144 delegates and Marco Rubio won one state with 59 delegates. The following day, Jimmy Kimmel Live aired a “Lie Witness News” segment in which they ask people on the street if they voted in the primary (shown below).

Chris Christie Face

During Trump’s victory speech in Florida, he was joined by former candidate and supporter Chris Christie. On Twitter, many mocked Christie’s pained-looking facial expressions made during the speech (shown below).^[2][3][4]

Additionally, writer Xeni Jardin tweeted an animated GIF of Christie’s face with a pulsating rainbow triangle overlay, along with the hashtag’s #illuminati and stay woke (shown below).

Carl the Cuck and AIDS Skrillex

On March 11th, 2016, The Alex Jones YouTube channel posted a video titled “Anti-Trump Protesters Go Berserk!”, featuring a heated argument between Trump supporters and anti-Trump activists taking place outside of a Trump rally in St. Louis, Missouri. After the video began circulating on 4chan, two anti-Trump protesters were nicknamed “Carl the Cuck” and “AIDS Skrillex,” and were widely mocked for their argument tactics, including the invocation of Godwin’s Law and discounting a Trump supporter’s arguments for being a “White male.”

Birdie Sanders

On March 25th, 2016, Democratic primary presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made an appearance at a campaign rally held at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. During his speech, a brown house finch flew onto the stage, which immediately prompted cheers and laughters from the crowd (shown below). As Sanders, who seemed just as entertained by the unexpected intruder, tried to resume his speech, the bird approached the Vermont senator even closer by perching on his podium, triggering further excitement and bewilderment from his supporters in attendance, as well as many others online who witnessed the strange interruption via livecast.

#HillarySoQualified

On Wednesday, April 6th, Bernie Sanders stated in a speech that he believed that Hillary Clinton was unqualified to hold the office of president based on her previous decisions in fundraising, the Iraq War and other positions she had previously held. The hashtag #HillarySoQualified was launched by Clinton supporters to praise their candidate’s experience, but was subsequently hijacked by Sanders supporters (shown below).

#DropOutHillary

On May 4th, 2016, the hashtag #DropOutHillary began trending on social media after the Republican presidential primary candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich suspended their campaigns, with many supporters of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders calling for Clinton to do the same.

The Delegates, Donald

On May 11th, 2016, 4chan users began posting photoshops of United States Senator Ted Cruz along with a variety of internal monologue-style captions assertively demanding the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to “hand over” the delegates he had secured during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.

John Miller Tapes

On May 13th, 2016, The Washington Post published an article titled “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag About Himself,” which reported that the New York City real estate mogul had routinely pretended to be a publicist for himself under the names “John Miller”
and “John Barron” when speaking to the press, citing the accounts of journalists, his former aides and a 1990 audio recording of a phone conversation between People magazine reporter Sue Carswell and John Miller, a man identifying himself as Trump’s publicist that the newspaper had obtained.

Star of David Tweet Controversy

On July 2nd, 2016, Trump tweeted an anti-Hillary Clinton poster featuring an image of a blue hexagram, clearly resembling the Jewish Star of David (✡), with the caption reading “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever” and set to the background image of a pile of $100 bills (shown below). The post quickly prompted a firestorm of social media backlash from his critics and Clinton’s supporters, many of whom blasted the Republican presidential candidate for promoting anti-Semitic imagery.

#IGuessImWithHer

Following Clinton’s Democratic primary election victories held on June 7th, 2016, many news media outlets reported that she had become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. On social media, many former Sanders supporters announced their support of rival Hillary Clinton along with the hashtag “#GirlIGuessImWithHer.”

#TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet

On June 25th, 2016, The Wall Street Journal released poll results reporting that Hillary Clinton held a 17-point lead among women over Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. That day, the @Bakedalaska Twitter feed shared a photo of a young woman wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat with the hashtag #TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet. Within four days, the tweet gained over 3,000 likes and 1,000 retweets.

On July 12th, 2016, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders formally endorsed rival Hillary Clinton for president against Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming general election. That day, political news blogger Harlan Hill launched the #DemExit social media hashtag, encouraging Bernie Sanders supporters to leave the Democratic Party in protest of Clinton’s nomination in the 2016 United States presidential election.

Clinton’s Instagram Raid

On July 16th, iFunny user iCarlyFetish submitted an image announcing a raid against Hillary Clinton’s Instagram page, encouraging viewers to comment the phrase “Spicy Boy” on uploaded images. The following day, a 4chan user submitted a post urging viewers to “go on Hillary’s Instagram and spam Spicy Boy.” In the coming days, many of Clinton’s Instagram posts were spammed with the phrase.

Republican National Convention

Stephen Colbert’s Takeover Stunt

On July 17th, the day before the Republican National Convention, YouTuber Tom Cahill uploaded a video of Stephen Colbert taking the main stage at the Quicken Loans Arena to mockingly announce the beginning of the “2016 Republican National Committee Hungry for Power Games” in character of Caesar Flickerman, the emcee of the eponymous game in the _Hunger Games _ film series.

#NeverTrump Protests

Only a few hours into the three-day convention on July 18th, chaos erupted on the floor when anti-Trump delegates and supporters of the #NeverTrump movement began calling for a roll call vote (by individual count) instead of a voice vote (by verbal response) on a proposed change to the convention rules, which would “unbind the delegates” from the results of the primaries and allow them to vote on their own judgment calls, opening up the possibility of Trump getting blocked from being nominated in the first ballot. By the time the convention’s rules committee denied the motion for a roll-call vote on the grounds of insufficient signatures, which was caused by the last-minute withdrawal of three out of nine state delegation that had backed the method, the floor turned into loud exchanges of shouting between the supporters of Trump and his opposition; the Colorado delegation walked out in protest.

Notable Speeches

On July 18th, 2016, Melania Trump delivered a speech in support of her husband’s candidacy for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Following the speech, many accused her of plagiarizing portions of Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech, with some internet users mocking her with the satirical hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes. The following day, Ben Carson delivered a speech that attempted to link Hillary Clinton to Lucifer by bringing up that Clinton wrote her senior thesis on community organizer Saul Alinsky. On July 20th, Ted Cruz conspicuously failed to endorse Donald Trump in a speech where he implored Republicans to “vote their conscience.” The crowd erupted in boos and chants of “Trump!” The next morning, Cruz defended his speech by telling the Texas delegation “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and father.”

#HillaryForPrison

During the 2016 Republican National Convention in late July, several news sites reported that “Hillary for Prison” movement had gained significant traction among attendees. On July 20th, Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie performed a mock prosecution against Clinton at the convention, in which he listed various alleged offenses and asked the crowd if she was “guilty, or not guilty."

#TrumpYourself

On July 21st, 2016, Clinton’s Facebook and Twitter pages announced the launch of #TrumpYourself, a web application hosted on Hillary Clinton’s official campaign site. Within the hour of its launch, #TrumpYourself quickly grew traction on Facebook and Twitter, causing the site to crash temporarily.

Democratic National Committee Email Leak

On July 22nd, 2016, Wikileaks^[9] published a collection of nearly 20,000 e-mails exchanged among key staff members within the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the governing body of the United States Democratic Party, as well as unofficial correspondences with members of the press, between January 2015 and May 2016. Among other findings, the leaked emails detail how several officials within the DNC, which is supposed to remain neutral during the primary electoral process, had attempted to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in order to secure the victory of Hillary Clinton.

Democratic National Convention

Crying Bernie Sanders Supporters

On July 25th, 2016, supporters of former 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders were filmed and photographed crying during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That day, screen caps of the crying convention attendees were widely circulated on social media, often accompanied by humorous captions (shown below).

“Fight Song”

On July 26th, 2016, the Democratic National Convention YouTube channel uploaded an a cappella cover of the song starring various celebrities singing in support of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (shown below). Within one week, the video gained over 1.6 million views and 14,300 comments, with upwards of 30,800 dislikes and 28,100 likes. Online, many mocked the music video for being cheesy and cringeworthy.

Howard Dean’s “Scream” Reenactment

The same day, Howard Dean made an onstage appearance at the convention, where he reenacted the infamous speech he had given at a post-caucus rally event in Des Moines, Iowa during his primary campaign in 2004, which instantly pleased the crowd on the floor with laughters and cheers.

Khizr Khan’s Speech

On July 28th, 2016, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Pakistani-born Americans and the parents of American war veteran Captain Humayun Khan, made a special appearance at the Democratic National Convention to deliver a speech in honor of their son, who was killed in action by a car bomb during Operation Iraqi Freedom in June 2004. During the speech, Khizr also criticized Donald Trump for his proposed ban on Muslim immigration and questioned the Republican presidential nominee’s understanding of the United States Constitution. In an interview with ABC News, Trump questioned if Khan’s wife Ghazala “was allowed to have anything to say” and claimed to have made “sacrifices” for the United States with his businesses and charity work. In the coming days, Trump was widely condemned by political opponents for his statements about Khan, which many derided as being disrespectful toward the Gold Star Khan family.

Clinton’s React to Balloons

On July 28th, 2016, the final day of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton accepted the nomination for president in the upcoming election in November. Shortly afterwards, she was joined onstage by her husband and former President of the United States Bill Clinton, her running mate Tim Kaine and several staffers, at which point around 100,000 red, blue and white balloons were released from the ceiling of the venue to celebrate the conclusion of the convention.

Trump’s NAMBLA Donation Hoax

On July 29th, 2016, Redditor RIPrince submitted an article titled “Trump Suggests Nothing Will Prompt Him to Release Tax Returns” to the /r/politics subreddit. In the comments section, another Redditor speculated that Trump was keeping his tax return private to prevent the discovery that he donated to NAMBLA. In the coming days, the rumor proliferated across social media platforms as a way to mock Trump’s habitual use of the phrase “many people are saying” when citing unfounded claims and far-fetched conjectures in his campaign speeches.

Donald Maroney

On August 2nd, 2016, the Donald Maroney Tumblr^[1] blog was launched, featuring photographs of Trump captioned with tactless quotes uttered by the character Jenna Maroney (played by Jane Krakowski) in episodes of the television sitcom 30 Rock (shown below).

Trump’s “Second Amendment People” Joke

On August 9th, 2016, Donald Trump gave a speech in Wilmington, North Carolina where he tried to drum up support by insinuating that Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment that states Americans have the right to bear arms. While talking about the possibility of Hillary getting to put anti-gun judges on the Supreme Court, Trump suggested that “Second Amendment” people could prevent it from happening.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment, and by the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks…Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno.”

Following the speech, many online accused Trump of suggesting that gun enthusiasts assassinate Clinton if she became president, while the Trump campaign claimed he only meant for gun owners to vote against Clinton to prevent her from winning the election.

#ManyPeopleAreSaying

On August 8th, 2016, Trump posted a tweet that claiming that “many people are saying” Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was executed due to “Clinton’s hacked emails." That evening, the hashtag #ManyPeopleAreSaying began trending worldwide on the social networking platform, with tweets containing various jokes and conspiracy theories about the Republican presidential candidate (shown below).

Seth Rich’s Death

On July 10th, 2016, Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was shot and killed while walking home at approximately 4:20 A.M. on a residential street in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington D.C. During a press conference the following day, Metropolitan Police Department Captain Anthony Haythe announced that police discovered Rich conscious and breathing at the scene after being shot several times, though he fatally succumbed to the wounds after being transported to a nearby hospital. Due to the timing of his death, many conspiracy theories circulated online speculating that Rich had been killed for being the anonymous source behind the 2016 DNC Email Leak, though no evidence linking the shooting has surfaced.

Donald Trump’s White Sign

On August 11th, 2016, Donald Trump delivered a speech at the National Association of Home Buildings, where he held up a large white graph showing a sharp decline in home ownership in the United States. That day, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign’s deputy digital communications director Rob Flaherty posted a screen capture of Trump holding a blank version of the graph with the instructions “go to town, folks," leading others to create various photoshops using the template (shown below).

Says Who?

On Wednesday, August 17th, 2016, Cohen appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room to address a recent shakeup in the Trump campaign staff. Host Brianna Keilar observed “You guys are down,” to which Cohen interrupted, “Says who?” Keilar responded “Polls. Most of them. All of them?” After a long pause, Cohen repeated, “Says who?” Following the broadcast of the interview, many mocked Cohen’s appearance on social media.

#TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner

On September 1st, 2016, Gutierrez appeared on MSNBCs All In with Chris Hayes to discuss Trump’s comments made during an immigration speech on August 31st, 2016. While discussing “problems” faced by America, correspondent Joy Ann Reid pushed Gutierrez to clarify “What problems?” Gutierrez responded that his “culture” was very “dominant,” and might lead to “taco trucks on every corner.” Online, many mocked the comments on social media along with the hashtag “#TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner”.

#HackingHillary

In early September, critics of Clinton launched the hashtag #HackingHillary to mock her frequent coughing fits, which many have speculated are signs of the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate’s failing health.

Clinton’s Basket of Deplorables Gaffe

On September 8th, 2016, Clinton was interviewed on the Israeli television, where she said that Trump supporters are in “two big baskets,” one of which contains “deplorables” who consist of “racists” and “haters." The following evening, Clinton made a similar statement while speaking at a private fundraiser, where she said “you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call ‘the basket of deplorables’." On September 10th, Donald Trump Jr. posted a photoshopped movie poster on Instagram of the 2010 action film The Expendables, featuring various prominent conservatives and Pepe the Frog with the title “The Deplorables” (shown below).

In the coming days, several news sites identified Pepe as a “symbol of white nationalism,” leading the official Hillary Clinton campaign blog to publish an “explainer” accusing Trump Jr. of posting a “symbol associated with white supremacy.”

Body Double Conspiracy Theory

On September 11th, 2016, Clinton attended a memorial ceremony in honor of those who perished in the September 11th, 2001 attacks, where she abruptly left claiming she felt “overheated.” While waiting for her vehicle, Clinton appeared as if she were about to collapse before aides helped her into the van (shown below, left). After the incident, Clinton visited her daughter Chelsea’s Manhattan apartment, where she emerged hours later and was filmed by reporters (shown below, right).

That day, some conspiracy theorists on social media began speculating that a body double was posing as the presidential candidate after the incident, along with the hashtag #HillarysBodyDouble (shown below). Additionally, many argued that Hillary Clinton impersonator Teresa Barnwell was performing the body double role.

Bowl of Skittles Meme Controversy

On September 19th, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a photograph of a bowl of skittles with the caption “If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? / That’s our Syrian refugee problem." Immediately after, Trump was widely criticized for posting the image, with many accusing him of promoting Islamophobia.

Presidential Debate

There are a total of four nationally broadcast debates scheduled for the general election between September and October, including one debate involving vice-presidential nominees.

CNN Debate

On September 26th, the first round of the debates began at 9:00 p.m. (EST). In the hours leading up to the start, several debate-related hashtags began trending on various social media platforms, including #DebateNight on Twitter^[12] and #Debates2016 on Facebook.^[13]

• The nearly two-hour long debate was marked by a series of increasingly confrontational moments from both sides, with Clinton taking a full front attack on Trump’s lack of transparency in disclosing his personal finances and tax returns, as well as his controversies involving sexism, race and business practices, while Trump retaliated by criticizing her role in the enlargement of ISIS and e-mail scandal while serving as Secretary of State under the Obama administration.

• Some of the more noteworthy moments from Trump included his frequent sniffles, which prompted tongue-in-cheek rumors and jokes about his health condition in reference to #HackingHillary, his description of the DNC hacker as someone sitting on his bed who weighs 400 pounds, which also led to several jokes from hacktivist circles on Twitter, including a response from @YourAnonNews. Meanwhile, a variety of Clinton’s baffled facial reactions to Trump’s remark during the debate also went viral on Twitter, including a comparison to Jim Halpert from the American TV sitcom The Office.

Online Presence

Hillary Clinton

As of September 2016, Clinton has upwards of 8.98 million followers on Twitter,^[5] 6.17 million likes on Facebook^[6] and 2.1 million followers on Instagram.^[7]

Correct the Record

Correct the Record (CTR) is an independent-expenditure only committee, also known as a Super PAC, which maintains a large presence on social media to promote and defend the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. While other Super PACs are prohibited by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from coordinating directly with campaigns or political parties, CTR is able to work closely with the Clinton campaign due to its exclusive use of various social media in its operations. Online, the organization has been scrutinized for paying people to defend Clinton in various online discussions, a practice many have denounced as an example of “astroturfing.”

Donald Trump

As of September 2016, Trump has more than 11.7 million followers on Twitter,^[8] 10.8 million likes on Facebook^[9] and 2.5 million followers on Instagram.^[10]

Nimble America

Nimble America is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The organization has been widely denounced by Trump supporters on the /r/The_Donald subreddit, where many speculated that the organization is a scam and criticized its initiatives as astroturfing.

Election Day

On November 8th, 2016, the General Election went underway in polling stations across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Gary Johnson being listed on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington D.C., while Jill Stein was listed on the ballot in 44 states and Washington D.C. In addition, 24 other third party and independent candidates were listed on the ballot in select states.

The Results

Despite most forecasts and projections based on exit poll data that generally favored Hillary Clinton’s victory in the election, Donald Trump quickly negated many pollsters’ and experts’ expectations by claiming victory in eight of the eleven swing states, namely Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. By the eleventh hour of the election day, Trump continued to widen his lead in delegate count through his victory after another across the midwest t-states.

At 3:00 a.m. (EST) on November 9th, Donald Trump secured over 270 electoral votes, or the majority of the 538 electors in the electoral college, effectively becoming the president-elect of the United States. In contrast, Hillary Clinton had managed to secure 218 delegates, a number that is far below the projections put forth by most leading public opinion polls. Trump, along with his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence, will take office as the 45th President on January 20th, 2017.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Meme Magic” is a slang term used to describe the hypothetical power of sorcery and voodoo supposedly derived from certain internet memes that can transcend the realm of cyberspace and result in real life consequences. Since its coinage on the imageboard 8chan, the fictitious concept has gained popularity on 4chan’s /pol/ (politically incorrect) board and been heavily associated with several in-jokes and shitposting fads on the site, including Ebola-chan, Baneposting and Donald Trump. Some have compared it to the occult concept of the egregore,^[11] an autonomous psychic entity which influences the thoughts of a group of people.

Origin

The earliest uses of the term can be tracked to March 2015, when the Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed while en route to Düsseldorf, Germany and several online communities started drawing parallels with the memorable plane scene from The Dark Knight Rises. The first use comes from a webm titled “Meme Magick”, created by YouTuber First Last (and reuploaded to his YouTube channel on August 6th, 2015), which was first posted on 8chan’s random board /b/ and later on the Baneposting board /bane/. The earliest archived reference to it is a post on /pol/ from March 26th claiming that /tv/ used “meme magic” to crash the plane.^[5]

Percursor

While the term was used in the past, it was mostly to refer to the spread of catchphrases or image macros, like the first archived example from a /mlp/ thread asking about the popularity of the catchphrase I Want to Cum Inside Rainbow Dash.^[1] Furthermore, several users refer to the “White People” Conspiracy Hoax spreaded in September 2014 in relation to the Ebola Outbreak from the same year as the first use of “meme magic”.

Spread

On May 10th, 2015, two 8chan boards centered on meme magic were created: /bmw/ (Bureau of Memetic Warfare)^[9] and /magick/.^[10] Since then, the expression has been used to refer to several happenings from the past regarding Internet memes, like the 2014 Slender Man stabbing (by the paranormal board /x/), the posting of the character Ebola-chan by /pol/ to make the pandemy stronger or the 2015 Umpqua Community College Shooting related to a /r9k/ post; and several tactics to use that power, like posting pictures or GETs. The term has also been associated to the Egyptian God of darkness Kek^[8] and a black-and-white photo of a man (shown below).

Various Examples

Winter-chan

Winter-chan is a female anime character created to be an anthropomorphic representation of the winter season. The character is used 4chan members to express the response of right-wing Europeans to those fleeing the Middle East in the European Migrant Crisis. The idea behind Winter-chan was to create a manga character who would be used to summon a cold and harsh winter in the way that the user believed that Ebola-chan created a more powerful epidemic. The harsh, cold winter summoned by the Winter-chan would be painful, or fatal, to those fleeing the Middle East.

Lemmy Kilmister’s Death

On December 28th, 2015, a thread about Motörhead‘s vocalist Lemmy Kilmister health was submitted on 4chan’s music board /mu/, being one of the responses “hell be fine”.^[3] A few hours later, Lemmy’s death was announced,^[6] leading to several jokes regarding that post on the thread being the cause of his death. The catchphrase “hell be fine” also experimented some spread on 4chan, mainly on /mu/.^[4]

Donald Trump

From June 2015 onwards, the term has been heavily associated to the bussinessman and 2016 United States elected President Donald Trump, with /pol/ users using the “meme magic” to make Trump win the elections and transform the country under a similar ideology. Several notable events include the posting of a Trump Pepe picture on Trump’s twitter (shown below, right) or the use of a Yiddish curse word to talk about Hillary Clinton, being consequently reported on a opinion editorial featuring the word “Oy vey”.^[7]

Search Interest

Not available

External References

About

Tag Yourself is a fandom survey meme in which the participant is presented with a lineup of celebrities or fictional characters and prompted to identify one that is the most relatable. Recognizable by the poorly drawn avatars of the characters and ill-phrased descriptions of their traits in Comic Sans, the illustrative surveys went viral on the popular microblogging platform Tumblr in late January 2016.

Origin

The earliest known variation was posted by Tumblr user Goblinlord^[2] on January 24th, 2016. The survey post, which featured MS Paint-style illustrations of six bird-like original characters with the caption challenging its viewers to “reblog and tag which bird you are,” garnered more than 101,000 notes within the first 72 hours.

Precursor: 4chan “Choose Wisely” Threads

On the online image board 4chan, a popular forum game is creating lists of options which only allow one of these to be chosen. Popular themes in these lists include the viewer finding themselves in a dangerous situation and having limited options of help, or coming accross magical items which grant special abilities or cause lifechanging events.

Spread

The illustrations usually consist of poorly drawn character art with mislabeled names and heavily opinionated descriptions of their characteristics. On January 24th, numerous variations began circulating on Tumblr, many of which garnered tens of thousands of notes in the following 24 hours. Some of the early variations to pass the milestone of 30,000 notes include:

The following day, the @tagyourselfmeme^[16] Instagram feed was launched, highlighting notable examples from the series. Over the next 10 months, the feed garnered upwards of 33,800 followers. Also on January 25th, Twitter user @gentleskies^[18] tweeted a Pepe the Frog-themed variation of the survey (shown below).

On January 27th, The Daily Dot^[15] published an article titled “The ‘tag yourself’ meme lets you choose your own destiny.” On February 9th, Smosh^[17] published a listicle highlighting various examples of the meme. On May 9th, 2016, Instagram^[14] user _memethief posted a Dat Boi-themed version of the meme. On November 4th, the news site Mic^[19] published an article referring to Tag Yourself as “the best meme of 2016.”

Various Examples

Additional numerous examples can also be found on Tumblr through the tags “tag yourself”^[12] and “tag yourself meme.”^[13]

Search Interest

External References

About

You Reposted In the Wrong Neighborhood is the name of a song by ＳＨＯＫＫ青.^[1] It combines the lyrics of “Shake That” by Nate Dogg and Eminem with the instrumental from “Casin” by glue70.^[2] It has inspired a series of remix videos on Youtube.

Origin

ＳＨＯＫＫ青 posted “You Reposted In the Wrong Neighborhood” to Soundcloud on March 24th, 2014. As of August 17th, 2016, the song has over 689,000 plays.

While it’s unclear when the song was first used in a remix video (reddit users on threads in /r/OutofTheLoop^[6] and /r/youtubehaiku^[7] are baffled), one of the earliest examples is a video^[3] posted by Youtuber Rene Descartes on August 11th, 2015 called “umaru goes hard” (shown below).

Spread

Remix videos with “You Reposted in the Wrong Neighborhood” began appearing more frequently towards the end of 2015. sorox94 posted an Undertale variation called “You Determined In the Wrong Neighborhood”^[4] that’s gained 52,385 views as of August 17th, 2016 (shown below, left), while another uploaded by Frojo Memes^[5] on December 26th, 2015 (below, right), has gained 91,019.

More and more video remixes have been posted throughout 2016, as users have matched the song to footage of The Simpsons character Moe dancing,^[8]Overwatch characters dancing,^[9] and Anime characters dancing.^[10][11] On June 8th, 2016, the Youtube channel “chill Station”^[12] posted a “full version” that edited ＳＨＯＫＫ青’s original post to include the entire a capella from “Shake That.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Word replacement is a series of Youtube Poop videos where all the words in a certain clip are all replaced with something else, usually a different word or another video entirely, which can increase the video’s running time to several hours.

Origin

The first known word replacement video was “Hotel Mario (Nouns replaced with explosions)” by mrSimon, which was created sometime in 2006 and uploaded to Youtube on November 30, 2008 with the description “The original 2006 hit.”

A similar video was uploaded to Youtube by Groudon0199 titled “Hotel Mario (Common nouns in intro replaced with big explosions)” on May 27, 2007, making it the earliest noun replacement video on Youtube.

Spread

On June 23, 2007, Stegblob uploaded the word replacement video, "Hotel Mario (Nouns Replaced With “PINGAS”)" that has since become the most popular Hotel Mario word replacement video, with more than 247,000 views as of October 2016.

Since then, word replacement videos gained popularity in Youtube poops over the course of the next few years, primarily in 2008.

Notable examples

Resurgence

While word replacement videos have been continually made since their peak in 2008, there has been a recent resurgence in these types of videos due to the recent popularity of Nutshack edits. The first word replacement Nutshack edit was uploaded on July 30, 2016 by Ringabel as “Hotel Mario every noun replaced with the entire nutshack theme”

On September 7th, 2016, Baconlovar uploaded the video “the nutshack theme but every nutshack is replaced with the entire reading of the bee movie script”, which was the first word replacement video to reach over 1 million views.

More recently, on November 17, 2016, Avoid at All Costs uploaded “The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster”, resulting in the first word replacement video to reach over 10 million views and the most viewed word replacement video of all time with more than eleven million views as of November 28.

Other popular subjects for the remixes include We Are Number One, Bee Movie, and All Star.

Newer examples

Search interest

About

Bee Movie is a 2007 Dreamworks computer-animated comedy film about the adventures of Barry B. Benson, a disillusioned bee who leaves his hive and goes on a journey in search of a new career. Despite its moderate commercial success and mixed critical reception, the film gained a significant ironic fandom on YouTube and Tumblr..

History

Produced by Dreamworks Animation and featuring voice acting by American comedian Jerry Seinfeld and actress Renée Zellweger, the film centers around the protagonist Barry B. Benson, a talking bee who fights to reclaim sovereignty from humans. Bee Movie was released in theaters on November 2nd, 2007.

Reception

Upon its release, the film grossed $126 million at the box office in the United States and a worldwide total of $287 million. While the film was regarded a moderate box office success worldwide, it was met with disappointing performance and lukewarm reception in the United States. As of 2016, Bee Movie is DreamWorks Animation’s third lowest-grossing computer-animated film. The movie holds a rating of 51% (based on 169 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes and 54% (based on 34 review) on Metacritic. As of 2016, Bee Movie is DreamWorks Animation’s third lowest-grossing computer-animated film. The movie holds a rating of 51% (based on 169 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes^[15] and 54% (based on 34 review) on Metacritic.^[16]

Online Presence

On May 14th, 2012, a page for Bee Movie was created on TV Tropes.^[12] On March 16th, 2013, Redditor bottledbeaches created the /r/beemovie^[10] subreddit. On July 22nd, 2016, BuzzFeed^[13] published an article titled “For Everyone Who Still Can’t Believe ‘Bee Movie’ is Real,” which highlighted several Tumblr posts about the film. On July 29th, Seinfeld posted a tweet asking if there was any interest in a sequel to the film, which garnered more than 47,000 likes and 24,200 retweets in four months (shown below).

The following day, the tweet reached the front page of the /r/movies^[9] subreddit, where many mocked the idea of making Bee Movie 2. On August 19th, the internet humor site Dorkly^[14] released a listicle highlighting the “12 Most WTF Tumblr Posts About Bee Movie.” On November 28th, BuzzFeed published an article about various Bee Movie memes.

Related Memes

Bee Shrek Test in the House

Bee Shrek Test in the House is a parody fandom created from a hypothetical crossover involving the characters Shrek, Barry Bee Benson and Johnny Test and Cory Baxter from the show Cory in the House.

Bee Movie Script

The Bee Movie Script, also known by the introductory line “according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly,” is a copypasta that consists entirely of the full-length screenplay of the 2007 computer animated family comedy film Bee Movie, which is typically used in spamming and shitposting on various social media sites, most notably on Tumblr.

Beestiality

Beestiality, sometimes also called Bee-stiality, is the shipping name for the particularly bizarre romance arc of the film. As Barry and Vanessa spend time together, Ken becomes inexplicably jealous of the bee, and eventually attempts to kill Barry, prompting his wife to break up with him. The absurdity of Vanessa leaving her husband of fifteen years for an insect has lead to the Barry/Vanessa ship gaining a popular ironic fandom on sites like Tumblr.

Bee Movie But

Bee Movie But is a series of video and audio remixes of the film based around a particular altered characteristic. On October 22nd, 2016, YouTuber wankerflaps uploaded a video titled “Bee Movie But it Keeps Getting Faster,” featuring the audio track from the film which is progressively sped up (shown below, left). Within one moth, the video gained over 902,000 views and 4,300 comments. On November 3rd, YouTuber Avoid at All Costs posted a remix of the Bee Movie trailer that slows down each time the word “bee” is uttered (shown below, right).

On November 4th, Redditor jacobkj314 posted a screenshot of wankerlflap’s YouTube video captioned with a “please disconnect the bluetooth speaker” joke (shown below). In 25 days, the post received more than 2,800 votes (96% upvoted) on the /r/dankmemes^[7] subreddit.

On November 17th, YouTuber Avoid at All Costs uploaded a remix titled “The Entire Bee Movie but Every Time They Say Bee it Gets Faster,” which accumulated more than 11 million views and 33,000 comments within two weeks (shown below, left). On November 22nd, YouTuber That One Ghost Named Asdfghjkl posted a remix titled “The Bee Movie But Without Bees” (shown below, right). Over the next week, the video gained over 3.01 million views and 7,700 comments. On November 28th, Smosh^[11] published an article about the remix videos.

Search Interest

External Links

About

Casually Explained is a YouTube channel featuring a series of original educational animated videos that offer casual and humorous explanations on a wide range of subject topics, including science, math, relationships, health, fitness and technology.

History

On December 7th, 2015, the Casually Explained channel was launched. The following day, the first video was uploaded to the channel, featuring a parody instructional video for sketching a graph of a polynomial function by using the Wolfram Alpha web application (shown below, left). On December 26th, Casually Explained posted a video explaining the concept of absolute hot, the postluated highest attainable temperature of matter (shown below, right).

On February 3rd, 2016, the channel uploaded a video mocking various fitness and weight lifting in-jokes, which received more than 1.15 million views and 890 comments (shown below, left). On May 29th, an episode titled “Is She Into You?” was released, satirically explaining how to tell if a woman is sexually attracted to a man (shown below, right). Within two months, the video garnered upwards of 3.3 million views and 4,200 comments.

The following day, Casually Explained posted a video explaining the concept of the friend zone, which gained over 2.6 million views and 4,400 comments in two months. On July 18th, a video featuring a graph ranking various animals on the spectrum of intelligence was released. Within one month, the video garnered upwards of 1.6 million views and 3,700 comments.

Social Media Presence

In December 2015, the @CastuallyE^[3] Twitter feed was created, which gained more than 4,500 followers within eight months. On February 4th, 2016, a Facebook^[4] page for the YouTube channel was launched, accumulating more than 45,700 likes in six months. On July 4th, Casually Explained created a Patreon page.^[1] Within one month, the page received $160 per month in donations from 49 patrons.

Search Interest

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About

“We Are Number One” is a song sung by main villain Robbie Rotten in the Icelandic children’s television show LazyTown, which was broadcast on Nickelodeon. Online, the song has gained a spontaneous surge of parodies and mashups through Soundcloud and YouTube.

Origin

On October 3rd, 2014, the 107th episode of the then long-running children’s television show LazyTown, Robbie’s Dream Team, aired. In the episode, Robbie designs his own “dream team” (3 imperfect clones of Robbie) in order to capture the superhero Sportacus. Baffled by the incompetence of his clones, Robbie decides to teach the dream team to be villains through his song.

Spread

On September 13th, 2016, the song was picked up by Youtuber SiIvagunner, starting with his uploads “We are Number One – LazyTown: The Video Game” (shown below, left) and “We are Number One (Beta Mix)- LazyTown: The Video Game” (shown below, right), garnering over 900,000 views and over 130,000 views respectively.^[1]

The song has also been used as a Soundcloud meme in the form of Soundclown joke mashups (examples shown below).

Since early November, Word Replacement Remixes of the song have risen to prominence on YouTube.^[2] Some of these have achieved more than a million views.^[3] Due to the quotable nature of the song, memes referencing lines and scenes from “We Are Number One” have become popular on Twitter and Instagram (examples below).

Stefan’s Response

On October 13th, 2016, an Ask Me Anything thread titled “I am Stefan Karl (Robbie Rotten from LazyTown) and I am in the fight of my life against cancer! AMA!” was submitted to the /r/IAmA subreddit by user ClarkStreetGang.^[4] Robbie Rotten actor Stefan Karl acknowledged the popularity of the meme, and thanked everyone for their support in Karl’s fight against cancer.

On December 4, the original AMA post was edited, and a Facebook event created, to announce a livestream performance of the song.^[5] On December 9, 2016, the official LazyTown YouTube channel uploaded a video titled, “We Are Number One but it’s the original and it’s 1 hour long….”^[6] On December 11, 2016, Karl hosted a livestream performance of “We Are Number One” featuring himself, the original cast of Rottens (Bjorn, Bergur, and Snorri), and Máni Svavarsson, who composed the song.^[7][8]

On December 12, the stems for the song were released for free download for anyone to use in their own remixes.^[9] The stems were also posted to Soundcloud (shown below) as well for listening.^[10]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References