About

“MLK Didn’t Die For This” is an expression used to denounce an act or display of racial prejudice by implying that it goes against the wishes of Martin Luther King Jr., the renowned American civil rights activist who was assassinated while leading the civil rights movement in the 1960s. On Twitter and Vine, the phrase is more often used in jest to highlight images and videos that can be interpreted as unintentional metaphors for racism against black people, in a similar vein to the use of “that’s racist”.

Origin

One of the earliest comedic uses of the phrase dates back to a comment posted by LurkerFAQs^[1] forum member SADsyn in a thread titled “breasts” on June 22nd, 2011. In the thread, forum member SADsyn wrote:

Why are you guys discriminating against hairy breasts? MLK didn’t die for this. For people to have this type of mentality. That hairy breasts shouldn’t be accepted along with the hairy breasts. You all ought to be ashamed with yourselves.

On August 29th, 2013, The first notable pairing of the phrase with an image was submitted by Twitter user @ambessadc^[4], which featured a photograph of an automatic pencil sharpener with a sticky note that reads “No Colored Pencil” (shown below).

Other Usage

On January 17th, 2013, on the day of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Briana Ford wrote a post titled “MLK Didn’t Die For This” on her blog Black And Married With Kids^[2], which criticized the trend of commercially exploiting the civil rights activist’s images among club promoters. On August 15th, 2013, Bossip^[3] published an interview article titled “Scrappy Urges Blacks To Stop Killing Each Other Because Whites Want Us Gone ‘MLK Didn’t Die For This!’” featuring a public service announcement against black-on-black violence by rapper Lil’ Scrappy.

Spread

On September 1st, 2013, Redditor PenguinBallZ submitted the image of the pencil sharpener to Imgur^[6] and /r/funny^[5], where it garnered more than 916,000 views and over 1,660 upvotes prior to its archival. But the phrase didn’t see its first major breakout until January 2014, when Twitter users began using the phrase as a caption for “accidentally racist” images. On January 7th, 2014, Redditor TheTrueMuffinMan submitted a screen-captured tweet of two cake batter mix packagings for vanilla and chocolate flavors respectively named “white” and “devil’s food” in a /r/teenager^[14] post titled “MLK didn’t die for his. 2Chainz didn’t rap for this. Mandela didn’t fight for this,” garnering over 1,800 upvotes. On January 20th, American reality TV celebrity Kylie Jenner^[8] tweeted a photograph of an ice cream pint with unequal chocolate and vanilla-flavored portions along with the caption (shown below, right), racking up over 3,600 retweets and 6,800 favorites.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Vsauce is a YouTube channel created by vlogger Michael Stevens, which features episodes covering a wide variety of topics pertaining to science, technology and culture.

History

In June 2010, Stevens launched the main Vsauce^[1] channel on YouTube, which initially contained mostly video game-related content. One of the earliest videos uploaded to the channel was titled “Mario Farts,” in which Stevens narrates footage of the game Super Mario Bros. in which the character Mario continuously passes gas (shown below).

In December, the Vsauce2 channel was created, following by Vsauce3 on December 24th. On August 18th, 2012, the channel uploaded a video titled “What If Everyone JUMPED At Once?”, which gathered upwards of 23 million views and 38,000 comments over the next five years (shown below, left). In September, educational content became the main Vsauce channel’s focus. On February 17th, 2013, Stevens released a video discussing the experience of seeing color. Within four years, the video received more than 18 million views and 64,100 comments (shown below, right).

Social Media Presence

On June 10th, 2010, the Vsauce Facebook^[2] page was launched, which received upwards of 522,000 likes over the next seven years. In October 2011, the @Tweetsauce^[4] Twitter feed was created. On December 17th, the /r/Vsauce^[3] subreddit was launched for discussions about the YouTube channel. On January 4th, 2017, Stevens appeared on the H3 Podcast, over the next two weeks, the video gained over 900,000 views and 9,200 comments.

Related Memes

Parodies

On January 20th, 2014, YouTuber jacksfilms posted a parody of Vsauce videos, which gained over 3.08 million views and 10,900 comments (shown below, left). On February 15th, the McSteed TV YouTube channel posted an animated parody of Vsauce (shown below, right).

On June 1st, YouTuber VeriSauce uploaded a YouTube Poop-style edit of Vsauce videos (shown below, left). On November 12th, YouTuber Conjecture uploaded a similar Vsauce parody (shown below, right).

Quizzaciously

“Quizzaciously” is an English word meaning “in a mocking manner.” In September 2015, the word was widely referenced online in response to a Vsauce episode noting its position as a Google search hapax legomenon,^[1] a linguistic term for a word that only appears once in a body of text.

Search Interest

External References

About

Snapchat is a mobile photo and video messaging application for Apple iOS and Google Android devices which allows its users to create and share photo or video messages that are only accessible for a short period of time. For each message, the sender can set a time limit (up to 10 seconds) for how long the message can remain visible to its recipient, after which it is deleted from the device and Snapchat’s servers.

History

In April 2011, Stanford University students Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy began working on the application for a project in one of Spiegel’s product design classes. In July of that year, the program was named “Picaboo” and launched for iOS devices. In September, the app was re-released under the name “Snapchat," and in late October, Snapchat became available for Android mobile devices.

Funding

On October 29th, 2012, the tech news blog TechCrunch^[1]reported that SnapChat had received $485,000 in seed funding from the Lightspeed Ventures venture capital firm. In February of 2013, Snapchat announced it had received $13.5 million in Series A funding led by the firm Benchmark Capital, further raising the company’s market value from $60 to $70 million. On April 16th, 2013, the tech news blog Mashable^[7] quoted Spiegel saying they are looking into advertising as a means of revenue.

Features

Snaps

The primary function of the app is to create multimedia messages known as “snaps,” which may consist of a photo or a video with captions, filters and other special effects, and share them either privately with select individuals or semi-publicly as “stories.” In private messaging, the snaps become inaccessible once they’re read by the recipients and/or after a specific length of time (1 to 10 seconds) has lapsed. Despite the ephemeral design of the snaps, users can still take screenshots prior to their deletion.

Networking

Friends can be added via usernames and phone contacts, using customizable “Snapcodes”, or through the “Add Nearby” function, which scans for users near their location who are also in the Add Nearby menu.

Stories

In contrast to Snapchat’s private messaging mode, the “Story” mode allow users to share snaps in a chronological timeline that can be viewed by any of their friends for a 24-hour period. In addition, the “Live Story” mode allows any Snapchat users on-location at certain events, such as live concerts or sporting events, to contribute snaps in a publicly shared timeline.

Lens

Snapchat’s Lens filters allow its users to add real-time effects into their snaps by using face detection technology which is activated by long-pressing on a face within the viewfinder.

Controversies

Lawsuit

On February 25th, 2013, the LA Times^[8] reported that South Carolina resident Frank Reginald Brown IV had filed a lawsuit against the Snapchat founders to have “his rights restored” after being pushed out of the company. In the complaint, Brown claimed to have worked on the app during the summer of 2011, purportedly naming the application “Picaboo” and designing the company’s smiling ghost mascot "Ghostface Chillah,” a reference to the Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ghostface Killah.

After having a falling out with Spiegel and Murphy in August, Brown alleged that the server account passwords were changed and that they discontinued all communication with him. On July 1st, the tech news blog TechCrunch^[10]reported that Brown had filed a new motion to disqualify the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP from representing Spiegel, Murphy and the Snapchat company, since Brown alleged that he had been advised by a Quinn Emaunuel lawyer about his legal case six months prior. Later that day, TechCrunch^[11] followed up with another article about newly obtained court documents relating to the case, which included several screenshot of an SMS conversation confirming that Spiegel had once admitted Brown was responsible for “the idea for disappearing picture messages" (shown below, left). On July 10th, ValleyWag published several messages cited in the documents in an article titled “Snapchat Had the Frattiest Creation in Startup History” (shown below, right).

On October 23rd, Brown filed a new lawsuit against Snapchat’s investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, General Catalyst, SV Angel, GC&H Investments, SF Growth Fund and an unknown entity referred to as “THL A17.”^[13] The filing also included a comparison of two promotional messages for the app sent by Spiegel via e-mail, one that had been written before the falling out and a revised copy after Brown had been ousted (shown below).

Usage in Sexting

On May 6th, 2012, The New York Times Bits blog^[3] published an article noting that the app had a reputation for users sharing sexually explicit media, a practice known as sexting. On December 10th, Gawker published an article about a new Tumblr blog titled “Snapchat Sluts,”^[5] which highlighted sexually explicit images screen captured from Snapchat. On December 18th, the PopCultured YouTube channel uploaded a video in which a guest panel discussed the controversial Tumblr blog (shown below).

On March 14th, 2013, Mashable^[6] reported that students at a New Jersey high school had been threatened by local police with child pornography charges for sharing sexually explicit photos using the service.

Dorm Search Prank

On April 8th, 2013, Snapchat was used to spread a rumor that dorm rooms at the University of Virginia were being searched by Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) officials.^[9] Panicked students began spreading the word using the hashtag #UVAdormsearch, many of whom reportedly disposed of their alcohol in the university dumpsters.

After school officials learned of the prank, Dean of Students Allen Groves took to Twitter to announce that the ABC was not conducting searches.

The Snappening

The Snappening refers to the massive leak of up to 200,000 privately archived photographs and more than 90,000 videos of Snapchat users obtained by unidentified hackers through a security breach in the third-party web-based client SnapSaved.com, and media coverage and speculation surrounding the event.

Lens Controversies

Since the introduction of the Lens feature, a number of Snapchat filters have come under criticism and accusations of cultural insensitivities.

• In April 2016, Snapchat released a Bob Marley-themed Lens filter in celebration of 4/20, which adds Rastafarian-inspired elements to the users’ selfies, including dreadlocks and a crochet slouch cap, as well as morphing of facial features and darkening of the skin tone. Upon its release, the filter was immediately met with backlash on social media from many users who felt the special effect was, more or less, a form of digital blackfacing.

• In May 2016, Snapchat’s “beautifying” Lens filters drew criticism on social media for their skin brightening effect, with many users complaining that the filters promote whiter skin tone as an ideal of beauty.

• In August 2016, Snapchat released a new anime-inspired Lens filter that morphs the user’s face into a cartoon caricature of an Asian person by adding slanted eyes, buck teeth and puffy cheeks to the selfie. Similar to the backlash surrounding the Bob Marley filter, many users complained that the filter essentially promotes “yellow face” and other racist stereotypes of Asian people. Within 24 hours of the filter’s release, it was subsequently removed from the app.

Traffic

In May of 2012, Snapchat was processing 25 images every second.^[2] In October of that year, Snapchat was ranked #19 on the free apps chart and users were sharing over 20 million snaps every day. On November 27th, Forbes published an article about Snapchat, calling it “the biggest no-revenue mobile app since Instagram.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Neil Cicierega is a film maker and musician known for his flash animations, YouTube videos and mixtapes. He is famous for his starting and making popular ‘Animutations’ on flash animation sites such as Newgrounds and AlbinoBlackSheep, for creating the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny and Harry Potter Puppet Pals. He would later grow famous for his “Mouth” mixtapes which mashed up popular songs, many of which had grown into memes.

History

Animutation

On June 14th, 2001, Cicierega released a low-quality flash animation called “The Japanese Pokerap.”^[1] It was the first video of the Animutation genre,^[2] a style using a vast array of pop culture references mixed together to create a humorous and often shabby-looking video. Cicierega created one of the most popular examples of the genre in “Hyakugojyuuichi!!!” which earned him an interview with Salon^[3] at age 14.

Potter Puppet Pals

Potter Puppet Pals is a popular webseries created by Cicierega which is a spoof of the Harry Potter series of books and movies. Although Potter Puppet Pals is Neil’s original creation, there have been a number of additional Potter Puppet Pals videos created by fans.

Beginning late 2003,^[4] Cicierega created his first flash animated Potter Puppet Pals video, “Bothering Snape.”^[5] In late September 2006, Neil published the first of the live action Potter Puppet Pals on his Youtube account.^[6] Shortly after, in March of 2007 Neil released Potter Puppet Pals in “The Mysterious Ticking Noise.”

Lemon Demon

Since 2003, Cicierega has released 9 albums under the moniker “Lemon Demon.”^[7] One of the notable results of this project was Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, a flash animation Cicierega created with Shawn Vulliez released December 22nd, 2005.^[8] The video shows a giant battle between dozens of pop-culture icons and has been viewed millions of times on Newgrounds and YouTube.

Mouth Mixtapes

Cicieraga has released three mashup mixtapes under his real name: Mouth Sounds,^[11]Mouth Silence,^[12] and Mouth Moods. The mixtapes mash up popular songs that have grown into memes; popular songs in the mixtapes include All Star and Smooth. His first, Mouth Sounds (2014), has gained over 647,000 listens on Soundcloud. ^[9] On January 24th, 2017, he released Mouth Moods (shown below), which was favorably reviewed by Select All.^[10]

Search Interest

External References

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

About

Clothes That Kill Virgins (Japanese: 童貞を殺す服; Doutei wo Korosu Fuku) refers to form-fitting women’s apparel, typically including high-waisted skirts, that are believe to intensely arouse and fascinate male otakus. Since the term was coined on Twitter in July 2015, the concept has widely spread across the Japanese social media and illustrator communities Pixiv and Nico Nico Seiga.

Origin

According to the Pixiv Encyclopedia,^[1] the term “Clothes That Kill Virgins” first appeared in a tweet by amateur illustrator Keyholder (キーホルダー) on July 5th, 2015. The phrase was used to explain a photo in the Japanese clothing label NO.S PROJECT, featuring girls wearing white blouses and long dark high-waisted skirts. Within 72 hours, the tweet gained over 10,000 retweets and favorites.

飲み会とかで何回か童貞を殺す服を見てきたけどやっぱりダントツはNO.S PROJECTのブラウスとかスカートとかそのへん pic.twitter.com/97hzMD9yWq

— キーホルダー (@key774) July 6, 2015

Translation:

After watching the clothes that kill virgins in several drinking parties, I think the best is something like blouses and skirts produced by NO.S PROJECT.

Spread

After the tweet began circulating on Twitter, many began debating the meaning of the phrase “clothes that kill virgins.” In the coming days, several news sites reported on the online reaction to the tweet.^[3][4] Uniforms used by the food chains Anna Miller’s^[5] Kobe-ya Kitchen^[6], the costumes worn by various cosplayers and popular outfits seen in moe illustrations were cited as examples of the style (shown below).

Examples of “Clothes That Kill Virgins” suggested by Twitter users

Additionally, hundreds of illustrations, photos and parodies referencing “clothes that kill virgins” have been uploaded to Pixiv,^[9] Nico Nico Seiga^[10] and Twitter.^[11] On July 8th, Keyholder explained that he initially used the term to convey an appreciation for his favorite style of women’s outfit.^[2]

Criticism

On July 8th, Twitter @pankashi^[14] criticized the Keyholders description of the style in a tweet that gained over 9,000 retweets and 4,000 favorites in the next seven months (shown below). Additionally, the Nico Nico Pedia^[13] article for this term has defined “clothes that kill virgins” as a style employed by women attempting to manipulate otaku men.

Translation:

Now I’m feeling so blue. Spreading of the term “Clothes That Kill Virgins” must hurt girls who would like to wear that kind of clothes simply because of its “cuteness”. They would stop wearing it as they don’t want to be said like " Wow! You’re wearing the clothes that kill virgins! Who the hell is your target? (lollol".

Various Examples

From top left to bottom right: Sumire Uesaka, Ayana Taketatsu, Saber (Fate), Hajime Ichinose (Gatchaman Crowds), Hotaru Shidare (Dagashi Kashi), Tatsuta (Kantai Collection), Isara Aomi (Love, Election and Chocolate)

Search Interest

External References

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

Overview

Canada is a country located in the northernmost part of North America that spans from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Due to its historical ties to the Commonwealth of Nations and geographical proximity to the United States, Canadian culture is often characterized as “progressive, diverse, and multicultural,” having been influenced by European customs and traditions, namely British and French, American culture and its own indigenous cultures. As of 2016, Canada ranks as the 21st country in global internet usage with 32.4 million users; its internet users spend more time online than anyone else in the world, an average of 45 hours per month, and has the largest number of file-sharers per capita in the world.

Online History

Canada first received internet in 1981 when it was covered by the International Packet Switch Service.^[18] No provider of Broadband offerings in Canada is currently nationwide. The largest DSL provider in Canada is Bell Internet. In 2011, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approved a request by Bell Internet to begin to apply a bandwidth cap on the users of smaller independent internet service providers who use Bell’s infrastructure. This billing structure, called “usage-based billing” or UBB, caused controversy for being too restrictive. The CRTC was criticized for allowing Bell to use anti-competitive practices to favor its own Internet and television offerings. Several internet service providers in Canada charge surplus charges if users go over the service’s cap.

Websites

The most popular websites in Canada are Google, Facebook, and YouTube. Popular Canada-specific sites are for Canadian news outlets, including Quebecor Media and CTVglobemedia. The most popular social media websites in Canada are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, respectively.^[19]

Usage

Online, Canada ranks as 21st in the world in internet users, with 32.4 million users (92.9% of the population).^[17] As of 2015, it ranks first in internet use, as users average 36.9 hours per month,^[20] and have the largest number of file-sharers per capita in the world.

Highlights

Steven Blaney’s Korea Gaffe

“Steven Blaney’s Korea Gaffe” refers to an incident in which Steven Blaney, the Canadian minister of Veteran Affairs, spoke about Canada’s international military contributions, stating that without the Canadian armed forces fighting in the Korean War, PSY’s 2012 viral hit K-POP song “Gangnam Style” would never have existed.

2012 Quebec Student Protests

The 2012 Quebec student protests refer to a series of demonstrations and strikes that began on February 13th, 2012 in the Canadian province of Quebec in response to a college tuition hike proposed by Liberal premier Jean Charest. The protests lasted for more than 200 days, well beyond the end of the school semester. The protests ended in early September 2012, after the newly-elected Parti Québécois government pledged to abandon the plan to hike tuition fees. On the web, a number of viral videos and images have emerged from the scenes of protest.

Memes

Polite Canadians

In pop culture and online humor, Canadians have been often portrayed as exceptionally nice and polite people. While the origin of the stereotype remains murky, one of the earliest such notions can be found in a 1985 New York Times^[15] article about the atmosphere of Toronto as the World Series championship between the New York Yankees and Toronto Jays approached near.

A burning issue at Cap’s today was whether Jays fans will reciprocate when the Yankees come to town for a season-ending series. Fans here have been so polite that they routinely even go to the effort of carefully making what they believe are the best All-Star selections, rather than trying to stack the deck with local heroes.

The stereotype has been also further mystified by a number of Canadian-born comedians, including Mike Myers and Samantha Bee, through comedy shows like Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, as well as dozens of humorous listicles.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]}

In Canada, Milk Comes in Bags

“*In Canada, Milk Comes in Bags*” is a catchphrase that highlights the unique method of packaging milk in plastic bags, which is still commonly practiced in Canada.

“Boot to the Head”

Boot to the Head is a comedy trope and catchphrase mainly associated with the Canadian performance group The Frantics. Since being introduced through the group’s classic hits “Last Will of the Temperament” and “Tai Kwan Leep” in the 1980s, the joke has grown into a popular subject of parodies and re-enactments on YouTube.

Moving to Canada

In February 2016, after Donald Trump effectively became the Republican presidential candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Google search queries for “moving to Canada” saw its first huge surge. Coincidentally, the official website of the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) became inaccessible as a result of an internal technical issue, though many took that sign as possible evidence of an exodus by Americans who are against Trump.

Search Interest

External References

About

Crying Laughing Emoji, also known as Face With Tears of Joy, is an emoji used to convey the emotion of laughter to the point of tears. The emoji has become incredibly popular as an offhand expression, like LOL or LMAO, leading it to become the first emoji added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Precursor

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

Another emoticon used in a similar vein to the crying laughing emoji was :’-).^[8]

Origin

The Unicode Consortium, the international board that selects and approves new emoji from submissions, selected the Face with Tears of Joy for release in 2010 for version 6.0, released in Unicode standard.^[3] This emoji set was adopted as the first emoji available standard for Apple’s iOS and OS X. Like all emoji, the character was created from a suggestion sent in by a user.

Spread

Use of the Face with Tears of Joy has generally exploded since its inclusion in the emoji set. On Instagram, the emoji has ben used over 1,138,000 times.^[4] While it’s impossible to search for the emoji by use on Twitter, other sources, like the subreddit focused on Black Twitter,^[5] which allows for text searching, recorded thousands of uses. On November 16th, 2015, Oxford Dictionaries published an article where the emoji was picked to be the 2015 Word of the Year^[2]; by partnering with the data firm SwiftKey the dictionary’s board determined a series of usage statistics for the emoji in context. “SwiftKey identified that [Face with Tears of Joy] made up 20% of all the emojis used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of those in the US: a sharp rise from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014.”

In addition, Crying Laughing Emoji merchandise has become popular along with the use of the emoji.^[6]

Teen Rejected From Job With Emoji

On February 9th, 2017, Metro.uk^[7] reported that a teenager Megan Dixon was rejected from a job via a text that included the Crying Laughing emoji. In a screenshot given to the publication, the hiring directors for Miller and Carter gave Megan the rejection saying her answers were “basic” (shown below).

According to the article, the text was intended to the manager of the Miller and Carter and was sent in error.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

The Salt and Ice Challenge is a popular dare game which involves pouring salt on the surface of skin and pressing an ice cube against it to test how long the participant can endure the pain caused by the burn. Similar to the Cinnamon Challenge, the game has spawned dozens of videos documenting the challenge on YouTube.

Origin

Though online discussions about placing an ice cube over salt on bare skin date back to as early as 2005^[5], the first video demonstration was uploaded to Break^[6] on July 8th, 2006 (shown below). As of March 2013, this clip has been viewed nearly 600,000 times and has been shared more than 166,000 times.

Spread

Four days later on July 12th, 2006, YouTuber OxZmoran uploaded the earliest known instance of salt and ice challenge video (shown below). Later the same month, a Snopes forum member^[7] inquired about the trick, noting that people were discussing it as a method of self-harm. By October 2006, a similar “Salt and Ice” video was posted to eBaum’s World^[8] for the first time, gaining nearly 500,000 views as of March 2013.

On June 9th, 2007, a definition of the game was submitted to Urban Dictionary.^[9] However, the challenge didn’t draw much attention until April 2012, when teenagers who participated in the dare game reportedly suffered burns in Philadelphia^[10] and Salt Lake City.^[11] By June 2013, the challenge had gained global attention after a twelve-year-old boy from Pittsburgh burned a large cross into his back while partaking in the challenge.^[12] The story was featured on The Huffington Post^[13], the Daily Mail^[14], CBS News^[15] and NBC Los Angeles.

Resurgence in 2017

While the popularity of the challenge gradually waned across the United States, it continued to spread on the social media in European countries, with seasonally recurring spikes of interest during the months of December to March, over the course of the following years, including the United Kingdom, Spain, The Netherlands and Italy, among others. In some European countries, like Poland, Germany and France, the fad didn’t take off until its massive resurgence in popularity during December 2016, when the salt and ice challenge resurfaced in the headlines after more teenagers in the United States and United Kingdom reportedly suffered severe burn injuries as a result of playing the game, beginning with a schoolboy in Swansea, Wales in late December.

Notable Examples

As of March 2013, there are more than 206,000 search results for “salt and ice challenge” on YouTube.^[1] Additional photos, videos and discussions about the challenge are shared on Tumblr^[2][3] and Reddit.^[4]

Arrest in Virginia

In March 2013, school officials in Dumfries, Virginia found burns similar to those made by the Salt and Ice Challenge on the arms of a nine-year-old female student.^[17] It was soon revealed her 21-year-old babysitter Keedra Smalls had done the Salt and Ice challenge with her in late February, which resulted in Smalls’ arrest on a felony child abuse charge on.^[18]

Search Interest

External References

About

Doug Dimmadome, owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome, is a memorable character from the Nickelodeon cartoon series The Fairly Odd Parents. He is easily recognizable with his stereotypical Texan garb, ten-gallon hat, and southern drawl. Online, he is mostly associated with reaction images, comparisons to people in real life with a similar style of clothing or hair, and phrases that excessively feature the prefix “Dimma” in them. Occassionally, his hat, which is sometimes seen in the show seemingly without an end, is also referenced to by the internet community.

Origin

Doug first appeared in The Fairly Oddparents episode “Nectar of the Odds” which premiered on September 28, 2001 in Australia and September 13, 2002 in the United States.^[1] He would become a recurring character on the show, and an occasional antagonist. He would almost always be introduced with his memorable catch phrase “The name’s Doug Dimmadome, owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome!”^[2]

Spread

With The Fairly Oddparents being the second longest running cartoon on the popular Nickelodeon channel, the show and its memorable characters such as Doug Dimmadome became ingrained in the public’s consciousness.^[3] The meme began trending on November 2011. On social networking sites such as tumblr and twitter, posts containing reference to Doug Dimmadome are a regular occurrence, with some posts being widely shared.

Various Examples

Search Results

External References

About

Two Best Friends Play was the name of a YouTube duo named Matt and Pat best known for their comedic Let’s Play videos, along with a number of other Let’s Play series. The pair were occasionally joined in videos by their friends Woolie and Liam. After establishing a fanbase throughout 2010, the group was contracted by Machinima to make a full series of the videos. In 2014, mostly due to the continued presence of Woolie and Liam in the videos, the name “Two Best Friends Play” was rebranded to Super Best Friends Play, to accommodate for the two and separate which videos actually featured only Matt and Pat.

Online History

Matt created his first YouTube channel “theswitcher” in 2010, where he published a variety of videos, including popular compilations of scenes from cheesy 80/90’s cartoons. That year, he uploaded a video of himself and his friend Pat playing the Wii game Kirby’s Epic Yarn, with the pair getting comedically angry with each other despite the game’s easy nature. This was followed up by a video of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Though Matt’s account was later suspended, the videos were reuploaded to YouTube in 2011 on his new channel, TheSw1tcher.^[4] It was later featured on Halolz^[8] in November 2010, where it was given four and a half stars. As of October, the account continues to upload Let’s Play videos for games including Silent Hill Downpour, The Walking Dead, Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain and Deadly Premonition, in which Matt and Pat bicker about what to do next and make fun of things within the games they play. Since February 2015, TheSw1tcher has accrued more than 500,000 subscribers, uploaded more than 570 videos and averages approximately 80,000 views per day.

After being contacted by Machinima after their first 2 videos became popular, on 19th December 2010 Two Best Friends Play launched the first of their videos through a partnership with the network^[5], featuring a Donkey Kong Country Returns playthrough. As of August 2013, the show is in its eighth season with Machinima and has more than 107,000 subscribers. Also in January 2011, they launched a Facebook fan page^[3] for the show, which has gained more than 74,000 likes as of August 2013.

Throughout 2011, their videos were featured on a number of gaming sites including Kotaku^[6] and Dorkly.^[7] Parodies of their playthroughs also began to appear that year, including one dubbing Matt and Pat’s voiceovers to animations of John and Dave from Homestuck as they play Sburb (shown below). In January 2012, the Two Best Friends Wiki^[1] launched, gaining more than 330 pages in less than two years.

On the November 23rd, 2014 episode on the Machinima Respawn YouTube channel of Far Cry 4, a new intro animation was debuted as well as the official rebranding to “Super Best Friends Play” to allow fellow contributors Woolie and Liam to join the series. On TheSw1tcher, the term “Two Best Friends Play” is still used to quickly establish that it would feature only Matt and Pat while simply “Best Friends Play” is for any other combination.

Notable Episodes

Related Series

Super Best Friends Brawl

In addition to Two Best Friends Play, the crew is involved with a number of additional series, such as Super Best Friends Brawl, where Matt and Pat would play against Woolie in free-for-all sessions in fighting games including Super Smash Bros., WWF No Mercy and Perfect Dark. A running joke early on in the series was how Pat could never win a Brawl until the Anarchy Reigns Brawl (shown below), where he single-handedly defeated Matt and Woolie in a sweep.

Full Let’s Plays

Separate from the shorter joke Let’s Play video’s uploaded to the Machinima channel, the crew have worked on multiple full length Let’s Plays on their own channel TheSw1tcher. The first game to get this full LP treatment was Resident Evil 2, started on 19th December 2011. Since then they have played through a number of games, including Silent Hill: Downpour and Homecoming, The Walking Dead and Heavy Rain.

Scrublords

In Scrublords, Matt and Woolie face each other in various fighting games notorious for their mediocrity, outlandishness, or its status in video game history, such as Shaq-Fu, Deadliest Warrior Legends and Sonic the Fighters. Each episode starts with the two fighters from Street Fighter II’s opening edited to look like Matt and Woolie and ends with the loser beaten up (as a reference to most fighting games that do that) and the winner is shown giving a quote related to the game just played.

Fighterpedia

Matt and Woolie also produced a short-lived fighting game series called Fighterpedia, where the two would comically discuss various things in the fighting game genre, whether it was specific games, tropes or another related idea. For example, the first episode (shown below, left) was dedicated to rejected Street Fighter characters. The final episode of Fighterpedia (shown below, right) humorously followed Woolie’s “quest” to Evolution Champion Series (EVO) 2012, with the knowledge that he would be facing world-famous Street Fighter player Daigo “The Beast” Umehara. The video (shown below) included highlights from the match which Woolie lost.

The first episode of the series, Rejected Street Fighter Designs, also marked the first appearance of the Two Best Friends’ unofficial mascot The Baz. The Baz is a design based off one of the rejected Street Fighter characters who had the word “Zubaz” on his shirt. After being hyped up by Woolie throughout the game, The Baz has appeared in a number of other videos, usually in the form of a customized character in a fighting or wrestling game. However, thanks to several Kickstarter donations, Zubaz has appeared in One True Game Studios’ parody fighting game Divekick (shown below, left) in which he is referred to as The Baz, and Yacht Club Games’ 8-bit platformer Shovel Knight as a boss. He has yet to appear in Sunstone Games’ Japanese monster-movie inspired Kaiju Combat (shown below, right) in which he will be called Mecha-Baz,

Old School Playthroughs

Matt and Woolie also have collaborated on Let’s Plays of vintage and retro games in the series Old School Playthroughs.^[12] During an episode of this series in which the duo plays Metroid Fusion (shown below), Liam was first introduced to the Two Best Friends team. Liam’s exposure along with helping further the gameplay gave him the nickname “Rising Superstar Liam” and a following of his own within the fandom. After this video, Liam would begin to appear more often, even earning a main spot in the No More Heroes 2 playthrough.

Shitstorm of Scariness

In October 2012, Matt and Pat began a month-long series called Matt and Pat’s Shitstorm of Scariness^[13], where each day, Matt and Pat would play a video game associated with horror in some way. They played some notable games, like System Shock 2, Dead Space and Manhunt, while also including some obscure or notably bad ones such as SAW II, The Thing and Amy. The last video for Shitstorm of Scariness was the beginning of the Eternal Darkness playthrough. On October 1st, 2013, Shitstorm of Scariness began again with a new intro by PlagueOfGripes with the first episode of “Shitstorm 2” featuring a facecam but that idea was scrapped in the next episode.

Rustlemania

At the beginning of August 2013, the month-long Rustlemania series began, with Matt, Pat and Woolie all playing video games in the professional wrestling genre. Along with WWE and WCW video games, other professional wrestling games like Rumble Roses XX, TNA iMPACT and Ultimate Muscle Kinnikuman Legacy have been showcased. At the end of each video, the trio would state whether their jimmies were rustled or not. Each video begins and ends with the theme song of a notable professional wrestler, with Matt, Pat and Woolie’s heads replaced with a cutout of the Gorilla Munch Gorilla.

Rustlemania 2: SuperBrawl Saturday III was a month long series in August 2015, featuring more wrestling games as well as special guest introductions, including Jon St. John of Duke Nukem fame, MaximilianDood and YoVideogames, Takahata101 from TeamFourStar, and Zone-Tan.

Super Best Friendcast!

The first episode of the Super Best Friendcast! was recorded on August 13th, 2013 with a teaser video detailing the topics that would be covered in the first podcast along with a link to superbestfriendcast.com.^[15] New podcasts are released every Monday and are available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Zune. Fans are allowed to send the Best Friends questions at superbestfriendcast@gmail.com.

Friday Night Fisticuffs/Saturday Morning Scrublords

The first episode of Friday Night Fisticuffs was released on April 11, 2014, featuring the SNK fighting game Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Friday Night Fisticuffs features Matt, Pat, Woolie, and Liam as they casually play against one other on the specifically chosen game and they speak about fighting games in general, the game they are playing, and other relevant topics. Friday Night Fisticuffs highlights popular fighting games that are considered well-made.

Saturday Morning Scrublords is considered a spiritual continuation of the Scrublords series, with the restrictions of only Matt and Woolie in the videos lifted under the new name. S.M.S. debuted with the December 12th, 2014 episode “Battle Construction Vehicles” with a variant intro, obviously highlighting the lower quality of the game to be presented.

Cryme Tyme

Cryme Tyme (with the title partly being a reference to the former WWE tag team of the same name) is a video series featuring Woolie and Matt playing video games revolving around hip-hop and gang culture. The first video in the series, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, was posted on February 12th, 2014 and the video has over 190,000 views as of July 2014. On the 25 to Life episode, an official introduction animation by 2snacks is featured in the video and has appeared in subsequent videos. The animation features Matt and Woolie dressed in gang outfits, engaging in criminal activity, and partying with the Skullgirls cast. The song that plays during the animation is “Baddest” by P-Money.

The first official Cryme Tyme Let’s Play was Def Jam: Fight For NY, which was featured in a previous “Super Best Friends Brawl” video. Woolie and Matt, in lieu of creating The Baz with Def Jam’s character creation feature for Story Mode, opted to create a character called “Rage”. The core idea of Rage was talked about by Matt in the finale of the “Man vs. Wild” LP but it was in the Def Jam LP that Rage was officially given life as a character in relations to the Best Friends fandom. Woolie simply describes Rage’s backstory as “There was a big black man. He was really angry.” The LP also expanded upon Matt’s disdain for Canadian born rapper Bless (as they have some history as well as Bless being a playable character) and the rapper Comp’s song that is named after him.

The Amazing Superfriends!

The Amazing Superfriends! is a month long event that started on July 1, 2014, which all the games featured are all based around the theme of superheroes. Throughout the month, the episodes feature different combinations of the Zaibatsu, with all four of them playing the first game Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and then just Matt, Pat, and Woolie in the next episode Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death. Several opening animations have been made for The Amazing Superfriends videos by Plague of Gripes and CrankyConstruct, with Plague of Gripe’s openings featuring the Zaibatsu as different superheroes and supervillains, while CrankyConstruct’s featuring Matt as the Punisher, Pat as Sinestro, Woolie as a Hulk hybrid, and Liam as Squirrel Girl.

Super Best Friends Boxing: THEFIGHTING

Super Best Friends Boxing: THEFIGHTING was a week long video series from December 26th, 2014 to January 2nd, 2015 of various boxing games, including the Wii version of “Punch Out!!”, “Ready to Rumble Boxing”, and “Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting”. The name of the series is a play on words in association with Boxing Day, a holiday that is celebrated in Canada among other countries on December 26th. Matt was the only contributor to appear in all the videos prior to the “Punch Out!!” edition of Friday Night Fisticuffs.

Mystery Box

On February 24th, 2015, the first episode of the Mystery Box premiered on the channel. As the title would suggest, a game is chosen at random that is kept secret from the rest of the Best Friends featured in the video. The nature of the series is to be able to play games that wouldn’t fit a Let’s Play, covering a variety of genres. No hints about the games featured are given in the description for the videos as well, maintaining the anonymity until viewing the video.

Creepy Anime Bullshit

Creepy Anime Bullshit is a series helmed by Matt and Liam that focuses on games that prominently feature Japanese games that depict attractive female characters in a fashion meant to be serviceable to the player. The first official episode of Creepy Anime Bullshit premiered on January 8th, 2014 with Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, a spin-off of the popular Dead or Alive series featuring only the female characters on Zack Island. The series explores different genres with the same theme, each with varying results.

Mechaweek/Mechaweek 2

From March 15th to March 28th in 2015, two whole weeks were dedicated to various video games based around mecha, a science fiction genre that centers on robots or machines controlled by people. The games featured included the popular Gundam series, Hawken, Titanfall, and Neon Genesis Evangelion. The first intro animation for Mechaweek was done by Dashxzero, while Mechaweek 2’s was handled by Cranky Construct.

Box Art Critique

The first edition of the Box Art Critique, where Woolie and Matt analyze the cover art of different video game series, was uploaded on April 17th, 2016. The first series was “Double Dragon,” which not only covered separate entries into the franchise but different box art due to a different region or game system. The two give their honest thoughts on each cover while showing what makes one cover work and one doesn’t. Contributer StarExorcist joined Woolie and Matt in the “Mega Man” video.

Collaborators

Woolie

The most frequently appearing collaborator, Woolie is Matt and Pat’s fighting-game loving friend who often appears in Let’s Plays with Matt and other larger projects, such as Super Best Friends Brawl. Woolie introduced the two friends to each other, and was Matt’s original choice for the Best Friend in the original Kirby’s Epic Yarn video. After turning it down, Matt and Woolie later went on to create the fighting game-focused Machinima show Fighterpedia.

Woolie is best known for both his loss against Street Fighter professional gamer Daigo Umehara (shown above, left) at the fighting game tournament Evo 2012 (for which he is frequently mocked by Matt and Pat using the announcers advice “Now you’ve established you know how to play, don’t get too reckless”) and for infamously turning down sex with two women so he could buy Marvel vs Capcom 3 (shown above, right). A running joke with Woolie was his frequent inquiries of “WHEN’S MAHVEL” much to Matt and Pat’s annoyance until the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 edition of Friday Night Fisticuffs.

Liam

Liam was the last to join the team and is known for his love of anime and Japanese games. Mentioned often by the Best Friends in videos before his debut, Liam joins the group for playthroughs of 4-player Beat ‘Em Ups and makes appearances in other Let’s Plays, including No More Heroes 2, Streets of Rage, and Viewtiful Joe. Liam made his debut in the Metroid Fusion playthrough with Matt and Woolie, easily completing parts of the game Matt and Woolie found difficult, which helped build his fanbase. A running gag with Liam is his connection (and possible double life) to WWE professional wrestler, John Cena.

Liam’s Departure

On December 23rd, 2016, Liam announced via a post on the Super Best Friends subreddit^[17] that he would be leaving the channel to focus on his mental health. The decision was announced shortly after Matt announced he would be taking a break from the channel for similar reasons, though he returned shortly after.

2snacks

Animator and My Little Pony fan 2snacks came to the attention of the Two Best Friends after he launched a video series titled Two Best Sisters Play. The animated series uses the original audio from the Two Best Friends Play episodes, but Matt and Pat have been replaced by the characters Luna and Celestia from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The videos became very popular, with a number of episodes gaining more views than the original Two Best Friends ones, namely the Portal 2 episode (shown below, left) which has more than 150% of the views of the original Two Best Friends version (shown below, right). Highly impressed by the quality of his videos and the animation, Matt and Pat contacted 2snacks and partnered up with him to animate the episode intros for season 6 onwards and the Two Best Friends Funtime Adventures series.

PlagueOfGripes

PlagueOfGripes, much like 2snacks, is a animator known for his YouTube videos set to audio from Two Best Friends episodes. Unlike 2snacks however, Plague’s videos depict Matt, Pat and sometimes Woolie in the game’s they’re playing with visual gags added. The first Two Best Friends Play animation by PlagueOfGripes was uploaded on November 16th, 2012, based on dialogue from their Silent Hill: Downpour Let’s Play. He has since made numerous other videos based on the series, including ones based on the Game of Thrones and L.A. Noire episodes, and has worked with Matt on a video about the Call of Duty Dog.

CrankyConstruct

CrankyConstruct is another YouTube animator who has created fan videos based off of Two Best Friends videos and podcasts. Cranky’s first video, titled “The Tauros Dilemma” which Pat, Woolie, and Liam talk about eating Pokemon on the Super Best Friendcast, was uploaded on November 16th, 2013, and currently has over 120,000 views. Cranky has also animated the introduction to the Pokemon LeafGreen Nuzlocke series and three introductions to the Amazing Superfriends theme month.

Game Grumps

Matt and Pat attended E3 2013, in a series of videos chronicling their reactions to various game booths and displays around the expo. The first video included a very brief scene of Matt walking past Egoraptor nonchalantly, both exchanging a short greeting as they walked past one another. The moment brought about many requests for a Two Best Friends/Game Grumps crossover. The Game Grumps Twitter posted a very interesting tweet on December 3rd, 2015

Matt & Woolie from @2BFOfficial dropped by the office yesterday. Awesome guys -- episodes with them coming soon! pic.twitter.com/5zRpWJYESe

— Game Grumps (@GameGrumps) December 3, 2015

In January 2016, two videos were uploaded, with one video on TheSw1tcher channel and one on Game Grumps for the spin-off series “Grumpcade.” Matt, Woolie, Egoraptor, and DannySexBang played “Dinotopia” and “Spider-Man 3.”

Running Gags

America

Matt, despite his Canadian heritage, has a tendency to shout the word “America” whenever anything patriotic appears in a game. The joke originates from the first Machinima episode, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and was first used according to Matt simply as a random joke for no reason.^[9] Although the gag has been used less in later seasons due to a fear of overuse, it remains a famous trope within the series (shown below), being featured prominently in the opening and in fan art.

Throwing the Fire Axe

In part 10 of the full length Silent Hill: Downpour Let’s Play^[10], Matt, unfamiliar with the controls, accidentally throws the most powerful weapon in the game down a bottomless chasm (shown below, left). The stupidity of the action combined with their disbelief and at what happened has lead to it become one of the most popular moments in any episode, with the video having 20,000 more views than the previous video in the series, which is rare for a Let’s Play. The axe frequently appears in video introductions and fan works, including a Brodyquest-style tribute (shown below, right).

Woolie The Liar Stole My Pie

In Part 25 of the Deadly Premonition Let’s Play^[16], at 9:40 in the video, Matt and Pat tell a story about “Wendell” and Woolie having an argument over McDonald’s pies. Wendell apparently received a pie he did not want out of a group of them and claimed, “Woolie cheated and stole all the good pies” leading Pat to proclaim, “Woolie the liar stole my pie.” Matt then requested for fans to post on their Facebook page photoshops and pictures of Woolie the Liar Stole My Pie. It has become Headcanon that Woolie is a habitual liar and that he is always out to steal someone’s pie.

Search Interest

External References:

About

Ghost in The Shell is a Japanese multimedia franchise, first originating as a seinen manga series written by Masamune Shirow. The series has garnered much popularity, especially in the West, where it is credited as one of the first targets of Western anime fandom. In addition to sanctioned films, television shows, and manga, the series has spawned a number of parodies and fan works.

Premise

The setting of Ghost in the Shell is a post-World War IV Japan where mankind and machines have become indistinguishable, creating a race of cyborgs. The cyborg bodies that hold a person’s mind are called their “shells”, while the mind and the person’s state of self are referred to as the “ghost.” The plot focuses around Major Motoko Kusanagi and the Public Security Section 9 as they work to take down cyber-terrorists that could potentially lead to the downfall of Japan or even the world.

History

Ghost in The Shell first began as a seinen manga series written by mangaka (manga author and artist) Masamune Shirow and published in Kodansha’s Young Magazine from April 1989 to November 1990. A sequel manga, titled Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface was also created, running from September 1991 to August 1997. This was later adapted into a successful 1995 anime movie, directed by Mamoru Oshii and animated by by Production IG, also known for their work on series such as Psycho-Pass and Guilty Crown. A sequel movie, titled Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence premiered on September 17th, 2004.

As well as movies, a number of TV shows were also made based off the Ghost in The Shell franchise. The first of these shows, titled Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex first aired from October 1st, 2002 to October 1st, 2003, running for 26 episodes, followed by another 26-episode sequel series titled Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG which ran from January 1st, 2004 to January 8th, 2005. A second adaptation, titled Ghost in the Shell: Arise – Alternative Architecture was also created, first running for five 50-minute original video animations from July 22nd, 2013 to August 26th, 2015 before being compiled into a 10-episode TV anime from April 5th to June 14th, 2015.

Online Relevance

On Tumblr the franchise is tagged under several tags, including “GitS” and “Ghost in the Shell”.^[1][2][3][4] The Facebook fan page for the first movie has over 218,000 likes.^[5] On YouTube, the official trailer for the original film, released by Starz Media on their channel on October 31st, 2006, has over 1.5 million views as of July 2015 (shown below).

The full versions of the opening themes for both Stand Alone Complex and Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig have been uploaded numerous times. The most viewed versions of each song each have over 12.6 million views and over 2.3 million views respectively (both shown below).

Fandom

The franchise has a large following online both in and outside of the larger anime community. On Tumblr there are various blogs dedicated to the franchise, such as Fuck Yeah Kusanagi,^[6] G I T S,^[7] Ghost on the Net^[8] as well as many others.^[9] On Reddit the Ghost in the Shell subreddit has over 3,000 readers.^[10] The franchise also has extesive followings on sites such as DeviantArt and Fanpop.^[11][12]

On April 20th, 2006, YouTuber lawala uploaded a mashup of clips from Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, the Animatrix as well as an original edit by fellow YouTuber Alpha Omega Productions, which has garnered almost half a million views since its release as of July 2015 (shown below).

On December 15th, 2013 YouTuber CreativeStation uploaded a speed art creation of Ghost in the Shell protagonist Makoto Kusanagi (shown below).

As of July 2015, there are around 19,500 posts tagged under “Ghost in the Shell” on DeviantArt and around 23,200 for “GitS”.^[13][14]

Related Memes

Ghost In The Shell Opening Parodies

Ghost in the Shell Opening Parodies refer to a series of parody videos for the opening movie of a Japanese TV anime series Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG. In addition to the video the term also encompasses the edits of an iconic pose taken by characters near the beginning of the opening known as the “GitS Pose”.

The Laughing Man

The Laughing Man is the main antagonist of Stand Alone Complex, inspired by the short story of the same name by J. D. Salinger. The character, especially his signature logo, is used online as a symbol of defying authority, similar to the Guy Fawkes mask. The Laughing Man Logo has also been the source of numerous parodies.

Search Interest

External References

About

Math Lady / Confused Lady refers to pictures or gifs of Brazilian actress Renata Sorrah^[1] playing Nazaré Tedesco in a scene from the telenovela, Senhora do Destino. The pictures are often used as reaction images to express confusion.

Origin

Tedesco is a very popular character from the telenovela “Senhora do Destino”, in Brazil. Because of her comical personality images of her have been photoshopped into reaction images and image macros. On Facebook, there is a fan page devoted to posting such pictures of her.^[2] The earliest known example of the original gif (shown below) being used as a reaction image is from October 31st, 2013, when UKMix forum poster CrazyCrazy posted the gif with the caption “I’m sure there is better music to hear while you wait for Beywance…”^[3]

The gif originated the following video:

Spread

The gif saw light use as a reaction image over the next two and a half years. It began growing in popularity around the summer of 2016. Buzzfeed Portugal^[4] included it as a reaction image in a “top post” on July 29th. A popular post on 9Gag^[5] featured four screenshots from the gif of Sorrah with math equations over her face, captioned “when she tells you she’s 29 weeks pregnant.” The post has over 33,000 points as of October 11th, 2016.

After the math symbols were added, the image and gif surged in popularity, particularly on Brazilian parts of social media, before it grew popular worldwide. On October 2nd, a thread appeared on /r/OutOfTheLoop^[6] asking about its origins.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Metroid is a series of science fiction adventure video games created by Nintendo. Since the series’ creation, it has received a large online following with many of fan-created websites.

History

The original Metroid game was originally released for the Family Computer Disk System in Japan on August 6th, 1986, and for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America on August 15th, 1987 (shown below, left), garnering critical acclaim due to its unique gameplay and being one of the first video games to feature a female protagonist. The sequel, Metroid II: Return of Samus (shown below, right), was released for the Nintendo Game Boy handheld device on August 26th, 1991.

The third game in the series Super Metroid (shown below, left), was released on the Super Nintendo in America on March 19th, 1994 and was later followed by Metroid Fusion (shown below, right) on the Game Boy Advance on November 17th, 2002. A remake of the original NES game Metroid: Zero Mission was released for the Game Boy Advance on February 9th, 2004.

The spin-off series Metroid Prime was developed by Retro Studios (shown below, left) and released on the Gamecube on November 17th, 2002. Unlike previous games, the game featured 3D graphics shown from first-person perspective. A sequel, titled Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (shown below, right), was released for the Gamecube on November 15th, 2004, followed by the spin-off titled Metroid Prime Pinball released for the Nintendo DS on October 24th, 2005.

Metroid Prime Hunters was released on the Nintendo DS on March 20th, 2006 and was followed by the game Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (shown below, left) for the Wii on August 27th, 2007. A trilogy pack titled Metroid Prime: Trilogy was released for the Wii on August 24th, 2009. Metroid: Other M (shown below, right) was released for the Wii on August 31, 2010.

Online Presence

As of August 2016, Metroid Facebook page also has gained over 67,000 likes^[13].

Related Memes

Y Can’t Metroid Crawl? / PaulyU

“Y Can’t Metroid Crawl?” is a question uttered by Miiverse user PaulyU while asking for help to get through the Wii U Virtual Console release of Super Metroid.

Horny Samus

Horny Samus refers to a series of advice animal image macros featuring the series’ protagonist Samus Aran. The captions typically include sexual double entendres and cheesy pickup lines.

Remember Me? / MBD

MBD (Mysterious Black Dude) is a meme arising from an E3 2009 trailer for Metroid: Other M, in which a mysterious man greets Samus asking if she remembers him.

Fandom

The Metroid series has garnered a large online following since its inception, with a presence of several sites including Tumblr^[1], Reddit^[2], 4chan’s /v/ videogame board^[3], Fanpop^[4], FanFiction.net^[5] and DeviantART^[6]. The Metroid wiki^[7] and TV Tropes^[8] contain relevant information to the series. There are numerous fansites devoted to Metroid, such as Metroid Recon^[9], Metroid HQ^[10], Metroid Database^[11] and ShineSparkers^[12].

Search Interest

External References

About

TV Tropes is a wiki devoted to the documentation of “tropes”, which are tools of the trade for storytelling in movies, television shows, literature, and other forms of media. These conventions and devices are used in all forms of fiction, and should not be confused with clichés.

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means “stereotyped and trite.” In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.^[1]

The website is much like a Wikipedia for television and literature. The most striking differences is that there is no need for citations, and they clearly state on the website^[4] that “There is No Such Thing as Notability”, which means they consider all works to be notable.

The website has a reputation for being addictive, often resulting in users opening many tabs from clicking on the many blue links on the pages. The site may also cause viewers to analyze fiction more than they normally would, and look at media from a more critical point of view.^[3]

History

TV Tropes launched in April of 2004, and began as a fan site for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pointing out tropes in that show alone.^[5] The site quickly expanded to include hundreds, and eventually thousands of other entries. Eventually the site branched out to include other forms of media, such as film, literature, video games, and comics.^[2]

In the Winter of 2014, Site Creator Fast Eddie resigned from the site and placed 2 admins in his place; Drewski and Icdtr ^[16]. At the same time, TV Tropes has created a Kickstarter campaigned witch has been successful, receiving $105,186 from over 3000 backers.^[17] As of January 2015, the site has changed its layout. Some users compared it to Facebook’s design, other hate the new layout but the majority of the donors enjoyed the new aesthetic.

Articles

Most pages on TV Tropes focuses on a single trope. The article usually begins with quotations related to the topic before defining the trope. This is followed by a series of organized folders filled with examples of each trope from a variety of media.

Some pages do not focus on a trope at all, but deal with a story, movie or series. These pages typically consist of a brief synopsis of the show, its main plot and characters, and are followed by a list of tropes that are included in the work.

Spoilers are covered up with white block text, but this feature can be disabled by creating an account and changing your profile settings.

Meme-Related Articles

TV Tropes often references Internet memes with articles on memetic mutation^[9], fountain of memes^[10], memetic badass^[11], Memetic Sex God^[12], YouTube Poop^[13], Internet^[14], and Know Your Meme.^[15]

Traffic

As of July TV Tropes has an Alexa^[6] ranking of 3,748, a Compete^[7] ranking 2,700, and a Quantcast^[8] ranking of 3,743.

Search

Search queries for “tv tropes” and “tvtropes” picked up late 2006, and reached their highest spike in July of 2009.

External Links

About

Netflix is a streaming video service available in more than 40 countries supplemented with a DVD-by-mail service within the United States. It has more than 33 million subscribers as of May 2013.^[2]

History

Netflix^[1] was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings^[3] and Marc Randolph who wanted to rent and sell DVDs online. Since DVDs had only been introduced in 1995, they were still relatively rare in brick and mortar video rental stores like Blockbuster, but the entrepreneurs believed the format would eventually replace the bulky VHS.^[4] The site opened for business on April 14th, 1998^[5] with a selection of 925 DVDs, including some softcore pornography. 48 hours after the site went live, it had to shut down for a short period of time due to overwhelming demand. The disks could be rented for seven days at $4 each with an additional cost of $2 for shipping. The site also offered DVD purchases for several months before switching to rental-only.

Netflix Prize

In 2000, Netflix introduced a recommendation system known as CineMatch that utilizes Oracle database systems to cluster similar movies together using information from customer ratings. On October 2nd, 2006, the Netflix Prize^[20]was launched, which encouraged researchers to create a more accurate algorithm for rating titles using a provided training data set of more than 100 million ratings for 17,000 movies. Within six days, someone had achieved a more accurate root mean square error (RMSE) with the data^[21], beating Cinematch’s accuracy score. In June 2009, a group of scientists from across the globe achieved a 10.05% improvement in RMSE over Cinematch, winning the grand prize of $1 million.^[22] That September, their algorithms were released online.^[23] However, the winning code was never implemented^[24] due to the extra engineering costs needed to make it work.

Features

Streaming

In January 2007, Netflix introduced a streaming video service^[25] for PC users, making less than 1.5% of its 70,000 titles available for a limited of hours per month, based on the user’s subscription plan. Within the first six months, at least 2,000 titles had been streamed more than 5 million times.^[26] By late 2007, Netflix began testing out unlimited streaming, and by January 2008, all restrictions on streaming service had been lifted.^[28] In October 2008, streaming services were opened up to Mac users for the first time.^[27] By fall 2009, 42% of Netflix’s 11.1 million subscribers were streaming at least 15 minutes of video.^[29]

Original Programming

Netflix launched their first original series Lilyhammer^[30] in February 2012, a week after its broadcast premiere on the Norwegian television station NRK1. Starring The Sopranos actor Steve Van Zant, the series detailed the life of a member of the mob who is relocated to Norway on witness protection after testifying against his former boss. Netflix made all eight episodes of the series available for streaming at the same time, setting itself apart from network and cable television by allowing viewers to avoid the wait between episodes..

On February 1st, 2013, Netflix released the pilot season of its second in-house production House of Cards^[31] (shown below, left), a political drama series starring Kevin Spacey and adapted from a BBC miniseries and novel of the same name. House of Cards received much positive critical reception, culminating in a special achievement Webby Award for its producers in 2013.^[32] Between March and April 2013, Netflix unveiled the comedy series Bad Samaritans, the film Shotgun Wedding and the horror series Hemlock Grove (shown below, right), contributing to more than 2.03 million new streaming subscribers in the first quarter of 2013 in the United States alone.^[33] As of May 2013, Netflix has five additional original series in progress^[34], including the highly anticipated fourth season of cult comedic sitcom Arrested Development.

Reception

In September 2003, Hacking Netflix^[35] was launched to provide the latest news on new releases, movie reviews and news about Netflix itself. In 2008, the first subreddit^[36] dedicated to Netflix was created on Reddit, gaining more than 22,000 subscribers as of May 2013. A second Netflix subreddit, /r/NetflixBestOf^[37], was created in April 2010 specifically to solicit recommendations for instantly streamable content. Outside of these communities, many Netflix subscribers have used image macros^[38] (shown below, left) on message boards and blogs to express their feelings about the services, most notably on Cheezburger^[39], FunnyJunk^[40] and Tumblr.^[41] Additionally, there are Quickmeme pages for both Scumbag Netflix^[42] (shown below, center) and Good Guy Netflix^[43] (shown below, right), each discussing the pros and cons of the service.

Bugged Plot Summaries

On May 17th, 2014, Washington-based developer Bob Lannon launched @SummaryBug^[44][45], a Netflix-themed novelty Twitter account devoted to spotting and highlighting a variety of grammatical errors or incoherencies found in the synopses of the available titles as a result of a software glitch. In less than a week of its launch, @SummaryBug reached more than 4,000 followers.

Highlights

Qwikster

On September 18th, 2011, Reed Hasting announced via an email to subscribers that the company would be splitting their DVD rental and streaming services into two separate operations. The DVD rental was to be rebranded as Qwikster, named for quick mail delivery. As the news spread, people sought out Qwikster’s social media accounts, including a Twitter account belonging to a man named Jason Castillo who had no affiliation with Netflix. Though Castillo’s account had been inactive for months, he began tweeting again on September 19th, offering to sell his account.

Within days, a handful of Qwikster spoof Twitter and Tumblr accounts were created, parodying Castillo’s original avatar depicting Sesame Stree character Elmo smoking weed. On October 10th, Netflix announced that they would be abandoning Qwikster and leaving both services under the Netflix brand. Castillo’s Twitter account has not been updated since October 11th, 2011.

Great Netflix Purge

On April 30th, 2013, InstantWatcher.com^[7] reported that nearly 1,800 titles including two James Bond titles, fifteen seasons of South Park and a number of classic films would be removed from Netflix’s streaming service on May 1st. Slate^[8] confirmed the removal, noting it was due to expiring contracts with studios including MGM, Warner Bros. and Universal. Between April 30th and May 1st, news of the lost titles was shared on Mashable^[9], Gizmodo^[10], Forbes^[11] and the Huffington Post.^[12] News of the mass removal struck a chord on Twitter, resulting in more than 110,000 mentions of Netflix that day^[14], up from an average of 63,000 mentions per day that week. In a statement to The Verge^[13], a Netflix representative stated that they would be adding more than 500 recent titles on the same day.

Traffic

By December 2000, slightly more than two years after the site went live, Netflix had 292,000 customers and was shipping more than 300,000 DVDs a week. In February 2003, the company hit 1 million subscribers^[15] who were renting an average of 5.5 movies per month from a library of more than 5.5 million discs.^[15] In May 2011, four years after introducing its streaming services, Netflix accounted for 24.71 percent of all internet traffic, with viewers using gaming consoles to stream media downloading more than 2.5 GB from the site per day.^[16] As of May 2013, Netflix has more than 30 million global subscribers^[17], with more than 10.6 million unique users in the United States per month.^[18] Netflix.com has an Alexa^[19] ranking of 99 globally and 21 in the US.

Search Interest

External References

About

BuzzFeed^[1] is a viral content and entertainment news site founded by American Internet entrepreneur Jonah Peretti in 2006. The site is comprised of more than 20 verticals dedicated to curating a wide variety of viral media and news content, ranging from politics, business, sports, and music to internet memes, animals and celebrities, as well as its own original content.

History

BuzzFeed launched on November 1st, 2006 with seven articles containing 10-20 links to other articles on a specific topic, including homosexual Republicans^[23], Borat^[24] and eating endangered animal species.^[25] BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti (shown below) had previously been involved with viral web content while studying at the MIT Media Lab. In January 2001, he attempted to order custom Nike sneakers with the word “sweatshop” embroidered on them. After his request was denied, his shared the email correspondence online, which quickly went viral. In May 2005, he co-founded The Huffington Post with Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and Andrew Breitbart.

Buzzfeed Motion Pictures

On August 10th, 2014, The New York Times^[32] reported BuzzFeed had recieved a $50 million investment from the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz to expand their original video production division under the newly-branded umbrella of Buzzfeed Motion Pictures. The article went on to suggest that Buzzfeed Motion Pictures would be able to launch full-length films as well as strengthen its shorter video production efforts on YouTube. That same day, the investment deal was announced on the blog of Chris Dixon^[34], a tech business mogul and partner of the investing firm.^[33] In it, Dixon explained:

“As a small, early investor in BuzzFeed, I got to observe firsthand how effectively Jonah and the team executed in recent years. The results speak for themselves: BuzzFeed now reaches over 150M people per month, is consistently profitable, and will generate triple digit millions in revenues this year. I believe the future of BuzzFeed – and the media industry more generally – will only get brighter as the number of people with internet-connected smartphones grows, and the internet solidifies its place as the central communication medium of our time.”

The investment and focus on Buzzfeed Motion Pictures was covered by many sites including The Wrap^[35] and Philly.com.^[37] Buzzfeed^[36] published its official press release regarding the investment on August 11th, which stated:

“Digital video is the future of the media industry and after two years of growth and success, BuzzFeed will expand its video division and become BuzzFeed Motion Pictures. Ze Frank will lead the division as President of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures and will expand to focus on all moving images from a GIF to feature film. BuzzFeed Video will exist under the new organization to focus on current short form video, while the BuzzFeed Live Development team will create mid-form serialized content, focused on building characters and genres. BuzzFeed Motion Pictures will launch a “Future of Fiction” team to explore the future of long-form, television and trans-media video. Hollywood producer Michael Shamberg and actor/comedian Jordan Peele will join BuzzFeed Motion Pictures as advisors.”

Criticism

Listicles

Much of BuzzFeed’s content is list-based articles known as “listicles” consisting of a specific number of curated photos or GIFs centered on a certain topic, for example 15 Curious Things Found in Library Books^[26], 21 Reasons You’re A True Hillbilly^[27] and 16 Problems Every Petite Girl Deals With.^[28] As early as July 2012, this format has been parodied by other blogs and magazines including McSweeney’s^[22], Eater^[23] and Vanity Fair.^[29] Other news sites have criticized BuzzFeed for using this format to explain serious news^[17], including explaining the political climate in Egypt with GIFs from Jurassic Park (shown below).

Parodies

FeedBuzz

On April 5th, 2013, BuzzFeed’s tech vertical FWD posted an oral history of Weird Twitter, containing a number of interviews with Twitter users about their participation in the loosely aligned group of comedic accounts. Two days later, Nate Lamagna, who goes by the handle @vrunt^[9], launched the parody blog FeedBuzz.^[10] That day, he made the first two posts parodying BuzzFeed’s stereotypical listicle content: 7 Unexpected Breakfast Fails^[11] and Top Five Bad Search Engines Throughout History.^[12]

Lamagna invited his Twitter followers to contribute, resulting in more than 400 satirical articles within two months, including pieces by Something Awful writer Jon Hendren, Toothpaste for DInner cartoonist Drew and #ExilePitbull co-creator David Thorpe. In April 2013, FeedBuzz was featured in a satirical review on Fishbowl NY.^[13] In early June, FeedBuzz was featured on the Daily Dot.^[14]

BuzzFeed Minus GIFs

On October 17th, 2013, a single topic blog titled “BuzzFeed Minus GIFs”^[31] was launched on Tumblr as a parody of BuzzFeed’s signature GIF-driven article format, highlighting the text without any images that usually comprise the centerpiece of the articles.

read the original article                                                             read the original article




read the original article                                                             read the original article



read the original article                                                             read the original article

Related Memes

Aretha’s Hat

Aretha’s Hat is a photoshop meme featuring the bow-style hat worn by singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin during Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration on January 20th, 2009. That day, a photo of the singer wearing the hat was posted to BuzzFeed and commenters began to photoshop the hat onto other photos of humans and animals. Within hours, BuzzFeed made a second post highlighting some of the submitted photoshopped images.

Horsemaning

Horsemaning is a photo fad started by BuzzFeed in August 2011. After posting a sepia-toned photo^[5] (shown below, left) claiming the forced perspective photography had come from the 1920s, the article called it “the new ”/memes/planking">planking and invited readers to take their own photos. However, the astroturfing led writers from Gawker^[6] and Rocketboom^[7] to criticize BuzzFeed for attempting to force a meme.

Tobias Fünke’s Blanket

Tobias Fünke’s Blanket is a photoshop meme that spread on 4chan and Tumblr after a behind-the-scenes photo of actor David Cross wearing a blanket on set was leaked on BuzzFeed on August 9th, 2012, who highlighted a series of photoshopped images based on this strange outfit the following day.

Traffic

As of July 2013, BuzzFeed reaches more than 60 million unique visitors per month.^[2] The site has an Alexa^[3] score of 85 in the United States and 315 globally. BuzzFeed also has a Quantcast^[4] rank of 36 in the U.S.

Search Interest

External References

About

NeoGAF is an Internet discussion forum dedicated to video game-related topics. Forum members have participated in the creation and proliferation of Internet memes and are particularly active during the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The forum is known for having strict moderation, with users waiting months to be approved as a “junior member” and even longer to become regular members. The NeoGAF logo is a green and orange colored circle and has been included in the Nintendo DS puzzle game Scribblenauts as an Easter egg. NeoGAF is now a controversial group for its common banning and social justice in the gaming community.

In June 2013, GameTrailers did an episode on NeoGAF.

History

The video game news website Gaming-Age^[9] established the Gaming-Age Forums (GAF) with UBB forum software in 1999. After holding a fundraiser for the forums in the spring of 2004, GAF received new hosting and software. On April 4th, 2006, GAF was relaunched as “NeoGAF” and received the new domain NeoGAF.com.^[10] The new site featured “Gaming”^[1] and “Off-topic”^[2] sub forums with the “Gaming Community” and “Off-topic Community” sections added later.

Highlights

Adam Orth’s “Always On” Twitter Gaffe

A series of controversial tweets by Microsoft Studios creative director Adam Orth defendeding “always-online” video games were heavily derided on the NeoGAF Forums in April of 2013.

Controversy

The controversial actions of NeoGAF and Tyler Malka have been described as ‘toxic’ to the gaming community. Evidences of both NeoGAF and Tyler Malka’s hypocrisy, delusion, cyberbullying, social justice, and common banning have been posted on numerous occasions. A Voat group known as NeoFAG^[26] is a anti-NeoGAF forum that focuses on the latest controversies from NeoGAF.

Common Banning

This controversy is very common in NeoGAF. The mods on NeoGAF are known for banning users who hold differing opinions. There are numerous other ban reasons that are commonly considered ridiculous as the list goes on.

Boogie2988

YouTuber Boogie2988 was once a member of NeoGAF until he describe he became a victim of NeoGAF’s bullying. They spend days bullying Boogie2988 into submission for supporting GamerGate and saying nice things about American author and equity feminist Christina Hoff Sommers. Later Boogie2988 was banned permanently from NeoGAF for not defending NeoGAF’s women in gaming such as Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn.

Pedophilia

On October 20th, 2014, The Ralph Retort posted a news article about NeoGAF having a pedophile problem. Even though many screenshot evidence were posted around the internet, the admins of NeoGAF denied about the fact they allow pedophiles discussing pedophilia and child molestation.

During the Jared Fogle Child Porn Investigation, NeoGAF members discuss about having child pornography on your computer hard drive is not a bad thing, and they quote, “I don’t think Jared from Subway is a pedophile.”.

Revenge Pornography Leak

On September 21st, 2014, Reddit user exname submitted a thread containing evidence that NeoGAF owner and admin Tyler Malka leaked nude photographs of one of his rival’s girlfriends a few years ago.

Stolen User Content

On September 20th, 2014, The Ralph Report submit a news article on NeoGAF selling Kotaku user content without using permission. A tweet on Twitter is posted containing screenshot evidence and details on NeoGAF user Nanashrew having high hopes on putting Breitbart.com journalist Milo Yiannopoulos in jail for uncovering NeoGAF’s corruption details.

Nikki Moxxi Harassment

On September 23rd, 2016, a Gizmodo article by Bryan Menedus was submitted, discussing about Oculus Rift founder Palmer Luckey supporting Donald Trump and dating GamerGate supporter Nikki Moxxi. This cause Gizmodo supporters, including NeoGAF,^[27] to start a blatant attack on her Twitter page. Nikki Moxxi later closed her Twitter account due to the violent harassment.

Related Memes

Translator San

The photoshop meme Translator San from the 2009 E3 video game event was embraced by many users on NeoGAF in the early stages of its creation.

Dudebro

Dudebro is a 2D action PC game being developed by NeoGAF members. The game is intended to be a parody of military shooter games, featuring the protagonist John Dudebro and his sidekick Habemus Chicken.

The project was initially inspired by forum member Cuyahoga’s response to being called a pedophile for enjoying the game Imagine: Babyz Fashion on December 7th, 2009:

“So, I’m a pedophile because I don’t want to play Dudebro, My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It’s Straight-Up Dawg Time?”^[7]

All My Friends Are Dead

On May 19th, 2011, forum member spiderman123 submitted a link to an Amazon page for the book Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach. After one user noted that Mansbach’s other book All My Friends are Dead was listed on the page, several members began photoshopping images based on the book’s cover featuring a forlorn-looking dinosaur.

NeoGAF Asshole

On December 20th, 2011, NeoGAF^[8] member 24FrameDaVinci submitted a link to a Quickmeme^[6] page titled “NeoGAF Asshole,” featuring a photograph of a young man wearing a pair of glasses. The captions feature references to video games and inside jokes within the NeoGAF communtiy. As of April 2013, the Quickmeme page has received upwards of 1,000 submissions.

GAF’D

The term GAF’D is a inside joke directed towards NeoGAF’s free company^[23] (guilds) Gather Against Fate (GAF)^[22] for the unresponsible actions they done wrong during gameplay from the Ultros server in MMORPGFinal Fantasy XIV. On July 7th, 2014, Final Fantasy XIV release Patch 2.3 Defenders of Eorzea. This patch introduce elite ranked enemies for players to party up and battle for a challenge and greater rewards. NeoGAF members of GAF would purposely pull for themselves without waiting for everyone else to get a chance, causing drama against the free company GAF by shouting “GAF’D!” and along other shouts such as “Dammit GAF!”. This term quickly became a meme and commonly used in shout command for trolling and blaming GAF.

Traffic

As of April 2013, Neogaf.com is ranked 3,922 in the world according to Alexa^[4] traffic rankings.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Sonic For Real Justice is a Tumblr Blog featuring anti-social justice written from the persona of Sonic the Hedgehog characters. The blog reached over 10,000 followers^[13] within the first 24 hours of its launch after one of its moderators was banned for attempting to censor the site’s “Ask” feature.

Background

The Tumblr blog was created on May 30th, 2015 by a group of anonymous friends on Skype.^[5] Each moderator took on a persona of a character from the Sonic the Hedgehog universe and used them to engage in a faux-conversation advocating extreme political correctness, a.k.a. social justice warrior practices, using the character traits of the Sonic characters.^[1] The blog quickly began garnering attention after Mod Shadow’s edgy self-introduction (shown below, right), which got over 6,800 notes in under a day.^[7]

Notable Developments

The blog increased in popularity after one of the moderators, Mod Silver, was banned from the blog for disabling the “Ask” feature,^[9] which violated one of the group’s code of conducts, according to one of the co-moderators Mod Amy.^[10] Furthermore, the group’s tongue-in-cheek rule, “Be kind to Mod Silver”, was also removed from the blog’s rules page^[11] as a result of the ban. The ensuing drama was largely met by negative and sarcastic responses from the blog’s fans and followers on Tumblr.

Meanwhile, Tumblr user radicalruster released a number of parody voice-over recordings of Mod Shadow, with all of them featuring some form of rock music in the background. The most popular version to date has received 2,500 notes in just a few hours.^[4] On May 30th, Tumblr user Transyuri created a music video detailing the blog’s formative events, which received over 21,000 notes within 18 hours (shown below).^[3]

That same day, Tumblr user Gemwarp also explained the situation surrounding the Sonic For Real Justice mods in a text post, accompanied screen captures of the discussions among the moderators (shown below). The post received over 22,000 notes within 24 hours.^[8]

On May 31st, Mod Tails resigned from the blog after claiming he was harassed by Mod Amy.^[12] A few hours later, Mod Sonic revealed he and Mod Amy had been secretly dating,^[17] which caused suspicion amongst the blog’s followers over the integrity of the mod team. Later that same day, Mod Knuckles was recruited into the group, claiming to “play as the peacemaker of the group” and became the only mod allowed to change the rules (shown below).^[14] A few hours later, Mod Tikal was banned for breaking the “no special snowflakes allowed” rule after expressing herself as a demigirl.^[15][16] On June 1st, another mod was recruited, known as Mod Sally.^[18] On June 2nd, Mod Shadow was banned from the blog;^[19] followed by Mod Knuckles a day later,^[20] which in return also made the “master rule” void (shown below); with Mod Sally resigning that night.^[21] On June 4th, Tumblr user manic the bpdhedgehog made a post with a hypothetic diagnose that Mod Sonic could have Borderline Personality Disorder, which Mod Sonic later accepted.^[23] Finally, on June 6th, Mod Amy was banned from the board,^[22] leaving only Mod Sonic as an active moderator. During the process of the bans, Mod Sonic also changed his name to respectively Mod Super Sonic, after the Mod Knuckles ban; and Mod Dark Sonic, prior to the Mod Amy ban. However, 6 days later, on June 12th, Mod Dark Sonic’s sudden inactivity got him banned, after which Mod Silver and Shadow returned along with a new moderator, Mod Blaze.^[24] On June 16th, two new mods, Mod Classic Amy^[25] and Mod Classic Sonic,^[26] were introduced and were said not to be the original duo. On June 19th, Mod Shadow created a post claiming that Mod Silver’s initial behavior prior to his original ban was an act in order to make the original Mod Amy appear bad.^[27] On June 22nd, after a slight period of inactivity, Mod Silver denied the post and apologized for said inactivity. ^[28] After that post, the account was inactive for over a week which meant it should’ve been deleted, but only Mod Classic Amy and Mod Classic Sonic were banned. ^[29] Mod Silver then made a post about the asks sent to them over this period of inactivity were deleted by the classic mods, ^[30] but Mod Shadow made a post saying the “real” reason for the removal will be shown eventually. ^[31]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External Links

About

LazyTown was a musical children’s television show promoting healthy lifestyles featuring costumed actors, puppetry and CGI animation. Clips and images of the show have been widely circulated online, spawning several related internet memes and video remixes.

Premise

In the show, the character Stephanie Meanswell (played by Julianna Rose Mauriello and Chloe Lang) inspires the citizens of the fictional LazyTown to stay active and healthy, and is know for her pink outfits and hair. The character Robbie Rotten (played by Stefan Karl) plots and schemes to lure the citizens away from a healthy lifestyle. Additional notable characters include Sportacus, Mayor Meanswell, Ziggy, Trixie, Pixel and Stingy.

History

On August 16th, 2004, LazyTown was first broadcast on the children’s television block Nick Jr. on the Nickelodeon channel. The show ran for two seasons, airing a total of 53 episodes, between 2004 and 2007. From 2013 to 2014, two additional seasons were broadcast.

LazyTown Extra

In 2008, the spin-off series LazyTown Extra was released in the United Kingdom on the CBeebies television station, which featured characters from LazyTown performing short sketches.

Online Presence

On October 14th, 2011, the /r/LazyTown^[2] subreddit was launched for discussions about the television show. On March 19th, 2012, the official LazyTown Facebook^[1] page was launched, which gathered upwards of 85,500 likes over the next five years. On August 24th, 2012, LazyTown head writer Mark Valenti participated in an “ask me anything” post on the /r/IAmA^[5] subreddit. On May 12th, 2013, a page for LazyTown was created on TV Tropes. On June 4th, a LazyTown-themed trollpasta was created on the Trollpasta Wiki.^[3] As of September 2016, the fanfiction database FanFiction.net has over 430 submissions under the LazyTown category.^[4]

Stefán Karl’s Illness

In late September 2016, Icelandic news media began reporting that actor Stefan Karl was “seriously ill,” and was in a hospital to remove a possibly malignant tumor.^[6][7] That month, video remixes and photoshops featuring Karl playing Robbie Rotten reached the front page of several subreddits, including /r/youtubehaiku,^[8] /r/Spongebros^[9] and /r/tf2^[10] (shown below). On September 28th, Redditor Catacomb82 submitted a post asking about the recent resurgence in LazyTown memes to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[11] to which the top-voted comment noted news reports of Karl’s recent illness.

Related Memes

Cooking by the Book

“Cooking by the Book” is a catchy song from the show that has been widely remixed online, most notably in a mashup with rapper Lil Jon’s vocals from the 2004 rap song “Step You Game Up” by Snoop Dogg (shown below).

You are a Pirate!

“You Are A Pirate” is a song performed by a pirate character in a n episode of LazyTown, which subsequently inspired the creation of numerous parodies and animations.

Search Interest

External References