About

Mighty No. 9 is a 2.5D action-platform video game developed by Comcept^[1] under the direction of Keiji Inafune^[16], a Japanese video game producer best known for classic titles such as Onimusha, Dead Rising and the Mega Man series. In October 2013, the project was successfully funded on Kickstarter and initially slated for digital and console release in 2015, though after several obstacles in development, the game was released on June 21st, 2016.

Gameplay

Inspired by Mega Man games, Mighty No. 9 is set in the future, where the creation of highly advanced robots has become possible. The most advanced and powerful of those are a set of nine robots called the Mighty Numbers. After a computer virus of unknown origin begins to attack machines around the world, the Numbers are affected, making them evil. The player assumes control of Beck, the titular Mighty No. 9 who was the only Number unaffected by the virus. The game follows his journey to destroy his rogue “siblings” and discover the evil mastermind behind the crisis. Mighty No. 9 is set to be powered by the Unreal Engine, and rough tests using placeholder animations (shown below) have been shared on the game’s official YouTube account.^[26]

History

Announcement

Mighty No. 9 was announced on August 31st, 2013, during a panel at the 2013 PAX Prime convention held by Inafune and his team from Comcept. At the end of the panel, they played a video (shown below) revealing the game would be crowdfunded through a Kickstarter campaign^[2], which launched the same day. Immediately, a number of game sites covered the announcement, including IGN^[17], Polygon^[18], Screw Attack^[19], Gematsu^[20], Complex^[21] and GameFront.^[22]

Fundraising

In just over 24 hours, the Kickstarter campaign reached its funding goal of $900,000.^[23] A number of stretch goals to create physical and console versions of the game were added, and by September 16th, the game had hit $2.2 million dollars, securing console releases for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U.^[24] On October 1st, the pledges surpassed $4 million, adding releases for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS.^[25] In addition to all this, stretch goals broken include a new playable character with an extra stage and boss, two online modes, and a making-of commentary on the development of Mighty No. 9. On June 10th, 2014, the last e-mail detailing on the making-of documentary was sent out to backers, and has never been mentioned again since. A YouTube link of a teaser to the pilot episode of the documentary was included in the e-mail, which has not been produced to this day.

English Dub Fundraiser

At Anime Expo 2014 in the month of July, Inafune announced a new crowdfunding campaign to bring an English dub to the game, with the goal of $100,000. Concerns about the voice-acting crowdfunder arose on August 30th, when footage of the beta was revealed. To the confusion of the backers, the beta was structured in a way that it would suffer from not having a proper language dub, when the Kickstarter campaign didn’t even have such a stretch goal reached. This has made the voice-acting goal all the more urgent, as the game would suffer from poor design without it. The goal was announced to be reached by Comcept on October 6th, however at some point, they raised the goal to $200 thousand to include a Japanese dub with the additional $100 thousand. Later, Comcept compromised and brought the goal back to $100 thousand again, leaving it up to the backers to choose between an English or a Japanese dub. A week later, it was announced that the game will have English voice acting. On October 30th, Comcept announces potential Ray DLC for Mighty No. 9, needing $190 thousand to produce. Backers who funded the DLC would get a free code to download it, if they can secure the fund by the end of 2014.

Development

On January 2015, Comcept released a new video celebrating the new year, with Inafune saying that development on Mighty No. 9 has pretty much wrapped up, and now they’re moving on to promoting and porting the game. On April 2015, the release date of the game was delayed to September 2015 due to the new partnership with Deep Silver. Comcept assures this will only improve the game for everyone because everyone can now have the Ray DLC, Japanese and French voice-acting, and multi-language subtitles. On May 20th, Mighty No. 9’s beta was taken down. Comcept explains that the takedown was made to do further debugging and ROM testing. The news never got e-mailed to backers and was on the site without any notifications. On July 4th, two months before the game was supposed to be released, Inafune announces a new Kickstarter called Red Ash, a successor to the Mega Man Legends series. In the promotional video, he states that development on Mighty No. 9 has finished and Comcept is moving on. On July 31st, however, rumors of another Mighty delay surfaced from GameInformer, from GameStop retailers. Moderators of the Mighty No. 9 forum denied the rumor. Not even a week after the denial, Mighty No. 9 was announced to be delayed again on August 5th. Comcept said they wanted to tell fans about the rumor before Gamescom started, but Gamescom had already started by the time this news dropped. A moderator at the Mighty No. 9 forums, Josh, said he was too busy with Red Ash’s Kickstarter to clear up the confusion over the rumors of the delay before they even announced it and another mod states that the delay was caused by a problem with the network code for the 2 online modes. On August 28th, Comcept announced they will give backers a trial version of the game on September that contains four levels from the main game and six challenges complete with all the voice acting and language options that will be included in the final game.

Online Presence

On August 31st, 2013, Comcept launched a number of social media sites for Mighty No. 9 including a YouTube channel^[28] Facebook fan^[29] page, subreddit^[30] and a Twitter^[31] account, which has since gained nearly 15,000 followers. Additional, fans have created a wiki^[32] for the game. On September 26th, Keiji Inafune participated in an Ask Me Anything thread on the /r/Gaming^[33] subreddit, which received more than 4,800 upvotes, 2,400 points overall and 850 comments. In the thread, Inafune noted that he went to Kickstarter because he knew this was the kind of game fans wanted. In November that year, an official website^[34] for the project was launched.

Reception

During the Kickstarter campaign, Mighty No. 9 was discussed on many video game sites such as Polygon^[7][8], Blistered Thumbs^[5][6] and GameSpot^[9][10], as well as message boards like NeoGAF^[4]. Additionally, several gaming-focused YouTubers including Angry Joe] (shown below, left), Gaijin Goombah^[13] (shown below, right) and Happy Console Gamer^[14] among others have expressed their support for the game.

As time went on, however, due to all the troubled development and history that has surrounded Mighty No. 9, it has been getting more and more backlash from fans and backers alike, as well as those who originally supported it.

.

Upon its release^[36] on June 21st, 2016, Mighty No. 9 received mixed to negative reviews from critics, getting a 57 overall in OpenCritic.^[43]IGN rated it a 5.6 out of 10, stating that “despite its pedigree, Mighty No. 9 doesn’t seem to have a good sense of what was fun about Mega Man, or 2D action-platformers in general.”^[44] GameInformer gave the game a 6.0 out of 10, stating that it is “the kind of nostalgic gaming that makes you want to play the original Mega Man games instead.” Gamespot gave it a 5 out of 10, saying “Mighty No. 9 is occasionally fun and inventive, but it fails to leave a lasting impression.”^[45] The Jimquisition gave it a 4.0 out of 10.0, saying that “much like an anime fan on prom night, I would rather be at home playing Mega Man than here.”^[46]

Controversies

Due to the numerous delays, many have voiced their complaints about Comcept overpromising and failing to deliver.^[37]

Dina Karam controversy

Dina Abou Karam has been met with a lot of criticism regarding her job as a community manager for the game. Fans were getting increasingly skeptical about the legitimacy of Dina, with such things like her Twitter being full of ludicrous feminist posts, her trying to push making Beck a girl, and her having never played a Mega Man game before. The latter fact especially makes backers wary, and wouldn’t give Dina the benefit of the doubt and want answers. Things get even more suspicious when Dina introduced herself on the forums, and claimed that Mega Man X is the best Mega Man, despite saying on her Twitter that she never played a Mega Man game before, giving off the impression that she’s lying to everyone, leading to more concerns and backlash from backers. As a response, Dina locked her Twitter account, and in those few hours that the account was locked, it was unlocked again with all the questionable tweets deleted.^[35] Despite her best efforts to hide any discriminating evidence against her, people picking apart the archived tweets she deleted realized that she was supporting the game because her friends and boyfriend were working on it, which means she got her job because of nepotism, and Dina confirmed it on the forums. Dina eventually stepped down from the position and left Comcept.

Red Ash controversy

On July 2015, Comcept released two Kickstarter campaigns for a new project called Red Ash: The Indelible Legend, a spiritual successor to Mega Man Legends, one for a game and one for an anime. Fans were skeptical over the shadiness of the Kickstarter campaigns, and bitter over the basic fact that Mighty No. 9 wasn’t out yet at the time and were underwhelmed by its art style change when it was shown at E3 2015. Furthermore, Comcept was being incredibly vague with the product they were trying to sell to their backers, with even less promising concept art and steeper donation goals than what the Mighty No. 9 campaign had, and a prototype that didn’t sell anyone into funding the game. In its last few days before the deadline was reached, and it was clear that the game’s Kickstarter would not reach the goal with little more than half of the target amount, Comcept announced that the game would be fully funded by a Chinese company named FUZE, and the money donated to the campaign, if reached, will solely be used for the stretch goals. This created another backlash as fans took back thousands of dollars they donated to the Kickstarter. While the anime Kickstarter was successfully funded, the game’s campaign ultimately failed to meet its goal.

Masterclass Trailer controversy

On May 25, 2016, publisher Deep Silver released a trailer for Mighty No. 9 called Masterclass. The video has gotten negative reception for its overall presentation: the phrase “make the bad guys cry like an anime fan on prom night”, the “Pizzasplosion” that puts the game’s graphics into question, and the narrator trying too hard to make the trailer sound epic.^[38] The backlash has gotten to the point where Sonic The Hedgehog and Inti Creates’ official Twitter account criticized the trailer.^[39][40] This has also raised questions whether they should still invest in the game,^[41] while others say that they should abandon the “hype train”.^[42] The trailer garnered over 38,000 dislikes on YouTube.

“It’s Better Than Nothing” controversy

When the game was launched, Comcept held a special Livestream hosted by representative Ben Judd to celebrate. During the stream, Inafune respectfully answered questions to fans that participated. However, one answer drew in ire. While translating Inafune’s answers for the stream, Judd claimed that the version of Mighty No. 9 that customers have now is “better than nothing”.^[47] Fans were angered at Inafune for saying such a thing, but closer inspection of Inafune’s dialogue revealed that Judd poorly translated Inafune’s answer.

Fan Art

Despite the postponement of the game’s release, fan artworks based on the concept art shared on Kickstarter can be found on deviantART^[3], pixiv^[11] and Tumblr.^[27]

Search Interest

External References

About

Club Penguin, commonly abbreviated as CP, is a children’s massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by New Horizon Interactive. Using cartoon penguin avatars, players can chat, play mini games and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world. Though a large amount of the game can be played for free, some of features are not available unless a membership is purchased.

History

Experimental Versions

In 2000, RocketSnail Games released the game Experimental Penguins, in which players could interact with each other using penguin avatars. The following year, the game was taken offline. In 2002, Penguin Chat^[1] was released by RocketSnail Games as the successor to Experimental Penguins, which was subsequently followed by Penguin Chat 2 (2003) and Penguin Chat 3 (2005).

Club Penguin

On October 24th, 2005, Club Penguin^[3] was released as a web browser game on the Flash site Miniclip to the general public after a short beta-testing period. In August 2007, Disney bought Club Penguin for $350 million and an additional $350 million in potential bonuses

Shutdown

On January 30th, 2017, Club Penguin^[4] announced that they would be discontinuing Club Penguin game on desktop and mobile devices on March 29th, 2017 and launching a new game, “Club Penguin Island,” for mobile. That day, a thread about the news was posted to /r/bnnedfromclubpenguin^[5] where it gained over 15,500 upvotes. The Daily Dot^[6] also covered the news, giving a rundown of Club Penguin’s long history and it’s relation to memes.

Features

Club Penguin players can interact with each other in a variety of virtual locations navigated with their penguin avatars. The game was designed for children of ages 6 to 14, but players of any age can join the game. Developers employed a number of child safety features to confront this, including an “Ultimate Safe Chat” mode in which users can only select comments from a menu of pre-chosen terms.

Related Memes

Tip The Iceberg

Tip the Iceberg is a Club Penguin game in which players attempt to tip the secret Iceberg location by dancing while wearing a hard hat, miners helmet, construction hat or green hard hat item to make the penguin avatar use a large drill (shown below)

On January 31st, 2017, YouTuber punpun uploaded a video to YouTube of the penguins finally tipping the iceberg, revealing a secret dancefloor.

Club Penguin Bans

Since the game was designed for children, rules prohibit any inappropriate, violent or suggestive themes. If a player breaks the rules, a moderator will ban their account. On February 25th, 2013, the /r/bannedfromclubpenguin^[2] subreddit was launched, featuring screenshots of users being banned from the online game.

Purple Republic

The Purple Republic is a group originating on 4chan’s /v/ board dedicated to raiding Club Penguin servers with purple penguins, similar to the Anonymous “Pool’s Closed” phenomenon associated with Habbo Hotel.

Search Interest

External References

About

Cuck, short for “cuckold,” is a term referring to a man with a female significant other who engages in sexual activities with other men. Online, the term is often used as a pejorative to condescendingly describe a male who is sexually inadequate or sexually submissive.

Origin

The world “cuckold” originated in 1250 in the the satirical poem “The Owl and the Nightingale” and is derived from the cuckoo bird, referring to some species of the animal that practice brood parasitism.^[1] On January 18th, 2007, Urban Dictionary^[2] user feaner submitted an entry for the term “cuck,” defining it as a shortened form of “cuckold.”

Spread

Eron Gjoni

After Eron Gjoni published the Zoe Post expose in August 2014, which detailed the alleged infidelity of his girlfriend Zoe Quinn, many 4chan users began referring to Gjoni as a “cuck.” On August 25th, 2014, Gjoni participated in an AMA thread on the /r/Drama^[3] subreddit, where he discussed being called a “beta cuck” and posted a photoshopped image of Quinn and several men with the caption “Cuck Tales” (shown below).

“It hasn’t changed my views. But it has allowed me to note that both sides are prone to thoughtless vitriol. The difference between SJ circles and say, 4Chan though, is that 4Chan will find amusing ways to call me a beta cuck, whereas SRS will give me a careful nuanced analysis of the greater social context in which I am a beta cuck.”

Louis Cuck King

In October 2014, 4chan users began referring to comedian Louis C.K. as “Louis Cuck King,” accompanied by criticisms of his stand-up routines which some interpreted as being anti-white or promoting cuckoldry. On October 22nd, a 4chan user submitted a post to the /tv/^[5] (television & film) board with a picture of Louis C.K. accompanied by the green text“All white women should try the BBC and fill their wombs with superior PoC seed” (shown below).

Over the next few months, many photoshopped images depicting the comedian as a cuckold began circulating on the site (shown below).

Christopher “Moot” Poole

In December 2014, 8chan and 4chan users began referring to 4chan founder Christopher Poole (a.k.a. “moot”) as a cuck after discovering photographs of a female friend of his with another man. On December 7th, 4chan users reported that the word “cuck” was being redacted from posts on the site’s /pol/ (politics) board.^[4] On December 8th, a composite image featuring photographs of Poole and his friend titled “Moot is a cuck” was submitted to the /r/4chan^[6] subreddit.

Search Interest

References

About

“It’s High Noon” is a memorable quote uttered by the playable hero character McCree when executing his ultimate ability Deadeye in the first-person shooter video game Overwatch.

Origin

In Overwatch, each of the 21 playable characters has an ultimate ability that can be activated once fully charged. When activating McCree’s Deadeye ability, he loudly announces “It’s high noon” while locking on to all enemies within his field of view. If the trigger is pulled after fully locking on to enemy players, they will all be hit with a shot that instantly kills them (shown below).

Spread

On October 29th, 2015, Imgur^[3] user DoctorMacaa submitted a “Good Heavens, Just Look at the Time” parody image featuring McCree (shown below, left). On November 5th, YouTuber vamroth uploaded a clip of McCree earning a “Play of the Game” by killing three enemies with the Deadeye ultimate ability (shown below).

On May 19th, 2016, Tumblr user dandycalamity^[1] uploaded a webcomic in which McCree reads a watch with the words “high noon” repeated across the surface (shown below). Over the next two weeks, the post gained over 20,000 notes. On May 24th, Redditor Evillisa submitted the comic to /r/Overwatch,^[2] where it received more than 6,100 votes (91% upvoted) and 200 comments in one week.

On May 29th, YouTuber TheBetamanique uploaded a YouTube-poop style video featuring a music remix of McCree singing “It’s High Noon” (shown below, left). The same day, YouTuber Bartol Babich uploaded a “When I’m Bored” remix featuring a montage of McCree clips (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

“Send Nudes” is an expression used to request sexually explicit photographs from someone via various forms of communication, including web based services and text message. Online, the phrase is often referenced as an unexpected punchline in images and videos, and has circulated on the Brazilian web with the Portuguese translation “manda nudes.”

Origin

On March 4th, 2005, Urban Dictionary^[11] user madmaxxx submitted an entry for “nudes,” noting that internet users will often request nude photographs with phrases like “n00dz plz.”

On February 12th, 2008, Flickr^[12] user Allen posted a photoshopped picture of a kitten with a gun held to his head with the caption “Send Nudes Or I Shoot The Fucking Cat” (shown below).

Spread

On February 19th, 2014, Redditor hubble_butt submitted a stock photo of two children talking through tin cans with the caption “Send the nudes bitch” (shown below, left). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 2,200 votes (96% upvoted) on the /r/youdontsurf subreddit.^[7] On April 9th, Redditor Hailz__ posted a chat conversation in which a picture of a blue-faced woman with no torso is sent to a person requesting nudes, garnering upwards of 2,900 votes (97% upvoted) and 50 comments before it was archived on /r/creepyPMs^[10] (shown below, right).^[10]

On September 20th, 2016, Redditor ThreadlessJon submitted a screenshot of a chat conversation in which a man asks a religious woman to provide nude photographs or “ignore if you love Satan” to /r/BlackPeopleTwitter,^[9] where it received more than 3,600 votes (96% upvoted) in two months (shown below).

On November 21st, Instagram user carteltwins posted a video in which a person is shown attempting to use chopsticks before panning over to the phrase “send nudes” written in noodles (shown below). Within one week, the video accumulated upwards of 31,000 views and 300 comments.

On November 29th, Redditor spitonem uploaded an animation of a Linerider video game level that spells out the phrase “send nudes” to /r/gifs, where it garnered more than 8,800 votes (86% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in 24 hours (shown below). That day, the /r/send_nudes^[8] subreddit was launched, describing itself as a “safe for work subreddit for posting gifs and images requesting nudes in an elaborate/unexpected way.” Within 24 hours, the subreddit gained over 4,800 subscribers.

Also on November 29th, the @BuzzFeedVideo Twitter feed posted a short clip of a brush being dropped on the floor next to the words “send nudes” spelled out in make-up products (shown below).

Manda Nudes

On March 11th, 2015, the Manda Nude (“send nude” in English) Tumblr^[1] blog was launched, featuring various company logos photoshopped with the Portuguese phrase “Manda Nudes” (shown below)

Comparison between original logo / Manda Nudes version

On March 19th, the Brazilian blog Não Salvo^[2] highlighted several “manda nudes” photoshops. On May 4th, 2015, YouTuber Luz, Camera, Revolucao! uploaded an edited Marvel Comics intro sequence edited with “Manda Nudes” over the company logo (shown below, left). On June 24th, YouTuber Arthur Brito uploaded a video of a PlayStation start-up screen displaying the words “Manda Nudes” (shown below, right).

On August 17th, 2016, the creative studio Nelson Cash tweeted a list of the top keywords submitted to their Make It Stranger generator, which included “manda nudes”, “butt stuff” and “rip harambe” (shown below).^[13]

Multitap Sequence

In December 2016, Twitter users began tweeting 7777 33 66 3 66 88 3 33 7777, a numeric sequence that translates to “send nudes” in multi-tap text messaging, as a throwback to the early days of mobile texting before the arrival of touch-screen keyboards. Throughout January and February 2017, dozens of messages bearing the multi-tap sequence surfaced on Twitter^[14] and Reddit^[16], many of which were accompanied by comments in the vein of age test and “only 90s kids know” jokes.

Search Interest

External References

About

Milo Yiannopoulos is a British journalist who is an technology editor at the conservative news and opinion site Breitbart. He has gained much notoriety online for frequently covering the Gamergate controversy and for being an outspoken critic of third-wave feminism.

History

In May 2007, Yiannopoulos launched the @Nero^[5] Twitter feed, gaining over 162,000 followers over the next eight years. In November 2011, Yiannopoulos launched the online tabloid magazine The Kernel along with friends David Rosenberg and David Haywood Smith, journalist Stephen Pritchard and former Telegraph employee Adrian McShane. The magazine was subsequently closed in 2013 and was purchased by The Daily Dot in 2014.

Gamergate Coverage

On September 1st, 2014, Breitbart published an article by Yiannopoulos titled “Feminist Bullies Tearing the Video Game Industry Apart,” which criticized the politicization of video game culture and video game developer Zoe Quinn. That month, Yiannopoulos wrote several articles about a private Google group mailing list titled “GameJournoPros,” purportedly used by gaming journalists cooperating to work against GamerGate.^[2][3][4] In December, Yiannopoulos announced he was working on a book about the Gamergate controversy. On September 30th, 2015, Yiannopoulos appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he discussed a variety of issues, including Gamergate, homosexuality, religion and feminism (shown below).

Sky News Appearances

Yiannopoulos is a frequent guest on the British news station Sky News. On June 16th, 2015, YouTuber Captain Nemo uploaded footage of Yiannopoulos defending Nobel Prize-winning British biochemist Tim Hunt (shown below, left). On July 29th, YouTuber Captain Nemo uploaded a Sky News segment in which Yiannopoulos debates the issues body shaming and fat acceptance (shown below, right).

University of Manchester Debate

On October 6th, 2015, Yiannopoulos and Guardian journalist Julie Bindel were banned from appearing at an upcoming debate titled “From liberation to censorship: Does modern feminism have a problem with free speech?” at the University of Manchester. In an announcement from the University of Manchester’s Students’ Union, Bindel, a second-wave feminist, had been barred from the debate for her “views and comments towards trans people” which violated the school’s “safe space policy.”^[6] The ban was subseqeuntly extended to Yiannopoulos for “comments lambasting rape survivors and trans people.”

#JeSuisMilo

On January 8th, 2016, Yiannopoulos tweeted a screenshot of an email from Twitter informing him that his verified badge had been removed “due to recent violations of Twitter Rules” (shown below).^[7] Within 48 hours the tweet gained over 2,100 likes and 1,600 retweets.

Yiannopoulos subsequently claimed Twitter did not explain which rule he had violated and speculated he was being punished for being an outspoken conservative. To protest the badge removal, Twitter users began changing their profile pictures to photographs of Yiannopoulos and posting the hashtag #JeSuisMilo,^[8] in reference to the French slogan “Je Suis Charlie”. That day, the hashtag was the #1 trending topic in the United States and #3 worldwide. Meanwhile, Twitter executive Nathan Hubbard posted a tweet speculating that the badge removal may have been a reaction to complaints that Yiannopoulos was “encouraging harassment” (shown below). The following day, Yiannopoulos disputed the complaint, claiming he told a friend “you deserve to be harassed” as a joke (shown below, right).^[14]

Also on January 9th, several news sites published articles about the controversy, including The Blaze,^[10] BuzzFeed,^[11] Breitbart^[12] and Twitchy.^[13]

#FreeMilo

On July 19th, 2016, Twitter suspended Yiannopoulos’ account following a campaign that Twitter alleges he led to tweet racist and sexist things towards Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones. It appears that Twitter, notorious for its inability to effectively deal with trolls, made the move in an effort to show it is cracking down on harassment, noting that they had suspended Yiannopoulos not for the offensive content of his tweets, but for violating Twitter’s rules^[21] regarding the harassment of individuals. A screenshot of the full statement Twitter gave to Buzzfeed^[15] is below.

In a statement on Breitbart^[16], Yiannopoulos called the suspension “cowardly” and declared “This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.”

Yiannopoulos’s suspension prompted the #FreeMilo hashtag to trend nationwide on Twitter.^[17] Conservative supporters have used the hashtag to argue that the suspension is an indication of a left-leaning double standard on Twitter; others have used the hashtag to troll.^[18]

On July 20th, 2016 news outlets including Buzzfeed, The New York Times,^[19] and Fusion^[20] picked up the story.

Book Deal

On December 29th, Yiannopoulos announced his upcoming autobiographical book Dangerous,^[23] set for release in March 2017. That day, The Hollywood Reporter published an article revealing that Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions gave Yiannopoulos a $250,000 advance for the book, including a statement from the author:

“They said banning me from Twitter would finish me off. Just as I predicted, the opposite has happened. Did it hurt Madonna being banned from MTV in the 1990s? Did all that negative press hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning the election?”

That day, the Chicago Review of Books tweeted they would abstain from covering a single Simon & Schuster book for the rest of 2017 in protest of Yiannopoulos’ book, referring to it as a “disgusting validation of hate” (shown below, left). Meanwhile, comedian Sarah Silverman posted a tweet denouncing the publishing company for giving Yiannopoulos a “platform” (shown below, right).

That day, Yiannopoulos became a trending topic on both Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, Yiannopoulos posted a response to the online backlash, stating “your impotent fury heats my pool” (shown below, left). On December 30th, a large influx of preorders caused Dangerous to become the top selling book on Amazon (shown below, right).^[22]

UC Berkeley Protest

Full Article: 2017 Milo Yiannopoulos UC Berkeley Protest

In early February of 2017, Yiannopoulos was scheduled to hold a talk to the students of UC Berkeley, when a large group of protesters arrived to the student union building and begun to tear down metal barricades, smash windows and set fires outside of the building. The protest gained heavy controversy.

Pedastry Controversy

On February 19th, 2017, the @ReaganBattalion Twitter feed posted a video from an episode of the Drunken Peasants podcast in which Yiannopoulos seemingly defends sexual relationships between adult men and teenage boys when discussing age of consent ideas as “arbitrary and oppressive” (shown below).

On February 20th, Fox News contributor Guy Benson tweeted that Yiannopoulos had been disinvited from speaking at the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).^[24] Meanwhile, Yiannopoulos published a post condemning pedophilia and “adults who sexually abuse minors,” as well as claiming he was a “child abuse victim” (shown below).

That day, Simon & Schuster spokesperson Adam Rothberg tweeted that the publisher had cancelled Dangerous“after careful consideration” (shown below).^[23] Also on February 20th, Fox Business reported that there was “fierce debate” inside Breitbart regarding Yiannopoulos’ employment at the company.^[25]

Following the cancellation, screenshots of a 4chan thread began circulating in which a poster claimed to be part of a mainstream media email list, and that journalists had planned to “destroy” Yiannopoulos career by depicting him as a pedophile.^[26]

Resignation from Breitbart

On February 21st, Yiannopoulos released a statement that he would be resigning from Breitbart and that the decision “mine alone” prior to holding a press conference regarding the controversy:

Search Interest

External References

About

iDubbbz is the YouTube handle of Ian Carter, an American vlogger and social media critic best known for his Kickstarter Crap and Content Cop web series. In addition to producing original video content, iDubbbz has made guest appearances in collaboration with other YouTube personalities, most notably Filthy Frank and Maxmoefoe.

Online History

On August 30th, 2012, iDubbbz posted the first video to the iDubbbzTV YouTube channel, in which he is shown playing the game Overgrowth. In the beginning of his YouTube career, iDubbbz built his audience base through a series of Let’s Play-style walkthroughs and video game commentaries, before shifting his focus to more in-depth commentaries on social media trends and analysis of YouTube’s vlogging subculture with the launch of Kickstarter Crap in March 2013, followed by the premiere of Content Cop in December 2015. Many of his early videos have since been removed from the channel. As of February 2017, iDubbbzTV has more than 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube.

Highlights

Kickstarter Crap

Kickstarter Crap is a web series in which iDubbbz mocks and criticizes a variety of poorly conceived campaigns and projects found on the online crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. He later launched the spin-off series Indiegogo Excrement, investigating similar crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo.

Content Cop

Content Cop is a satirical web series in which iDubbbz offers his criticism and honest review of popular channels and content creators on YouTube. Each episode of Content Cop opens with a comedy sketch of iDubbbz dressed in a police uniform chasing after and bringing down a suspect, before cutting to iDubbbz’ production studio where he rants about the YouTube content creator in question at length. Since its premiere on December 13th, 2015, which featured a review of YouTube reaction vlogger Jinx (shown below), iDubbbz has released a total of ten Content Cop episodes on several celebrity vloggers, including Leafy, Keemstar and The Fine Bros, as well as popular subgenres of original video content on YouTube, such as hidden camera pranking, unboxing and other consumer product reviewers. As of February 2017, Content Cop has accrued nearly 64 million views in aggregate.

Bad Unboxing

Bad Unboxing is a web series in which iDubbbz parodies the genre of unboxing videos by opening and reviewing a variety of monthly subscription-based products, as well as miscellaneous gifts and mails sent from his fans. The series premiered on August 6th, 2014 with the pilot episode on a box of sample toothbrushes (shown below).

Reputation

iDubbbz’ stage persona and style of humor has been celebrated by his fans as provocative, ironic and highly satirical, while his critics have slammed his frequent use of racial and homophobic slurs for comedy as lowbrow and offensive. For more context, please refer to the sections below.

Controversies

Feud with Leafy

On September 12th, 2016, iDubbbz released an episode of Content Cop in which he roasts the popular YouTube vlogger Leafy for having a “weak chin” complex, speculating that Leafy seems to be trying to hide the lower end of his face when posing for photographs (shown below). Within 48 hours, the video gathered upwards of 4.9 million views and 120,000 comments. In the following days, Leafy began to lose his subscribers en mass at a rapid rate, presumably as a result of iDubbbz’ Content Cop episode. Eventually, iDubbbz tweeted a message chastising his subscribers for unsubscribing from Leafy’s channel using the hashtag #WeLoveYouCalvin.

Feud with Tana Mongeau

Note: This section contains uncensored references to a racial slur; viewer discretion advised.

On December 10th, 2016, YouTube vlogger Tana Mongeau posted a series of tweets slamming iDubbbz for using the “n-word” and “retard” in his videos. (shown below).

While iDubbbz didn’t publicly acknowledge her criticism, he responded by staging an elaborate stunt wherein he traveled to San Francisco to attend a VIP meet-and-greet event with Mongeau, during which he approached the celebrity vlogger for a photograph and blurted out “say nigger!” (shown below, left). iDubbbz was promptly kicked out of the event. The prank was also recorded on camera by his girlfriend and fellow vlogger Raihnbowkidz), which was eventually posted to iDubbbz’ secondary channel in early February (shown below, right).

On January 24th, 2017, Mongeau, unaware of the identity of the prankster, recounted her unpleasant encounter with a mysterious intruder at her event in a video titled “The N Word” (shown below). Within 24 hours, the video racked up more than 1.2 million views. Meanwhile, some of her fans began sleuthing online in order to identify the agent provocateur, which ultimately resulted in the exposure of iDubbbz’ involvement.

However, the tide of the feud took an unexpected and drastic turn later that same day, when a video clip of Mongeau aggressively yelling the phrase “you fucking nigger” surfaced on YouTube (shown below, left). On January 26th, YouTube personality Philip DeFranco uploaded a video to share his thoughts on the controversy (shown below, right). On January 27th, Redditor Filterg submitted a post chronicling several times Mongeau had used the slur in the past to /r/idubbbz.^[3]

On February 6th, iDubbbz released a new Content Cop episode criticizing Mongeau’s video for exaggerating their encounter in San Francisco, as well as her use of the same racial slur in the past (shown below, left). Within 24 hours, the video gained over 3.5 million views and 158,000 comments. Same day, Redditor AsianWithGlasses submitted the Content Cop video to /r/videos,^[4] where it gained over 174,000 votes (66% upvoted) and 7,100 comments within 24 hours.

In response to the revelations about her own past, Mongeau tweeted that she had “made a lot of mistakes” and “an apology will be coming soon” (shown below).

Related Memes

“Hey! That’s Pretty Good”

Hey! That’s Pretty Good is a reaction image of YouTuber iDubbbz, from the video “Dumbass Gets PewDiePie Tattoo,” which was uploaded on the Filthy Frank channel.

“I’m Gay”

“I’m Gay” refers to a memorable quote uttered by iDubbbz while jumping off a table in a video uploaded by MaxMoeFoe in mid May 2016. The scene has been widely used in various remixes on the YouTube and Vine, often paired with clips of people falling to the ground.

“I Have Crippling Depression”

“I Have Crippling Depression” is a memorable quote from iDubbbz’ “Disabled Pokemon Go – Eevee + Zubat” video (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Toby Joe Turner, better known by his YouTube handle Tobuscus, is an American comedian and vlogger who produces and hosts a variety of online video content, including comedy skits, gaming reviews and the daily vlog series LazyVlogs.

Online History

On June 23rd, 2006, Turner uploaded his first video to the Tobuscus channel,^[14] featuring a comedy sketch in which he uses a time manipulating remote control during a game of poker (shown below). Over the next 10 years, the video received upwards of 870,000 views and 5,600 comments.

In 2008, Turner moved to Los Angeles, California. On January 23rd, 2010, the romantic comedy film New Low was released, in which Turner plays a stand-up comedian named Dave (shown below).

Literal Trailers

On December 8th, 2009, Turner uploaded the first in his Literal Trailers series, featuring a parody song about the film Clash of the Titans (shown below). In seven years, the video gathered more than 4.2 million views and 5,800 comments.

LazyVlogs

On August 11th, 2010, Turner began his “LazyVlog” series on the TobyTurner YouTube channel, where he documents his daily life activities (shown below, left). On July 31st, 2011, TobyTurner uploaded a video featuring children from The Fine Brothers’“Kids React” series at the annual VidCon conference as a LazyVlog, which gathered upwards of 1.6 million views and 6,800 comments in the next five years (shown below, right).

In one of his LazyVlogs, Turner revealed that the name “Tobuscus” was given by his friend Lance while they were performing in a play together (shown below).

TobyGames

In July 2010, Turner launched the TobyGames YouTube channel, featuring footage of Turner playing and reviewing various video games. Over the next six years, the channel received more than 1.9 billion views and 6.8 million subscribers.

Games Featured

Minecraft

On September 22, 2011 Toby uploaded his first Minecraft video titled “Minecraft – BROTHERPIG– Part 1” to TobyGames, which subsequently became his longest running and most popular playthrough. On November 19th, 2011, Turner uploaded a video featuring the Mincraft Enderman, which gained over 7.8 million views and 14,800 comments in the next five years.

CuteWinFail

In September, 2010, Turner launched the cutewinfail^[5] channel, which features various videos placed under the categories “cute,” “win” or “fail.” As of April 2016, the channel has accumulated upwards of 64 million video views and 229,700 subscribers.

Appearances in Other Popular Media

Turner has appeared in the "Annoying Orange ":http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-annoying-orangecartoon aired on Cartoon network as the scientist named Nerville (Shown below, left) and in various commercials, including an ad for the food Hot Pockets (shown below, right).

Tobuscus Adventures: The Game

On May 21st, 2013, Turner announced the release of the mobile game Tobuscus Adventures^[13], featuring Turner as a wizard character in a world populated by zombies (shown below).

Quotes and Catchphrases

“Black, Red and White”

At the beginning and end of each LazyVlog, Turner will often place his finger of over the lens of his camera in order to cause the camera feed to go black and red as he slowly removes his finger, then white as the camera readjusts to the ambient light. This method effectively gives Toby an “Intro of Darkness, then Redness, then Whiteness!”, a phrase which he commonly adapts depending on the surroundings and kind of video. Additionally, the colors black, red, and white have been made Toby’s “colors”.^[8]

“HotHotHotHotHot”

Turner frequently utters the words “hot hot hot” in succession when encountering an attractive woman.^[9]

“Roll the Next Clip Steven!”

Steven is Turner’s imaginary employee who he constantly orders to “roll the next clip” in CuteWinFail videos. This phrase has since been adopted by fans reacting to Turner’s videos in comment sections.

Badadododododododododo SUBSCRIBE!

At the end of his daily LazyVlogs, Turner is known to sign off by saying “Badadododododododo SUBSCRIBE.”

Gaming catchphrases

Turner’s gaming videos also feature several specific catchphrases. Every video almost always starts with “Hello once again, Audience!” and ends with “I gotta pause it. Thanks for watching! Click adnotation on the top right to watch next video. Bless your face. If you sneezed during this video bless you. Peace off. Boop!”.
For more situational quotes, Toby is known to scream “God dangit!” when he fails or dies in the game:

Controversies

Rape Allegations

On April 8th, 2016, vlogger AprilEfff published a blog post on Tumblr^[20] accusing Turner of emotional, physical and sexual abuse while they had dated several years prior. In the post, she claims Turner emotionally manipulated her for years and drugged her with MDMA at one point. That day, YouTuber DJ Keemstar uploaded a video to the DramaAlert YouTube channel about the controversy, featuring a reading of AprilEfff’s post (shown below, left). Also that Day, YouTuber Amelia Talon uploaded a video titled “The Toby Turner story – Standing with April,” in which she tells several anecdotes about Turner pressuring her into doing “weed” and “molly.”^[21] The video was subsequently made private.

On April 9th, Turner’s ex-girlfriend and fellow vlogger Jaclyn Glenn uploaded a video titled “Toby Turner Rape Allegations,” in which she revealed that while Turner was a terrible boyfriend, she didn’t believe he was a criminal or rapist (shown below, left). On April 9th, YouTuber Pyrocynical posted a video titled “Keemstar and Tobuscus Rant,” which encouraged people to not jump to conclusions without adequate evidence, criticized the use social media in lieu of law enforcement and derided herd mentality on the internet (shown below, right).

On April 11th, Turner posted a video titled “The Truth,” in which he calls the allegations “false” and says he never did anything “without her consent” (shown below, left). The same day, YouTuber Philip DeFranco posted a video about the controversy, in which he reveals that while he thinks Turner is likely abusive a drug addict, he isn’t sure if he is a rapist (shown below, right).

Also on April 11th, YouTuber Melanie Murphy posted a video titled “Sexual Consent & MY Time With Toby,” in which she revealed that while her relationship with Turner was “toxic and destructive” and that he cheated on her, she was never abused or raped (shown below).

Search Interest

External Refernces

About

Douglas Darien “Doug” Walker, born November 17, 1981,(widely known for creation “The Nostalgia Critic”) is an internet personality, and one of the main reviewers and co-founder of reviewing site That Guy With The Glasses.

Online History

Doug Walker first gained notoriety on YouTube, where he started The Nostalgia Critic and 5 Second Movies. However, shortly after, his videos garnered complaints from companies such as 20th Century Fox and Lions Gate over copyright Infringement. Despite Walker explaining his videos were satirical, and thus protected by the United States First Amendment^[1], YouTube took the videos down anyway. In April 2008, Walker created his own site named That Guy With The Glasses, as a means to escape YouTube deleting the videos. As of June 2008, all of Walker’s videos were taken off YouTube.

Reputation

When Walker first started making videos, he garnered a giant fanbase for both 5 second videos and Nostalgia Critic. The Nostalgia Critic has received high praise from critics and audiences. The show averages 100,000 to 200,000 viewers per week. In the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year alone, the series generated $54,000 in income from its advertising. This income allowed Walker to quit his previous job as an illustrator and to create web television professionally.
The series and character gained increased fame from a fictional feud between the Critic and fellow web reviewer character The Angry Video Game Nerd (played by James Rolfe). This began with the Critic launching a satirical attack in an early video. The feud took place over many videos in 2008–09. The two characters, and real-life comedians, are now the best of friends. Walker has informed viewers of Rolfe’s projects, and Rolfe has contributed to some of the Critic’s subsequent videos, such as the Voice in Suburban Knights, an attacker in his review of Ponyo for the 200th episode of the Nostalgia Critic, and a masked alien in To Boldly Flee. Walker posted on his Twitter account that he will make a cameo appearance in Rolfe’s Angry Video Game Nerd film adaptation.
This carried on for a few years, until his fanbase started to decrease, with many saying that the videos were starting to get boring, and filled with mindless yelling. This unpopularity reached it’s peak when Walker released a Let’s Play of Bart’s Nightmare^[2]. Many fans saw this as his worst video, and became infamous in the Let’s Play community, with Slowbeef^[3], the original creator of Let’s Play, tearing apart the video and the Nostalgia Critic^[4]. This led Walker to spend the first part of his James and the Giant Peach review^[5] apologizing.

The Nostalgia Critic

The Nostalgia Critic is Walker’s most famous character, and one of the sites most watched series. He is a reviewer who reviews old nostalgic movies and tv shows from the 80’s and 90’s. The critic grew in popularity after a fictional feud with the Angry Video Game Nerd, which took place through many episodes, ending with the two, as well as other TGWTG reviewers, having a group fight for the site’s first anniversary.

Feud with Wiseau films

On July 13 2010, Walker released a Nostalgia Critic review of cult film The Room, to positive feedback. However, soon afterwards, The compny behind The Room, Wiseau films, complained about Copyright Infringement and got the video taken down. In response to this, Doug created a video poking fun at Wiseau films on 20 July. Soon, the original video was put back up, and as of September 2012, has not been taken down.

The “Death” and Return of the Nostalgia Critic

On August 23 2012, Walker released the 1st part of the sites fourth anniversary special, To Boldly Flee, in which The Critic as well as other reviewers from the site, set out to try and save Ma-Ti, a character from the 90’s cartoon, Captain Planet^[6]. The final part was released on September 13, in which the Nostalgia Critic sacrifices himself to save the world. This lead to many fans speculating to whether or not this meant the end of the Nostalgia Critic. A day after, on September 14, Walker released a video stating that there would no longer be weekly episodes of the Nostalgia Critic (even though the Critic may still appear in future specials) and Walker would be moving on to make other series.

On January 22, 2013, a video titled The Review Must Go On announced the return of the Nostalgia Critic. The video serves as a followup to To Boldly Flee and a conclusion to Demo Reel, his then current and biggest project. It revealed that the Demo Reel show was a Purgatory for the character, with Donnie being the Nostalgia Critic reincarnated, to help him recognize the feelings of being ridiculed. At the end Donnie was restored to the Critic persona, resulting in the Demo Reel world to be merged with the Plot Hole. The video was framed by a fictionalized version of Walker having a writer’s block and pondering whether to revive The Nostalgia Critic after watching The Odd Life of Timothy Green and finds himself ranting about it like the Critic.

The schedule is changed to two weeks to provide Walker more time to work on his review. Also, the Nostalgia Critic is now reviewing newer movies more often so long as they are not currently playing in theaters and available on DVD or any other releasable forms so that he can get the footage needed. The official return of the Nostalgia Critic was announced and debuted on February 5, 2013 with the first episode being The Odd Life of Timothy Green. In addition, Walker’s Demo Reel costars, Malcolm Ray and Rachel Tietz, joined the cast for sketches throughout the review.

5 Second Videos

5 Second Videos, is a video blog in which Walker attempts to explain different movies in a short amount of time. 5 Second Videos was one of the two series which walker started on YouTube, with the other one being Nostalgia Critic. This meant that the majority of videos were taken down due to copyright infringement. In 2008, Walker discontinued the series, due to concerns the series would become stale. Despite this, other site reviewers continued the series with their own versions.

Ask That Guy With The Glasses

Ask That Guy With The Glasses, or known simply as Ask That Guy, is a show with centers around the titular character, played by Walker. In it he’s presented with questions send by fans, read by a narrator. He then proceeds to respond with the most sick and spiteful answers possible.This often reveals horrifying and downright disturbing facts about various aspects of his life.

Bum Reviews

Bum Reviews is a series in which Walker plays Chester A. Bum, a tramp who reviews recent movies in a fast style, similar to the Nostalgia Critic’s review of Transformers. The first review was released in May 2008, and starting with the Thor review, Walker releases a separate video detailing his real opinions of the films. That segment evolved eventually into Sibling Rivalry, a show in which he discusses the films together with his brother, Rob Walker.

Demo Reel

Demo Reel was Doug Walker’s main project after finishing the Nostalgia Critic. It is notable for being filmed in a proper studio, rather than Walker’s basement as the Nostalgia Critic was. The show began on October 30, 2012 with a parody of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films.
The story revolves around Donnie DuPre (played by Walker), the founder of an independent film studio called “Demo Reel”, who believes he can not only remake famous movies, but also make them better with a shoestring budget.
Doug Walker described it as his personal dream project. Demo Reel, while still poking fun at movies and Hollywood in general, was a far more darker and character-driven show than the Nostalgia Critic. Unfortunately, the fans were very polarized about it, praising some funny jokes and character development but criticizing the pacing issues and lack of focus. This, in turn, resulted with Demo Reel ending with the return of the Nostalgia Critic.

How to be a Pirate

How to Be a Pirate was a show by Doug Walker that debuted on the site on October 21st, 2010. In it, a pirate named Black Dog Bill (who’s real name is Howard) tells the viewers proper use and stories about certain aspect’s of a pirate clothing and accessories. As the video progresses, he attempts asking the patrons of the bar he at which he shoots the video their opinions on certain matters. When they refuse to socialize with him, Black Dog Bill tells the audience a bit of gossip about said patron. Every video ends with Black Dog Bill telling the people stories of Blood Beard Joe, a legendary pirate famed for impossible feats.
Doug has admitted that the reason for creating this show was to build up a role that Black Dog Bill would play in the original idea for the 3rd Year anniversary, then called Ninjas vs Pirates, before it eventually became Suburban Knights.

Merry Zodmas

Merry Zodmas was a show where Doug dresses up like Terrance Stamp’s General Zod from Superman II. The show showed up in time for Christmas 2010 and has Zod analyze certain aspects of the holiday season, like snowmen and gifts.

Video Game Confessions

In this show Walker plays the role of Dominic the Bartender, who retells stories he has heard from patrons at the “Pixel Palace”. The clientele are usually the classic video gaming elite such as Mario, Sonic, Samus etc.. The video game characters tell Dominic the story and he retells them, usually drawing what was happening in the story. The first episode aired April 7th, 2009.

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Wikipedia – First Amendment to the United States Constitution

^[2]That Guy With The Glasses – Let’s Play Bart’s Nightmare

^[3]YouTube – Slowbeef’s Channel

^[4]Blip – Retsupurae vs the Nostalgia Critic

^[5]That Guy with the Glasses – James and the Giant Peach review

^[6]Wikipedia – Captain Planet

About

Morgan Freeman is an award-winning actor, director and narrator known for his appearances in several famous films, including Unforgiven, Seven, Bruce Almighty, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and for lending his voice as the narrator in documentaries such as March of the Penguins. Due to his signature speaking voice, Freeman is often impersonated in YouTube videos and referenced in Read This in My Voice images.

Online History

Read This in Freeman’s Voice

On August 13th, 2008, the webcomic Xkcd published a comic joking about a satirical condition known as “Freeman Paracusia,” which causes the sufferer to read everything in Morgan Freeman’s voice (shown below).

On February 8th, 2009, a Facebook^[2] page titled “Morgan Freeman’s Voice” was launched, gaining more than 968,000 likes in the first four years. Freeman’s voice soon became a staple choice in the popular imageboard game read this in my voice that first emerged in May 2009. On May 17th, 2011, a new Facebook^[1] page titled “Morgan Freeman” was created, which received over 2.7 million likes in the next two years. On January 31st, 2013, TV Tropes^[7] user TrollBrutal submitted an entry for Morgan Freeman.

Impersonations

On September 20th, 2012, YouTuber SeaNanners uploaded footage from a session of the Half Life 2 modded game The Hidden, in which he recorded GassyMexican, one of the other players on his server, impersonating Morgan Freeman while hunting his enemies (shown below). Within the first seven months, the video gained more than 7.6 million views and 16,400 comments.

On January 10th, 2013, online performance artist Ze Frank uploaded a video to his YouTube channel titled “True Facts About Morgan Freeman,” in which Frank lists several satirical factoids about the actor read in his signature baritone voice (shown below). Within three months, the video received over 2.1 million views and 4,400 comments.

Other YouTubers have uploaded videos featuring notable impersonations of the actor, many of which feature dramatic readings of humorous material.

“Titty Sprinkles”

In Season 11 Episode 8 of the animated television series South Park, originally aired on October 3rd, 2007, the character Cartman fakes having Tourette’s syndrome in order to say whatever he wants without consequences. While speaking in front of an audience, Cartman concludes his monologue by saying the phrase “titty sprinkles” (shown below).

On January 19th, 2012, Redditor assblaster7 submitted a photograph of Morgan Freeman accompanied by a fake quote ending with the phrase “titty sprinkles” (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained upwards of 14,500 up votes and 500 comments.

On April 15th, a Facebook^[11] page titled “Titty Sprinkles” was created, which accumulated more than 83,000 likes in the following year. On September 4th, YouTuber Robert Thompson uploaded a video of himself impersonating Morgan Freeman’s voice by reading the copypasta from Redditor assblaster7’s image macro. Within seven months, the video received over 772,000 views and 770 comments.

Fake Twitter Accounts

Several unverified Twitter accounts have been created claiming to be Morgan Freeman, including @TheRealMorganF,^[3] @Morrgan_Freeman,^[4] @realmorgan^[5] and @MorganFreeman_^[6]. On August 12th, 2012, the now-defunct fake account @MorgonFreeman tweeted a statement about the word “homophobia” (shown below), which became misattributed to the actor according to the hoax investigation site Snopes.^[10]

Reputation

AMA Controversy on Reddit

On April 11th, 2013, Morgan Freeman purportedly participated in an “ask me anything” (AMA) thread on the /r/IAmA^[8] subreddit under the handle “OblivionMovie.” Many Redditors suspected that the AMA was actually being handled by the public relations team for the upcoming science fiction film Oblivion, in which Morgan Freeman appears as the resistance leader Malcolm Beech. For verification, the OblivionMovie account posted a photograph of Freeman sleeping on a couch with a sign that read “Hi Reddit / This is Morgan Freeman” (shown below).

Redditor amf13 commented^[9] that the picture appeared to be photoshopped and that the sleeping photo felt like a “slap in the face.” On the following day, Redditor kingleo1 posted a YouTube video titled “Morgan Freeman’s Reddit AMA Was a Fraud! Proof!” to the /r/videos^[12] subreddit, which featured an amateur photographic analysis of the verification photo (shown below). Within six days, the post received over 33,600 up votes and 3,500 comments and the video received more than 830,000 views and 1,150 comments.

In the following 24 hours, many image macros and photoshopped pictures joking about the AMA began circulating on the social news site, including examples using Futurama Fry (shown below, left) and Matrix Morpheus (shown below, middle).

Search Interest

External References

About

Ken Bone is a man who asked a question during the second 2016 United States Presidential Election Debate, which had a town hall format in which selected undecided voters ask questions directly to the candidates. Bone asked a question about the candidates’ energy policies, but because of his name and appearance, he immediately became popular on social media as users joked about him and engaged in ironic fandom.

Origin

Towards the end of the second presidential debate of the 2016 United States Presidential Election, moderator Anderson Cooper called upon Bone, who asked a question regarding the energy policies of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Spread

Immediately after his question, social media users, particularly on Twitter, began sharing posts in joke-adoration of Kenneth Bone.

Within an hour of the debate’s end, New York Magazine’s internet-focused blog Select All^[1] wrote a piece devoted to the popularity of Ken Bone on Twitter. Other major news sites including CNN,^[2] Daily Dot,^[3] and Business Insider^[4] immediately covered Bone’s rise to internet stardom. CNN theorized Bone grew popular because of his red cardigan and glasses, and Daily Dot theorized it was because of his suggestive last name, mustache, and gentle aura.

Various Examples

Parody Accounts

Bone’s Twitter account^[5] quickly gained over 1,000 followers as he responded to his surge in popularity. For example, responding to one Twitter user who theorized “Ken Bone probably has a hot wife,” Bone wrote, “Yeah he does,” in a tweet that has gained over 1,900 retweets and 2,500 favorites.

A parody Twitter account for Ken Bone, @TheKenBone,^[6] launched and gained over 65,000 followers in one day. On Facebook, Ken Bone was a trending topic the following morning, and a Kenneth Bone fan page^[7] gained over 4,500 followers overnight.

Post-Debate Footage

Additional footage of Bone on the set after the conclusion of the debate further boosted his popularity, particularly videos of him interacting with former President Bill Clinton and taking photographs with a disposable camera.

Pants-Splitting Story

The following day, Bone appeared on CNN and explained that the popular red sweater he wore was his backup plan. He initially was going to wear an olive suit, but when he was getting in his car to travel to the debate, he split the seat of his pants open.

Media Appearances

On October 10th, Bone appeared on several political talk shows, where he talked about his sudden fame and whether he had decided who he would vote for. He also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live (below, left), and was the topic of the following night’s opening segment on The Daily Show (below, right).

CamSoda Request

On October 10th, adult site CamSoda issued an offer to Bone of $100,000 and 25 disposable cameras to talk on their site for one hour. In a letter, they did not explicitly state that Bone would have to participate in pornographic activities, but they did mention they hoped he would take viewers to “The Bone Zone.”^[8]

Merchandise

Online retailer Redbubble created dozens of products featuring Bone, including shirts, pillows, and stickers.^[9] Yandy.com^[10] created a “Sexy Ken Bone” halloween costume that they priced at $100 and it sold out within a day.

Reddit AMA

On October 13th, Bone participated in a RedditAMA.^[11] He participated in the event using his regular reddit screen name, “StanGibson18,” prompting users to dig into his comment history. They found comments left by Bone regarding how he looked at Jennifer Lawrence’s leaked Fappening nudes, his thoughts on Trayvon Martin’s Death, and Power Rangers.

The fact Bone was shown to frequent adult websites and leave commentary drew some backlash, and was covered by Uproxx,^[12] Gizmodo,^[13] The Daily Beast.^[14]

Search Interest

External References

Overview

2014 4chan-Tumblr Raids were a series of back-and-forth spamming and other hostile acts carried out by sites Tumblr and 4chan against each other in early July 2014.

Background

On June 9th, 2014, Tumblr blog shutdown4chan^[1] posted a slide outlining a plan to carry out a raid on 4chan during the American Independence Day on the 4th of July. The post condemned the image board community as “racist, misogynistic and pure evil” and revealed that the goal of the mission was to shut down the site. It has been since rumored that the blog post might have been originally created by 4chan’s /pol/ board to trigger the war in the first place.

During the raid day, several posts attributed to the social justice blogosphere on Tumblr were made on 4chan’s boards, which accused the authors of their own prejudice and injustice. After that, users of 4chan retaliated by flooding a wide range of Tumblr tags related to feminism, social justice, and popular fandoms with gore and other unrelated shock images. Tumblr counter-acted by burying those posts with with their own posts of cute things, blocking the spammers, and advising other users to stay away from the tags until things clear up.

Notable Developments

Following the initial exchange, several petitions were created with the goal of shutting down 4chan^[2][3]. In retaliation, 4chan users launched a counter-petition to label users of Tumblr as “mentally handicapped landwhales”^[4].

On July 5th, the day after the raid, YouTuber InternetAristocrat uploaded a video featuring a sarcastic commentary of the events that transpired that day. In less than 24 hours, the video already gained 13,200 views and 1,645 thumbs up.

Notable Examples

External References

Overview

Amanda Cummings was a teenager who was reported dead after throwing herself in front of a city bus in December of 2011. The news of her death became a cyberbullying controversy after her Facebook memorial page “R.I.P. Amanda Cummings”^[2] was vandalized with offensive comments on the wall.

Background

An article published on the news blog Opposing Views^[5] reported that Cummings posted a status update contemplating her suicide on December 1st, 2011. On December 6th, Cummings posted a status update that read “When i say im ok i want that one person t[sic] look me in the eye, hug me & say no ur not.” According to the news blog Silive^[6], Cummings jumped in front of a city bus while clutching a suicide note on December 27th, and passed away 6 days later at the age of 15.

Developments

Vandalism on Facebook

After her death was reported, some Internet users began posting offensive messages on the Facebook memorial page “R.I.P. Amanda Cummings,” similar to the “An Hero” incident. According to Silive^[6], the trolls came from both 4chan’s /b/ (random) board and from the comedy blog 9gag after a bulletin message calling on people to raid Cumming’s Facebook page began to circulate.

News Media Coverage

On January 3rd, NBC New York published an article revealing that bullying may have been the cause of the teen’s suicide.

Keith Cummings, her uncle, told NBC New York his niece was tormented by bullies and was dealing with romantic problems. “Supposedly, before Christmas recess, there was a girl in school that pulled a knife on her,” he said. “And she had to be picked up in school for three days because the girl was going to beat her up.” He said the bullies mocked her and took her phone, shoes and jacket.

In the following days, many local and national news publications picked up on the story, further highlighting the issue of cyberbullying on social networking sites. Following the news coverage, the Facebook memorial page was taken down due to complaints about the trolls.

Online Reaction

On January 6th, a petition titled "Tell Facebook to End Cyber-Bullying Now: Prevention of “Trolling” by adults and peers" was posted to the site Change.org^[8] and received over 650 signatures within 5 days.

On January 10th, The Huffington Post^[4] reported that Senator Jeffrey D. Klein (D – New York), was sponsoring a bill that would create harsher penalties for cyberbullies. The legislation would add electronic communications to the crimes of Third Degree Stalking and Aggravated Harassment, Class A misdemeanors that can lead to up to a year of imprisonment. The article cited a 2007 study by The National Crime Prevention Council^[7] that showed 43 percent of teens, and 53 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths are subject to cyberbullying.

On YouTube

After Cummings’ death, several YouTubers uploaded memorial videos and vlog responses addressing the bullying issue.

Search Interest

Search queries for “amanda cummings” rose sharply following her death in early January of 2012.

External References

Overview

Charles Ramsey is a Cleveland, Ohio resident who rose to internet fame in early May 2013 after assisting three women who had been missing for nearly a decade after being abducted by captor Ariel Castro. As the shocking story unraveled, Ramsey appeared in an interview segment for a local news report and gave a colorful account of how it all happened. Following the YouTube upload of the interview clip, Ramsey instantly became hailed as a hero on the web.

Background

On May 6th, 2013, Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus, and Michele Knight, three women who had been missing for a decade, were found alive in a residential area south of downtown Cleveland, Ohio. According to the news reports, the women were able to escape from their captor’s house with the assistance of Charles Ramsey, a neighbor who promptly responded to Amanda Berry’s call for help and set them free by kicking a hole in the locked door. Later that same day, Ramsey appeared in a news interview with ABC affiliate NewsNet5 and provided a colorful witness account (shown below). Within 72 hours, the WEWSTV YouTube channel’s upload of the interview received over 5.68 million views and 9,200 comments.

Notable Developments

On Reddit

During the early hours of May 7th, several news articles, image macros and discussions related to the story were featured on the front page of Reddit^[2], with many readers fixating on Ramsey’s role in the rescue and his memorable quotes from the news interview clip. By 6 p.m. (ET), more than 130 posts^[3] about Charles Ramsey had been submitted to the site, including quite a few image macros praising him as a hero dubbed “Good Guy Charles Ramsey.”^[4]

On Twitter

Around the same time, American stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt posted a tweet conveying his admiration for Ramsey. Within 14 hours, the tweet received over 2,200 retweets and 1,100 favorites.

According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[5] tweets mentioning “charles ramsey” peaked on May 7th at 9:49 a.m. ET (shown below). Throughout the day, the keywords “Charles Ramsey” were listed as a worldwide trending topic on the microblogging and social networking site.

At 11:11 a.m. (ET), the viral content site BuzzFeed^[6] posted a compilation of notable tweets referencing Ramsey, many of which included image macros joking about the video (shown below, left) and Totally Looks Like photos comparing Ramsey to the villain Sho’nuff from 1985 martial arts film The Last Dragon (shown below, right).

At 2:40 p.m. (ET), the official McDonald’s Corporation Twitter feed congratulated Ramsey for his bravery and said they would “be in touch.”

On YouTube

On May 7th, YouTuber AmazingLife247 uploaded a recording of Ramsey’s 911 call with the police after rescuing Amanda Berry (shown below). Within 72 hours, the video received over 1.03 million views and 2,400 comments.

Ramsey’s interview clips and audio recording of his 911 emergency call instantly became fodder for auto-tune and musical mash-ups on YouTube, leading to a handful of remixes including YouTuber G Money’s “Little Pretty White Girl” and Schmoyoho’s “Dead Giveaway” (shown below). In less than 48 hours of upload, the videos gained more than 500,000 views and 1 million views respectively.

Anderson Cooper Interview

On May 7th, Ramsey was interviewed by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who said he did not feel like a hero and that any reward should go to the victims he rescued.

Castro’s Imprisonment

On May 8th, 2013, Ariel Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, with a bail of $2 million set the following day. On June 7th, a grand jury indicted Castro with 329 counts, including two murder charges for the unwanted termination of two of the captive women’s unborn children. The indictment was expanded to a total of 977 counts on July 12th. On July 26th, Castro agreed to a plea bargain by pleading not guilty to 937 of the counts to be sentence to life in prison without the change of parole and was formally sentenced on August 1st. Prior to his sentencing, Castro spoke to the court defending himself by saying he was “not a monster” but suffered from sex, pornography addiction and previous sexual abuse.

Castro’s Suicide

On September 3rd, prison staff at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, discovered Castro hanging from a bed sheet in his cell and was pronounced dead at 10:52 p.m. that evening after several failed attempts to resuscitate him. On the following day, coroner Dr. Jan Gorniak declared Castro’s death a suicide by hanging. Also on September 4th, several Reddit^[17][18][19] posts related to the story reached the front page of the social news site, several of which featured image macros mocking Castro’s suicide (shown below)

On September 5th, The Huffington Post^[16] published an article highlighting notable sarcastic tweets confusing Ariel Castro with the former Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Criticisms

As Charles Ramsey’s story continued to make the rounds, several news publications ran op-ed columns raising concerns that there may be a recurring pattern of working-class African American subjects getting exploited as racial stereotypes in the online remix culture, including The Atlantic^[10], Slate^[11], NPR^[12] and ThinkProgress^[13] among others.

Tributes

The Ramsey Burger

On May 14th, Cleveland Plain Dealer^[14] reported that Hodge’s, a restaurant in downtown Cleveland where Ramsey works as a dishwasher, began selling a new burger dish called “The Ramsey Burger” in tribute to his heroism and penchant for the classic American sandwich (shown below). While the burger was initially introduced as a temporary menu item, it has since become a part of the permanent menu and even inspired copycat items in other local eateries.

Free Burger for Lifetime

On May 22nd, Cleveland news sites^[15] reported that more than a dozen of Ohio restaurants and at least one in Pennsylvania have pledged to provide Charles Ramsey with free burgers for life in recognition of his heroism. According to Scott Kuhn of Driftwood Restaurant Group, local business owners wanted to honor the man who stopped his meal midway through, so they decided to gift Ramsey with a “Chuck Card” which he can present at any of the participating restaurants to get a free burger.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Background

On January 4th, 2011, Metro Weekly^[1] published an article titled “Is Chick-fil-A restaurant against gay rights?”, which reported that the anti-gay marriage organization Pennsylvania Family Institute (PFI) listed American fast food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A as a co-sponsor of two marriage conferences. On January 6th, Chick-fil-A posted a statement on its official Facebook^[2] page, downplaying the company’s relationship with PFI by claiming it only provided sandwiches to the marriage seminars.

On November 1st, the LGBT advocacy group Equality Matters^[3] published a report revealing that Chick-fil-A’s charitable arm WinShape had donated over $1.7 million to anti-gay groups in 2009. On July 2nd, 2012, Equality Matters^[4] published another report, stating that WinShape donated over $1.9 million to anti-gay groups including the Marriage & Family Foundation and the Family Research Council in 2010.

On July 16th, an interview with Chick-fil-A’s chief operating officer Dan Cathy was published in the Christian news service Baptist Press, in which Cathy revealed that the company did support a “traditional family.” On July 18th, Cathy appeared on the syndicated radio show “The Ken Coleman Show” and stated that he believed advocating same-sex marriage would be “inviting God’s judment on our nation.”^[5]

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

On July 20th, Boston mayor Thomas Menino sent a letter to Chick-fil-A COO Dan Cathy denouncing the company’s stance on gay marriage (shown below). The same day, the Boston Herald^[9] published an interview with Menino, in which he stated he was looking to block Chick-fil-A from opening any restaurants in the city.

That same day, the Jim Henson Company posted an update on their official Facebook^[8] page announcing they had notified Chick-fil-A that they no longer wished to partner with the restaurant chain in the future and that they would donate the payments they received from the company to the LGBT advocacy organization GLAAD (The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). The Facebook announcement gained nearly 15,000 likes and more than 6,200 shares, as well as inspiring the anti-corporate interest group The Other 98% to create a Muppets-themed poster featuring the quote, which went on to receive more than 34,000 likes and nearly 53,000 shares.

On July 23rd, a Facebook^[6] event was created for “National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A”, which urged gay-marriage supporters to visit a local Chick-fil-A restaurant and record themselves kissing a member of the same sex on August 3rd. Initiated by Carly McGehee, Michael GetEqual Diviesti and Skylar Buffington, the event page was met by more than 14,000 RSVPs. Meanwhile, in countering the “Same Sex Kiss Day” event, former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee launched a Facebook event titled “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” which called on all supporters of Christian principles to visit a Chick-fil-A restaurant on August 1st show their solidarity with its stance on gay-marriage. Huckabee’s proposition via Facebook was met by more than 670,000 RSVPs.

On July 25th, 2012, Redditor absurd_olfaction submitted a post to the /r/atheism subreddit titled “Chick-fil-A damage control FAIL”, which included a screenshot of a Facebook post in which a user profile is exposed for being fake (shown below).

Several prominent YouTubers also chimed in on the controversy with reaction videos, including mention over a proposed boycott (shown below, bottom, right) and a cooking guide for making a “Chick-Fil-Gay” sandwich (shown below, bottom, left).

On July 25th, 2012, Antoine Dodson uploaded a video to YouTube titled “Chick-fil-A?”, showing Dodson drinking from a Chick-fil-A cup while defending his choice to eat at the restaurant. The same day, Dodson uploaded another video titled “Ya’ll made me pull my hair back lol!”, in which he argued that boycotting the restaurant would only hurt the Chick-fil-A’s employees.

Protests

Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day

On August 1st, major U.S. news outlets including CNN, New York Times and Los Angeles Times reported that hundreds of thousands of people visited Chick-fil-A restauarants to show their solidarity with the fast-food chain’s stance on gay marriage, spawning hundreds of photographs of long lines outside of Chick-fil-A stores across the country on Twitter and Facebook.

On the following day, Chick-fil-A’s executive vice president of marketing Steve Robinson released a statement to the LA Times revealing that the company set a new record in sales.

“We are very grateful and humbled by the incredible turnout of loyal Chick-fil-A customers on August 1 at Chick-fil-A restaurants around the country. While we don’t release exact sales numbers, we can confirm reports that it was a record-setting day.”

Same Sex Kiss Day

On August 3rd, photographs of same sex couples and equal rights supporters partaking in the “Chick-fil-A Kiss-In” began pouring in on Facebook and Twitter, several hours before the official protest scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. (ET). The event’s official Tumblr blog National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A^[14] also began featuring user-submitted photos of same-sex people kissing each other on the premise of the fast food restaurants.

Meanwhile, internet news site DailyDot^[13] reported on some hostile exchanges between the two camps on Twitter, citing several examples of tweets insinuating that “kiss-in” protests may be met by violence from the detractors.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

United Kingdom Withdrawal From the European Union, colloquially known as Brexit (short for “British Exit”), refers to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), a regional political-economic union that the country has been a member of since joining its precursor organization, European Economic Community (EEC), in 1973. While the UK’s membership status within the EU has been a long-standing topic of debate in the country for decades, the public interest surrounding the issue saw an unprecedented resurgence during the months leading up to its EU referendum in June 2016. The referendum ended with 51,9% of the voters voting to leave the European Union.

Background

Following the end of the World War II in 1945, many European countries called for a closer political and economic integration at the regional level. During the early years of the discussions, the United Kingdom played a vital role in paving the road for several regional organizations in Europe, beginning with the Treaty of London in 1949 which established the Council of Europe, followed by the admission into the European Economic Community (EEC), the official predecessor to the EU, alongside Denmark and Ireland in 1973. Two years after joining the EEC, the UK held a referendum to decide whether the country should remain in the organization, which resulted in a 67% approval of a continued membership.

1975 EEC Referendum

On June 5th, 1975, the UK held a referendum on whether it should remain in the EEC. With nearly all major political parties in favor of remaining in the EEC, except for an anti-European faction within the ruling Labour party, the referendum resulted in the continuation of the UK membership by an overwhelming majority.

Euroscepticism in the UK

Over the following decades, euroscepticism gained significant traction in the UK under the leadership of the Conservative Party and renowned British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who had supported the UK’s EEC membership in the 1975 referendum but vocally opposed the concept of European integration at large. In 1991, the growing sentiment of euroscepticism led to the foundation of the Anti-Federalist League, a minor cross-party coalition against the UK’s involvement in European integration, which would later rename itself as the UK Independence Party (UKIP). In 1992, the UK signed the Maastricht Treaty, a pillar structure which effectively created the European Union and the single-currency zone, though it opted out of joining the Euro currency and social chapter in order to preserve its autonomy. September 16th, 1992, the date on which the UK decided to leave the British pound out of the proposed currency system, has since become known as “Black Wednesday.” The UK’s opt-out decision was later weakened with the signing of the Lisbon Treaty under Tony Blair’s leadership in 1997, but euroscepticism saw a resurgence during the early 2010s following the rise of the Conservative Party’s David Cameron to power.

Notable Developments

Proposal of 2016 EU Referendum

After the Conservative Party’s victory in the 2010 general election, UK Prime Minister David Cameron formally announced his support for a referendum on the nation’s EU membership since as early as in 2013, following through with the pledge he had frequently made during his campaign. Following his re-election to the office in 2015, Cameron re-negotiated several aspects of the UK’s membership in February 2016 and announced that the referendum, which will determine whether or not the United Kingdom will stay as a member or leave the EU completely, would be held on June 23rd, 2016.

Brexit

Brexit, a portmanteau of “Britain” and “Exit,” refers to the hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Stemming from the term “Grexit”, which was introduced by Citigroup’s chief analysts Willem H. Buiter and Ebrahim Rahbari in February 2012 to describe a similar scenario in Greece that was gaining public support during the country’s prolonged financial crisis, the earliest use of the word “Brexit” can be found in a tweet posted by British Influence, a UK think tank group that generally advocates Eurocentrism, on May 15th, 2012 (shown below).

About a month later on June 21st, The Economist^[19] ran an article titled “A Brixit looms,” introducing the term to a larger audience.

The chances of Britain leaving the EU in the next few years are higher than they have ever been. A Brixit looms for several reasons.

Campaigns

There are two main political campaigns associated with the UK’s upcoming referendum on the EU membership: Vote Leave^[2], the official advocacy campaign in support of leaving the EU, and Britain Stronger in Europe^[3], the official advocacy campaign in favor of remaining in the EU.

Brexit Supporters

The Vote Leave campaign is supported by several prominent figures within the Conservative Party, including Boris Johnson (Former Mayor of London) and Michael Gove (Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice), virtually all members of the UK Independence Party and a minor faction within the Labour Party known as “Labour Leave,” as well as supporters of two other pro-Brexit campaigns, Grassroots Out and Leave.eu.^[1] Other notable advocates of Brexit include actor Michael Caine^[4], professional cricket player Ian Botham^[4], former English football player Sol Campbell^[6], as well as the British news outlets The Daily Mail and Daily Express.

Pro-EU Supporters

The “Britain Stronger” campaign is supported by several leading members of the Conservative Party, including David Cameron (Prime Minister), George Osborne (Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Theresa May (Home Secretary), as well as the leaders of the Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, Green Party of England and Wales and Scottish National Party (SNP). Other notable supporters include actor Emma Thomson^[4], Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson^[4] and Stephen Hawking.^[5]

Campaign Highlights

“Britain’s Coming Home”

On February 22th, 2016, Mandy Boylett, a former candidate of UKIP in the 2015 general election, uploaded a video to YouTube featuring her appearing as two women, one with a blond wig, singing a pro-Brexit parody version of the song “Three Lions”, the official anthem of the English football team. The video was highlighted by major news media outlets, such as Daily Mail^[7] and the Huffington Post, which called it the worst song to come from British politics yet,^[8] and Daily Express.^[9] One of the singers of the original song, David Baddiel, said that while he and Frank Skinner, the other singer, did not give permission for the parody to be made, they might have done it due to it being “brilliantly naff”.^[10] As of May 2016, the song has over 575,000 views on Youtube.

Barack Obama’s Speech

On April 24st, 2016, President of the United States Barack Obama held a press conference with David Cameron during his visit to the United Kingdom. Obama said during the conference, that if the UK were to leave the European Union, a trade deal with the US could take up to ten years to make.^[40] Obama was afterwords criticised by the leave campaign for trying to intervene in another country’s affair^[41]. On April 28th, four days after Obama’s press conference, a poll put leave ahead of the remain campaign.^[42]

David Cameron’s WWIII Statement

On May 9th, 2016, David Cameron, speaking to a crowd at the British Museum in London, claimed that leaving the EU may cause Europe to descend into war:

“Can we be so sure peace and stability on our continent are assured beyond any shadow of doubt? Is that a risk worth taking? I would never be so rash to make that assumption… What happens in our neighbourhood matters to Britain. That was true in 1914, 1940, 1989…. and it is true in 2016.”

Cameron’s remark was reported on by major news media such as the Telegraph^[27], The Guardian^[28], the Mirror^[29] and the Daily Mail^[30]. Boris Johnson quickly responded and said that “I think all this talk of World War Three and bubonic plague is totally demented frankly.”^[31]

Battle of the Thames

On June 15th, 2016, in an event organized by Fishing for Leave, UKIP Leader Nigel Farage, Conservative minister George Eustice and Labour MP Kate Hoey, led a pro-Leave flotilla up the River of Thames, with the boats filled with pro-Leave flags and banners. Later, pro-remain campaigner Bob Geldorf showed up alongside a pro-remain flotilla and tried to hijack the protest. The two flotillas then started “attacking” each other, spraying one another with water and the Remain side blasting the brexit side with music. The so-called “Battle of the Thames” was highly mocked on Twitter.^[32]

Murder of Jo Cox

On June 16th, 2016, Jo Cox, member of the British Parliament for the Labour Party, was murdered in West Yorkshire as she was making her way to the local Library where she was supposed to speak. The attacker, armed with a knife and a gun, managed to stab and shot Jo Cox, before he was tackled by witnesses. The suspect of the attack, Thomas Mair, had been having a serious case of mental illness for several years, Mair’s brother says.^[33] Although some media claimed that the attacker had shouted “Britain first”, the name of a far-right political party in the UK, when he attacked Jo Cox, some eyewitnesses deny that claim. One who supported the claim was found to be a member of the British National Party, which are known to be hostile towards Britain First.^[34] The murder was widely condemned by British politicians from both side of the political spectrum. Prime Minister David Cameron called the attack “tragic and dreadful”^[35], while Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party called the attack an “attack on democracy”.^[36] Other countries, such as the Czech Republic^[37], Canada^[38] and Australia^[39], also gave their condolences. In addition, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn showed up together to lay flowers as a tribute to Jo Cox. Other party leaders, such as UKIP Leader Nigel Farage, also showed up with flowers.

#CatsAgainstBrexit and #CatsForBrexit

On June 18th, 2016, Scottish internet law scholar Lilian Edwards^[21] tweeted a photograph of her cat with the hashtag #CatsAgainstBrexit and an anti-Brexit message urging others in the camp to retweet the message with pictures of their own cats.

By June 20th, #CatsAgainstBrexit^[22][24] and #CatsForBrexit^[23][25] began making the rounds on UK’s Twitter and Instagram as hundreds of British internet users made their final push in campaigning for and against Brexit with photographs of cats, including British conservative politician and member of the European Parliament (MEP) Daniel Hannan^[26] who tweeted a pro-Brexit message using a photograph of Grumpy Cat (shown below, top left). Hannan’s tweet garnered more than 1,200 retweets and 2,200 likes within the first 48 hours.

The Referendum

At 7:00 a.m. (BST, local time) on June 23rd, 2016, the EU membership referendum commenced at 41,000 polling stations across 382 local counting areas in all four countries of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales) and Gibraltar. The referendum ended at 10:00 p.m. (BST, local time)

#DogsAtPollingStations

On June 23rd, as the referendum went underway across Britain, many voters began sharing images of their dogs sitting outside the polling stations using the hashtag #DogsAtPollingStations, a photo fad that originally went viral on the day of the UK general election in May 2015.

Tony Blair’s “I Voted Remain” Sign

Also on June 23rd, former British prime minister Tony Blair reaffirmed his support for continued membership in the EU by sharing a picture of himself holding a sign that read “I Voted Remain” via his official Twitter account. Within minutes of the tweet, some UK Twitter users responded to Blair’s message with a handful of photoshopped parodies.

The Result

Throughout the day on June 23rd, more than 33 million voters participated in the referendum (or 71.8% of all registered voters in the UK), which marked the highest turnout for a national vote since the 1992 general election. By close to midnight on June 23rd, within two hours of the closure of the polling stations, several major British news outlets and international news agencies had begun reporting that votes calling for UK’s exit from the EU were leading with 52% of total ballots counted. Ultimately, the referendum resulted in an overall decision to leave the European Union with 51.89% of the total votes.

Online Reactions

By the early morning on June 24th, virtually all the major social media platforms had become flooded with varying reactions to the announcement of the referendum results, which led several Brexit-related hashtags to trend globally on Twitter and Facebook.

Meanwhile, Google Trends^[52] provided a comprehensive report on search queries relating to the referendum. According to Google, “What is Brexit” was one of the most searched questions during the hours leading up to the day of the referendum and “What is the EU?” quickly became the second most searched term about the European Union in the UK following the announcement of the poll results on June 24th.

Online Petitions

Within hours of the announcement of the results, tens of thousands of British internet users in the Remain camp began flocking to online petitions calling for a second round of referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union, including one that had been started by William Oliver Healey, a pro-Brexit advocate and member of the English Democrats, a month before the referendum took place. By 10:40 p.m. on June 28th, Healey’s petition had attracted more than four million signatures, about forty times the minimum threshold for any petition to be considered for debate in the Parliament. The sudden influx of petitioners, which reached a thousand signatures per minute at one point, eventually prompted the website to crash on several occasions.

Impact

UKIP’s Response

When it had become clear that the Leave side had a sizable lead over the Remain campaign, Nigel Farage made a speech, stating that the referendum “is a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people.” The next morning, Farage said that he was hoping that other countries would be leaving the EU, pointing out the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden as examples of countries that may leave the European Union.

David Cameron’s Resignation

As a result of the referendum, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he would resign from the office of Prime Minister at the Conservative Party’s conference in October 2016.

International Spin-Offs

In the following week, the ripple effects from the UK referendum inspired several copycat movements overseas, including #Texit (Texas’ secession from the United States), #Frexit (French withdrawal from the EU), #Czexit (Czech withdrawal from the EU), #Pexit (Polish withdrawal from the EU ), among others.

#Calexit

Following the election of Donald Trump, a Californian movement to secede from the United States gained some traction. The movement, known as Yes California, promises a referendum that would be voted on in 2019.^[60] The campaign proposes splitting California up into 16 separate states (shown below).

The case is based on the premise that California would have the sixth largest GDP in the world, essentially making it a lesser world power. The campaign also argues that California would be more able to deal with education and health care problems within the state were they a sovereign nation.

Search Interest

External References

About

Meme Economy is a satirical concept and internet subculture in which memes are discussed in the jargons of the financial industry, as if they are commodities or capital assets with fluctuating values. Since its inception as a community on Reddit in 2016, the joke has spawned a number of spin-off projects built around the fictional meme market infrastructure.

Origin

On September 28th, 2016, killameme7^[3] created the subreddit /r/MemeEconomy. The subreddit’s description reads:

“/r/MemeEconomy is a place where individuals can buy, sell, share, make, and invest in memes freely. You’ll also get updates on the market and be able to collaborate with other fellow dank meme traders.”

As of November 11th, 2016, the subreddit has 31,941 subscribers.

Precursor

The first instance of instance of memes being discussed as stocks came on June 11th, 2012. Redditor HomeButton submitted a post titled “Mad Karma with Jim Cramer” to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[1] subreddit, which featured a screenshot of Cramer hosting Mad Money with the headline news ticker edited to list trending memes on Reddit instead of stock quotes. The image macro was captioned with “Dump all your karma in pictures of feet” (shown below), referencing a foot photograph post that had reached the front page the day before.^[2] Prior to being archived, the post received over 4,300 up votes and 100 comments. The following memes became known as Mad Karma With Jim Cramer.

Spread

The subreddit was rocked during the Meme Renaissance of Me_IRL when memes were posted at “an unsustainable rate.”^[4] They’ve also responded intensely to memes related to the 2016 United States Presidential Election and other major events.

On October 17th, LuckyCosmos posted a pinned thread^[5] explaining the way the subreddit and “meme trading” works, including a FAQ. Memes are bought and sold on “GoodBoyPoints (GBP).”

Drought Speculation

On January 9th, 2017, Reddit user deros94 wrote a report about an early-2017 meme drought and posted it to the subreddit.^[6] The piece, shown below, argued that the early-2017 meme landscape was a “barren wasteland” and memes cropping up on /r/me_IRL of late had been forced and rehashed ideas.

The Daily Dot^[7] covered deros94’s report, noting that the January season tended to be slow for memes, as internet users look to rely on old memes while truly viral trends begin emerging.

NASDANQ

On September 29th, 2016, Redditor Darkpitt registered the domain NASDANQ.com^[7] and posted an announcement of his new meme exchange marketplace on the /r/MemeEconomy.^[9] On February 22nd, 2017, Redditor AchillesDev, one of the voluntary developers working on the NASDANQ project, posted an update^[10] revealing that the team has officially formed a company under the name NASDANQLLC and the alpha version of the platform will be ready for launch within two weeks, equipped with basic functionality, such as buying and selling memes and setting firms.

MemeTrades

On February 3rd, 2017, a group of Redditors on /r/MemeEconomy launched MemeTrades.com^[8], the first online stock brokerage platform for internet memes, where visitors can participate in mock-trading memes as virtual commodities by logging into Facebook.

Meme Insider

On January 25th, 2017, a group of Redditors on /r/MemeEconomy digitally released the first issue of its monthly news magazine titled Meme Insider^[12], which offers various insights and advices on the market conditions of meme exchange in the vein of financial news magazines like Forbes.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Koichi Pose refers to a still shot of the character Koichi Hirose during the opening intro of the animated adaptation of the japanese manga series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable. Due to the humorous nature and lengthy exposure of his pose, the shot became an exploitable on the JoJo fandom, spawning parodies and image edits.

Origin

The shot originated from the intro sequence of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable which first aired on April 8th, 2016. In the scene, Koichi performs a pose and stood still for around 3 seconds.

One of the earliest mentions regarding the pose was on April 9th, 2016, in a thread on 4chan’s /a/ board.^[1] On the same thread, one of the earliest edited images which depicts Koichi riding Dio Brando was posted by an anonymous user.^[2]

Spread

On April 9th, a 4chan tripcode user named Doc created an Imgur gallery full of edits collected from the previous threads^[3][4]. The same day, a Tumblr user spookygrips posted a parody of the DIO’s reveal from the Part 3 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Stardust Crusaders. In nearly 20 hours, the post got over 1,474 notes^[5].

On May 13th, 2016, the 7th episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable began airing which edits the opening so that Koichi’s stand, Echoes, appears right beside him as he poses. On the same day, Tumblr user mistah-joestar uploaded a video of the new scene with the audio edited which gathered over 2.900 notes within 2 weeks.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

GoAnimate! is a web-based animation software created by Alvin Hung. It is used to make quick and efficient animations, often by businesses and schools. It is well-known online for its homogenized and somewhat low-quality appearance, and has gained an ironic fanbase.

History

GoAnimate was first created in 2007 by a Colombia major in programming and economics named Alvin Hung^[1]. He founded the site with the goal of making it easy to create short videos for business use.^[1][2] One of the main selling points is the interface, which uses simple actions like drag-and-drop and menu choices in order to create the video from a library of pre-made assets and movements. This ease of use makes it simple for beginners like students or people who are not trained in animation. The tool quickly gained a large fanbase due to its quick and efficient method of creating animations and relatively low cost. In 2014, GoAnimate created an option for schools, allowing schools to work with GoAnimate for a monthly fee. In 2015, GoAnimate shortened the trial option, making it only 14 days.^[2]

In August of 2015, it was announced that the website would move to being HTML5 based, and would cut a number of its usable themes in the process by January 2016.^[3] This included the website’s most famous themes Comedy World and Lil’ Peepz. This development was met with an extremely negative response from the fanbase, who expressed their displeasure in their videos. Some of these videos depicted site founder Alvin Hung getting either abused or portrayed in various unflattering ways.

Feeling that this was the end of their video-making, the fanbase was ready to move on to other animation programs, such as Plotagon. However, when it was discovered that the Comedy World and Lil’ Peepz themes were still able to be used in the version of GoAnimate made for schools^[4], the fanbase took to using that version instead until HTML5 was applied to that version without the non-business themes being upgraded for it as well. With the various beloved themes like Comedy World no longer accessible under normal means on the website, this will likely mean that use of the software for “X Gets Grounded” videos (see below) will probably drop considerably.

Features Of GoAnimate

One of the main selling points is the interface, which uses simple actions like drag-and-drop and menu choices in order to create the video from a library of pre-made assets and movements. This ease of use makes it simple for beginners like students or people who are not trained in animation.

There are two levels of pre-made films: first are the animated shorts of the Quick Video Maker, which contains a selection of pre-made films which only require dialogue and voice recording. The second level, which is called the Full Featured Video Maker, has the ability to create scenarios from scratch from their asset library.^[3] Video downloads are tagged with a GoAnimate watermark in the lower left hand corner unless the user has a paid plan. GoAnimate also has a system for students and schools with increased privacy and access controls.

Reception

While GoAnimate has a thriving fanbase of subscribers who use the software to make animated video series that they then release online. Some of the more notable users include Paul Dini, whose show Super Rica and Rashy was animated using GoAnimate and TheGoAnimateGuy67, who has made 74 videos using the tool and posted them on YouTube to his over 20,000 subscribers. In addition, posts and mentions of the videos are frequent on Tumblr^[5], which includes a blog dedicated to screencaps from the many videos^[6], as well as on YouTube, where there are over 431,000 videos tagged with the term.^[7]

The software also has a large cadre of vocal critics. Some examples of those who dislike GoAnimate include Harry Partridge and OneyNG, who are both web animators who criticize the format for its homogenous look and lack of creativity in the videos below.

Related Memes

X Gets Grounded

X Gets Grounded refers to a series of videos made using GoAnimate, where someone gets caught doing bad or illegal things and gets grounded by his/her parents for it. The most notable series of Grounded Videos features Caillou, Dora, and many other characters from other children’s cartoons, and first began appearing on YouTube in 2011, with the video “Brian Gets in Trouble at School.” As of November 4th, 2014, there are about 232,000 results for “gets grounded” on YouTube.^[8]

Search Interest

External References

About

Electronic Dance Music (commonly abbreviated as EDM) is term that represents a wide range of electronically produced music, whose genres are generally determined by percussion based instrumentals as opposed to vocals.^[1] It is often performed live in clubs or at festivals by DJs, to masses of people who dance and/or rave to the mixes the DJs play. With a multitude of sub genres, EDM has been a mainstay in popular culture over the years through pop radio stations and through internet meme culture, with multiple memes that have been spawned by the artists and fanbases attached to the music and its multitude of sub genres.

Origin and History

EDM had its beginnings in the late 1970s with the advent of disco in pop music. Over the decades, the scene of electronic music grew, with new genres being pioneered, from Electro and House in the 1980s, to Drum & Bass, Trance, and Hard Dance in the 1990s, to 21st century genres of Trap, Future Bass, and recently Vaporwave.

Impact

EDM’s staying power over the years has been shown through the ever changing landscape of mainstream pop music and pop culture. With the rise of affordable music production software (i.e. Ableton and FL Studio) and the flexible nature of the sub genres of EDM, pop music has often been impacted over the years by sub genres of EDM including, but not limited to Dubstep, Trap, and House music.

Criticism

Despite its growth and staying power in popular culture, much criticism has stemmed over the years for EDM due to the non-organic sound of the music tracks and the criticism of DJs as not being “real musicians” as live, they “only” have to press buttons for the music to play by itself. Much criticism from prominent DJs in the EDM scene is focused on its commercialization, which has been stated by DJs Joel “deadmau5” Zimmerman (who is known for his outspoken opinions on mainstream DJs over the years) and Tim “Avicii” Bergling (who incorporates more natural instruments in his music due to his criticisms of EDM lacking longevity).

Parodies

EDM culture has also been parodied before in pop culture as well. An example of such parody comes from an SNL Digital Short “When Will the Bass Drop?” that parodies “fans” of EDM who wait for the DJ to enact the bass drop on his track, as he performs off task endeavors including playing video games, cooking food, and collecting money, before pressing a button that drops the bass of the track, causing the club goers’ heads to explode from the heavy bass.

Memes

With the growth of internet culture and EDM over the years, many memes have spawned from music tracks, artists, and genres themselves.

Dubstep

Dubstep is a genre of electronic music originating from South London in the late nineties. Though difficult to define, it is generally characterized by a slow tempo, repetitive, low-key beats, heavy emphasis on “wobble” bass lines and hard hitting drum patterns. Dubstep’s mainstream attention in pop culture is often credited to Skrillex, who helped pioneer the heavy hitting sub genre of “Brostep” into the public eye and internet culture.

Trap

Trap Music is a music genre known for its use of 808 kick drums, multi-layered synthesizers and generally dark hip-hop sound. Songs like Baauer’s Harlem Shake and DJ Snake’s Turn Down For What have been well recognized in meme culture with the former’s dance craze and the latter’s spastic music video and phrase of the song itself.

Vaporwave

Vaporwave is a musical genre inspired by electronic dance music (EDM), New Age music and the indie dance genres chillwave and seapunk. Vaporwave is known for its use of Japanese characters in song titles, 80’s smooth jazz and Muzak samples that have been pitch shifted and time stretched with music editing software. The genre has often been described as a satire of corporate and consumerist culture and modern capitalism, specifically as a critique of mainstream EDM. One of the more prominent examples of Vaporwave utilized in internet culture include Macintosh Plus’ リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー off of his album Floral Shoppe (フローラルの専門店).

Trance

Trance is a musical genre found out of Germany in the 1990s that incorporates repeating melodies over a bpm that ranges from 125 to 150 bpm. Unlike traditional house, one of the aforementioned’s influential genres, that has utilizes a drop in most songs, Trance places more emphasis on the emotion and atmosphere of the song itself, in a way similar to Progressive House. One of the more infamous examples of trance, especially in internet culture, is “Sandstorm;” a hard trance piece composed by Finnish producer Darude. Sandstorm has been a pump up song before games, most notably in the League of Legends scene of esports, and is ironically stated as a song name when the name of a particular song is requested in a video or stream.

Another example of trance in internet culture is 009 Sound System’s track, “Dremscape.” Dreamscape was the most common of many other 009 Sound System tracks that were used as the background music for videos on YouTube during the sites early years of use. Because of the common usage of the track in YouTube videos, it is sometimes stated as YouTube’s National Anthem of sorts.

Search Interest

External References