Gordon Ramsay

About

Gordon Ramsay is a British master chef, celebrity and restaurateur best known for saving troubled restaurant businesses in the television show Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and discovering talented chefs in the show Hell’s Kitchen. His perfectionist attitude and brash personality on screen have inspired the creation of many image macros and remix videos on YouTube.

Online History

The domain for the website GordonRamsay.com^[1] was registered on February 3rd, 2000. As of February 2013, the site is used to promote Ramsay’s restaurants in a variety of locations, including France, Italy, Ireland, Qatar, Japan, England and the United States. On May 7th, 2008, YouTuber moonblink uploaded a video of Ramsay demonstrating how to make scrambled eggs (shown below). Within five years of being uploaded, the video accumulated more than 2.3 million views and 3,900 comments.

On January 26th, 2010, a thread was started in the /ck/ (Food & Cooking) board on 4chan,^[2] featuring several photos of Ramsay with captions in character of his TV personality (shown below). Prior to being archived, the thread received over 125 responses. On February 1st, Ramsay’s official Twitter^[3] account was created, which accumulated more than 1.23 million followers in the next three years. On November 30th, a Facebook^[4] page titled “Gordon Ramsay” was launched, garnering upwards of 376,000 likes in the following three years.

On June 1st, YouTuber moonblink’s scrambled eggs video was submitted to the /r/Fitness^[5] subreddit, where it received over 1,400 up votes and 370 comments prior to being archived. On October 31st, 2011, YouTuber 80gumdrops uploaded a video titled “Gordon Talks Dirty,” featuring footage of Ramsay cooking a chicken edited to sound as if he were describing how to have anal sex (shown below). Within the next two years, the video received over 1.12 million views and 1,000 comments.

Advice Animal

In July of 2010, a Meme Generator^[11] page titled “Gordon Ramsay” was launched with an advice animal series in which Ramsay is shown deriding an apprentice for unsatisfactory results (shown below). Within the first three years, the page garnered upwards of 2,000 items. In December 2011, a similar Quickmeme^[7] page was created, gaining over 1,300 submissions in the next two years.

An ongoing theme that is often explored in the series is Ramsay’s frustration with undercooked meals and his hyperbolic tirades. On February 7th, 2013, Redditor okredrobot submitted an image macro with the caption “This chicken is so uncooked / that a skilled vet could still save him” (shown below) to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[8] subreddit, where it received more than 44,000 up votes and 1,000 comments in the first two months.

On March 20th, Redditor Arandmoor posted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[12] subreddit, which mocked a dish by claiming that it was unfinished enough for the video game developer Electronic Arts to try to publish it (shown below, left). In the following month, the post accumulated over 12,800 up votes and 100 comments, in part due to eclipsing with EA’s controversial release of SimCity. On April 8th, Redditor especiallynow submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[10] subreddit, joking that a salmon was raw enough to be cast in the 2003 children’s animated film Finding Nemo (shown below, right). Within eight days, the post gained more than 590 up votes and 15 comments.

Notable Videos

Reputation

Ramsay is known for being a culinary perfectionist who can be brash, pompous and overly critical. In October of 2006, Ramsay was voted to the top of a Radio Times poll of television’s most terrifying celebrities.^[6] In July of 2008, Ramsay became the target of animal rights activists after eating the raw heart of a dead puffin during a segment of his television show The F Word (shown below).

Personal Life

Ramsay was born on November 8th, 1966 in Renfrewshire, Scotland. At age 12, he was chosen as an Association Football player for Warwickshire and was chosen to play for the Rangers three years later. At age 19, he became interested in cooking and began working towards becoming a chef. Since then, Ramsay has been awarded 15 Michelin stars for culinary excellence.