About

Jenkem (also known as “butthash”) is a purported street drug made from fermented human excrement that is supposed to induce hallucinations when inhaled. Rumors about the drug began circulating online after the Totse forum member Pickwick posted several photos of himself allegedly experimenting with the substance.

Origin

According to the rumor database Snopes^[2], the earliest mention of Jenkem comes from an article titled “Zambia-Narcotics: ‘Huffing and Puffing’ to New High” published by the Inter Press Service^[1] on August 26th, 1995. The article reported that street children in Zambia had been using fermented human excrement scooped out of sewer ponds to get high. On September 18th, 1998, The New York Times^[8] published an article titled “In Zambia, the Abandoned Generation” citing workers at the nonprofit organization Fountain of Hope who claimed that street children were using jenkem to get high in Zambia’s capital city Lusaka. On July 30th, 1999, BBC^[10] published an article titled “Africa Children High on Sewage" which described the jenkem manufacturing process. On March 8th, 2002, UNICEF^[9] released a report titled “Rapid Assessment of Street Children in Lusaka" which listed jenkem as a popular drug among Lusaka street children. On October 25th, 2005, the first Urban Dictionary^[7] entry for “jenkem” was submitted by user Kazhakkey Szervusz-Thackur, defining the substance as a “mixture of ripened sewage” used in third-world countries as a substitute for huffing glue.

Pickwick Post

On June 7th, 2007, user Pickwick of the drug enthusiast Totse forums posted several images of himself making jenkem in a glass bottle with a balloon attached to the opening. The same day, the story was submitted to the social news site Digg^[13] in a post titled “Kid Makes Jenkem in a Civilized Country.” On June 8th, Pickwick bumped the thread with an update that balloon on the bottle had begun to inflate. On June 9th, the thread was updated with more photographs of the bottle. On June 13th, Pickwick posted a trip report about his experience huffing the jenkem along with several photos of himself inhaling the gas. The website Totse and the original post have since been removed, but parts of the post were archived on the Flux64 Wordpress blog.^[12]

Spread

On August 3rd, 2007, the Seattle newspaper The Stranger^[14] posted an article titled “High as Shit”, which included a purported account of a jenkem trip. On September 24th, Pickwick posted a thread titled “The jenkem thing was a hoax”^[11], in which he claimed that the excrement in the photos was actually a mixture of flour, water and chocolate hazelnut spread. On September 26th, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office in Naples, Florida, dispatched an information bulletin using Pickwick’s photos, which warned parents should be vigilant against the new drug jenkem.

On November 6th, Fox News^[3] published an article titled “Drug Made From Human Waste Causing Stink on Web, in Law Enforcement”, reporting that the Collier County bulletin had used Pickwick’s faked photos. The following day, a video of a Fox News television report was uploaded to YouTube by user SeriousBizness123 (shown below, left), in which anchor Jack Miller advised viewers that the slang term for jenkem was “butthash.” On March 26th, 2008, the South Park episode “Major Boobage” was released, in which the character Kenny becomes addicted to a new drug called “cheesing” that involves inhaling cat urine (shown below, right).

On May 20th, 2009, YouTuber cinafunk uploaded a parody investigative reporting video about jenkem (shown below, left). On December 3rd, 2010, the Florida news station WPTV ran a story (shown below, right) on a purported jenkem lab that had been discovered by law enforcement officers in Ft. Pierce, Florida.

On June 12th, 2011, the sobriety community website Sober Living^[15] published a post titled “Jenkem – NOT Real – Not the Greatest Drug – Dangerous and Unsanitary!”, which warned that jenkem would not actually cause hallucinations. On March 25th, 2012, the American Dad episode “Less Money, Mo’ Problems” was released, in which the father Stan inhales jenkem with a homeless man while living on the street. Several Facebook pages for Jenkem have been created, the most notable of which has received over 1,000 likes as of May 29th, 2012.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Chubby Chubby Chip Chip is a chiptune song made by famous chiptune musician, video game composer and sound designer Mark Knight, also known as “TDK” (The Dark Knight) or madfiddler, in 1992. The song became a popular musical source for YTPMV’s in 2010.

Origin

Mark Knight, a member of Melon Dezign and Anthrox, produced the chiptune song with the freeware tracker program called “Protracker” in 1992 and has been released in August 13, 1992.

In October 20, 2010, YTPMVer “DWL1993” uploaded a video titled RED Flash remixing the chiptune song using the “Team Fortress 2” videos.

Spread

A day later, the video has been shared to the russian Team Fortress 2 website “tf2in.ru”^[1] and after end April 2011 other YTPMVers started to join the fad. The video titles for these videos have a snowclone X Flash and sometimes the word X has big letters.

On June 16, 2011, a video titled Bender Flash has been uploaded and many YTPMVers followed the style of the video.

On June 22, 2011, DWL1993 made a remake of his YTPMV, that get many video responses.

On January 27, 2012, “AmazingFilms247” also made a YTPMV and his video gained more than 150.000 views.

Notable Examples

Gay Flash (Senor Chang’s “Ha, Gay!”) | RAINBOW Flash (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

ASDF Flash (See also: asdfmovie) | Vuvu Chip Chip (See also: MysteryGuitarMan)

External References

^[1]RED Flash » Team Fortress 2 in Russia

About

Love Colored Master Spark (Japanese: 恋色マスタースパーク) is one of the themes of Marisa Kirisame, one of the main characters in the Touhou Project series. Like many other Touhou songs, it has been the subject of many Remixes and MAD videos.

Origin

The song origates from the 8th installment of the Touhou Project Series, Imperishable Night.^[1] Marisa can appear in the fourth stage as a boss if the player chooses either the Illusionary Border Team (幻想の結界チーム) or the Visionary Scarlet Devil Team (夢幻の紅魔チーム) at the beginning of the game, otherwise the player ends up with Reimu Hakurei as the boss.

Love Sign, Master Spark

The Master Spark has grown into Marisa Kirisame’s signature spell card after its first usage by her in Touhou 6, Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil. After Touhou 6, it continued to be her spell card in other Touhou Project games, spin-off series and fan-made games. It consist of a large, often rainbow-colored, laser. On DeviantArt, searching for “Master Spark”^[2] gives nearly 2000 results as of May 25th, 2012, similar to the various results it generates on Tumblr^[3].

Spread

WiP

At the time of the 8th game’s release, Touhou Project already had a large internet following, so there is no surprise that the theme was taken in so quickly by the community. It has spawned many Remix, Cover Videos, and MADs.

Derivatives

WiP

External References

^[1] Touhou Wiki – Imperishable Night

^[2] DeviantArt – Search ‘Master Spark’

^[3] Tumblr – Tagged ‘Master Spark’

Overview

The 2012 Quebec student protests refer to a series of demonstrations and strikes that began on February 13th, 2012 in the Canadian province of Quebec in response to a college tuition hike proposed by Liberal premier Jean Charest. The protest has been ongoing for more than 100 days and lasted well beyond the end of school semester. On the web, a number of viral videos and images have emerged from the scenes of protest.

Background

Quebec currently has the lowest tuition rates of any province in Canada, with a year of university education costing just over $2,100 on average. The proposed increase, pitched as a solution to the province’s budget shortfall, would bring it up to just under $3,800. The protests began on February 13, when students at Laval University staged a boycott, which was soon joined by the much larger University of Montreal. The protests soon spiralled out to most of the province, reaching its peak on March 22 when 300,000 people arrived at a rally in Montreal. Much like the Occupy Protests, the Quebec students have been used as a banner for a large variety of causes – with many people tying the tuition hike to broader issues of corporate greed and neoliberalism^[4].

Notable Development

The suppression of the protests has been compared to the destruction of the Occupy Movement‘s camps. More than 2,000 people have been arrested so far, with police using the infamous “kettling” technique that became famous during the height of the Occupy Movement. The Quebec government’s subsequent introduction of Bill 78^[5] which, among other things, severely restricted the right to protest and assembly, has also drawn severe criticism and is currently facing a legal challenge in the Quebec Provincial Court. The protesters appear to be made up of roughly the same demographic as the Occupiers, so it is no surprise that there has been a large online presence. The protests have been covered by various news outlets like BBC News^[1], The New York Times^[2], and The Huffington Post^[3] and have given rise to several instances of viral videos on YouTube. There have also been an increasing number of solidarity protests outside of Quebec, with many fellow students taking up the cause as their own. Meanwhile, the talks between the student groups and the Quebec government have produced no solutions. The most recent round of talks officially broke down on May 31 – leading to speculations that the protests would lead to a provincial election which would amount to a referendum on the hikes.^[21]

Red Patches

The protesters have promoted the wearing of a red square patch on one’s clothing as a means of showing solidarity with their cause.^[6] The patch can be seen in a large number of photographs from the protests themselves, as well as on the clothing of student leaders and supporters. The patch gained its widest dispersal of attention on May 19th, when the Grammy Award-Winning band Arcade Fire wore the patches while playing backup for Mic Jagger during that night’s episode of Saturday Night Live^[7].

Anarchopanda

From early on in May 2012, a demonstrator wearing a panda costume became known as “Anarchopanda,” the unofficial mascot of the Quebec student protests. According to news reports by Montreal’s Le Devoir^[14] and TVA Nouvelles^[15], Anarchopanda teaches philosophy at a college during daytime and tries to serve as the buffer between the student demonstrators and the police. The Facebook page^[13] for the protesting panda has accrued more than 11,354 likes as of May 30th, 2012.

Anonymous Affiliation

On May 25th, Anonymous released of a video criticizing the brutality of the police crackdown and demanding an end to the suppression of the protest movement. According to the video description:

Anonymous requires from the government of Quebec to respect the fundamental rights of the citizens. The freedom of expression is an inalienable right on which no government can walk, without paying a heavy toll for this misdeed.

Anonymous requires from the government of Quebec to put an immediate term of that repression, and to stop the police violence against the peaceful demonstrators.

A week prior to the video’s release, Anonymous claimed credit for an attack on the Quebec Government’s web servers, saying that the hack was a response to the passing of Bill 78^[8]. Of particular interest to Anons is the provision in the bill that bans the wearing of masks in public – which would prohibit the use of the famous Guy Fawkes mask.

On May 31 Anonymous announced that it had hacked into the ticket registry for the 2012 Montreal F1, an international formula one racing event set to be held from June 8-10.^[19] Along with the announcement, the hackers also released the contact information of 131 people who had purchased tickets for the event. According to e-mails sent to some of the victims of the theft^[20], the hack is a prelude to a large protest that they plan to hold outside the race.

Do not fool yourself into thinking that you can avoid or contain us, or that the police will protect you from our makeshift weapons. There is nowhere to hide. We know every street, every alley, every park. We know where you will sleep, where you will shop and where you will drink. We have been planning to crash your party for some time now.

Casseroles / Montreal Pots and Pans

A video depicting a “pots and pans” protest against Bill 78 was uploaded to Vimeo^[12] on May 25th, racking up over 33,000 views in its first eight hours, mostly due to spread over Facebook and Twitter. “Pots and pans” protests began in Chile, where demonstrators would bang on kitchenware in order to create noise and draw attention to the protest. Due to a provision in Bill 78 which said that all demonstrations had to be cleared with the government beforehand (which the protest depicted in the video did not do) the demonstration was declared officially illegal, though police still tolerated it as long as it did not become violent^[9].

Quebec Fire Hydrant Guy

This photo of Montreal protester David Champagne was first taken on May 20th and subsequently posted on the photographer’s blog^[10]. The photograph depicts Champagne seated in a fold-out chair in the path of a stream of water coming out of an open fire hydrant while riot police run by in the background. By May 25th, the image had earned over 2,300 up-votes on Reddit^[11], and had spread across Facebook and Twitter.

Bill C-38 Protests

As it did with the Occupy movement, the scope of the Quebec protests grew beyond the city of Montreal and the tuition bill. By end of May 2012, the protest movement reached Toronto^[18], where more than 1,000 people showed up at a downtown park with pots and pans to protest Bill 78 as well as Bill C-38, a 425-page legislation that would amend 60 different acts and repeal several others if passed. Due to its proposal of austere measures across various sectors of Canadian public work, it has been dubbed “the omnibus budget bill” by the critics in the media.^[17]

Canadian Websites Plan Blackout

Taking a cue from the success of the massive Internet blackout during the SOPA / PIPA protests in January, more than 100 Canadian environmental, non-profit and labor union websites have pledged to black out in protest against the Bill C-38. Dubbed “Black Out, Speak Out,”^[16] the strike is scheduled to take place on June 4th, 2012 with participation from more than 100 websites and 13,000 individuals seeking to raise awareness of the legislation.

Search Interest

External References

The fad consists of basically a top half and a bottom half, the top being an image and statement describing something, followed by a specific image from the opening credits of Avatar:The Last Air Bender and the phrase “but then everything changed when the fire nation attacked” (the words spoken during the displayed imagery in the lower half).

So far the earliest version of this seems to be a Memebase submission by: Cody Turner on May. 21, 2012

http://memebase.com/tag/fire-nation/

About

There is no X, only Zuul refers to someone or something that appears to have demonic transformation or possession. The quote comes from a scene in the 1984 film Ghostbusters. ^[1] Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) believes her apartment is haunted after she opens her refrigerator and sees a vision of a far away temple above the clouds where a dark monster growls the word, “Zuul”. She contacts a group of paranormal investigators, the Ghostbusters, to examine her claim. Later, one of the investigators, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), finds Dana has been possessed by the spirit of the demonic demigod, Zuul. Venkman tries to revive Dana:

Peter Venkman: Dana? It’s Peter.
Dana Barrett: There is no Dana, there is only Zuul.
Peter Venkman: Ol’ Zuula you nut, now c’mon. C’mon. I want to talk to Dana. Dana. Just relax, c’mon. Dana. Dana. Can I talk to Dana?
Dana Barrett: [deep demonic voice] There is no Dana, only Zuul.
Peter Venkman: What a lovely singing voice you must have.

Origin

It’s hard to pinpoint the beginnings of a meme based on a memorable quote from a blockbuster movie. In late 2006 a Capper Wiki entry for Only Zuul ^[2] appeared but interest quickly waned. Later in 2007 several events seem to have created a resurgence. The trash/death/black metal band named Only Zuul created a MySpace page ^[3] in 2007. Early in 2007 an episode titled, “Road to Rupert” of the animated TV series Family Guy referenced the quote.

Louis: Get out of the fridge, Peter.
Peter: There is no Peter, only Zuul.

But most significantly website for the G4TV network ^[4] began putting the grayed out words, “There is no search, only Zuul” in its search box as random filler text.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Internet Movie Date Base – Ghostbusters

^[2] Capper Wiki – Only Zuul

^[3] MySpace – Only Zuul

^[4] G4TV – G4TV

Work in progress. Feel free to request editorship

About

Spider-Man is a comic book superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Was created by the writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962).

Spider-Man have super strength and agility, the ability to cling to most surfaces, shoot spider-webs using devices of his own invention which he called “web-shooters”, and react to danger quickly with his “spider-sense”, enabling him to combat his foes.

History

Researching

Online Presence

Researching

Related memes

’60s Spider-Man

60’s Spider-Man , also known as “Retro Spider-Man”, refers to an image macro series based on still shots from the original Spider-Man cartoon series, typically featuring an absurd internal monologue that correspond with the actions depicted in the images.

Dancing Spider-Man

Dancing Spider-Man refers to an animated GIF image of Spider-man performing a dance set to a blank white background. It had a great spread in YTMND, and also was used putting a different audio

Toei Spider-Man

Toei Spider-Man is the Japanese tokusatsu television series loosely based on the Marvel Comics character, Spider-Man. In this version, Spider-Man is portrayed as a live-action hero equipped with a giant mecha and cheesy, over-the-top entrances. Due to the drastic changes made to the storyline and character settings, the series was eventually rediscovered by the Japanese internet users, opening up the door for memetic mutation.

How Do I Shoot Web?

“How Do I Shot Web?” is a popular catchphrase paired with an image of Spider-man, that is typically used in online conversations to poke fun at n00bish behavior.

Crippled Spider-Man

Crippled Spider-Man is a YTMND fad, featuring a picture from a Halloween costume catalogue where a kid in a Spider-Man outfit was holding a walker.

Search Insights

About

ASIANS CAN ACTUALLY READ MINDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is a copypasta which warns that Asian people can read the minds of others and claims that Asians try to suppress facial expressions in an attempt to hide this secret ability. It also claims that this is why, in the author’s opinion, that Asians associate with other Asians, so the ability is not revealed to people of other ethnicities, and emphasizes that the message must be spread. The original author’s identity and purpose in creating the message is unknown but it has since become a mass-trolling tool on the Internet.

Origin

While the message began to appear widely around March 2012, it seems to date back from significantly earlier, as an instance from in or around July 2011 has been found on blindloop.com. ^[1]

Spread

The textual message, in its current use as a troll, has become extremely widespread over the Internet in a short period of time, beginning around early March 2012. The message abruptly became a copypasta appearing on large numbers of websites, assumedly because of the strange and humorous claims made within. It has affected mostly text-based services such as comment sections and websites such as Yahoo Answers.

The text of the message is as follows:

ASIANS CAN ACTUALLY READ MINDS!!!!!!!!!!!!
they can hear, and see what your visually thinking
this is the complete truth

The reason a lot of Asians have completely expressionless faces, segregate from everybody else-only associate with Asians and don’t associate with non Asians that much, and are very unfriendly in general is to avoid accidentally revealing that they can read minds. If all over a billion Asians where to show facial expressions all the time just as much as non Asians, integrate and associate with non Asians much more, and be much more friendly and talkative, then a lot of them might accidentally reveal that they can read minds by accidentally showing a facial expression or dirty look when someone thinks, or visually pictures something in their mind they don’t like, find astonishing, or funny etc because those people might see that and and really wonder what that was that just happened there and see the connection, and they might accidentally say something similar to what the person was just thinking and going to say. If they all associated with non Asians a lot more then there would be a lot more people around for them to accidentally show facial expressions when those people think things they don’t like etc, so they segregate and only associate with Asians so there won’t be anyone around for them to see that and have any accidents happen in the first place.

Try thinking, best yet visually picturing in your mind something absolutely crazy as you possibly can when you are around Asians, and try looking for Asians who give people particular looks, especially dirty looks for what appears to be for completely no reason, that is them giving people looks when they hear and visually see someone thinking something they don’t like, find astonishing, or funny etc.

I know this may sound crazy, impossible and unbelievable, BUT IT ISN’T CRAZY WHEN ITS TRUE

You have to spread the message!!!!!
The world has to know about this!!!!!

At the time of this writing, the earliest known instance of the copypasta which appeared on blindloop.com circa July 2011:

There is reason to believe that the blindloop instance of the message may in fact be very close to the first appearance of the text if not the original itself. The reason for this is that upon close inspection, most if not all recent appearances of the text have some corrected capitalization of sentences which the blindloop version does not have. One would assume then that the original author, or someone else who copied the text, corrected some of the punctuation after the July 2011 posting.

While it is unclear if the creator’s intent was to troll in the first place, the text has nonetheless become a trolling tool which serves the purpose of inserting nonsensical gibberish within content which is unrelated. It is typically meant to detract attention from the actual subject at hand or to derail a discussion. As of this writing, Google Instant not only predicts the phrase when typed into the search bar, but delivers over 18 million results for “asians can actually read minds.”

Effect on Yahoo Answers and Staff Response

A Google search of the phrase with site set to answers.yahoo.com delivers over 14,000 results from that subdomain of Yahoo in itself.^[2] Further investigation into those results indicates that the copypasta has apparently become so widely spread on the service that Yahoo staff has arbitrarily and systematically removed most instances of it from the site. A similar removal of material was used in 2010 when Yahoo Answers became plagued with hundreds, if not thousands, of users with variations of the name Clint C, of which each used a variation of the same response for every answer given. It was the largest known mass-trolling of the website to ever occur and Google indicates that the Yahoo Answers subdomain still holds 173,000 instances of the name.^[3]

External References

^[1] blindloop.com – 5 Vestigial Characteristics of The Human Body Posted on 4-1-2010

^[2] Google – Subdomain search result / Retrieved on 29-5-2012

^[3] Google – Subdomain search result / Retrieved on 29-5-2012

Overview

Miami Zombie (also known as “Miami Cannibal”) is the nickname given to Rudy Eugene, a deceased man who viciously attacked and cannibalized the homeless man Ronald Poppo in May of 2012.

Background

On May 26th, 2012, the Miami Herald^[1] published an article titled “Naked man killed by Police near MacArthur Causeway was ‘eating’ face off victim”, which reported that police had discovered a man chewing on another man’s face on the MacArthur Causeway ramp in Miami, Florida. The man continued the assault after being ordered by officers to back away, and was subsequently shot six times. The article went on to report that police suspected the man was experiencing a drug-induced psychotic episode brought on by consuming cocaine.

Notable Developments

After being reported by the Miami Herald on May 26th, 2012, the story was covered by other news media outlets including MSNBC, The New York Post^[3], The Huffington Post^[4], The Daily Mail^[5] and USA Today.^[6] The following day, YouTuber GalzZone uploaded a video titled “Man Eating Another Man’s Face In Miami”, featuring security camera footage of the attack. Within four days, the video received over 950,000 views and 1,700 comments.

Victim’s Identity

On May 28th, 2012, the Miami Herald^[7] identified the victim as 65-year-old Ronald Poppo, a homeless man who had been living on the streets for 30 years. According to CBS News^[16], Poppo was a decorated student at a prestigious high school in New York City before becoming homeless in his 30s.

Bath Salts Rumors

On May 29th, 2012, ABC News^[14] published an article titled “Face-Eating Attack Possibly Prompted by ‘Bath Salts,’ Authorities Suspect”, which reported that the Eugene may have been using the synthetic stimulant drug Mephedrone. The stimulant that goes by the street name “bath salts” has been known to cause violent behavior and the stripping off of one’s clothes in order to cool the body from overheating. The same day, Redditor KingContext submitted a post to the /r/Drugs^[15] subreddit, which complained that news outlets were demonizing the chemical Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) by confusing it with Mephedrone.

Zombie Apocalypse

On May 27th, 2012, The Miami Zombie Twitter^[12] account was created, which featured tweets written in the perspective of a hungry undead creature. On May 29th, BuzzFeed^[9] staff member Donna Dickens published a post titled “Zombie Apocalypse Begins in Florida”, which listed several strange events leading up the the Miami attack. On May 30th, Redditor ATKDragon submitted a rage comic titled “Not a zombie rage” (shown below) to the f7u12^[10] subreddit, which joked about the Miami attack being perceived as a sign of a zombie outbreak. Within two days, the post received over 3,400 up votes and 150 comments.

The same day, Newsweek and The Daily Beast launched a custom Google Map^[11] titled “Zombie Instances, May 2012” was created, which featured tagged locations where news stories related to strange outbreaks and cannibalism were reported (shown below). On May 31st, the women’s interest blog Jezebel^[8] published an article titled “There is No Miami Zombie Apocalypse, Just Mentally Ill People With No Safety Net”, which criticized the zombie apocalypse jokes for being insensitive and ignoring the root causes of the Miami cannibalism incident.

View Zombie Instances, May 2012 in a larger map

YouTube Reactions

Search Interest

External References

Taringa! is a virtual community from Argentina where users can share any kind of information via posts. It was created in January of 2004 and spread since April of 2004 by Fernando Sanz, an argentinean student. In November 2006, it was adquired by Alberto Nakayama, Matías Botbol y Hernán Botbol. With over half million visitor per day and with over 5 million users registered, it becames the 228° webpage with more traffic worldwide. Taringa! has posts, communities, music and games, and it contains 28 categories where users can find homework, art, hobbies, economics, ecology, DIY, humour, news, recipes, videogames, facts and viral media.

This webpage is well known by Latin America websurfers because of his media references, his meme spread (most of them from Latin America like Alto Guiso, El Fua, Ni Mergas, El Canaca, El Ferras and so on), and his big info recopilation.

Taringa owners have another webpage with structure similarities, called Poringa! (+18) that has adult content, such as porn.

About

Mary Sue is a negative term used in fanfiction and literary criticism to describe an original character that is often overly idealized or assumed to be a projection of the author. When used by a male author, the character is referred to as a Gary Stu or Marty Stu.

Origin

The name “Mary Sue” is taken from a character^[10] that appeared in Paula Smith’s^[18] parody Star Trek fanfiction titled “A Trekkie’s Tale.”^[12] Originally published in the December 1973 issue of the fanzine The Menagerie^[16], the 200 word piece intended to critique the abundance of Star Trek fanfiction Smith saw in which adolescent girls become the youngest member of the Starfleet crew whom every canon character fell in love with.^[17] It was paired with a drawing of wide-eyed young girl with braces to illustrate what the character would have looked like.

“Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky,” thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. “Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet – only fifteen and a half years old.” Captain Kirk came up to her.
“Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?”
“Captain! I am not that kind of girl!”
“You’re right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us.”
Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. “What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?”
“The Captain told me to.”
“Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind.”

Spread

Following its publication, Smith went on to speak at some of the earliest fandom conventions, cementing the definition of a Mary Sue to be a wish-fulfillment outlet for the author which can sometime seem out of place in the established universe and ultimately warps the canon characters’ personalities, causing them to act out of character.

In March 1999, author Pat Pflieger presented a paper titled “Too Good To Be True: 150 Years of Mary Sue”^[3] at the American Culture Association conference. Pflieger traces the history of these characters prior to the term’s 1973 coinage, marking that these types of charactesr have appeared in literature since as early as the nineteenth century, using examples of stories published in the children’s magazine Robert Merry’s Museum^[21] throughout the 1800s. Both characters from these stories as well as ones from 20th century fanfiction shared traits including idealized beauty, tragic pasts, charming personalities and a desire to fix things the author deems “broken,” whether that be feelings or canon stories that did not live up to expectations. The paper lists 30 different characters^[22] written between 1849 and 1999 that could fit into the Mary Sue archetype.

In 2002, the LiveJournal community The Mary Sue Report^[15] was founded to highlight fanfics that featured Mary Sues, linking to the original story and highlighting the characteristics that fit the archetype. The following year, The Canon Sue Report^[26] was created to feature characters outside of fanfiction that could be considered Mary Sues, including Rose Tyler from Doctor Who^[27], Maito Gai from Naruto^[28] and Lana Lang from Smallville.^[29]

Writing guides on avoiding creating Mary Sue characters can be found on Yahoo!^[7], Salon^[8] and Fiction Press.^[9] Additionally, a Mary Sue Litmus Test^[1] exists for a writer to answer questions about their fictional characters to determine whether or not they would fall into this archetype. Discussion on Mary Sues can be found on Tumblr^[6], TV Tropes^[2] and the Fanlore wiki.^[11]

Criticism

As early as 1994, the term Mary Sue was seen as a blanket term for any heroine featured in a Star Trek fanfiction^[19], with author Camille Bacon-Smith noting that it reached a point where writers were restricted for fear of creating a character that would be considered a Mary Sue. Research completed by J.M. Frey in 2009^[20] found that these characters, though often hated by community members, can be stepping stones for writers trying to find their place in the fandom. Frey determined that self-based characters can be used as a tool for writers to understand ones self. The following year, Geek Feminism^[14]compiled several blogs found on their link sharing group of writers automatically condemning original female characters to be vapid, noting that readers too readily dismiss a female-written piece with original characters on similar grounds.

The notion that Mary Sues are only disliked for being female was also discussed on book review blog The Zoe-Trope^[4] in May 2011, in which the author defines key traits about the Mary Sue archetype:

1) A character who is based, at least partly, on the author
2) A character whom has no significant flaws (except possibly ones the other characters find cute)
3) A character to whom everyone within the story reacts as if they were beautiful and wonderful except characters who are clearly evil and/or motivated by jealousy
4) A character with whom, during the course of the story, every available character of the opposite (and occasionally the same) sex will fall in love given any contact whatsoever
5) A character who undergoes no significant growth, change or development throughout the story

Bella Swan

After the success of the Twilight series in 2008, many readers argued on personal blogs^[23] that Bella Swan was a Mary Sue character. The discussion was continued on Cracked^[24], Yahoo! Answers^[25], and peer-reviewed contemporary culture journal Reconstruction^[5], though no conclusion was made.

Search Interest

External References

About

A Badfic is a term used to describe a fanfiction story that is deemed weird or of low quality due to an incoherent storyline, terrible grammar or overall abundance of WTF moments.

Origin

Though the term was not coined until 2000, fanfiction considered to be poorly written has been around just as long as fanfiction^[10] itself. As early as 1973, tropes considered low quality, for example using overly idealized characters known as Mary Sues, were critiqued in fan zines.

Badfics can be generally divided into two types. The standard badfics are well-known for their bad grammar, absence of a plot and vague sex scenes. The authors of such stories tend to put sincere efforts in the writing process but unintentionally gain notoriety as a result of various shortcomings and lack of experience. On the Internet, poorly written proses are often met by ironic appreciation, instead of the serious response the author was hoping to elicit, and can be categorized under the genre of so bad it’s good.

On the other hand, the second type of badfic may contain elements that are commonly found in the aforementioned, but taken to an extreme level for comedic effect. The core distinction between the two lies in that the author of the latter type intends to write poorly for either the sake of humor or to satirize other badfics. As a result, such works have been often labeled trollfics.^[9]

Spread

Communities devoted to pointing out and sharing the poorly written stories began popping up in 1998 with the creation of the Godawful Fan Fiction Archive.^[11] The next year, two more communities were created, Citizens Against Bad Slash^[12] and Englishchick.^[15] Communities also appeared on fanfiction.net, such as WTFfics^[4] and Crapfics That Will Hurt Your Brain^[5], to highlight stories deemed low quality as well as general weird moments found in stories submitted to the site.

In 2001, Something Awful^[16] featured a series of poorly written short stories written by people who hated the fandom subject. LiveJournal user svmadelyn held the Badfic Summary Mini-Ficathon^[18] in 2006, where more than 70 users participated writing trollfic on each other’s prompts in 48 hours. Since that year, more than 350 questions have been asked about bad fanfic on Yahoo! Answers.^[17] Clips also are shared on Tumblr with the tag #badfic.^[19]

On LiveJournal, communites like Twitchfic^[1] and WTF Fanfiction?^[2] specialize in collecting badfics from across the web and dividing them into categories and fandoms, sometimes also providing dramatic readings of certain instances. On Blogspot, Crap Fic Theater^[3] also offers dramatic readings of various badfics. The Protectors of the Plot Continuum^[13] also put special sections on their Wikia for badfics, with a separate page for ones considered legendary^[14], which contains shockfics such as Agony in Pink and Cupcakes.

Notable Examples

My Immortal

My Immortal, often described as The Worst Fanfiction Ever, is a fanfic that takes place in the Harry Potter universe and was created by fanfiction.net user Tara Gillesbie. It became famous for containing a large number of spelling and grammatical errors and sudden unexplained sex scenes. The story may have been a trollfic, but its origin has yet to be confirmed.

Half-Life: Full Life Consequences

Half-Life: Full Life Consequences was created by fanfiction.net user Squirrelking. The poorly written fanfic didn’t take off until a dramatic reading was created, which was later turned into a Garry’s Mod adaptation.

DOOM: Repercussions of Evil

DOOM: Repercussions of Evil is an amateur fanfiction written by fanfiction.net user Peter Chimaera that takes place in the universe of the videogame DOOM. The notorious short story gained a large following for its carefree grammar and punctuation. Similar to My Immortal, it is often questioned whether the fanfic was perhaps a trollfic or just a crapfic. The fanfic also gained popularity through the snowclone catchphrase “No, X. You are the Y”, which pokes fun at the ridiculous plot twist at the end.

Dramatic Readings

Badfics are often used as content for dramatic readings, oral interpretation commonly used in reader’s theater where a reader would read a story in a dramatic voice. Because of the abnormal situations presented in a badfic, along with the commonly found bad grammar, dramatic readings often create hilarious results. Certain fanfictions, like Half-Life: Full Life Consequences, also gained more popularity due to the videos created of it.

Site: WTF Fanfiction

The Tumblr blog WTF Fanfiction^[6] takes texts of confusing or absurd moments found in fanfics, making them into shareable image macros. These are also shared through their Twitter account.^[7] The popularity of the site has also resulted in spin-off blogs such as WTF Pony Fanfiction^[8], which specializes in fanfics from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom.

Eating while doing these submissions is a really bad idea… #fanfiction

— WTF Fanfiction (@wtffanfiction) mei 27, 2012

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

HOME Haruka (Japanese: ほめ春香 or ホメ春香, Hoh-Meh Haruka) is a nickname given to the creepy creature born in Sony’s virtual 3D social gaming platform PlayStation Home^[1] in 2009, which is consisting of the avater costunes of Haruka Amami from Namco’s video game series THE iDOLM@STER. Many fanarts and video remixes inspired by her creepness have been uploaded to Nico Nico Douga (NND) and pixiv.

Origin

In February 10th, 2009, as a part of an advert campaign for a new video game for PlayStation Potable “THE iDOLM@STER SP”, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan announced about the release of the special items of THE iDOLM@STER on PlayStation Home from the 12th of that month.^[2] It made fans so excited, and they were agog over the items because THE iDOLM@STER series hadn’t be released for PS3 console yet in those days and it was the first appearance of the game series on that console.

However, screenshots in the announcement disappointed devotees so much. In there, an expressionless Haruka Amami with a strange body shape was just standing creepy.

The special items were Haruka Amami’s face mask and her costumes for avatars. Developers explained that this cheapness was a homage to plastic masks which are sold on street stalls at Japanese festivals.^[3]

Spread

The creepiness of this avatar costumes soon made a headline among game fans and was accepted as an epic FAIL. Some heartless internet users who blew the game console war set her to the subject of mockery against PS3. And this Haruka descneded to PlayStation Home became to be called Home Haruka with much dishonorable nuance.

Meanwhile, her creepiness also inspired the other Japanese internet users with creative mind. A NND user tyb uploaded her dancing movie creating from the screenshots on the following day.^[4] Another NND user named SebastianP created Home Haruka’s character model^[5] and it was imported to Miku Miku Dance (MMD) immediately.^[6] A surrealistic skit video made by this model on the 14th on that month.^[7]

The concept of Home Haruka shown on those videos shared among other people. They began creating the videos and illustrations of creepy and lunatic Home Haruka with their own renditions, and the personality of Home Haruka as a creature was established on the web by their works, which was splitted from the personality of Haruka Amami herself. It’s described in the articles on Nico Nico Pedia^[8] and pixiv Encyclopedia^[9], internet encyclopedias in both services.

As of April 2012, more than 1200 videos related to Home Haruka are uploaded to NND^[10] and more than 180 illustrations are uploaded to pixiv.^[11] In addition, Home Haruka is counted as one of the three popular creatures (御惨家, Gosanke) which include KimeeMaru, a derivative of Yukkuri, and Shiteyanyo on NND and pixiv.

Team Home Haruka

Some of PlayStation Home users addicted to her formed the team named Team Home Haruka (ホメ春香隊, Hoh-meh Haruka Tai), and have joined virtual online concerts of THE iDOLM@STER or held virtual flash mob in that platform with the costumes. The surrealistic sight of the audience dressing up as Home Haruka are uploaded to the web and enjoyed by many people. The most popular gathering among them is the birthday event for her held on every February 11th.

Notable Examples

Videos

Left: Motteke! Sailor Fuku^[12] | Right: LOVE & JOY^[13]

Left: smooooch ・∀・^[14] | Right: Noroi no Yakata^[15]

Left: Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga^[16] | Right: Nico Nico Douga Meteor Shower^[17]

<!-- For more videos, check out the <a href=“#videos”>videos</a> section in this entry. -->

Illustrations

Search Interest

External References

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

Italian Spiderman is a film parody of Italian action–adventure films of the 60s and 70s, first released on YouTube in 2007. The parody purports to be a “lost Italian film” by Alrugo Entertainment, an Australian film-making collective formed by Dario Russo, Tait Wilson, David Ashby, Will Spartalis and Boris Repasky. It is widely known throughout the Internet as a famous character due to his ‘bad ass’ personality, catchphrases and use of guns
Ostensibly an Italian take on the comic book superhero Spider-Man, the film is a reference to foreign movies that misappropriate popular American superheroes such as the Turkish film “3 Dev Adam” and the Japanese TV series “Spider-Man”, both of which alter the character of Spider-Man for foreign audiences. Other notable entries include the Indian version of Superman (1987), I Fantastici Tre Supermen (3 Fantastic Supermen) (1967) and La Mujer Murcielago (The Batwoman) (1968). It also resembles the movie The Bathman dal pianeta Eros (1982).

History

The project began as a trailer for a non-existent film, produced as a student film at Flinders University by director Dario Russo for his final year Screen Production project. The “trailer” was shot, over the course of one day, on 16 mm film using an older style camera to achieve an authentic look for the films of that era.

Popularity

Publicized as an actual lost Italian action film from the late 1960s, the film was later uploaded onto YouTube on 8 November 2007 where it has gained a massive cult following with 4,117,618 hits as of 7 February 2012. With some of mainstream media taking interest in the film, this led to the South Australian Film Corporation giving the filmmakers funding for ten more short films.

(Playlist Link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL31F9635F8E0806B8)

The first installment of the “feature film” premiered across the Internet on 22 May 2008; further installments followed on a weekly basis.
The series was well-received, but ended on a cliffhanger. The May 2010 announcement of the end of Alrugo Entertainment cast doubt on the possible continuation of the project.

Google Insight

Retirement

On 24 October 2011, a video announcement was made declaring the end of the Italian Spiderman project and the formation of a new production company between Dario Russo and David Ashby, called Dinosaur. The same video also officially announced the duo’s television show, Danger 5 which is set in a bizarre 1960s interpretation of World War II and follows a group of five international spies on a mission to kill Adolf Hitler and thwart his plans of world domination

Italian spiderman gif (WTF GIF)

This GIF (Animated Image) showing a guy with a shocked reaction has been used as a WTF response image within others. It is known as “talian spiderman gif” for most of the users of the image.

Shut Your Mouth Pussycat!

A scene which has been known as one of the most remembered is when the personality of Italian Spiderman is taken place where after saying a female’s life from ’two group of smartass teenagers, he then slaps her saying:

“Shut your mouth, pussycat, and find me a Machiatto, Pronto!”

Notable Images

About

Spongebob Time Cards are commonly used pictures showing in some of the episodes of the Nickelodeon TV Series “Spongebob Squarepants”. They are also used in Rage Comics.

Notable Examples

Editor’s Note: This entry contains suggestive images and videos that may not be suitable for all readers. Discretion is advised.

About

Lyra Plushie is a stuffed toy of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic background pony character Lyra with a mysterious hole in the rear side.

Origin

On May 27th, 2012, a Lyra plushie^[1] was placed on the online auction site The Dealers Den by DeviantArt user Hoppip^[2]. The Lyra plushie comes with removable clothing and “a special hole in her butt that you can stick your penis in”, according to the seller’s description. The product page also included general tips on how to clean the toy and an option to purchase a slightly different model without the hole. As of June 1st, more than 88 bids have been submitted for the item with the highest bid standing at £351 GBP or $540 USD.

Spread

On May 29th, 2012, Modern Primate posted an article about the plushie and the feedback from the fandom community.^[12] On May 31st, Daily Dot^[4] published a similar article highlighting the buzz around the Lyra Plushie, followed by a second article^[13] on June 1st covering Hoppip’s opinion. Fanart works based on the plushie were also shared on Equestria After Dark^[3], Funnyjunk^[8] and FunnyField^[9][10] on the same day. On Tumblr, tags associated with the item also gained popularity^[5][6] and a Tumblr Ask Blog was launched for the plushie, which gained over 650 followers within 12 hours.^[7]

Reactions

Although many viewers reacted in disgust and disapproval towards the plushie, others chose to ignore its intended purpose and began sharing jokes about the toy. Hoppip’s DeviantArt page^[3] became quickly flooded with various reactions regarding the plushie and a wide range of opinions. On the My Little Pony imageboard Ponychan, the merchandise board^[11], /merch/, spawned so many threads about the plushie that the moderators were forced to send out a warning asking everyone to no longer link to the auction page.

Fanart

Most fanart illustrations based on the plushie features the hole in the back with an alternate function other than for the suggested sexual usage, such as turning the plushie into inanimate objects, most commonly a storage container or a hand puppet.

Photoshopped Images

The close up shot of the hole in the back of the plushie, directly taken from the auction page^[1], has gained usage in numerous photoshops. These vary between reaction images towards the plushie, to objects and people placed in the hole.

External References

Work in progress. Feel free to request editorship

About

Women Logic refers to a series of jokes about the stereotype of the thinking of women.

Origin

Researching

Spread

Researching

Search Insights

Note: I’m terrible with writing articles and I’m new, so if someone can help me, please do! Request editorship in the comments.*

Beta-7 was a creepypasta/journal taking place from March 2003 to September 2003. The story was about a person (never identified, but called “Beta-7”) who was confronted by a Visual Concepts employee to enter a playtest for Sega’s NFL 2K3, which gave him several blackouts within minutes of playing in the First Person Football mode. There are many controversies about this journal, some believe it’s true, and some believe it’s an advertising campaign for Sega.

Crazy crab was a mascot made up for the San Francisco Giants baseball team in 1984 in the hope that it would become a mascot since they didnt have one. However, the complete opposite happened whereas thousands of fans booed the crab, threw trash at it, and attempted to physically assault it. The next season the crab was gone but a movement was created to bring back the crab. In 2008 crazy crab made a return in one SF Giants game.
Moral of the story: Everyone can make a comeback.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE8HrM1TTWw

happy was a quirky guy