About

The Perry Bible Fellowship is a webcomic, which originated as a print comic, created by cartoonist Nicholas Gurewitch. The comic often features puns, religious and geek-related humor.

History

Gurewitch originally published the comic in the Syracuse University school newspaper The Daily Orange. The comic earned Gurewitch multiple Web Cartoonist’s Choice Awards, an Eisner award, and a Harvey.^[4]

Social Media Presence

As of May 2014, the official The Perry Bible Fellowship Facebook page^[1] has over 45,000 likes and its Twitter account^[2] has over 5,000 followers.

Related Memes

Weeaboo

Weeaboo is an English slang used to describe a person (typically of non-Asian descent) who prefers Japan and all things in Japanese over one’s indigenous culture. The term is a successive mutation of “Wapanese,” a derogatory slur referring to western Japanophiles with a strong bias towards Japanese cultural and tech imports. From late 2003 and onwards, usage of Wapanese became alarmingly visible on 4chan, often leading to unpleasant exchanges between anime/manga fans and those who were far less interested in their subcultures.

At the peak of its abuse in mid-2005, 4chan moderators devised a creative intervention using the word-filter, replacing every instance of Wapanese with “Weeaboo,” which was a fictitious term originally coined by Nicholas Gurewitch in his Perry Bible Fellowship comic strip (date unknown, comic #62):

Box of Hate

Box of Hate is a photoshop meme based on a Perry Bible Fellowship comic titled “Box of Hate,” which features a boy putting a note reading “spankings” into a box mark “things I hate,” which is followed by a frame of him being spanked. The comic was first uploaded to the Perry Bible Fellowship site^[3] on July 4th, 2007.

Spanking can be replaced with any word or image for examples of the meme, but the rest of the comic remains the same.

Search Interest

External References

About

Reverse GIF refers to an animated GIF in which each frame is played in reverse chronological order to reveal an alternative narrative that is drastically different from the original.

Origin

On January 14th, 2009, a reversed GIF featuring a prank from the comedy television show Trigger Happy TV, in which a man feeding pigeons is attacked by another man dressed in a giant pigeon costume, was uploaded to the site GIFbin^[2] (shown below).

Precursor

This humorous concept has been previously iterated through a series of reverse chronological interpretations of popular film narratives based on the snowclone template If you watch (x) backwards, it is about. One of the earliest instances of flipping a movie’s narrative appeared on the SomethingAwful forums^[6] on May 20th, 2006, which re-imagined Star Wars, Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, Batman Begins and Carry on Camping.

Spread

In May 2010, the website Reverse GIF^[1] was launched, which features an app that reanimates uploaded GIFs in reverse.

On August 28th, 2011, Redditor monochrome_sketch linked to an animated GIF of a man saying “That’s a Penis” from the television show How I Met Your Mother in a post on the /r/funny^[8] subreddit. In the comments section of the post, Redditor Tyba11s posted a reversed version of the GIF (shown below). Prior to being archived, the comment gathered over 1,200 up votes.

On June 23rd, 2012, the /r/reversegif^[3] subreddit was launched for posts containing links to reversed GIF animations. On December 19th, BuzzFeed^[5] published a compilation of notable reversed GIFs. In May 2013, additional reversed GIF examples were highlighted on UpRoxx^[6] and Imgur.^[7] On September 3rd, the Reverse My GIF Tumblr^[9] blog was launched. On February 3rd, 2014, Redditor kittenology asked for others to submit their favorite reversed GIFs in a post on /r/AskReddit,^[4] where it gained more than 1,800 upvotes and 740 comments in three months.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Poorly made 3D animations are videos or gifs featuring animations made in programs such as Blender or Daz which pertain a poor quality. They are known for being surreal and often humorous.

Precursor

During the 1990s, animations were introduced to ten-pin bowling alleys and would play on the leader board every time someone bowled. While these did not circulate the internet, they were also known for their poor quality and surrealism.

Origin

One of the first poorly made 3D animations was ’Colin’s Bear Animation’, an animation made by Colin Sanders for his final assignment for an Animation Arts class. It features a bear dancing to the song “Funky Monkey Dance” from the Nintendo game Mother 3. Sanders friend uploaded the video to Youtube in December 2007 and as of May 2014 it has over 2,250,000 views.

The video was one of the first poorly made animations which was both surreal and considered humorous.

Spread

In 2009 Youtube user ‘wendyvanity’ (now ‘madcatlady’) began uploading poorly-made animations made in the 3D animation program Daz, due to the bizarre nature in the videos (which included text-to-speech voice acting) she gathered a small following.

Her most popular video so far is “meow! sad toy cats.wmv” which as of May 2014 has 700,000 views on Youtube. Her videos “Meow meow I am a cat” and “Tom R. Toe” are also quite popular.

Numerous other Youtube users have since uploaded many surreal videos using text-to-speech to Youtube. Some popular ones include ‘seinfieldspitstain’ and ‘ratboygenius’.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External Links

About

Daggering is a Jamaican dance which resembles simulated sex and wrestling moves.

Origin

[Researching]

Spread

On July 14th, 2008, YouTuber Jay Will uploaded a music video for the reggae song “Daggering” by Mr. Vegas (shown below, left). On November 20th, YouTuber Fame Ous uploaded a video featuring Skerrit Bwoy, a former hype man for the reggae group Major Lazer, daggering off a ladder in a dance hall (shown below, right). In six years, the videos gathered upwards of 2.3 million and 890,000 views respectively.

On May 14th, 2010, the MajorLazerVEVO YouTube channel uploaded a daggering instructional video (shown below, left). On July 22nd, YouTuber HotReggaeDances uploaded a video featuring daggering dances at a Jamaican dancehall (shown below, right). In four years, the video gained over 1.5 million views and 360 comments.

On February 28th, 2014, YouTuber Jammin oneluv uploaded a video of Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt daggering with a woman in Trinidad (shown below, left). On March 11th, 2014, the Grenas Inc Entertainment YouTube channel uploaded a daggering montage video with dubbed commentary from the professional wrestling organization WWE (shown below, right.

About

Twitch Sandwich Challenge was developed when people got hungry and wanted to make a referential game challenge.

Origin

It is a quote from a character in League of Legends. It happened one day when people noted Twitch wanted a sandwich. His quote being: “I demand a sandwich!” His quote: "I demand tribute also played a part in it. This lead to certain fans attempting to make sandwiches based of team death or kills. The amount of kills or deaths is proportional to the sandwich(es). (One sandwich or layer for a kill or death.)

Spread

The phrase is mainly a League of Legends phrase and has yet to be seen out of the game fan base.

About

The Spiny Shell (also commonly referred to as the Blue Shell) is an item originating from the Mario Kart series. Since it’s original appearance in Mario Kart 64, it has become infamous due to it’s habit of hitting racers just before the finish line on the final lap of a race, making them most likely lose the race.

Origin

The Spiny Shell original appeared in Mario Kart 64. which was released on December 14, 1996 in Japan. In the game, the Spiny Shell would target the person in first place, making them immobile for a few seconds after being hit. It has appeared in every single Mario Kart game since then and has even appeared in other games of the Mario franchise. Originally it appeared without wings, but this was changed in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! In Mario Kart 7, the Spiny Shell was changed back into being wingless.

Spread

Due to it’s tendency to often hit players near the finish line in the third lap, usually costing the racer first place victory, it has become infamous and is often said to be. GamesRader included Spiny Shell in article “The Top 7… Worst Parts of Best Games”^[1], stating “The blue shell is Nintendo at its worst”. Kotaku included the Spiny Shell in their article Our favorite jerk moments in games^[2] stating that it punishes one for doing well. A comic on xkcd titled “Fucking Blue Shell”^[3] featured a chart, showing that the comic drawer mostly cursed when playing Mario Kart, presumingly because of being hit by the Spiny Shell.

Hideki Konno, the producer of the Mario Kart series has defended the Spiny shell however. In an interview with Kotaku^[4] Konno stated that the reason it was originally included in Mario Kart 64 was to make the race more unpredicable.

On the internet, there exist many guides and tactics on how to dodge a Spiny shell. One of the more famous one is using either a mushroom or a mini-turbo just before the Spiny shell hits. Another one is simply driving off the edge of the racetrack as the Spiny Shell approaches.

The Spiny Shell has also being made into merchandise such a plush toy and a keychain. Fans of the the Mario Kart series has also made a Spiny Shell hat^[5]. On March 6 2014, it was announced that people who lived in Europe and Australia could pre-order a limited edition of Mario Kart 8 and recieve a Spiny Shell statue. Later, the offer was made available for people buying the game from the Nintendo World Store in New York City.

Notable Examples

Search interest

External References

^[1]GamesRader- The Top 7… Worst Parts of Best Games page 7

^[2]Kotaku – Our favorite jerk moments in games

^[3]xkcd – Fucking Blue Shells

^[4]Kotaku – The Maker Of Mario Kart Justifies The Blue Shell

^[5]Dorkly – Inspire Terror with a Blue Shell Plushie Hat

Editor’s Note: This entry is currently being worked on, feel free to request editorship

About

The Ren & Stimpy Show, often only called Ren & Stimpy, is an American animated television series which was created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi, the show has gained a cult following after it’s run and has received critical acclaim, most of it’s soundtrack has also been used for Spongebob Squarepants

History

The main characters were created at around 1978 by the show’s creator for his own amusement while he was in Sheridan College. Ren was inspired by an Elliott Erwitt photograph of a sweatered chihuahua at a woman’s feet and Stimpy’s design was inspired by the Tweety Bird cartoon called A Gruesome Twosome, in which the cats had a big nose in the animation, Nickelodeon later approached Kricfalusi and showed him three shows, one of them being with a live action host showing different cartoons parodying certain genre’s, in Your Gang, part of the show mentioned above, one of the children’s pets were a cat and dog, a parody of the cat and dog genre, Kricfalusi liked the pets and singled them out for their own show

The pilot was in production in 1989, The animation was done by the creator’s own animation company, Spümcø, the show was screened at film festivals for several months before appearing in Nickelodeon’s 1991 lineup

Reception

The show has received a 7.6 rating on IMDB and has gained a cult following after it was cancelled, the show had also received mixed reviews

Influence

The show had influenced two “clones”, 2 Stupid Dogs from Hannah Barbera, which lasted 2 seasons and 26 episodes, and The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show from Disney, which only lasted a season and 13 episodes before cancellation

Controversy

The show had bothered Nickelodeon since the creators said they didn’t want to make an educational series, complaints of the show often were about the toilet humor and harsh language in the show, some segments of the show had also been altered to remove any references to religion, politics, and alcohol, the episode “Man’s Best Friend” was shelved off by Nickelodeon due to it’s violent content, but had later premiered the infamous “Adult Party Cartoon” knockoff of the show

Related Memes

Ren Snaps / You Dare Not Agree with X

Ren Snaps (also known as: You Dare Not Agree with X) is a YTP remix fad based on a clip from the episode called “Stimpy’s Fan Club” (shown above). In each instance, a person or thing replaces the spot of the main character Ren. Occasionally, the pitch of the voice is changed and/or the video is edited in some different way.

Search Interest

External References

W.I.P

Mario Kart is a series of multiplayer racing video games developed and published by Japanese gaming giant Nintendo as a spin-off from the Super Mario series. The Mario Kart series sets itself apart from most other racing games as players are allowed to use in-game items during races to speed themselves up or slow others down.

Super Mario Kart

The first installment in the series, Super Mario Kart, was released for the Super Famicom platform on August 27, 1992. It was then released in North America For the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on September 1, 1992, and in Europe on January 21, 1993.
In Super Mario Kart, the player can control one of 8 different characters (Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Bowser, Koopa Troopa, Donkey Kong Jr., and Toad), each one able to use their own unique items. Up to 2 people can play simultaneously. There are two single-player modes, Grand Prix (where you race against 7 AI-controlled bots) and Time Trial (where you race alone and try to complete laps as quickly as possible). The game also featured three multiplayer modes, Grand Prix, Match Race, and and Battle Mode.
The game sold over 8 million copies worldwide, making it the third best-selling Super Famicom/SNES game of all time. Super Mario Kart was critically acclaimed and has an average GameRankings score of 93.6%.
Super Mario Kart saw a release on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console in 2009.

Mario Kart: Virtual Cup

There was an Mario Kart game planned for the Virtual Boy in 1995 but it was scrapped due to the sad little thing’s failure.

Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart 64 was released in Japan for the Nintendo 64 on December 14, 1996, in North America on February 10, 1997, and in Europe on June 24, 1997.
Thanks to the capabilities of the N64, the track designs were able to be rendered in three-dimensional polygons. Characters and items, however, remained as two-dimensional sprites.
Mario Kart 64 also featured 4-player simultaneous multiplayer gameplay. Playable characters include Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario.
The game was generally well-received, with a Metacritic score of 83/100.
Mario Kart 64 was re-released to the Wii Virtual Console in 2007.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the first Mario Kart racing game to be released on a handheld console (the Game Boy Advance). It launched in Japan on July 21, 2001, in North America on August 27, 2001, in Australia on September 13, 2001, and in Europe on September 14, 2001. Mario Kart: Super Circuit was also the first in its series to not be developed by Nintendo EAD; the game was instead developed by Intelligent Systems.
The character roster was the same as it was in Mario Kart 64. Up to four players can play at once using link cables.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit received solid reviews, with a GameRankings score of 91.54% and a Metacritic score of 93/100.

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is the fourth game in the series, released in November 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube.
Double Dash!! is the first and currently the only Mario Kart game to have two characters riding a kart. It also supports LAN play, which allows up to 16 players to compete at once, using the Nintendo GameCube Broadband adapter. The game has 20 total playable characters.

This entry is still being worked on. Please understand, and please be patient.

Conchita Wurst’s Beard

Conchita Wurst’s Beard is a photoshop meme based on the iconic beard sported by the Austrian drag performer and the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. In similar vein to other photoshop memes based on facial and body features, Wurst’s beard is superimposed onto faces of celebrities and pop culture icons for humorous effect.

Origin

On May 10th, 2014, Austrian singer Thomas Neuwirth^[1] was crowned the winner of the 59th annual Eurovision Song Contest for her performance of “Rise Like a Phoenix” as her on-stage drag persona “Conchita Wurst,” complete with full makeup, hair and gown, as well as a fully-groomed facial beard. Wurst’s striking appearance quickly led many news outlets to dub the singer the “bearded drag queen”^[4] or “bearded lady.”^[5]

Spread

Later that night, British comedian and actor Russell Brand tweeted a photo of himself wearing a dress with a caption reading, “I’m knackered – but what a great night,” implying he looks like Wurst.

Also on May 10th, 2014, Digital Spy^[3] published a post titled “Conchita Wurst wins Eurovision: The best Twitter reactions,” which featured tweets that included pop culture icons such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid photoshopped with a beard in homage to Wurst.

Several news sites asserted Wurst resembles a bearded Kim Kardashian, including an article publish on Metro^[13] on May 10th, titled “Eurovision Song Contest 2014: Anyone else think Austria’s bearded lady Conchita Wurst looks like Kim Kardashian?,” and an article published on New York Daily News^[14] on May 11th, titled “See It: Cross-dressing Kim Kardashian look-alike wins Eurovision singing contest.”

On May 12, The Huffington Post UK^[2] reported on the trend and featured 14 photoshopped celebrities with the beard.

Backlash

Throughout the Eurovision competition there was backlash against Russia’s anti-LGBT policies in the form of heckling the Russian competitors,^[7] the Tolmachevy Sisters, as well as the competition’s Russian presenter. Russia also joined fellow European countries Armenia and Belarus in launching petitions^[8] to have Wurst taken out of the competition. After Wurst’s win, many Russian men posted pictures of themselves shaving their beards^[7] as a way to dissociate with Wurst and voice their disapproval of her win. On the day of Wurst’s win a hashtag which translates to “Prove that you’re not Conchita,”^[10] was used by rapper Aleksandr Stepanov on a picture of him shaving posted to Twitter[11}. Within 48 hours the hashtag^[12] was tweeted out over 60,000 times.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

#WhatJayZSaidToSolange is a Twitter hashtag associated with various fan gossips and jokes surrounding a surveillance video clip that shows Solange Knowles, the younger sister of singer Beyonce, attacking her brother-in-law and rapper Jay-Z in an elevator ride to an after-party for the Met Gala in May 2014.

Background

On May 12th, 2014, celebrity gossip site TMZ^[1] released an elevator surveillance video clip which apparently shows Solange Knowles, an American singer-songwriter and the younger sister of Beyonce, slapping and punching a man identified as celebrity rapper and her brother-in-law Jay-Z, on their way to a 2014 Met Gala after-party in New York City on May 5th, 2014.

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About

“I Can’t Even”is an Internet slang expression used to indicate that the speaker is in a state of speechlessness, either as a result of feeling overjoyed or exasperated, depending on the context in which it is said. Due to its incomplete sentence structure, the adverb “even” in the expression can be interpreted as a substitute verb for “manage.” On Tumblr, the phrase is often used to caption reaction images in which the subject collapses in frustration or bewilderment.

Origin

The earliest known use of the incomplete phrase “I can’t” was submitted to Urban Dictionary^[1] by user JJFADS on January 7th, 2005, defining it as an expression used to indicate a “breaking point.”

Spread

As early as April 2007, the term “even” was used to convey a feeling of speechlessness with the phrase “What is this? I don’t even”. On July 3rd, 2010, Urban Dictionary^[2] user tooyoung submitted an entry for “I can’t even,” describing it as an expression used by people on Tumblr. On August 10th, Tumblr^[4] user blaketh posted a pie graph titled “What I Can’t,” shown to be comprised entirely of the variable “even” (shown below). Within four years, the post gained over 1,100 notes.

On October 9th, 2013, the Tumblr blog TheBunionPaper^[8] published a satirical news article titled “Rich Girl in Dining Hall Can’t Even,” accumulating upwards of 1,900 notes in seven months. On November 20th, the feminist culture blog The Toast^[6] published an article about Internet linguistics, which described the meaning of the expression “I have lost all ability to can.” On January 26th, 2014, country music singer Kacey Musgraves repeated the phrase “I can’t even” during her acceptance speech for Best Country Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards (shown below).

On February 3rd the pop culture blog Thought Catalog^[7] published an article criticizing the use of the phrase. On March 18th, the GarlicJacksonComedy uploaded a video in which a man contacts an emergency hotline about his girlfriend saying “I can’t” and “I’’m literally dying” (shown below). In two months, the video received more than 630,000 views and 260 comments.

On April 8th, an image macro featuring a photo of several teenage girls titled “Tumblr can’t even right now” was submitted to Imgur^[5] (shown below). Within one month, the image garnered upwards of 13,600 points and 570 comments.

On May 10th, YouTuber Sam Tabor uploaded a video titled “I Can’t Even,” in which he is filmed using the swirl effect in Apple’s Photo Booth software while performing his impersonation of teenage girls on Twitter (shown below). On May 12th, Redditor EducatedCloud submitted the video to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit, where it gained over 15,900 upvotes and 700 comments in the first 16 hours.

Search Interest

External References

About

Sign Holding refers to photos of activists and protestors holding signs, posters or whiteboards with their messages written on them which began during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Protests. Their popularity with activists soon lead to the trope being parodied.

Origin

The title for the single topic Tumblr for We are the 99 Percent came from a General Assembly poster shared on the official Occupy website in early August 2011. The name reflects the opposite of the nation’s richest 1%, who control nearly half of America’s total wealth, according to various research studies. The blogger behind the project, a 28-year-old New York City activist only known as Chris, created the Tumblr on August 23rd, 2011 to put faces and stories to the nameless “99%.” In its first post, the blog asks readers to submit a photo of themselves holding a sign with a single sentence about how America’s financial situation is affecting their lives. The blog began curating photo submissions on September 8th, 2011. As of September 2012, the blog is still active but with a much smaller volume.

Spread

Activism

Be a Man

“Be a Man”: a social media campaign started by Iranian men that involves taking a picture of oneself wearing the hijab, a head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women, and sharing it online. The subversive photo fad first began on Facebook during the 2009 Iranian protests following the arrest of student activist Majid Tavakoli, who was forced to put on the hijab after being taken into custody for state propaganda.

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Dear Girls

Dear Girls is a photoshopped image featuring model Cole Mohr in space holding a sign instructing women to not be insecure. The photograph has been criticized for being pseudofeministic and even misogynistic, inspiring a number of parody images reenacting the photo. On May 8th, 2011, the Latvian site Spoki^[10] published an image compilation including a photo of fashion model Cole Mohr^[9] edited with an outer space background and a sign which read “Dear Girls / don’t be insecure / you don’t need make-up & nice clothes / you’re all fucking beautiful.”

What’s goin’ on…

Whats goin on..*[sic] is the title of a confessional YouTube video starring a teary-eyed California teenager Jonah Mowry, whose silent and moving monologue about being bullied as a gay student drew millions of views on YouTube and words of encouragement from various celebrities in early December 2011. The video was uploaded to YouTube^[22] on August 10th, 2011. At the time when the video was made, he was thirteen years old and about to start eighth grade. Jonah begins his monologue by describing the hardships of being bullied using a stack of white index cards. He then goes on to say that he has been bullied since first grade, started self-harming in second grade and was afraid to start in 8th grade because he felt that his peers hated him for being gay. He ends the video with a final card saying that despite all of this, he has a million reasons to be here.

“This is What I was Wearing (Tell Me I Asked for It, I Dare You)”

This is What I was Wearing is the slogan that was originally seen on a sign held by a feminist activist at the 2011 SlutWalk in New York City. Online, both the slogan and the photograph of the sign have been parodied through image macros and photoshopped images. On October 3rd, 2011, a photograph of a casually attired young male protester with a sign which revealed the outfit was the same one he was wearing when he was raped was posted the official SlutWalk NYC Tumblr.^[6] The photo was taken that day at the SlutWalk^[7]protest held in Union Square against victim-blaming, slut shaming and rape culture. According to a post on The Slut Project^[8], the image was captured by photographer Francesa June. Though its original post has been deleted, the photo has more than 35,000 notes on Tumblr as of May 2013.

“We’re a Culture, Not a Costume”

We’re a Culture, Not a Costume is a poster ad campaign that features students of various ethnicities holding photos of people dressed in Halloween costumes that could be perceived as culturally insensitive. The campaign inspired a series of photoshop parodies depicting animals and fictional characters with photos of people wearing their respective Halloween costumes. In late October of 2011, a student organization at Ohio University named “Students Teaching Against Racism in Society”^[8] (STARS) launched a campaign to raise awareness about racially insensitive Halloween costumes. On October 21st, the president of the organization posted several images of awareness posters on her Tumblr blog.^[1]

Who Needs Feminism

Who Needs Feminism? is a movement organized via a single topic Tumblr and Facebook page that feature photos of people holding handwritten signs explaining why they need feminism and why feminism is important to them. A Tumblr^[1], Twitter^[9] and Facebook page^[2] were all launched on April 11th, 2012 by 16 female students at Duke University as part of their final project^[3] in a class titled Women in the Public Sphere. Prior to its web launch, the students went around campus asking their peers why they needed feminism, taking pictures of them holding up a whiteboard with their explanation on it.^[4] These photos were also printed poster-sized and hung around campus.

Iran Loves Israel

“Iran Loves Israel (also known as “Love and Peace”)":http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/israel-loves-iran-iran-loves-israel is a grassroots anti-war campaign that aims to bring mutual assurance of peace and reconciliation between the peoples of Iran and Israel, two rivalry nations in the Middle East with a history of animosity. The initiative was launched by two Israeli graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir in early March 2012. On March 17th, 2012, Tel Aviv-residents and Israeli graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir launched a Facebook campaign with pacifist slogans addressed towards Iran, affirming their love for the Iranians and assured that “Israel will not bomb Iran.” The original instance was created by Edry himself and uploaded onto the Facebook page of Pushpin Mehina, a small graphic design preparatory school.

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“Not A Martyr”

Not A Martyr is a social media campaign started by young men and women in Lebanon to voice their opposition to the ongoing violence in the region and euphemistic use of the term “martyr” by politicians to describe the innocent victims of terrorism. The campaign launched after a car bomb exploded in the busy central district of Beirut in Lebanon, on December 27th, 2013, killing six people and injuring at least 50 people, including a 16-year-old boy named Mohammad al-Chaar, who happened to be hanging with his friends near the site moments before the bomb went off.

I, Too, Am Harvard

I, Too, Am Harvard is a single topic blog featuring photographs of African American students at Harvard University holding whiteboards with racist and insensitive comments that have been said to them because of their race. Launched in early March 2014, the Tumblr-based photo project has since led to the creation of numerous spin-off blogs for minority students at other universities and colleges.

#BringBackOurGirls

#BringBackOurGirls is a hashtag campaign launched by a group of Nigerians to raise awareness and call upon the international community for action after nearly 300 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by a jihadist terrorist group in April 2014. On April 15th, 2014, approximately 276 Nigerian female students were abducted by a group of armed militants from the Government Girls Secondary School^[1] in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. In the following days, Nigerian officials speculated that the Islamic jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram may have been behind the kidnappings and criticism of the Nigerian government’s inaction and Western media’s lack of coverage emerged. On April 23rd, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was first tweeted out by lawyer Ibrahim M. Abdullahi^[9]and spread through Twitter users in Nigeria.^[8] As of May 2014, a little over 50 girls have reportedly escaped their kidnappers. On May 5th, the leader of Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the abductions in a video statement. On May 3rd, 2014, education and equality activist Malala tweeted a picture from her foundation’s Twitter account^[3] of herself holding a sign with the hashtag. In less than a week the tweet gained over 4,000 retweets.

Crowdsourcing

Public Resignation

Public Resignation refers to the act of quitting one’s job in front of an audience in real life or on the Internet, which is usually manifested in the form of an open letter or video recording of a speech. On March 13th, 2009, Flickr^[1] user Neil Berrett uploaded a photograph of himself holding a large cake containing his letter of resignation from his position at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard (shown below, left). In the first five years, the photo gained over 440,000 views and 700 favorites.

WDYDWYD?

“WDYDWYD? (initialism for Why Do You Do What You Do)”: is a collaborative art project designed to survey and document people’s responses to a simple yet compelling question: why do you do what you do? According to a 2010 WIRED Magazine article,“In Silicon Valley, that question has become the hottest team-building meme since Outward Bound--and it’s spreading.”

One Million Facebook Likes Pleas

One Million Facebook Likes Pleas are ad hoc campaigns launched by individuals seeking to raise one million “likes” on the social networking site in order to win a bet in real life. Each post is typically accompanied by a photograph of the pleader and the pledger, along with a poster sign revealing the prize at stake. The first casual instance of “One Million Likes” plea to go viral came in November 2012, after Dan Urbano from Newton, Massachusetts made a bet with his children that if their picture asking for a cat got 1,000 likes on Facebook, he would make their wish come true. Within hours of posting on November 7th, the Facebook plea made by Urbano’s children surpassed its goal and by November 12th, it had received more than 110,000 likes and 100,000 shares.

Kira Hudson’s Facebook Lesson

Kira Hudson’s Facebook Lesson refers to a social media experiment featuring a photograph of a teenager launched by Colorado resident Kira Hudson in order to demonstrate to her daughter how quickly an image can spread once it is posted on the social networking site Facebook. Shortly after the photograph was posted on Facebook in March 2014, it subsequently drew the attention of users on 4chan and spawned a number of parodies. On March 18th, 2014, Hudson posted a photograph on Facebook^[1] of her 12-year-old daughter Amia holding a sign reading “Mom is trying to show me how many people can see a picture once it’s on the Internet” (shown below). In the next 48 hours, the post reportedly gained close to one million likes before it was removed.

About

“It was me, Dio!” (also known by its Japanese variant “Kono Dio Da!”) is a memorable quote from the Japanese manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The line is spoken by the eponymous antagonist Dio Brando to supporting character Erina Pendleton, with the former stating that he stole her first kiss. Recreations of the scene have become popular on the internet, along with variants on the quote.

Origin

The scene originally occurred in chapters 3 and 4 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood, which were released in 1987^[1][2]. After protagonist Jonathan ‘JoJo’ Joestar and Erina Pendleton share a day together, Erina discovers that Jonathan harbors feelings for her. She runs away as she is unsure of what to do next, but she ends up crossing paths with Dio Brando, who seeks to emotionally manipulate Jonathan for his own gain. Recognizing that Jonathan is in love with Erina, Dio steals her first kiss as a way of alienating her from Jonathan, gloating “Your first wasn’t JoJo! It was me, Dio!”.

Spread

The screencap of the scene which had become associated with the quote and spawned the majority of the derivatives, came from the first episode of 2012 Phantom Blood anime adaptation^[3]. It was first seen on 4chan as early as October 6th, 2012, the day after the episode was broadcast in Japan.^[4] Since then, many 4chan discussions that involve Dio Brando often mention this scene or feature the screencap.

The anonymous user that uploaded the photo alluded to the quote’s similarity to the Glasses Sayaka meme, although the JoJo quote precedes it by over two decades. On October 14th, 2012, the derivative of the Glasses Sayaka meme (pictured below, right), featuring Dio, was posted on 4chan’s /a/ board.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Michelle Obama’s #BringBackOurGirls Sign is a photograph of the First Lady of the United States holding up a sign in support of the hashtag campaign for the safe return of nearly 300 Nigerian school girls who were abducted by a jihadist terrorist group in April 2014. Since its upload via Obama’s official Twitter account in May 2014, the photograph has been turned into a popular exploitable template for online parodies.

Origin

On May 7th, 2014, a few days following the launch of #BringBackOurGirls on Twitter, Michelle Obama shared a picture of herself looking rather concerned while holding up a sign with the hashtag written on it. In less than a week, the First Lady’s tweet brought in more than 57,000 retweets and 34,000 favorites.

Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families. It's time to #BringBackOurGirls. -mo pic.twitter.com/glDKDotJRt

— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 7, 2014

External References

^[1]Twitter – The First Lady’s Tweet

[This article is under construction]

About

R+L=J is the theory that states than the character Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s bastard son from the A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones series, is not actually Ned’s son but the son Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen had during Robert’s Rebellion, the war that took place 16 years before the beginning of the events of the series.

History

American Girl, also known as The American Girls Collection, is an American doll line first released by Pleasant Company in 1986. The dolls originally depict nine to eleven-year old girls from various eras in American history (collectively known as the Historical Characters, but was rebranded in 2014 as BeForever), but was expanded in 1995 to include characters in modern settings.

The original dolls were manufactured by Götz during the 1980s to late 1990s, starting when Pleasant Rowland, an American educator and entrepreneur, bought the remaining stock of “Romina” dolls by the German doll firm to be rebadged as Edwardian-era character Samantha Parkington, complete with books detailing her story and various accessories.^[1] Two other characters were released by the Pleasant Company in 1986 alongside Parkington – Kirsten Larson, a Swedish immigrant from the 1850s, and Molly McIntire, a Scottish-American daughter of a World War II army doctor, and in the 1990s the company introduced Felicity Merriman, Addy Walker, and a line of dolls representing the modern era.^[2]

Mattel now heads the company as Rowland sold the line to the toy giant in 1998 for $700 million.

Online Presence

Stop-Motion videos (AGSM/AGMV)

AG Stop-Motions and AG Music Videos, often abbreviated as AGSM or AGMV, are a series of user-created stop-motion videos made by fans, depicting the dolls in various stories and settings, and/or recreating popular music videos with their dolls.^[3]

Photoshoots

Photoshoots are also a common pastime among fans, where they model their dolls in various poses or settings, using either point-and-shoot cameras or even DSLRs, which are uploaded on various social networking sites such as Youtube and/or Instagram.^[4]

Impact

Due to its educational nature, the company and its toy line has earned praise from parents and schoolteachers alike, mostly as it is viewed as a “wholesome” and less-objectified alternative to Mattel’s Barbie dolls, and as a result has won numerous awards.^[5]

On the other hand it has also drawn criticism from some for the expense of the dolls^[6] and their accessories, as well as for their depiction of the characters, like with Samantha being marketed as Victorian (even if she would be more accurately portrayed as an Edwardian-era girl), and more recently with American Girl giving less emphasis on the historicals in favour of the My American Girl/Girl of the Year line, to which My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series creator Lauren Faust pointed out in a Twitter post.^[7]

The company’s popularity has spawned numerous parodies and homages, notably in The D’oh-cial Network episode of The Simpsons, Conan^[8], the MAD animated series^[9], where Kit Kittredge has a daughter named Kitty who participated in a parody of Toddlers and Tiaras, and in an episode of Saturday Night Live, poking fun of Miley Cyrus’ stage persona and drug references in her songs by giving her a Molly doll, alluding to the psychedelic drug MDMA.

Footnotes

^[1]GOTZ Romina, PRE-SAMANTHA Doll, 1985, NEW-IN-BOX, RA (07/11/2011)

^[2]AGPlaythings: AGoT

^[3]How to Take Pictures of Your American Girl Doll: 6 Steps

^[4]Instagram photos for tag #americangirldoll

^[5]Oppenheimer Toy Award

^[6]How much does an American Girl doll really cost?

^[7]Twitter / Fyre_flye: Even “American Girls” was once …

^[8]Conan Visits The American Girl Store

^[9]Tater Tots and Tiaras

About

The Smash Ball is a highly popular item from the Super Smash Bros series. Upon breaking it, the Smash Ball allows the player to perform a very special attack, known as the Final Smash. However, you could have a helpful or useless Final Smash depending on the character you play as.

Origins

Smash Balls were first seen in the third installment of the Super Smash Bros series, Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii.

Spread

When fans found out about Final Smashes, they started to do many things about the Smash Ball, such as making parodies, paper crafts, comics revolving around Final Smashes, animations and even hacking the game to replace existing Final Smashes with new ones.

Final Smash Predictions

Since the release the announcement of Super Smash Bros Brawl, people have been requesting characters to be in future Smash Bros games, however with all Smash Bros characters since Brawl having a Final Smash, some people started thinking of Final Smashes, as well.

Notable Examples

About

Carter the Banana Boy is a photoshop meme based on a picture of a young boy in sunglasses and looking at the camera while eating a banana. In this series, an exploitable cutout of the boy is photoshopped into a variety of base images to portray him as the star of an action film, in somewhat similar vein to The Action Movie Kid.

Origin

On May 12th, 2014, Redditor Theone211 submitted a photograph of a little boy eating a banana in a post titled “This is Carter. He knocked on my door to ask if he could have a banana then left” to the /r/funny^[1] subreddit (shown below). In the first 24 hours, the post gained over 73,100 upvotes and 2,600 comments.

In the comments section, Redditor FuriousGeorge06 suggested someone should “photoshop an explosion behind him,” which was promptly followed up by a set of three “explosive” photoshopped parodies from Redditor Saurongetti, along with a blank template of the boy eating the banana (shown below, far right).

Spread

That same day, Reddit sodelll posted an image macro of the photo with the caption “I’m here to fuck bitches and eat bananas / and I’m almost done with my banana” to /r/funny^[2] (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Redditor dayofgreed submitted the picture of Carter to the /r/photoshopbattles^[3] subreddit, where several Redditors posted images with Carter superimposed into the backgrounds of film posters (shown below, right).

Also on May 12th, 2014, other photoshopped images featuring Carter reached the front page of Reddit,^[4][5][6] many of which earned upwards of 10,000 upvotes in 24 hours (shown below). Later that day, compilations of notable examples were subsequently posted on BuzzFeed^[7] and Mashable.^[8]

On May 13th, actor Wil Wheaton tweeted that Carter was his “favorite person on the Internet today,” receiving over 240 favorites and 85 retweets in less than 12 hours.

Carter the Banana Kid is my favorite person on the Internet today.

— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) May 13, 2014

Search Interest

External References

About

“You Should Be Studying” is an image macro series featuring photographs of celebrities who are regarded as sex symbols, and captions urging the reader to study hard. Intended to serve as a motivational poster for students, the meme has seen quite a few variations on Tumblr, especially during the months of December and May when final exams traditionally take place in primary and secondary schools.

Origin

On December 12th, 2011, Tumblr user Speakington^[1] created a photo set featuring Benedict Cumberbatch,Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Hiddleston with the words, “You should be studying,” photoshopped over each one. As of May 2014, the post has gained over 19,000 notes.

Spread

In 2012, there were at least six notable instances of the meme with more than 1,000 notes each, including Tumblr user atedaryltv’s ^[5]Doctor Who post on December 9th, 2012, which has gained over 17,000 notes as of May 2014. On May 7th, 2013, an Avengers rendition of the meme, which was originally published on Tumblr user danfour’s^[6] blog on May 6th, was submitted to 9gag.^[3] As of May 2014, the photo has gained over 63,000 notes.

Collection posts with many photos, targeted at multiple fandoms tended to gain the most notes. Tumblr user flox-pollimon’s^[2] post, which features actors from the Supernatural,Avengers,Merlin, and Doctor Who was published on May 1st, 2013, and gained over 85,000 notes within a year. In 2013, There were six more related posts that gained over 1,000 notes.

Notable Examples

External References

About

Ridley is Too Big (Expletive sometimes included) is an ongoing debate about the potential inclusion of the character Ridely from the Metroid series in the upcoming installments of Super Smash Brothers. Because of his regular appearance in the games he is oftentimes cited as the best choice for a second Metroid Representative, however the other side of the argument states that his near-building size would make him unrealistic as a playable character.

History

Leader of the alien creatures known as the Space Pirates, Ridley is the most common antagonist in the Metroid Series, appearing in over half the games and cheating death from each of the previous encounters with Samus. Because of his regular appearance and his history of being the one responsible for the death of Samus’s parents, he is to Samus as Bowser is to Mario or Ganon is to Link, making him an optimal choice for a series representative.

Starting as a human tall purple dragon, Ridley’s appearance changed over the years to increase his size more and more as the game hardware could support bigger moving objects. In Super Metroid, Ridley was about 2 times the height of Samus while curled up. And in Metroid Prime he was finally free from the limitations of 2d sprites and could fully stretch out his body, revealing that he is at least 4-6 times the height of Samus if he stood on his hind legs (8+ times if you account his tail). His fighting style changed over the years to accommodate this as well, oftentimes picking up Samus in a single hand in attempts to crush her.

Ridley appeared in the opening cutscene in Super Smash Brothers Melee, colored and scaled the way he was in his original appearance in Metroid, but updated to his look in Super Metroid (the only two games he had appeared in up to that point in time). Due to popular demand, Ridley was also a fightable Boss in the game Super Smash Brothers Brawl in both his Organic and Meta forms. These Ridleys where scaled to his Super Metroid and Metroid Prime scales respectively.

The creator of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, stated in an interveiw that he thinks Ridley would be too big for his inclusion in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and therefore made him a Boss Character. In the sequel, Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo Wii U, Ridley returns as a boss character who will appear in the Pyrosphere Stage in his form from Metroid the Other M.

Origins

RESEARCHING

Earliest known instance of the argument came from a GameFAQ thread, which since then has been deleted.

Spread:

[WIP]

Points to the Argument

The common arguments for Ridley as follows:

~“He was just about a foot taller than Samus in the original Metroid”
~“What about the intro to Super Smash Brothers Melee where he looked just a few feet higher than Samus when you took perspective into account?”
~“Bowser is just as big right?”
~“Can’t they just shrink Ridley down like some of the other characters they have had to resize to fit into the game? (the shrinking of Bowser, the growing of the Kirby Characters and Olimar, etc)
~”Isn’t it just Meta Ridley who is that big?"

The common arguments against the above points as follows:

~“That’s been the only time Ridley was ever that size, and literal NES Ridley looks insanely derpy.”
~“At the time, there has only ever been Two Metroid Games with Ridley in it. Metroid and Super Metroid. So it was thematically correct for the time Melee was released. Also the intro didn’t account for Ridley’s Tail, which adds to his overall size considerably.”
~“Bowser can change his size canonically. And is usually that size in any of the spinoff games.”
~Two Points: 1. “Ridley is not only large, but he is also fast, oftentimes relying on his ability to fly quickly to overwhelm his opponents. If you shrink him down and make him “Heavyweight”, you lose a lot of what Ridley actually is.” 2. “Despite resizing being a common thing in Smash Bros, all the characters within the same represented universe (example: Kirby and King Dedede) are still scaled to each other in the same way as they where in their source material”
~“Classic Ridley just likes to curl up for whatever reason. Animating a creature that big back then would have looked wonkey and put major stress on the hardware.”

Ridley Mods in Super Smash Brothers Brawl

There is a handful of Mods created for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, oftentimes sizing him to Bowser or Charizard.

Exaggeration of Ridley’s Size

As a response to the size argument, many photoshoppers and artists had taken it upon themselves to exaggerate the size of the dragon. Examples include having Ridley, or even just his foot, positioned next to the other characters of the Smash Brothers Series while comically increased out of proportion, or having him compared to Sun or even Galaxy Sized Objects.

Notable Images

[WIP, the author of this page doesn’t know how to make pseudo-galleries]

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