[WiP]

About

Homestuck Alternate Universe (often shortened to Homestuck AU) are alternate universe stories based on the webcomic Homestuck. These stories can vary between simple additions to the original story, to completely original stories in different settings altogether. These settings are often given titles with the suffix “-stuck”. The -stuck suffix has also become a popular feature in tagging alternate universe fanart.

Background

The story of Homestuck centers around a “game” called Sburb, which allows its players to inventorize, level up, and other common elements in role-playing games, in a somewhat similar way in real life. As the story progresses, it is revealed that the fate of the entire human race and eventually the entire universe is determined by the performance of the players in the game.

Homestuck’s story telling style follows the characters as they progress in the game while interacting with their fellow players. The actions the characters take in the story are told and explained through text below the pages, commonly containing chat logs of the characters communicating with each other. Each “page” in Homestuck commonly contains one or multiple images or gifs with text or chat logs below it, but also includes flash animations and interactive games at times. Regularly the actions taking place on a page are being “influenced” by sources who recide in the game, including several self insertions of Andrew Hussie.

The basic premise of the comic has been described as inspired by games like The Sims, Spore and EarthBound. Homestuck was initially supposed to progress by fan contributions, with the fans deciding what actions the characters would take. The creator of Homestuck, Andrew Hussie, was eventually forced to move away from this style when the fandom started to grow significantly, due to fan input become too big and time consuming. Although Hussie now controls the progress of the story, he still visits fan blogs and forums for ideas to add into the webcomic.

Spread

It is eventually revealed that Homestuck takes place in a multiverse, which each of these universes having their own Sburb game client and characters who play it. Within each universe, the concept of “doomed timelines” (alternate timelines doomed to fail) has also been implanted. Both these factors often influence the main storyline of Homestuck, with characters from alternate universes and doomed timelines commonly making appearances in the story and even being of significant influence to its outcome. Due to these factors, alternate universe stories are rather easy to implant into the main story, giving the explanation that it takes place in an unknown timeline or universe of Homestuck’s multiverse.

Search Interest

External References

Note: Work in progress

About

Aircraft Carrier style (Chinese: 航母style), also referred to as Shootering on the English-speaking net, is a Chinese photo fad that involves extending your right hand while kneeling your left knee with your right leg bent, emulating the “Shooter” pose, which is a military gesture used to signal the release of fighter jets onboard. The initial fad sparked in China after footage the first successful landing on chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning^[1] was released.

Origin

[researching]

On November 23, 2012, a J-15 fighter jet successfully land on the on China’s first aircraft carrier Liaoning, marking a milestone for the carrier, with it being it’s first landing in its history. After the land, the jet was then filmed taking off the carrier, during which, two unknown flight deck officers seen giving a signal of the jet taking off.

Spread

[researching]

At the same time of the news of jet’s landing began circulating on Chinese news stations, images of Chinese netizens imitating the two flight deck officers started surfacing.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External Reference

About

Dumb Ways to Die is an animated music video created as part of a public service announcement campaign for the Australian suburban railway network Metro Trains Melbourne by the McCann advertising agency. The video used black humor to promote train safety featuring a variety of cartoon characters dying in unusual ways.

Origin

Written by John Mescall and performed by Ollie McGill from the Australian ska and jazz band The Cat Empire, the “Dumb Ways to Die” music video was uploaded via YouTube on November 14th, 2012 and similar campaign illustrations appeared on newspapers, local radio and outdoor advertising throughout the Metro Trains network. The video features cartoon characters killing themselves in a variety of careless and absurd ways (shown below). Within two weeks, the video accumulated over 28.7 million views and 35,000 comments. It is available for purchase on the iTunes^[9] store, where it holds a five star rating as of November 29th, 2012.

Spread

The day after its release, Redditor Mach5Stealthz submitted the music video to the /r/videos^[5]subreddit, where it received over 10,900 up votes and 800 comments within 13 days. On the following day, the advertising news blog Australian Creative^[2] published an article titled “McCann’s dumb ways to die,” which quoted McCann Melbourne’s executive creator director describing the purpose of the campaign:

“This campaign is designed to draw people to the safety message, rather than frighten them away. Especially in our younger segments. We want to create a lasting understanding that you shouldn’t take risks around trains, that the prospect of death or serious injury is ever-present and that we as a community need to be aware of what constitutes both safe and dumb behaviour.”

On November 18th, the video was posted on the Internet humor site 9gag,^[4] where it received over 37,000 Facebook shares and 27,000 up votes within 10 days. On November 19th, The Age^[3] published an article titled “Metro’s tongue-in-cheek transport safety animated video goes viral on social media,” which reported that the song had reached the top 10 on iTunes. On November 22nd, Redditor raeflower submitted a post titled “So many dumb ways to die [FA]” to the /r/RedditLaqueristas^[8] subreddit, which featured several photographs of nail art inspired by the animated music video (shown below).

Notable Examples

On November 29th, The Sydney Morning Herald^[6] published a post titled “Aussie viral video, ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, lives on,” reporting that the video had inspired “more than 65 cover versions, 85 parodies and 170 re-posts on YouTube.”

Cool Things to Find

On November 28th, the LaughPong YouTube channel uploaded a Mars rover inspired parody titled “Cool Things to Find” (shown below). The following day the video was submitted to the /r/videos^[7] subreddit by Redditor kallekro. Within 24 hours, the YouTube video accumulated over 145,000 views and 390 comments and within 9 hours the Reddit post received over 4,500 upvotes and 295 comments.

Search Interest

External References

About

Relevant Steve Harvey is a collection of GIF images depicting the Family Feud television show host Steve Harvey’s most notable reactions. The images are used in thread and forum discussions to illustrate users’ countless reactions to a variety of situations. The post containing the image is always accompanied by a line of text which precedes the image in which the user provides a context for the image. In other instances, text is placed directly onto the image.

Origin

The Relevant Steve Harvey meme first appeared on Facebook displaying the text MY REACTIONWHEN MY GF GIVES ME A BJ WITHOUTASKING on top of a GIF image of Steve Harvey excitedly dancing.

Background

On January 20, 2010, comedian Steve Harvey was announced as the new host for the twelfth season of Family Feud (an American television game show). Since then the show’s ratings have increased by as much as 40%.

Nolan Daniels story: http://gawker.com/5964731/fake-winning-powerball-ticket-goes-viral-on-facebook-proving-once-again-that-facebook-users-will-share-anything

On the 20th November 2012, 4chan, /b/ board users targeted the multi-player online social network website WeeWorld in a manner identical to that of the 2006 “Pool’s Closed” raids.

The event, dubbed “Operation Weeing”, initially focused on the WeeWorld High-Gym and Paris rooms, but later spread to the New User Town, and Lava Lagoon rooms.

[This is an open entry. If you would like to contribute to researching this entry, please request editorship. If all editorships are currently full, head over to the forum thread to further discuss the entry.]

Overview

The Y2K Bug, sometimes known as the Millennium Bug or Year 2000 Problem, was a result of digital storage using two-digit abbreviations for years in their systems. In the 1990s, many people were concerned that the rollover between December 31st, 1999 and January 1st, 2000 would result in mass computer failure.

Background

When computer languages were initially developed, coders opted to drop the “19” in years as a way to save some of the limited space they were given to work with.^[1] This ideology was transferred to COBOL, a language created in 1959, which was used to program many of the world’s personal computers. In the 1960s, an IBM programmer named Robert Bemer was helping a group from the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-Day Saints with a genealogical research project^[3] when he realized the first two year digits were necessary for dates in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bemer, who participated in developing ASCII and the process behind the Escape button helped develop a way to use a four digit reference code for years and became an avid proponent of implementing this throughout COBOL. He published warnings about the need for four digit year codes twice in the 1970s.^[4]

The term “Y2K” was not coined until June 12th, 1995 when the Massachusetts-based programmer David Eddy suggested the term on the Year 2000 mailing list in lieu of Year 2000, Century Date Change and Faddle, among others.^[5] By 1997, the mailing list had more than 16,000 subscribers^[6] and was maintained by Peter de Jager, who also ran Year2000.com^[7] as a hubsite for information on the possible bug.

Media Hype

The growing online concern about the Y2K bug garnered attention from the mainstream media, who were reporting more and more on the rapidly expanding internet community. The media’s well-documented penchant for overhyping events fuelled public alarm at the Y2K bug. The media reports fuelled a storm of “prepping”; some members of the public, convinced that the global economy was on the brink of collapse, began stockpiling food and supplies. Some commercial survival kits were even manufactured.^[1][9]

Government response

Even some governments decided to set up Y2K-related sites to reassure the public and to publicize contingency plans. Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton even addressed the issue in his 1999 State of the Union address:

“We need every State and local government, every business, large and small, to work with us to make sure that [the] Y2K computer bug will be remembered as the last headache of the 20th century, not the first crisis of the 21st.”

The U.S. Government’s official Y2K site was Y2K.gov^[8]. It first went live in mid-1998, and featured contingency plans, as well as updates about the status of various resources, such as food, gas, and electricity. The government had a three-step approach which consisted of 1. outreach and advocacy, 2. monitoring and assessment, & 3. contingency planning and and regulation. The U.S. also passed the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, which limited the liability of businesses which revealed their Y2K readiness^[1] After it became apparent that the Y2K bug amounted to nothing, the site was rebranded as a clearinghouse for government Y2K-related information.

Search Interest

External References

About
Jon Jafari, commonly known by his internet alias JonTron is a video game reviewer, that first started in 2010. His first video that he made was a Daikatana review.

Game Grumps

On 18/7/2012, JonTron and Egoraptor made a new channel called GameGrumps, where they do video game playthroughs.

WORK IN PROGRESS

More information needed. Request Editorship!

About

Sparkling Daydream is a 2012 produced song by female japanese singer and songwriter ZAQ for the Opening, with the same name, of the Anime Chuunibyou Demo Koi ga Shitai! (original jap. title: 中二病でも恋がしたい！). Both song and Opening became very notable for parody videos, respectively Opening MAD videos on Nico Nico Douga and cover songs.

Song

The song wasn’t released yet until it was featured on the Opening of the first episode of the Anime, which was produced by Kyoto Animation and visible on TV October 4, 2012. On October 24, 2012, it was then released by Lantis Co., Ltd. incl. two other songs モノクロームモンスター and INSIDEIDENTITY (Ending of the Anime) and an instrumental version of Sparkling Daydream.

Opening and it’s MAD parodies

Before the Opening was released on TV, a NND user 1476933 / hidarihidarigogo uploaded a Theme Song Replacement MAD (主題歌差し替えMAD) on October 3, 2012 with the Opening Theme of the mystery horror novel Another.^[1]

Another MAD was released on October 7, 2012, which featured a dance scene of the telugu remake film Shankar Dada MBBS.^[2] This wasn’t the trigger of Opening MAD videos, until NND user 12424218 / ヒバリ recognized the video’s style and tried to copy it’s style using the Anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which received over 318.000 views.^[3] For these Opening parodies, the tag “中二病でもOPパロ” was born and it has currently more than 200 videos.^[4]

Sub-meme: Rikka’s Finger Spin

:http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm19100944

[Work in Progress]

About

Andrew Hussie is a prolific creator of webcomics. The most popular of his creations is Homestuck. Hussie, despite his massive popularity, has managed to maintain a level of privacy; details on his personal life (such as how old he is, for example) are scarce.

Online History

Old Webcomics/Whistles

Andrew Hussie at one point maintained a webcomic site with Cindy Marie. His earlier comics ^[1] are now archived. Notably, one of his works, Whistles ^[2] became a published graphic novel in 2007. Hussie would not produce another novel until the book versions of Problem Sleuth and Homestuck were created.

TNG Edits

Andrew Hussie, working with Jan Van dem Hemel, created numerous parody videos of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Their edits, posted to numerous accounts such as Jandrew Edits ^[3], received millions of views. Hussie continued making and releasing TNG pariodies from 2006 to 2009. (Also see: “Star Trek: The Next Generation Parodies → Jandrew Edits”:http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/star-trek-the-next-generation-parodies )

MS Paint Adventures

MS Paint Adventures ^[4] is Andrew Hussie’s website and home of his current and most popular project, Homestuck. MSPA adventures began as a host of Adventure Game-style comics Hussie would draw in MS Paint. One notable feature was the use of fan submitted commands; this would eventually be withdrawn in Homestuck.

Problem Sleuth

Problem Sleuth was the first of Hussie’s projects on MSPA to be completed. Spanning 1700 pages, the comic was written between 2008 and 2009. Problem Sleuth was a film-noir parody set in a loose prohibition-era setting. Many of the running gags in Homestuck originated in Problem Sleuth. Problem Sleuth was eventually released in book form. ^[5]

Homestuck

(See the main Homestuck Page )
Homestuck is by far Hussie’s most popular work, and has spawned a massive fandom. Featuring a myriad of characters and thousands of pages in length, Homestuck tells the story of in Hussie’s own words “kids and fun”. Homestuck differs from Hussie’s earlier works in that it is the first to incorporate Flash elements. Homestuck also has several dozen albums of official music ^[6] and a company producing merchandise called What Pumpkin. ^[7]

Search Interest

External References

About

Safety Instruction Parodies refer to various illustrations and diagrams typically seen in safety instruction manuals accompanied by humorous captions that are generally subversive in nature.

Origin

The website Airtoons^[1] was launched on February 21st, 1999, featuring illustrations from aircraft safety cards accompanied by humorous captions (shown below). According to the site description, the creator came up with the idea for the parodies after viewing a flight card that did not have any captions while traveling on an airline.

Spread

On October 15th, 1999, the black comedy film Fight Club^[6] was released, in which the protagonist placed parody flight cards in commercial aircraft. For promotion of the film, Fox Movies^[7] released images of the flight cards for download off their official website (shown below).

In February of 2003, the United States government launched the Ready.gov^[3] website as a public service advertising campaign to provide information on how to prepare for national emergencies. The site provided various illustrations that were considered ambiguous by many viewers, prompting the creation of the parody site SafeNow.org,^[4] which featured humorous captions alongside original illustrations from the Ready.gov website (shown below). Airtoons subsequently added different parodies of the Ready.gov images under the heading “Additional Government Safety Measures.”

On April 24th, the Titled Forum Project^[2] philosophy board member Gatecrashed posted a thread titled “Parodies of Airplane Safety Brochures,” which reblogged many notable examples from the Airtoons website. On December 27th, 2010, the pop culture blog Unreality Mag^[5] highlighted many of the Airtoons images in a post titled “Funny in Flight Safety Cards a La Fight Club.”

Gym Workout Diagrams

On September 10th, 2010, the Internet humor site College Humor^[8] published a post titled “Realistic Gym Workout Diagrams,” which featured parody workout posters for exercising specific muscle groups (shown below).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Actual Advice Mallard is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a male wild duck accompanied by captions containing life hacks and other useful information.

Origin

Redditor Releasethedreadknot submitted the first instance of Actual Advice Mallard to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[1] subreddit on June 19th, 2011, which featured an Associated Press^[2] photograph of a mallard duck with the caption “Push in the sides of your tin foil package / it will keep the roll from falling out” (shown below). This post largely went unnoticed, receiving only 16 up votes and 0 comments prior to being archived.

Spread

On the following day, Redditor Releasethedreadknot submitted another Actual Advice Mallard image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[6] subreddit, which recommended leaving important items on shoes to remember them the next day (shown below, left). Prior to being archived, the post received over 460 up votes and 15 comments. On August 31st, 2012, Redditor ZorkmidSC submitted an image macro with the caption “Get the fuck off the computer” (shown below, right),^[5] which received over 10,000 up votes and 180 comments within three months.

On the following day, the Internet humor site 9gag^[4] reposted Redditor ZorkmidSC’s image macro, receiving over 4,600 up votes and 1,200 Facebook shares within the next three months. On December 1st, Redditor Gonten submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[7] subreddit, which recommended microwaving pizza with a glass of water to prevent it from becoming spongey (shown below). The post reached the front page, receiving over 16,600 up votes and 900 comments within 48 hours. The same day, the Internet humor blog Pleated Jeans^[3] posted a compilation of notable examples from the series.

Notable Examples

Malicious Advice Mallard

On December 2nd, Reddit TEmpTom submitted a post to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[9] subreddit titled “Malicious Advice Mallard,” featuring a photoshopped version of Actual Advice Mallard with a red-colored head with the caption “Want to replcae a broken game console? / buy another one, put the broken console in the new one’s box, and return it” (shown below, left). The same day, Redditor redvelvetmock submitted an image macro with the caption “Need to dry off your pet after a bath? / microwave” (shown below, right).^[10] Within 24 hours, TEmpTom’s post received over 11,500 up votes and 565 comments and redvelvetmock’s post received over 12,200 up votes and 250 comments. As of December 3rd, 2012, the “Malicious Advice Mallard” Quickmeme^[8] page has received over 240 submissions.

Search Interest

External References

((Work In Progress. Will add pictures later))

About

The Hawkeye Initiative is a drawing movement where ridiculously posed comicbook heroines are replaced with Hawkeye.

Origin

On December 1st, 2012, webcomic artist Noelle Stevenson posted her solution to the Strong Female Character pose on her Tumblr. ^[1] Shortly afterwards, fellow artist Jennifer, better known as Blue or “hoursago”, redrew a cover of an issue of “Hawkeye and Black Widow” where the poses and positions of the two titular characters are switched. ^[2] The post quickly gained thousands of notes within the first few hours of posting.

Spread

Other artists shortly followed suit and started drawing their own versions of an “empowered Hawkeye”. The blog “The Hawkeye Initiative” was made as a result, adding a rule called “The Hawkeye Test” ^[4]

((researching))

External Links

^[1]Tumblr – How To Fix Every Strong Female Character Pose In Comics – gingerhaze

^[2]Tumbr – hoursago

^[3]Tumblr – The Hawkeye Initiative

^[4]Tumblr – The Hawkeye Initiative – The Hawkeye Test

About

Weber Cooks is a local cooking show that originally aired on Weber State News^[1], a student-run television station out of Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. The show is hosted by Steven Reed and is intended to instruct college students on creating simple meals with a microwave.

Origin

The videos were uploaded to YouTube sometime prior to October 31st, 2012, when a GIF animated excerpt of an episode showing Reed preparing chili and cheese nacho dip was posted to Tumblr.^[4] Though the original linked version has since been taken down, a duplicate version reuploaded on November 28th, 2012 earned more than 280,000 views in less than a week.

Spread

On November 4th, 2012, the same chili and cheese nacho dip episode^[2], as well as a new Rice-A-Roni episode^[3], were submitted to the /r/NotTimandEric subreddit, which prompted a discussion on the resemblance between Weber Cooks and Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s comedic skits,^[5] such as Reed’s unkempt appearance, awkward pauses and heavy breathing.

Reed’s videos gained a wider audience after the internet culture blog Nothing To Do With Arbroath^[6] shared a LiveLeak^[7]version of the chili cheese nacho dip video on November 27th, 2012. The same day, several Weber Cooks episodes were posted on Gawker^[8], Laughing Squid^[9], Screen Crush^[10] and Los Angeles Magazine.^[11] Over the next several days, the chili cheese dip video was featured on Reddit^[15], Viral Viral Videos^[12], I Am Bored^[13] and MSN Now.^[14]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Most people have seen the pictures circulating on social media, dogs that mention a certain ‘Lucho’. (short name of Luis, very common name in Spanish) which refers to any situation and call his owner Lucho.

The Original meme started with a Siberian dog stand on two legs, as it has generated several hypotheses about who might be Lucho. Some say that a netizen posted a photo of Siberian says “Lucho”, referring to a random human, that means “Lucho” could have been any other name as Bill, John, Bob etc.

The fact is, “Lucho” is Chilean singer and television presenter, Luis Jara, who said during a program as a child talking dogs called him “Lucho”.

“Oye Lucho” or “El perro del lucho” (Lucho`s dog) meme are no longer restricted to the Siberian dog and now any dog ​​in strange or funny situations call his own Lucho. This meme is popular in South American countries (Chile Argentina Peru and Uruguay)

About

Apply Cold Water To Burned Area is a catchphrase and reaction image used to emphasize that someone has been disrespected or made fun of.

Origin

A reaction image showing the hands of a person applying water to a hand that had been burned was used as early as May 12th, 2012 on FunnyJunk^[3] in response to a scan of disciplinary paperwork after a student named Nick insulted a classmate who mentioned an odor in the room by telling her to close her legs. The reaction image was posted by oodlesandoodles^[4] was paired with the text “Hope they remembered to pour some cool water on that burn” and received 76 upvotes from FunnyJunk members. Though this specific image is the one most often used, but other depictions including drawings can also be found.

Burn as Slang

The term “burn” in its slang sense to mean putting down someone verbally was popular in the 1970’s.^[2] It was brought back into popular culture through the 2000s American comedy That ’70s Show as a catchphrase of Ashton Kutcher’s character, Kelso.^[1] The term “burn” was first added to Urban Dictionary^[9] on November 2nd, 2002, but a definition added on May 5th, 2004 was highlighted as the September 5th, 2005 Urban Word of the Day.

Spread

On May 14th, We Know Memes^[5] posted an image macro pairing the burn image with a screenshot of an iPhone message where a person declines another’s romantic advances by calling them ugly. This image was reposted to The Lolbrary^[6], 9gag^[7] and Reddit.^[8]

On FunnyJunk, there are nearly 90 search results for the term “apply cold water.”^[14] Additional posts using the reaction image can be found on Tumblr with the tags “apply cold water”^[10] and “apply cold water to burned area.”^[11] On Facebook^[12], there are dozens of groups dedicated to the reaction image. The largest^[13] was created in November 2012 and has gained more than 18,000 likes.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Cool Guy Has Chill day is essentially a cool guy, having a chill day. The video gained popularity, sparking remakes such as Cool Bro Has Chill Day, Chill guys have Cool Day, etc.

The video stares Cool Guy is “Just Cool Guy doin’ what he do best! P.S. If you’re wondering about cool guys “mask” Devin made it for a school project”.

The meme originated from Youtube, and has spread since it’s upload.

Overview

World Conference on International Communications (WCIT) is a treaty-level conference regarding international rules and regulations for telecommunications, facilitated by the United Nations agency International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and hosted in Dubai in December 2012. Prior to its commencement, the United States House of Representatives and civil liberties groups have raised concerns about the proposals, claiming that they could potentially be harmful to Internet freedom.

Background

On May 17th, 2012, a coalition of 31 organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, European Digital Rights, Human Rights Watch and the Internet Governance Project published a letter^[14] denouncing the WCIT’s secretive planning process and demanded that the ITU release all documents describing the WCIT’s proposals.

Notable Developments

ITU Opens Public Consultation

On August 16th, 2012, the tech news blog Computer World^[1] published an article titled “ITU Opens Public Consultation on Internet Regulation Treaty," which reported that the ITU had published a draft of a document on their official website^[2] disclosing what would be discussed during the upcoming convention. The article also revealed that the U.S. House of Representatives had raised concerns that many of the proposals could restrict or censor the Internet by granting national authorities the right to impose taxes on Internet traffic.

Russian Proposal Leaked

On November 16th, the website WCIT Leaks^[12] published leaked documents^[10] revealing that the Russian Federation made a proposal to the United Nations to transfer power of Internet governance from the Internet Society (ISOC) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to national governments. The same day, the tech news blog Cnet^[11] published an article titled “Russia demands broad UN role in Net governance, leak reveals,” which criticized the proposal and the ITU’s attempt at seizing power from ICANN.

#Freeandopen

On November 20th, 2012, Google published a video titled “Take Action: Add Your Voice to Keep the Internet #freeandopen,” which featured video clips within Google Earth software of people pledging their support for a free and open Internet (shown below). The video also promoted Google’s “Take Action”^[6] website by urging viewers to pledge support on FreeAndOpenWeb.com,^[5] which raised concerns over the WCIT’s “closed-door meeting.” On the following day, the BBC^[7] published an article titled “Google Attacks UN’s Internet Treaty Conference.”

Online Reaction

On November 30th, CNN^[4] published a guest column by American computer scientist Vinton Gray Cerf, considered one of the “fathers of the Internet” for co-inventing Internet protocol and transmission control protocol, which raised concerns about the ITU’s proposals which could allow governments to censor legitimate speech and cut off Internet access. On December 4th, Venture Beat^[3] reported on Cerf’s criticisms of the conference in an article titled “Vint Cerf Invented the Internet, and Now He’s Trying to Save it.” The same day, Redditor PrivateBytes submitted a post to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[8] subreddit titled “Neither would I,” which featured a photograph of Cerf with the caption “I don’t always create the Internet / but when I do, I don’t let the U.N. fuck it up” (shown below). Within five hours, the post received over 15,200 up votes and 350 comments.

On December 3rd, The Daily Dot^[13] published an article reporting that the Internet Defense League (IDL) group of web activists were attempting to raise awareness about the ITU and their attempts at transferring power of Internet governance. As of December 4th, 2012, over 36,000 individuals, 1,430 organizations and 175 countries had signed on to the Protect Global Internet Freedom^[15] petition, which called for the ITU to refrain from attempts at controlling Internet governance.

Conference Begins

On December 4th, the day after the WCIT began in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the Ghana Business News^[9] quoted ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré, who attempted to dispel rumors that the WCIT would restrict the free flow of information:

“Fears have also been expressed that new provisions in updated ITRs might help to legitimize government censorship. And I fully agree that this should not happen. This conference will not stand in the way of the need to protect the right of the freedom of expression, the right to communicate, and the right to privacy.”

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Made by Jon Jafari, Jon Tron is a Youtube series where Jon reviews video games with his pet bird, Jacques. His series started on normalboots.com, but that site is now closed. His reviews are famous for being very random and comical, and sometimes randomly breaking into song. His Youtube channel, JonTronShow, has more than 300,000 subscribers and has 30,000,000 views on all of his videos overall.

Origin

He started by posting his first video on normalboots.com and Youtube, a 2-parter titled “Daikatana Review”. The two parts combined have 600,000 views.

Since then he has been making many more game reviews, all which have become very popular.

Videos

His most popular video at the moment is his review of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. In this video, he talks about how the game ruined the franchise, while he acts as if there was a dramatic storyline to the review. The video has almost 1,300,000 views.

He has many other game reviews, all of which are very well received. His most recent game review is of the game Nightshade: The Claws of Sutekh.

He has also reviewed a low-budget movie called Birdemic: Shock and Terror, which is his only non video game based review. The only other non-video game based review he did was of Jurassic Park: The Lost World. However, that review was only on normalboots.com, which can no longer be accessed. The only way it CAN be accessed is through here.

Game Grumps

Game Grumps is a Let’s Play channel he made where he plays games with Arin Hanson, also known as Egoraptor. Despite only being made this summer, the channel already has more subcribers than Jon’s main channel.

Search Interest

Overview

#AskPontifex is a hashtag launched after Pope Benedict XV joined the online social networking and microblogging service Twitter in December of 2012. The hashtag was initially introduced by the Vatican for Twitter users to ask questions regarding the Catholic faith but was immediately overrun with jokes and insults directed at the Pope.

Background

Pope Benedict XV officially joined Twitter under the handle @pontifex^[2] on December 3rd, 2012. The same day, the New York Times^[1] published an article titled “Twitter Has a New User: The Pope,” which reported that Benedict would be sending his first tweet on December 12th and would be responding to questions submitted with the hashtag #askponifex. Within 48 hours, the @pontifex Twitter account had accumulated over 490,000 followers.

Notable Developments

News Media Coverage

On the same day, the tech news blog Wired^[7] reported that some users were using the hashtag to make jokes, such as asking irreverent questions about McDonald’s McRib sandwich and the 2009 horror film The Human Centipede. Also on December 3rd, the Internet news blog UpRoxx^[5] published a post titled “The Pope Has Joined Twitter,” which highlighted humorous tweets directed at Pope Benedict XV (shown below).

On December 4th, UpRoxx^[3] published a follow-up post titled “The Best of #AskPontifex, In Which the Pope Solicits Questions and Twitter Hilariously Obliges,” which featured a slideshow of satirical tweets using the hashtag. The same day, the Internet news blog Web Pro News^[6] published a compilation of notable #AskPontifex tweets. On December 5th, the tech news blog Cnet^[4] published an article titled “#AskPontifex Meme Takes Off Before Pope’s First Tweet.”

Notable Examples

Twitter Feed

Search Interest

External References