About

“New York” on a Bed refers to a reaction photo used to illustrate feelings of impatience or latent rage. The image features “New York,” a.k.a. 2000’s reality television star Tiffany Pollard, sitting on a bed, fully clothed, wearing sunglasses an an annoyed expression. It is often distributed as accompaniment to That Feel When style posts.

Origin

“New York” is the nickname of Tiffany Pollard, a contestant in both the first and second seasons of the 2006-2007 VH1 reality television show Flavor of Love.^[1] The show was a matchmaking show featuring the eccentric rapper Flava Flav, and was well-known for the humorousness of the settings and outrageousness of the characters. New York, who was one of the most outspoken and controversial characters, was later featured in several spinoff series because of her immense popularity.^[2] This freeze-frame most likely came from the first season of Flava of Love.

Spread

On May 7th, 2015, Twitter user MikeShotya posted the New York on a bed screenshot along with the caption “When everyone you chilling with ordered food but you broke so you gotta act like you not hungry.”^[3] As of November 10th, 2015, the tweet has received almost 4,000 retweets and more than 3,800 likes. On May 13th, user Eyeemoji posted the same screenshot with the caption “when your friends force you to go somewhere you didn’t want to so you purposely drown the room in negative energy,” which received 92 retweets and 142 favorites.^[4] The image continued to spread on Twitter, and was also featured in the popular subreddit /r/blackpeopletwitter on several occasions.^[5][6] On May 21st, Buzzfeed published an article entitled “The “New York” On A Bed Meme Is The Only Meme You Need This Summer” with over twenty more options for captions to accompany the photo, and including a screenshot of Eyeemoji’s original tweet.^[7]

Notable Examples

External References

About

#Slipgate is a photoshop meme featuring a cutout image of a man wearing a T-shirt and briefs while aggressively wielding a shovel. The photograph widely circulated on the French web after being tweeted by the Agence France-Presse in November 2015.

Origin

On November 9th, 2015, the French Agence France-Presse (AFP) tweeted several photos of a man in his underwear attacking activists from the Bird Protection League at a cornfield in Audon, France (shown below).^[1][2][3] According to the AFP,^[6] a man came out of his house and began beating reporters and activists with a large shovel after seeing them destroy traps set for finches.

Spread

That day, Twitter user @Tristan_Brtloot^[4] tweeted a photoshopped image of the man with the shovel on a beach with a sandcastle (shown below, left). Shortly after, Twitter user @Imrage^[5] posted a photoshop of the man wielding a lightsaber weapon from the Starwars franchise (shown below, right).

Meanwhile, Gawker^[8] published an article about the incident titled “Don’t Fuck With These Finch Traps Unless You Want to Fight a Shovel-Wielding Underwear Man.” Also on November 9th, BuzzFeed^[9] published a compilation of notable slipgate photoshops, referring to the man as the “French Shovel Guy.” On the following day, the IBI Times^[7] published an article about the photoshop meme.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Yo-Kai Watch is a series of role-playing video games developed and published by Level-5. The original game was released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan on July 11, 2013 and was released in North America by Nintendo on November 6, 2015. The series revolves around the concept of befriending magical demons known as Yo-Kai, so that they can be used in battle. This mechanic along with the game’s cute character design and expansion into other mediums has led to many comparisons between Yo-Kai Watch and Pokémon.

History

Yo-Kai watch was first revealed during the Level-5 Press Conference at Tokyo Gameshow in 2011. The series was always planned to spin-off into other media as evidenced by the Yo-Kai Watch manga which appeared in CoroCoro Comics nearly seven months before the game’s release.

Since then, Yo-Kai Watch has gone on to produce a sequel game, a toy line, an anime, and even a Ghostbusters-themed spin-off game in Japan but it was not until April 2015 that Yo-Kai Watch was announced for an American release. Yo-Kai Watch’s first English trailer premiered at E3 2015 during a Nintendo Direct.

The English dub of the Yo-Kai Watch anime began airing on Disney XD in October of 2015 with the first game in the series getting an English release one month later. Yo-Kai Watch 3 is set to release in Japan in 2016 but it is currently unknown whether it or any of the other Yo-Kai Watch sequels will be released in North America.

Reception

Upon its initial Japanese release, Yo-Kai Watch received a near-perfect score of 36/40 from Japanese magazine, Famitsu and sold over 53,000 units in it’s first week of availability. Since then, it has gone on to become one of the top-selling games in the 3DS library, selling over 1.29 million units in Japan alone.

Online Relevance

Yo-Kai Watch Commercials

The English commercials for Yo-Kai watch have been met with mixed reception by American audiences. They have been widely criticized and lauded for their over the top nature and for the tagline “Yo-kai is why”.

Yo-Kai Exercise Number One

“Yo-Kai Exercise Number One” is the ending theme song for the TV anime adaptation of the Yo-Kai Watch Since the premiere of the TV series in January 2014, the song has been a popular subject for singing and dancing covers, as well as MAD videos on Nico Nico Douga (NND).

About

Antonio Lievano (aka SoFloAntonio) is a Youtuber known for creating numerous viral videos involving public pranks ranging from comedic practical jokes to ones that involve sexual content bordering on harassment.

Online History

Several of his earliest uploads in 2013 involved practical jokes that were annoying but innocent of intention.

Later on these would give way to more raunchy content involving kissing “pranks”, going to the beach to meet other girls and engaging in other activities that may be deemed as degrading.

Reputation

Many of his pranks appear to involve unsuspecting bystanders and resulting to unwanted attention to the prank victims in question. A good amount of his content revolves around picking up girls and convincing them to do various intimate or romantic acts in public or “pranking” them.

Despite some of the original content he has created he has been accused numerous times of stealing other peoples videos for his own views and adding in an introduction claiming it as his own. Although it has been suggested in his video description links that his content is directly sent from other people so that he can showcase it albeit without properly crediting the original uploaders.

Online Presence

YouTube

As of November 2015, his main YouTube channel, SoFloAntonio,^[1] currently has over 550,000 subscribers and 56 videos with over 78 million views. He also maintains 3 other YouTube channels which are SoFloComedy,^[2] SoFloPranks,^[3] and SoFloAntonioVlogs.^[4] His SoFloComedy channel currently has 1.8 million subscribers and SoFloPranks has over 850,000 subscribers, making both more successful than his original channel.

Elsewhere Online

As of November 2015, Antonio currently has over 3 million likes on his Facebook^[5] page which was created in March 2014. His Twitter page, @SoFloAntoino,^[6] currently has over 55,000 followers and his Instagram account^[7] has over 155,000 followers.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

The 2015 California Missile Test refers to a United States military procedure which involved the unannounced launch and detonation of a missile off of the Southern California coast. The procedure, which occurred at night, was seen by many citizens in the area, and inspired a large wave of commentary, photographs, and videos on social media.

Background

On November 7th, 2015, the United States Navy launched a Trident II (D5) missile from a submarine positioned off of the coast of Southern California.^[1] The Trident II D5 is a long-range anti-nuclear missile, created by Lockheed Martin to be deployed as a part of a counter-strike action against a nuclear weapon.^[2] Each Trident II D5 costs about $37 million dollars, according to Encyclopedia Astronautica.^[3] After it launched, the missile’s boosters emitted a bright blue-white light until it was detonated.

Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, told the Los Angeles Times that even though the test was a very large and public affair, that it was kept secret until after the fact so that foreign powers would be less able to collect information about the missile’s trajectories, speeds, and other characteristics.^[4]

Online Reaction

Residents all over Southern California filmed the missile’s flight, but were unaware of what it was. Many referred to it on social media as a UFO or an alien spaceship, and many people took amateur photographs and videos of the event and posted them online. There were thousands of posts on Facebook and hundreds of videos uploaded to YouTube.^[5][6]

Users began using the hashtag #AliensTakingOverEarthParty to refer to the event, and it was tweeted over 37,000 times in 24 hours after the launch. In addition, there were more than 350,000 tweets using the word aliens that day, up from a daily average of approximately 25,000.^[7][8]

Related Alien Creature Sighting

Midday on November 9th, 2015, a Facebook user named Teshawn Michael Stafford posted several pictures on his Facebook profile of a deformed, miscarried cow fetus.^[9] The pictures were then re-uploaded to a Facebook page titled Gianna Peponis, where the poster claimed that after the missile launch was seen, she heard a scream and went to her California backyard, where she took photographs of an unknown creature she found.^[10] The pictures went viral with the misappropriated information, including being reported on in the Inquisitr and the Daily Mail^[11][12] and a highly upvoted post on /r/WTF.^[13]

Left: Stafford’s original facebook post; Right: One of Peponis’ reposts of the photos

Search Interest

not yet available

External References

About

Onision is the online handle of vlogger Gregory Jackson, who is known for creating bizarre comedy sketches and music videos on YouTube.

History

YouTube Channel

On January 26th, 2006, Jackson launched the YouTube channel Onision.^[1] On October 16th, 2007, the first video was uploaded to the feed, in which Jackson reviews a Darth Vader voice changing helmet (shown below, left). On April 18th, 2008, Onision posted a video titled “I’m So Emo,” which gained over 3.1 million views and 19,000 comments in the first seven (shown below, right).

On September 25th, 2009, Onision uploaded a music video titled “Banana Song” (shown below, left). Within six years, the video received upwards of 44 million views and 108,000 comments. In February 2010, the video was featured as the “Viewer Video of the Week” on the Internet humor television show Tosh.0.^[2] On June 8th, 2010, Onision released a parody instructional music video titled “Shower Song (How to Take a Shower)” (shown below, right).

On October 18th, 2011, A music video titled “I’m a Ladybug” was uploaded to the channel, featuring footage of Onision walking through a forest while dressed in a ladybug costume (shown below, left). Within four years, the video received more than 1.3 million views and 5,800 comments. On March 1st, 2012, Onision released a sketch video in which he performs the cinnamon challenge while impersonating the YouTuber Fred, garnering over five million views and 41,000 comments in four years (shown below, right).

On January 1st, 2013, Onision posted a video titled “10 Things I Hate About Emos,” gathering upwards of 2.6 million views and 26,000 comments in three years (shown below, left). On December 20th, 2014, Onision uploaded a comedy sketch parodying the anime Death Note (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Pages for Onision have been created on several notable wiki sites, including Encyclopedia Dramatica,^[6] LOLcow^[7] and the YouTube Wiki.^[8]

Social Media Presence

As of November 2015, Onision has 689,000 Facebook^[3] likes, 299,000 Instagram^[5] followers and 258,000 Twitter^[4] followers.

Related Memes

“Creamy Meme Dude”

In November 2015, people began spamming the phrase “creamy meme dude” on Onision’s social media posts (shown below). On November 9th, the OnisionDrama Tumblr^[9] feed speculated that the spam was being perpetuated by fans of Onision.

Search Interest

External References

[Editor’s Note: Indivisible is currently documented as an Event entry under Skullgirls due to the still ongoing crowdfunding. Should the game reach its funds, it can be assumed interest is high enough and the entry will be branched off into its own Subculture entry.]

Overview

Indivisble is a 2D Action-RPG from Lab Zero, previously known for their 2D fighting game Skullgirls. In October 2015, Lab Zero started an Indiegogo fundraiser for the game, asking for $1.5 million in funds in order to create the game.

Background

Indivisible^[1] is inspired by classic games such as Valkyrie Profile and Metroid. The game follows the protagonist Ajna, a girl raised in a remote village who discovers a mysterious power in herself: the power to absorb certain individuals into her being, which in return allows her to summon them into battle and grant Ajna new weapons and abilities. Following events in the game, Ajna sets out on a globe-spanning quest.

Indivisible will be built in Lab Zero’s own Z-Engine, the same engine used for Skullgirls, due to its flexibility and ability to function with most computers. With animation, Skullgirls also laid the groundwork for Indivisible, which uses the same production method (shown below, left). Lab Zero will also be working with Scarlet Moon Productions to give Indivisible a soundtrack from Japanese game music composer Hiroki Kikuta (shown below, right).

Indiegogo Campaign

The Indivisible Indiegogo campaign^[2] began on 9:00 AM ET / 6:00 AM PT on October 5th, 2015, and would initially continue until November 15th. Per an agreement, Lab Zero was required to raise $1,500,000 in order to have 505 Games provide the remaining $2,000,000 needed to complete the game, adding up to a total budget of $3,500,000. The campaign was a fixed funding campaign, meaning that the money would only be donated if the $1,500,000 would be raised by the deadline; Indivisible would not be made if the goal wasn’t met.

Along with the start of the campaign, Lab Zero released a trailer for the game (shown above). Prototypes for the game were also made available, initially only for Windows,^[3] and then for Mac,^[4] Linux,^[5] and the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. Throughout the campaign, Lab Zero released more info on the game as milestones were met. Backer rewards varied from audio and art files to merchandise to ultimately being able to create something in the game or dine with the creators (shown below, right).

Notable Developments

Crossover Characters

On November 3rd, Lab Zero shared in an article on Polygon^[6] that Indivisible would feature seven crossover characters from its own and other franchises. Most notable among these was Annie from Lab Zero’s own Skullgirls, and Shovel Knight from the game of the same name (shown below, left). Lab Zero subsequently also shared this info on its Twitter^[7] and Facebook^[8] pages.

Extended Deadline

On November 6th, Lab Zero shared in a Reddit AMA^[9] that the campaign deadline would be extended if they raised $900,000 before the deadline; by that date, Indivisible still hadn’t reached 50% of its goal, a pace at which the game wouldn’t receive the necessary funds. On November 11th, 4 days before the deadline, the $900,000 milestone was met, and Lab Zero subsequently extended the deadline by 20 days (shown below).

Reception

The game was highly anticipated by users and critics alike. Gamegrumps reviewed the prototype and called it “Impressive” (below) in a video that was viewed and upvoted respectively more than 550,000 and 17,000 times by November 2015. Many other online video game critics asked their followers and readers to help fund the game, including Matt from YoVideogames.^[10] Over 1,300 people tweeted their support.^[11] In addition, users began drawing fanart featuring Ajna to spread support within the fan communities.^[12] Alongside, various fans also praised the game for its diverse cast containing a large variety in physiques and ethical backgrounds.

However, some wondered if the campaign’s struggles came from the misconception that $1.5million was a lot of money to attempt to raise and more than what was necessary for an indie game. In an interview with Eurogamer, Mike Zaimont of Lab Zero explained that the costs were mostly to pay for staff and that they were not inflated at all.^[13]

Fanart

Search Interest

Search Interest has been restricted to the category “Games” to filter out results related to its general definition

External References

About

Kink Shaming, also spelled as kinkshaming, is the act of mocking or criticizing someone’s specific sexual predilections. Originating in the social justice blogosphere, the term has been applied outside of its original context as a way of criticizing overzealous political correctness.

Origin

Although there is no clear date when the term “kink shaming” came into use, the first online mentions date from the Livejournal Kink communities, where some “no kink shaming” policies went into effect as early as 2008.^[7]

Spread

STFU, Kink Shamers,^[8] a Tumblr blog devoted to criticizing people who engage in kink shaming, began posting in July 2011. While some see the practice as legitimate discrimination, others, typically outside of kink groups, ridicule the idea that someone’s kink can be discriminated against. Some of the earliest “ironic” posts^[1][2] about kink shaming come from late 2012.

An Urban Dictionary entry^[3] for “kink shame” was created in 2014. In June of 2015, Tumblr user skygosh^[4] created an ironic “kink shaming pride” flag (shown below); the post gained over 20,000 notes. The Tumblr blog Daily Kink Shaming,^[5] which reblogs ironic posts about kink shaming, was started in October 2015. The meme documentation Tumblr Meme Archives published a post about the “ironic” use of the word on November 8th, 2015.^[6]

Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Role-playing refers to the changing of one’s behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. Online, there are communities dedicated to roleplaying as certain characters.

Origin

Roleplaying has its origins on the large computer networks and bulletin board systems of major universities in the United States in the 1980s.

Spread

[researching. help would be nice, thank you.]

Online Roleplaying has spread to various parts of the internet, and there are many communities existing for this purpose.

Types of Online Roleplaying

An example of online roleplaying is the “play-by-post” game. This is an online text-based game where players interact with each other and a predefined environment via posting in a thread or chat.

Search Interest

Kiān-seng-tiong-i (Traditional Chinese: 健生中醫; POJ: Kiān-seng-tiong-i), real name 張順忠, is a Taiwanese doctor famous within Taiwan^[1] for his advertisements in the Min Nan Chinese language, and especially the phone number. Numerous sound MADs have been based off of these advertisements uploaded to Niconico Douga^[1] and Bilibili^[2].

Advertisements

The advertisements are in Min Nan, and the contents are usually the same. They state that “Doctor Kiān-seng cares about your sciatica”, followed by a description of sciatica, a human model painted in gold that the doctor points to, and the phone number to call. The pronunciation of the numerous amount of zeroes (“kung bat kung kung, kung kiu ji, kung kung kung”) in the phone number is usually the main target of MADs.

Notable Examples

Kiān-seng-tiong-i × Gangnam Style
Kiān-seng-tiong-i × PONPONPON
Kiān-seng-tiong-i × Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya! (Nyan Cat)
Kiān-seng-tiong-i × Te-te-te-
A recital of of the advertisement by an Englishman
A recital of a Japanese translation of the advertisement

External References

^[1]Nico Nico Pedia – Kiān-seng-tiong-i

^[2]Bilibili – Kiān-seng-tiong-i – Search results

About

“Temmie” Covers refer to various remixes of the song “Temmie Village” from the soundtrack of the 2015 indie video game Undertale, in which the original vocal track is rearranged to follow the rhythm of another song.

Origin

“Temmie Village” is the 43rd track in the official soundtrack of Undertale that can be heard whenever the player enters the eponymous Temmie Village, a town entirely populated by monsters called “Temmies” who are known for their odd appearance and use of poor grammar. While it is currently unknown who made the first cover of the song, one of the earliest known covers is “undertale temmie get money for colege” by SoundCloud user archdiggle, which samples the song “Whales” by Hail Mary Mallon as the background instrumental music.^[3]

Spread

On September 30th, 2015, Vinesauce streamer Vargskelethor (Vinesauce Joel) did a livestream in which he plays Undertale. During the stream, he stopped playing the game in order to make a mashup of Temmie Village and the .midi conversion of “Raining Blood” by the heavy metal band Slayer.^[4] Because of the streamer’s popularity, the concept of Temmie Covers was made much more popular since the stream. On October 22nd, the “Tem Covers Nobody Wanted” Tumblr single topic blog was created, and featured various Temmie Village mashups, made both by the blog’s creator and by other Tumblr users.^[5]

Notable Examples

The majority of remixes and mashups of the “Temmie Village” theme can be found on Tumblr and SoundCloud under the tag “#Temmie”.^[1][2]

External References

About

Shaun King is a writer and activist well-known for his work with civil rights and social justice. A prominent figure in Black Twitter, King has been responsible for breaking or reporting on many of the racial identity and police brutality controversies of the mid 2010s, including the influential Black Lives Matter movement.

Background

King is originally from Kentucky and attended the historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He worked as a teacher and then became a pastor and founded his own church. Even in his early career, he was known as “The Facebook Pastor” for his ability with social media.^[1]

After the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, King began founding a series of social media charity sites for sending tents, supplies, and other support to that country; he then founded other sites for charitable giving in the United States. In 2010, one of his projects, Twitchange,^[3] won the Mashable award for “Most Creative Social Good Campaign.”^[2]

Activism and Reporting Career

Some of the first reporting King did was on Twitter, when he worked with a team to evaluate the distance between Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown, during the 2014 Ferguson Riots. A Storify stream of the Tweets he made about this work was posted September 19th, 2014, and has over 187,000 views as of November 12th, 2015.^[4]

Soon after those tweets went viral, King was hired as a contributor by the progressive political web site the Daily Kos,^[5] where he published over 500 posts,^[6] including much influential reporting on the death of Sandra Bland, the death of 12 year-old Tamir Rice, and other social justice and racial identity issues like Rachel Dolezal’s Racial Identity.

On October 2nd, 2015, King was hired by the New York Daily News as their Senior Justice Writer, a role created for him.^[7] In that role, King helped to break the news of The Spring Valley High School Arrest Incident]

Biracial Identity Controversy

On August 19th, 2015, controversial blogger Milo Yiannopoulus wrote an article^[9] on the conservative political website Breitbart questioning whether or not King was really biracial, as he had claimed in order to receive the Oprah Scholarship to Morehouse college. Quoting extensively from the work of a white supremacist blogger named Vicki Pate, Yiannopoulus referenced some documents from King’s early life where boxes were checked “white” and also King’s birth certificate, which named a man who was later found to be white.

King first rebutted the statements by tweeting to contest many of the details of the initial story, then wrote a long blog post on Daily Kos where he said that the man on his birth certificate was not his biological father, and that instead his father was a light-skinned black man with whom his mother had an affair. He also criticized Yiannopoulus for forcing him to reveal these personal details about his family, saying that his mother was a senior citizen and that he was “deeply embarrassed” to have to speak about her in this way to address the criticism.^[10]

Search Interest

Note: There is also an American Football player named Shaun King. The massive 2015 spike in interest, however, is the Shaun King referenced here, and refers to the racial identity controversy above.

External References

About

Gondola is a cartoon character based on an armless and melancholic version of Spurdo Sparde who doesn’t talk.
He was named after Venice’s gondolas.
He is friends with Berring and enemy with Spurdo also know as kc bear.

”They are calm, there’s no hurry to anywhere. The themes are everyday happenings, there’s nothing outright special in them. Yet they appear so welcoming and warm, you feel like if you entered that picture you would be safe of any worries you have, you would be content with the little you have like gondola is, it’s like returning to the innocence of childhood when you didn’t know about anything else and could be fine with what you have, it’s a state where you are in peace with yourself and your surroundings, you have nothing to regret and are sure everything in future will be fine, it’s happiness.”

”Gondolas are relaxed, harmless creatures that observe their environment. They rarely interfere anything, but just keep observing. They never talk, just look around and smile. This makes them very different from other creatures such as spurdo, that feel, pepe, yoba, etc.”

Origin

Gondola first originated on the Ylilauta /int/ board by an italian poster (named Scary Pizza) during summer 2015.
It was meant to be a new and less kc tier version of spurdo who doesn’t talk Spurdish. A melancholic man that doesn’t talk, but only observes the world.

Spread

A greek poster posted gondola on Krautchan /int/ and Bernds immediately stole it. It got popular and started spreading on 4chan, VK and Facebook.
Since then a lot of people started wrongly thinking it’s a finnish meme and that he speaks like spurdo.

Other Versions

There is another version of gondola who picures him leaving and coming back to ylilauta with the phrases ‘’i leave ylilauta forever’’ and ’’i’m back’’.

About

StopHam (English: “Stop a Douchebag”) is a Russian nonprofit organization based in Moscow that seeks to curb traffic law violations and unruly driving habits by confronting the offenders on camera and sharing the recorded footage online.

History

The group was founded in 2010 by Russian social activist Dmitriy Chugunov and other members of the Moscow-based youth movement Nashi as a protest against offenders of traffic laws and reckless drivers on the road.

Highlights

The “I Park Where I Want” Sticker

Controversies

Search Interest

External References

About

Would You Kill Baby Hitler is a thought experiment which ponders the ethics of traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler as an infant in order to prevent the holocaust.

Origin

The exact origin of the thought experiment is unknown. The idea of traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler is a trope^[1] used in science fiction and is commonly associated with the proposed grandfather paradox.^[2] Additionally, the dilemma bears many similarities to the “trolley problem”^[4] ethical thought experiment, which asks participants if they would kill one person to save five others. In 1996, the novel Making History^[6] by Stephen Fry was released, in which the protagonist travels back in time to deliver a permanent contraceptive pill to Hitler’s father. On October 2nd, 2002, Season 1 Episode 5 “Cradle of Darkness” of the science fiction television series The Twilight Zone was broadcast, in which a woman travels back in time to kill Adolf Hitler as a baby (shown below). The earliest known mention of killing Hitler as an infant online was posted in the Free Republic Forums^[5] by user DaveLoneRanger on April 18th, 2006, asking readers “Would you kill baby Hitler to prevent the extermination of millions?”

Spread

On May 14th, 2007, YouTuber John Green uploaded a video discussing the thought experiment (shown below, left). On November 26th, 2008, YouTuber Philip DeFranco posted a video about the Hitler dilemma (shown below, right).

On September 10th, 2010, the ModDDb Forums^[7] member PeterHat submitted a poll titled “Would You Kill Baby Hitler?” On May 31st, 2011, YouTuber David Pakman uploaded an interview segment titled “Morality with Motamedi,” in which he asks co-host Louis Motamedi if he would kill Hitler as an infant (shown below, left). On July 24th, 2013, the Big Think YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring psychologist Kevin Dutton, in which he discusses the Hitler thought experiment along with other moral dilemmas (shown below, right). On September 7th, 2014, Redditor dantheman757 submitted a post about the baby Hitler dilemma to the /r/Showerthoughts^[9] subreddit, where it received upwards of 4,400 votes (94% upvoted) and 770 comments prior to being archived.

2015 Presidential Primary

On October 23rd, 2015, the NYT Mag^[3] tweet a graph depicting readers responses to a survey asking “could you kill baby Hitler?” (shown below).

On November 6th, the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal^[8] posted a comic about the dilemma from a moral relativist perspective (shown below).

On November 9th, The Huffington Post^[10] posted an interview with Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, during which he answered “Hell yeah, I would!” in response to the baby Hitler question (shown below, left). On the following day, YouTuber PFT Commenter uploaded footage of Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson saying “I’m not in favor of aborting anyone” when asked if he would approve of aborting baby Hitler (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

Fallout 4 Character Creations are custom generated player avatar created in the introductory sequence of the 2015 post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout 4.

Origin

On November 10th, 2015, the open world action role-playing game Fallout 4 was released, in which the player controls a customized character in a post-apocalyptic Boston, Massachusetts 200 years after a nuclear war. During the game’s introduction sequence, the player can customize their appearance using a freeform editor system to sculpt their character’s facial features (shown below).

Spread

On November 9th, YouTuber Robbaz uploaded gameplay footage of the Fallout 4 character creator and opening game sequence, in which he creates an overweight, balding character with a large nose and ears (shown below).

The same day, Redditor verbalxtxbag submitted a screenshot of a Nicolas CageFallout 4 avatar to the /r/onetruegod^[2] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 1,700 votes (89% upvoted) in the first 72 hours (shown below, left). The following day, Redditor CaptainThump posted a Nigel Thornberry character creation to the /r/gaming^[3] subreddit, where it received over 4,700 votes (86% upvoted) and 100 comments within 48 hours (shown below, right).

Meanwhile, the video game news blog Kotaku^[1] published an article titled “The Ugliest Characters of Fallout 4,” highlighting several notable examples of bizarre-looking player avatars. Also on November 10th, the GameSpot YouTube channel posted a montage of clips featuring ugly and disfigured Fallout 4 character creations (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

wip feel free to request editorship

About

Cool Cat Saves the Kids is a children’s anti-bullying movie written and directed by Derek Savage, based on his children’s book series titled Cool Cat. The film has become infamous for its alleged lack of quality, and is often grouped together along with other panned movies such as The Room and Birdemic. The film became popular online after being reviewed by YouTube based film critic and entertainer YourMovieSucks, and gained a resurgence in interest after Savage filed copyright claims on several reviews of the film.

Background

Online Relevance

Derek Savage’s Response

Related Memes

There He Is

Search Interest

External References

About

Nutscapes is a photo fad in which participants hang a pair of exposed testicles over the top of a camera frame in front of a picturesque landscape.

Origin

According to the “About” page on the Nutscapes Tumblr blog,^[1] Philadelphia-based artist Clancy Philbrick^[3] started the photo fad as a “community-bult web-based photographic project” in 2007.

Precursor

The combination of landscape photography and obscene language or imagery has been previously iterated through the image macro series known as Fuckscapes, which initially emerged on 4chan’s /b/ (random) board as a parody of inspirational photo quotes and spread to Tumblr sometime in 2011.

Spread

On January 14th, 2014, the Nutscapes Tumblr^[1] blog was launched. On July 3rd, Philbrick created the @nutscapes^[2] Twitter account. On October 21st, 2015, The Daily Dot^[4] published an article about the Nutscapes Instagram feed. The following day, Mashable^[6] published an article about the photo fad, which included a statement from Philbrick about his views on the art project:

“I believe Nutscapes has great artistic depth because it touches upon both a low-brow vulgarity and a high-brow concept.”

On October 23rd, the Nutscapes Instagram^[7] feed was suspended for violating the site’s terms of service. Meanwhile, BuzzFeed^[5] published a compilation of notable examples from the Nutscapes Tumblr blog (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Linkle is a female version of the character Link from the Nintendo video game franchise The Legend of Zelda that will be introduced as a playable character in the upcoming Nintendo 3DS game Hyrule Warriors Legends set for release in March 2016.

Origin

In August 2014, an art book supplement for the game Hyrule Warriors was released, which featured a female version of Link named “Linkle” (リンクル or “Rinkuru” in Japanese).

Spread

On November 12th, 2015, the Nintendo of America Twitter feed posted images of a new female version of Link as a playable character in the upcoming game Hyrule Warriors Legends, who wields crossbows rather than the sword of her male counterpart (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 10,500 favorites and 9,700 retweets.

The same day, the women’s geek culture blog The Mary Sue^[2] published an article about . Meanwhile, the GameXplain YouTube channel posted gameplay footage of Linkle in Hyrule Warriors Legends (shown below).

Search Interest

Not available

External References

Background

#ALLMYMOVIES was a performance art project undertaken by the trio known as Labeouf, Rönkkö & Turner. During the project, one of the group’s members, actor Shia Labeouf, watched all of his films in reverse chronological order for 72 hours straight at the Angelika Film Center in New York City, beginning on November 10th, 2015. The entirety of the event was live-streamed on the net art site New Hive, with a camera that was focused directly on Labeouf’s face.^[1]

History

#ALLMYMOVIES is the eleventh piece in a conceptual art series by Labeouf, Rönkkö & Turner.^[2] Other pieces in the series include #IAMSORRY, which featured Labeouf sitting in a room in an art gallery in Los Angeles where members of the public could have a one-on-one conference with him over a span of time, and #INTRODUCTIONS, also known as Shia LaBeouf’s Intense Motivational Speech / Just Do It, during which the actor starred in a 41-minute video reading different monologues prepared for him by art students at Central St. Martins University in Britain. As of November 13th, it is unclear how many pieces of art are planned in the collaboration.

At noon on November 10th, 2015, a press release was issued by the trio explaining that at that moment, Labeouf had begun the #ALLMYMOVIES project with the unreleased film Man Down.^[3] The press release read, simply,

From noon today, #ALLMYMOVIES by LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner will commence at the Angelika Film Center, 18 West Houston Street, NYC.

Visitors are invited to join Shia LaBeouf in person as he watches all his movies consecutively in reverse chronological order over the next three days, 24 hours a day (admission free).

It also included the link to the NewHive page where the live stream was created.^[1] (Embedding of the stream is disabled, but the entirety is archived.)

Reception

At first, the movie marathon was ridiculed by all but Labeouf’s fandom. Gothamist called the performance a “stunt”^[3] and the Atlantic called it “narcissism.”^[4] After several people called the event “Watching Shia with Shia in a roomful of people watching Shia”, the term “Shiaception” was coined; On November 12th, the Twitter account @Shiaception was created and proceeded to tweet about the event until it ended, acquiring over 2,000 followers. ^[5]

By the end of the event, many critics were praising the work. The Guardian called it “intriguing,”^[6] and a reporter from Entertainment Weekly described how she regained a sense of LaBeouf’s humanity through the piece.^[7] While New Hive doesn’t make viewing numbers public, according to volume of Tweets, the most popular day to discuss the piece was November 11th, when more than 55,000 people Tweeted about LaBeouf and more than 38,000 used the hashtag #allmymovies.^[8][9]

Screenshots

Many users began taking screenshots of the live stream and using them in tweets and other social media. Some notable moments included when LaBeouf cried during the showing of Even Stevens, moments when he ate popcorn, and moments when he fell asleep.

Search Interest

External References