Background

On the evening of November 13th, 2015, beginning at 9:16 p.m. local time (CET), a series of deadly explosions and shootings occurred at multiple locations in downtown Paris, France, including a restaurant and a bar in the 10th administrative district, a theater in the 11th administrative district and a bar near the French national stadium (Stade de France) in the suburb of Saint-Denis. As of 2 a.m. (CET), at least 120 people have been reportedly killed from at least six shootings and six explosions across the city.

Developments

[researching; please request editorship]

Search Interest

External References

About

“Hey its me ur brother” is a line from an attempted scam of a user’s expensive in-game item. The phrase is now most often used in jest to express lighthearted jealousy for another person’s belongings.

Origin

A screenshot of a Steam message conversation was posted to the subreddit /r/GlobalOffensive by user /u/EvilClone128 (account since deleted) on June 21st, 2014 ^[1]. It became one of the highest rated posts on the subreddit at the time.

Since then the image has gained nearly 2,000,000 views on imgur as of November 2015 ^[2].

Spread

The phrase has since circulated throughout reddit, frequently appearing in the comments of many posts. Few examples exist in 2014, as it has become increasingly more popular since the second quarter of 2015.

Search Interest

External References

About:
‘’Oh boy, 3 am!’’ is a phrase used mostly often when someone asks who does this thing at 3 A.M:
‘’Who wants/does ’’x’’ at three in the morning?‘’ then someplace else, ironically, someone else’s alarm goes off at 3 am, the image shows ’’x’’ and says: ‘’Oh boy! Three A.M.!’’

Origin:
The fisrt apearence of the phrase ‘’Oh boy! Three A.M.!’’ was first seen in the TV show ‘’Sponge Bob Square Pants’’ in the channel ‘’Nickelodeon (later changed to nick)’’ the year 2002 in the 36th episode of the second season ‘’Graveyard Shift’’

{{L|Squidward is shown at the counter reading a book. Squidward hears spooky noises and feels water dripping on him but he doesn’t know what it is]

SpongeBob: [on the ceiling wearing suction cups cleaning] Isn’t this great, Squidward? [Squidward screams] There’s never time to wash the ceiling during the day.
Squidward: [says to himself] Open 24 hours a day. What a stupid idea! Who wants a Krabby Patty at three in the morning?
[cuts to Patrick’s bedroom]
Patrick: [Patrick’s alarm clock goes off] Oh boy! Three A.M.! [whips out a Krabby Patty and starts to eat it; cuts back to The Krusty Krab]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ6K3m9TsPs

Just me

heavy wip (no need to thank me jacob)

About

Alone on a Friday Night? God, You’re Pathetic refers to a popular edit of a panel in Archie Comics’ Sonic the Hedgehog comic book series, where the protagonist Sonic says the quote while laying down with a smug face and his legs crossed. The popularity of the image lead to many variations, most of which replace Sonic with another character or replace the quote with another question, always followed with “God, You’re Pathetic”.

Origin

The original panel comes from Issue no. 9 in the episode “What’s The Point?” of the Archie Comic series, in which Sonic deliberately pauses the episode’s story to get some puns about trees “over with” (shown below).^[1] The exact origin of the panel’s edit is currently unknown.

Spread

One of the most popular reshares of the macro comes from Tumblr user hotelmario, who posted a screenshot of the macro being displayed as a featured post on Tumblr, which he captioned with “wow fuck off, tumblr”. The post has over 40,500 notes as of November 2015.^[2]

Notable Examples

External References

About

I Hate Everything (sometimes shortened to IHE), is a YouTube account which features negative reviews of various types of media, including video games, movies, large YouTube phenomena, and sometimes bigger things in life such as opinions themselves. The channel had received moderate popularity, but gained notability for its copyright fight with Derek Savage, creator of Cool Cat.

Online History

The channel for I Hate Everything was created August 23rd, 2013. IHE’s first video, which is about fans of the YouTuber PewDiePie, was uploaded 2 days later, and received 370,000 views, and 18,000 likes withing two years.

IHE continued to make videos for popular trends both on and off the Internet. His most popular videos discuss Minions (shown below, left), /b/ (shown below, right), and the Don’t Judge Me Challenge.^[1]

The channel also featured a series titled “Search for the Worst”, a series in which IHE looks at the lowest ranked movies on IMDB (including Troll 2, Birdemic, The Room, and Cool Cat Saves the Kids), reviews them, and then ranks them from best to worst. Before the series was put on hiatus, he ranked The Garbage Pail Kids Movie as the worst movie he had seen up to that point.

Cool Cat Copyright Claims

Following the upload of his review of Cool Cat Saves the Kids, Derek Savage, the creator of the Cool Cat series, placed a copyright claim on IHE’s videos, alongside two other reviewer’s videos. Following the copyright claim, IHE posted a reaction to the claim, announcing that he had put The Search for the Worst on hold. After tweets by Savage’s purported Cool Cat Twitter account came up, IHE made a following video about the tweets, as well as arguing against the copyright system, and why the review by YourMovieSucks is up but his review isn’t.

IHE later removed both videos due to threatening emails by Savage. He made the videos public again later, and posted a third video discussing Savage’s emails, which IHE claimed to be “bullying” and “threatening”. IHE received support from fellow YouTube critics, such as YourMovieSucks and Caddicarus, as well as his fans.

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External References

[Work In Progress]
You Suffer is a song by the grindcore band Napalm Death, due it’s short length it has been frequently parodied.

About

[W.I.P]

Origin

[W.I.P]

Spread

[W.I.P]

Various Examples

[W.I.P]

Search Interest

[W.I.P]

External References

[W.I.P]

About

Confused Travolta is an animated GIF series featuring a cutout of actor John Travolta in the 1994 black comedy crime film Pulp Fiction edited into other base images of various contexts.

Origin

On November 17th, 2012, Imgur^[5] user karmafrappuccino posted a reactionGIF of the Pulp Fiction character Vincent Vega (played by John Travolta) looking around a room while being spoken to over an intercom by the character Mia Wallace (shown below).

On November 6th, Imgur^[2] user ILikeToWonkaMyWilly uploaded a Confused Travolta GIF in a supermarket toy aisle (shown below). Within ten days, the post gained over 2.8 million views, 12,600 points and 370 comments.

Spread

The following day, ILikeToWonkaMyWilly posted a tutorial for making Confused Travolta GIFs using Sony Vegas Pro software and provided a GIF of Travolta in front of a green background (shown below).^[4]

Also on November 7th, Imgur user danoone submitted a GIF titled “MRW no one tells me the class is canceled,” in which the Travolta GIF is edited into a photograph of an empty classroom (shown below). In the first nine days, the GIF received upwards of 870,000 views and 10,500 points.

On November 8th, the /r/ConfusedTravolta^[1] subreddit was launched for notable examples from the GIF series. The following day, YouTuber Burt Rutherford uploaded a video titled “Return of the Confused Travolta,” featuring the Confused Travolta animation and a clip from the Shia LaBeouf motivational video edited into a scene from the 1983 science fiction film Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (shown below).

On November 10th, Imgur^[3] published a blog post about the animated GIF series, featuring several notable examples uploaded to the image-sharing site. In the coming days, the news sites The Daily Star^[6] and Brilio^[7] posted articles about the Confused Travlota GIFs.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Suffergram is type of video where something bad or unfortunate happens to a person or thing, usually involving getting hurt, while synced to the song Shade by metalcore band Heart of a Coward playing in the background.

Origin

On July 22, 2012, YouTube user Tiggzyy uploaded a video now titled THEORIGINALSUFFERGRAM!!! – Heart Of A Coward – Shade. The video currently has over 38,000 views and 253 votes.

Spread

Since the video was uploaded, many spin-offs of the video have been uploaded on video sites such as YouTube and Coub. On October 17, 2014, YouTuber Русские Приколы uploaded a compilation of Suffergram videos.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

On Jan 31, 2013 Youtube user mactazer submitted a video of just a still of Paul Dano labeled “classic Paul Dano” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RgcNMpQ1ME

4chan made threads pairing Paul Dano with the word classic

More Youtube Users Kitsch and Michael Brawley submitted Youtube videos in 2015 of Paul Dano getting beat up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfeXkeHp4F4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn5sSqCO5Xg

Dano performed the Beach Boys tune “Barbara Ann” with Jimmy Fallon on November 13th 2015 to promote his movie “Love and Mercy” where the actor plays Brian Wilson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtxFJmdtQJ4

Two days later Jimothy Studios used clips of Dano singing on Fallon and scenes from his movies (mostly him getting beat up) to the song “Classic Man” by Jidenna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8zWs0V1eco

About

Barnie Sandlers is a fictional presidential candidate parodying the junior United States Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders. During the 2016 Democratic presidential primary election, the character gained a following online through novelty social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, which frequently reference various ironic memes.

Origin

On July 29th, 2015, the Barnie Sandlers Facebook^[1] page was launched, which received upwards of 19,700 likes in the following four months. The pages contain posts written from the perspective of a fictional politician, often accompanied by photographs and image macros of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. The same day, the @BarnieSandlers^[2] novelty Twitter feed was created and the website BarnieSandlers.com^[5] was launched with a “dank maymay” image macro generator (shown below).

Spread

On July 30th, 2015, the character participated in an “ask me anything” post on the /r/circlejerk^[3] subreddit. On August 14th, a parody video featuring an interview conducted by television host Larry King was posted on the Barnie Sandlers Facebook^[7] page, in which Sandlers discusses Internet privacy and memes (shown below). Within three months, the post received more than 1,000 shares, 860 likes and 240 comments.

“When I’m president, the NSA is going to get memed on.”

On August 19th, the news site Fusion^[4] published an article about the Barnie Sandlers parody account. On August 27th, BodyBuilding Forums^[6] member BieberFeverBrah submitted a post about Barnie Sanders. On October 1st, the Barnie Sandlers Facebook^[8] page uploaded a parody of the “DuckTales” theme song titled “Dank Memes” (shown below). Within two months, the video gained over 850 likes, 775 shares and 230 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Don’t Look at Them Ricky! is a webcomic featuring a son who undergoes a transformation after witnessing two men kissing while walking with his mother. The comic is often used as an exploitable template to depict other transformations in a similar vein to the “Sweet Jesus, Pooh!” comic series.

Origin

In April 2014, the webcomic Extra Fabulous Comics^[1] posted a comic titled “Probably Not How it Works,” in which a mother warns her son to look away from two men kissing before he is magically transformed into a sweater vest, tie and pair of heart-shaped sunglasses (shown below).

Spread

On April 28th, 2014, Redditor FunkSiren submitted the comic to the /r/Unexpected^[3] subreddit, where it garnered more than 3,500 votes (90% upvoted) and 90 comments prior to being archived. On June 27th, NeoGAF member Peff submitted a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure-themed version of the comic (shown below, left). On May 3rd, 2015, the original comic was submitted to the /r/ireland^[2] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 2,600 votes (91% upvoted) and 140 comments. On June 29th, Redditor friendzoned_niceguy submitted a version of the comic titled “The birth of a furry” to the /r/CringeAnarchy^[5] subreddit (shown below, right).

On November 4th, Twitter user @studiopixelbeam^[6] tweeted a version of the comic featuring the PC gaming masterrace character (shown below, left). On November 14th, Redditor demonboi uploaded an edited version of the comic mocking DJs who play trap music to /r/trap^[4] (shown below, right).

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Charlie Sheen is the stage name used by Carlos Irwin Estévez, an American actor most well-known for starring in a series of popular films and TV shows over the course of four decades since his on-screen debut in 1973. In addition to his celebrity fame in popular culture, various aspects of the actor’s personal life have been intensely scrutinized by celebrity news sites and gossip blogs, mainly his marital problems, bouts of substance abuses and controversial statements he has publicly made following his scandalous departure from the American TV sitcom Two and a Half Men in 2011.

Acting Career

Charlie Sheen’s film career unofficially began in the early 1970s with a minor character role in the 1973 American crime film Badlands, followed by two additional uncredited extra roles in The Execution of Private Slovik and Apocalypse Now, all of which starred his biological father and renowned Hollywood actor Martin Sheen in the lead role. In 1984, Sheen made his official debut as an actor with a supporting role in the Cold War teen drama Red Dawn and landed his first major role in Oliver Stone’s 1986 American war drama film Platoon as Private Chris Taylor. In 1987, Sheen starred in Wall Street as Bud Fox, a young stockbroker who evolves into an opportunist under the guidance of Gordon Gekko (portrayed by Michael Douglas), a wealthy and ruthless corporate businessman. During the 1990s, Sheen continued to build on his fame by starring in a series of commercially successful comedy films, including Major League (1989), Hot Shots! (1991) and The Three Musketeers (1993), among several others. In 2003, Sheen was cast as Charlie Harper in the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men, which went on to become one of the most popular and successful sitcoms of the decade. During his last two seasons on the show, Sheen was the highest paid actor on television with an earning of $1.8 million per episode.

History

Departure From Two and a Half Men

Charlie Sheen’s Rant refers to a series of controversial remarks made by actor Charlie Sheen on several radio and television interviews in late February 2011. The actor, who has been publicly struggling with substance addiction and scandalous partying habits, initially called in during The Alex Jones Show to rail against Chuck Lorre, the producer of long-running CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men. Since the actor’s decisive media blitz across major TV networks, Charlie Sheen’s memorable quotes inspired a variety of parodies on YouTube, Twitter and other hubsites.

ABC 20/20 Interview

On February 28th, 2011 Sheen appeared on a special edition of ABC’s 20/20, feeding his recent media scandals with more exploitable quotes while refusing to give an apology for his behaviors. The ABC interview gained its first million view within first 48 hours of upload, flooding YouTube and Tumblr with dozens of song parodies, mashups and image macros of Charlie Sheen.

Sheen’s Korner

On March 5th, 2011, Charlie Sheen streamed a live video broadcast, a web show he called “Sheen’s Korner”. He publicized it on twitter shortly after hitting 1 million followers. The first episode had over 100,000 viewers:

My Violent Torpedo of Truth Tour

On March 10th, Charlie Sheen announced his plans for stand-up tour dubbed “My Violent Torpedo of Truth / Defeat is Not an Option” via Twitter. According to Ticketmaster’s show details:

“My Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not An Option Show is coming for you. I’m going on the road. LIVE. Will there be surprises? Will there be guests? Will there be mayhem? Will you ask questions? Will you laugh? Will you scream? Will you know the truth? WILLTHERE BE MORE?!?! 
This IS where you will hear the REAL story from the Warlock. Bring it. I dare you to keep up with me.”

On April 2nd, Sheen performed his inaugural show at Fox Theater in Detroit, receiving mixed reviews from the audience. The press critics also chimed in on the mediocrity of Sheen’s stand-up performance, noting that the presentation was unorganized and his jokes borderline offensive, such as his insensitive jab at Detroit’s notorious crack cocaine epidemic.

Comedy Central Roast

In addition to his stand-up comedy tour, Sheen has also guest starred as the subject of Comedy Central stand-up program Roast, which aired at 10 p.m. (ET) on September 20th, at time same time as the new season premier of his old gig Two and a Half Men. Reuters reported that the viewers will be able to track related conversations in real time through Comedy Central’s own dashboard website and two Twitter hashtags #SheenRoast and #CrazyTrain.

The 90-minute special program featured a line-up of roast comedians Seth MacFarlane, Jon Lovitz, Kate Walsh, Jeff Ross, Anthony Jeselnik, Amy Schumer, William Shatner, Patrice O’Neal among others and professional boxer Mike Tyson also appeared as a guest roaster. Comedy Central also promoted Roast of Charlie Sheen via its website, where a timeline dashboard for the televised event was set up for the viewers to keep track of trending tweets and hashtags in reference to the program. At the end of the roast, Sheen had the following to say: “I’m done with the winning cause I’ve already won.”

“Once again I have come out unscathed. You can’t hurt me. Hell, even I can’t hurt me. Did you really think your little jokes were going to hurt me? I did porn stars. I did drugs. Then I did the one thing everybody in America wishes he could do. I told my boss to (expletive) off. And then it was gone. … I’m done with ‘the winning’ because I’ve already won.”

NBC Today Interview

On November 17th, 2015, Charlie Sheen appeared on NBC Today to reveal that he was diagnosed as HIV positive approximately four years ago, describing the discovery of his incurable condition as “three hard letters to absorb.”

“I am here to admit that I am in fact HIV positive and I have to put a stop to this onslaught, this barrage of attacks, of sub-truths – very harmful … stories that are threatening the health of so many others.”

In the exclusive interview with Matt Lauer of NBC Today, Sheen stated that he wanted to publicly disclose his health condition to end “a smear campaign and extortion efforts” that he has been facing from a number of his acquaintants who began blackmailing him to keep the actor’s illness a secret from the public. According to Sheen, he has paid out upwards of $10 million to an undisclosed number of people whom he had previously considered to be his confidants.

“I trusted them and they were deep in my inner circle, and I thought they could be helpful. My trust turned to their treason.”

When asked by Lauer how he may have contracted the virus, Sheen responded that he wasn’t “entirely sure” but insisted it was “impossible” that he would have knowingly transmitted the virus to others. In addition, the actor admitted to having unprotected intercourse with two people after the diagnosis, both of whom were apparently informed of his condition and have been under the care of his doctor. In addition, Dr. Robert Huizenga, the actor’s physician, stated that although Sheen has contracted the virus, he went on to stress that the daily cocktail of antiretroviral medications has suppressed its effects to a “barely detectable” degree with a “very, very low risk for transmitting to anyone" and he does not have AIDS.

Online Presence

Twitter

On March 1st, 2011, Charlie Sheen (@CharlieSheen) joined Twitter. In just over 24 hours, he gained 1 million followers, which was reported as “the fastest in Twitter’s history” by Guinness World Records. Notable Charlie Sheen quotes like “Tiger blood” and “Winning” also emerged as trending hashtags. According to Forbes’ blog article “The Real Story Behind Charlie Sheen Joining Twitter,” Sheen’s sudden venture into Twitter was advised by a team of experts at Ad.ly, a small Beverly Hills start-up that focuses on celebrity endorsements via Facebook and Twitter. On December 7th, Charlie Sheen published a tweet that included his cell phone number followed by “Call me bro. C.” The message was immediately removed, but within hours videos began showing up on YouTube of prank calls to the number.

Parodies

YouTube Videos

At the beginning of March 2011, the day after Charlie’s interview with ABC20/20, parodies and musical tributes to Charlie Sheen’s ridiculous remarks started to pop up on YouTube.

One of the earliest examples was posted on March 1st by Brooklyn-based indie band Apollo Run, a soft ballad tribute to Charlie Sheen’s rant with lyrics based on his 20/20 interview responses.

Image Macros

On MemeGenerator, 4chan and elsewhere, Charlie Sheen’s rant spawned dozens of image macros.

Sheen Family Circus, a website which combined Charlie Sheen’s quotes with Family Circus cartoons, appeared on February 28th, 2011. This was followed by BuzzFeed’s post “Charlie Sheen Quotes As New Yorker Cartoons.”

A single serving website called LiveTheSheenDream once provided a Charlie Sheen Quote random generator, but it is no longer available.

On February 24th, 2011, comedy writer Francesco Marciuliano began combining quotes from Charlie Sheen’s media appearances with pictures of cats. “Baby Sloth Quotes Charlie Sheen” was further propagated by BuzzFeed on February 28th.

Search Interest

External References

What you can use to treat skin is goods that have vitamins on them. Purific Skin Other products that effectively address skin are organic lotions and creams. They offer your skin layer with moisture that is strong. Another great item is spring water. Mineral water contains a few of the many critical vitamins that will assist you preserve the Skin Care Tips balanced and moist.
===>>>>> http://healthrxpuregarcinia.com/purific-skin/

About

Crisis Actors are actors hired to play victims during realistic training sessions or war games for the military or first responders. Some conspiracy theorists believe that crisis actors are hired to play victims in acts of terrorism, both domestic and foreign, to create the illusion that these acts are real. Since this theory first became popular, many images and videos have been created to identify crisis actors who may have been involved in real tragedies, so as to prove that a conspiracy exists.

Origin

Crisis actors do actually exist, although as of November 2015, most of the websites once used to recruit and position them in military exercises have been taken offline.^[1] According to Gawker, one military contractor responsible for the hiring of crisis actors is called Halo Corporation, but that company has almost no web presence.^[2] Archive shots of the website CrisisActors.org, which has been offline since 2013 and many point to as a main source of these actors, claim the tagline: “Helping schools and first responders create realistic drills, full-scale exercises, high-fidelity simulations, and interactive 3D films.”^[3]

It is unknown when the first crisis actor conspiracy theory was distributed, however the first popular speaking on the topic came from a blog called Memory Hole, where the author James Tracey claimed that the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting was a staged event, and that many of the students and their parents, especially the ones featured in news broadcasts, were actually hired crisis actors. Tracey claims that these actors appeared to have been coached to memorize lines and recite them on the news.^[4]

Spread

Tracey’s theory of crisis actors at Sandy Hook went viral and many others made videos and image macros analyzing the footage and photos from the massacre. The theory appeared on Gawker.com,^[5] the Daily Kos,^[6] and other political web sites, and was addressed by Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Since the explosion in notoriety of the Sandy Hook massacre, many have attempted to analyze footage and photos from massacres in order to find crisis actors. These include the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, ^[7] the 2015 Charleston Church Shooting^[8] and the 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks. ^[9] The Facebook group “Let’s Out Crisis Actors” has over 1,000 members, and a YouTube search for Crisis Actors has over 394,000 results.^[10] Several posts about crisis actors in various tragedies on Reddit, especially in the subreddit /r/conspiracy and /r/conspiratard, have received over 1,000 upvotes.^[11]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Ggggg is a cryptic in-joke on the social news site Reddit that was initially conceived as a covert method of text-based communications involving the sequential use of the English alphabet letter “G” in its both uppercase and lowercase forms. Despite its pragmatic roots in the Morse code language, the practice eventually grew out of its intended purpose and devolved into a self-referential joke as many others began using random sequential strings of the letter in their posts to incite confusion.

Origin

On January 24th, 2010, the /r/ggggg^[1] subreddit was launched, gaining over 16,700 subscribers over the next six years. According to Redditor thebigone200,^[7] the subreddit was initially created for people to post messages in Morse code, with the uppercase “G” indicating a “da” signal and the lowercase “g” indicated a “dit” signal. Eventually, the subreddit abandoned the Morse code theme and became centered around humorous posts featuring creative uses of the letter.

Spread

On November 15th, 2011, Redditor MultiUseAccount created the /r/gggg^[9] subreddit, which mimics /r/ggggg. On January 7th, 2012, Redditor Teddy-Westside posted an image macro featuring a dog sitting in front of a laptop with the captop “It’s just the letter G / I don’t get it” to /r/AdviceAnimals^[4] (shown below, left). On March 10th, Redditor PotatoMusicBinge submitted /r/ggggg to /r/subredditoftheday.^[8] On July 6th, Redditor Teppums submitted a reaction GIF featuring actor Jim Carrey titled “My face when looking at /r/ggggg” to the /r/reactiongifs^[3] subreddit (shown below, right). In the next three years, the posts received more than 800 votes (92% upvoted) and 1,500 votes (93% upvoted) respectively.

On July 14th, 2013, Redditor endisnear12 posted a list of 200 “interesting subreddits,” which included /r/ggggg under the category “miscellaneous.” On August 14th, 2014, Redditor War_Messiah submitted a post asking about the /r/ggggg subreddit to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[6] On November 17th, 2015, Redditor Deliciousbob submitted an edited GIF titled “Just another post from /r/ggggg” featuring an edited clip of a scene from Wheel of Fortune with a puzzle spelling the word “Gggggg ggggggg” (shown below). Within 24 hours, the post gained over 5,200 votes (90% upvoted) and 930 comments on the /r/funny^[5] subreddit. On November 18th, the subreddit was made private for unknown reasons.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Cats vs. Cucumbers is a series of videos featuring domestic cats startled by cucumbers that have been placed out of their immediate line of sight.

Origin

On May 10th, 2015, YouTuber Doki Doki uploaded footage of a cat jumping high in the air after being surprised by a large green cucumber laying on the floor behind it (shown below). Within six months, the video gained over 2.2 million views and 110 comments.

Precursors

Since as early as 2006, YouTubers have uploaded videos featuring cats attacking computer printers as if they were alive. On March 9th, 2010, YouTuber HaileyTube uploaded footage of a cat being startled by a banana while resting on a couch (shown below, left). On February 12th, 2015, YouTuber The Dodo uploaded a montage of clips featuring cats frightened by bananas (shown below, right).

Spread

On July 8th, 2015, a GIF of YouTuber Doki Doki’s cat video was submitted to the /r/StartledCats^[6] subreddit, where it received more than 5,700 votes (96% upvoted) and 120 comments. On July 17th, Redditor Myranda created the /r/CucumbersScaringCats^[1] subreddit. On October 23rd, The Telegraph^[4] published an article titled “Cats are terrified of cucumbers and no one knows exactly why,” in which animal behavior specialist Dr. Roger Mugford attempted to explain the behavior:

“I think that the reaction is due to the novelty and unexpectedness of finding an unusual object secretly placed whilst their heads were down in the food bowl.”

On November 11th, YouTuber MrFunnyMals uploaded a compilation video of cats being startled by cucumbers (shown below, left). Within one week, the video received over 1.9 million views and 190 comments. On November 15th, the Link-Wall YouTube channel uploaded another montage video titled “Cats Vs. Cucumbers” (shown below, right).

On November 17th, National Geographic^[2] published an article about the cat videos titled “People Are Scaring Their Cats with Cucumbers. They Shouldn’t,” featuring a statement by animal behaviorist Jill Goldman condemning the practice of scaring cats with cucumbers:

“If you cause stress to an animal that’s probably not a good thing. If you do it for laughs it makes me question your humanity.”

The day, the article was submitted to the /r/nottheonion^[5] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 4,200 (84% upvoted) and 1,200 comments within 24 hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

#PrayForParis is one of many hashtags, including #parisjetaime and #jesuisparis, that became popular worldwide as a means of supporting for the victims of the 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks. In addition, the term was used as a collective description of the support offered online.

Origin

Users of Twitter began posting the hashtag immediately after the attacks of November 13th.^[1] It is unknown who the first tweeter was; however, the existence of a clothing line called “Pray For Paris”, which pre-dates the attacks, means that it is possible that the hashtag already existed before the attacks.^[2] In the 24 hours after the attacks, the hashtag reached a top rate of use of 64,000 tweets per minute, and was used more than 6 million times.^[3]

Spread

In addition to #PrayforParis, other hashtags took hold. #JeSuisParis,^[4] modeled after the Je Suis Charlie hashtag from the 2-15 Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack also came into favor, accruing over 260,000 uses. #ParisJeTaime, which means I Love Paris, was used 23,000 times.^[5]

Facebook introduced the ability to create a profile picture overlaid with the blue, white, and red stripes of the French flag,^[6] while Uber changed their car icons to the same colors.^[7] Facebook does not publish statistics of how many users changed their profile picture to the striped version; however, their original post discussing the ability received more than 300,000 likes, and anyone who looked at a profile picture that had been changed was prompted to change their own.

Criticism

The explosion of the hashtags and the Facebook profile picture overlay prompted criticism from many. Users asked why there was no similar outburst of social media support for Lebanon, who had suffered a similar terrorist attack a day before Paris.^[8] An op-ed from the Washington Post asked if social media support could be considered as narcissism, or at the very least as not helpful to the victims of the attacks.^[9] In addition, many criticized the social media networks for capitalizing on the tragedies to boost use and engagement.^[10]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Le Logeur du Daesh (Daesh’s Landlord in English) is a nickname given to Jawad Bendaoud, a man who lended his apartment to terrorists who were linked to the 2015 Paris Attacks. Following the events of the police raid in Saint-Denis ion November 18th, Bendaoud was interviewed by BFM TV shortfly before he was taken into custody, explaining that he never suspected the three people he accomodated to be terrorists. After the intverview was released online, a novelty twitter account was launched spawning dozens of parodies mocking Bendaoud’s defense on the French Twitter hub.

The interview

On the morning of November 18th, 2015, the French police raided an apartment in Saint-Denis, a town north of Paris, France, which allegedly sheltered several people linked to the November 13th terrorist attacks In Paris.The assault resulted in two people dead and eight more arrested. Among them was Jawad Bendaoud, the tenant of the apartment. Shortly before his arrest, Bendaoud was interviewed by a BFM TV News crew (shown below), giving his side of the story on the fact that he didn’t know he was sheltering terrorists^[1].

Transcript:

- Did you learn that it was happening at your apartment?
- Yes, I did.
- What do you mean?
- Well, I learnt that it was my apartment, that the persons were hiding away in my apartment and that’s it. I didn’t know that they were terrorists.
- And… please explain, where do you live?
- I live Rue Du Corbillon, where there was all the shooting.
- And how do you explain that these people ended up in your apartment?
- I have been asked to help out and that’s what I did, sir. I’ve been asked to give shelter to two persons for three days and I helped out. I don’t know where they were from. I don’t know anything, sir. Do you think I’d have lended them my apartment if I did?
- Did you know they were coming from Belgium?
- No. The police told me about it this morning.
- Ok.
- I learnt about it the same way as you.
- Did you know those people?
- No, I didn’t know them at all. Not even before that.

Bendaoud is seen being taken away by policemen

Spread

On Twitter, a novelty account under the name Le Logeur du Daesh^[2] was submitted, curating dozens of tweets using a screenshot of Bendaoud’s face from the interview and coupling it with parody excuses about the event, mocking the perceived weak arguments given by the man when defending himself on camera. The account gained more than 14 000 subscribers less than 16 hours after its creation.
Following its surge in popularity, many online outlets reported on the twitter account and its derivatives. This includes Hitek^[3], Konbini^[4], Démotivateur.fr^[5] but also more mainstream news outlets such as Direct Matin^[6] or 20 Minutes^[7], which spotlighted several instances in an article referencing humorous and heartwarming tweets about the Paris tragedy.

On November 19th, French viral news site MinuteBuzz made a parody video^[8] on Facebook (shown below), inserting cuts of French comedy movie La Cité de la Peur inside the interview footage. It accumulated to more than 1 million views in the first hours of its upload.

Another video parody was posted to the Mikl Officiel page (shown below), reaching more than 3 million views in the first day of its upload.

Various Examples

External References

^[1]BFM TV – Assaut à Saint-Denis: le logeur des terroristes condamné pour la mort d’un homme en 2008

^[2]Twitter – Le Logeur Du Daesh

^[3]Hitek – JAWAD, L’HÉBERGEUR DESTERRORISTES, CIBLE DE NOMBREUX DÉTOURNEMENTS SURTWITTER

^[4]Konbini – Quand la Toile se moque génialement de l’hebergeur des terroristes

^[5]Demotivateur.fr – Quand le Web se moque de Jawad Bendaoud, dit «le logeur des terroristes», en 10 tweets à lire

^[6]Direct Matin – Internet se déchaîne avec humour contre le logeur des terroristes

^[7]20 Minutes – Attentats à Paris: L’humour pour surmonter l’horreur

^[8]Facebook – Tu Bluffes Martoni !

(WIP)

About

International Men’s Day is an annual event held on the 19th of November. The purpose of the event is to promote basic humanitarian values and the day aims to focus on the health and welfare of boys and men, highlight positive male role models, promote gender equality and to highlight discrimination against boys and men. Over 70 countries participate in this event.

Online Presence

International Men’s Day is somewhat widely discussed on the internet, particularly on the day itself. In 2015 there were over 87.5 thousand tweets using the hashtag #InternationalMensDay. The event has caused some controversy as some people, mostly feminists, do not believe the day should be celebrated where as others do.