Make Your Own Kevin Hart and Ice Cube Sketches (Green Screen)
From the movie Ride Along 2

About

“That Happened” is a sarcastic expression used in online discussions to call out overly exaggerated claims or tall tales that are often passed around as true stories on social media, most notably the ones in which the storyteller allegedly confronts and tells off another individual in the name of social justice.

Origin

While its exact origin is unclear, the earliest known use of the sarcastic phrase “that happened” comes from an April 2001 episode of Friends titled “The One with Rachel’s Big Kiss,” in which the character Phoebe Buffay (played by Lisa Kudrow) questions her friend Rachel Green’s (played by Jennifer Aniston) claim that she kissed a girl in college.^[5]

Rachel: “Hey, come on! I had this friend from college and I made the stupid mistake of telling Joey that one time…she and I y’know…kissed a little bit.”
Phoebe: (laughs) Yeah, I’m sure that happened.

Precursor

The expression “yeah, that just happened” has also been employed as a nonplussed reaction to an unbelievable or absurd experience. According to a post on Metafilter,^[2] the earliest known use of the phrase in this context comes from the 2000 comedy film State and Main. On July 17th, 2009, Urban Dictionary^[4] user MacV216 submitted an entry for “Well, that happened,” defining it as “A phrase used when something random and/or inexplicable has occurred.”

Spread

On November 23rd, 2012, the /r/thathappened^[1] subreddit was launched, in which users submit suspicious claims posted on a variety of web sites. Within four years, the subreddit received more than 242,000 subscribers. On September 3rd, 2013, FunnyJunk user breeyoke submitted an MS Paint illustration titled “Yeah I’m sure that happened,” which featured the caption “I reject the possible legitmacy of your situation” (shown below).

On July 28th, 2014, a screenshot of a Facebook post about turning down the sexual advances of a woman was submitted to /r/cringepics,^[6] where it garnered upwards of 2,000 votes (95% upvoted) and 100 comments prior to being archived (shown below). On July 9th, 2015, Redditor enter-the-labyrinth submitted a post about the /r/thathappened subreddit to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[3]

Related Memes

The Young Man’s Name: Albert Einstein

“Albert Einstein Copypasta”, also known as “Malice of Absence,” is a fictional account of a philosophical debate on the benevolence of God between a religious-skeptic professor and a student of faith, the latter of whom is revealed to be the world-renowned scientist Albert Einstein. Online, the line “The Young Man’s Name: X” is often referenced in discussion threads and comments to mock hyperbolic statements or made-up stories

And Then The Whole Bus Clapped

“And then the whole bus clapped” (“the entire train applauded”, “everyone stood up and cheered”, etc.) is a phrase associated with stories posted online, typically on Tumblr or Facebook, in which the teller or another person allegedly gains admiration of the surrounding public, usually after defending someone from social injustice. The line is often considered a giveaway sign of a fabricated story or it can be used sarcastically to express doubt or disbelief in such tall tales.

Search Interest

External References

About

[Unsolicited Opinions on Israel???] refers to exploitables originating from a satirical joke in the Marvel comic book “Angela Queen of Hel” ^[1]. The joke became infamous for its perceived blatant political strawman humor, how out of place it looked in the comic’s dark setting, and the irony given its original purpose and issues surrounding it. The exploitables are used as edits replacing dialogue from other comics to change the original comic’s message or to just create shock humor by having it look like the character is saying something politically incorrect. Sometimes, the exploitable is used in comics with no connections to any political opinion to mock the original joke’s awkward execution. Alongside, the dialogue was quickly associated with social justice warriors by critics of the modern social justice movement.

Origin

On January 27, 2016, the ongoing Marvel comic series “Angela, Queen of Hel” released its fourth issue. Upon release, it had received criticism for a joke that has Marvel character Bor confronting the main protagonists and ranting in politically incorrect phrases that the author censors with black bars describing them as “misogynist filth” or “redpilled MRA meninist casual racism” as a joke.

Spread

Critics included Marvel fans annoyed at the increasing number of biased social commentary in the comics. Issues on the political bias seeping into the comics were discussed in websites like Reddit^[3] and 8chan, with some videos uploaded discussing the issue.

Upon release, a thread on 8chan within the /co board was made discussing the issue coupled with other examples of the heavy handed social commentary from other Marvel comics. Some of the anons made parodies of the heavy handed original joke by either switching the political stance of the original censors. But replacing original dialogue with the actual quotes from the joke, most notably as “Unsolicited Opinions on Israel???”, which soon became the popular method of mocking the joke due to the censor bars’ exploitable nature and due to using the censors unaltered mocks the lack of self awareness in the original joke.

Eventually, the edits broke out of the original thread and spread to other boards such as /v or any others that are annoyed at the writing issues surrounding Marvel comics. Soon it spread to other sites such as Twitter^[4] and Tumblr^[5] In these edits, the punchline or comic from the original comic is changed depending on which censor edit the modified comic uses. Usually, the censor bars used to edit a comic are these followings, with “Unsolicited Opinions on Israel” being the most popular of the edits.

Various Examples

External References

About

“A Face You Can Trust” is an expression paired with a face, generally one that is somewhat odd looking, although it has later been used for characters that are legitimately seen as trustworthy.

Origin

The oldest know memetic usage of the phrase “A Face You Can Trust” was from the Video “JETPACKBACKPACK” uploaded by YouTuber KickThePj August 2nd 2012.^[1] The video is about a sales person for the made up Jetpack Backpacks. The phrase shows up 1:35 in the video, trying to jokingly convince the user that the sales person has a face that can be trusted.

The oldest known archived usage of the phrase outside of this video dates to a /co/ thread discussing the Disney XD show TRON: Uprising in 2013.^[2] It is very likely that this phrase was used before either this thread or the YouTube video above.

Spread

The phrase was often used on various 4chan boards with pictures in threads. The meme also spread to Tumblr later, with simply posting a picture of a character and leaving the caption “A face you can trust.”^[3]

Various Examples

External References

work in progress

About

Super Bowl 50 is the 50th National Football League (NFL) Championship game, taking place between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco, California. Experts predict that the game will be reach over 115 million households when it airs on CBS at 6:30 pm on February 7th, 2016, making it one of the most-viewed television events in history.

About

Coming Out Videos are recordings of long-time closeted lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) individuals openly revealing their sexual orientation and/or gender identity to others for the first time.

Origin

One of the earliest known coming out videos on YouTube was uploaded to the site in September 2007 by YouTuber EatYourPeas18, who reveals in a short monologue that she is a lesbian. After her mother requested the video be removed, she reuploaded the footage on the channel VivaLaRevolution18 (shown below).

Spread

On January 11th, 2011, Kayla Kearney posted a video of herself coming out to her high school (shown below, left). Within five years, the video garnered more than 1.4 million views and 2,200 comments. On August 20th, 2013, YouTuber Lucas Cruikshank uploaded a video in which he comes out as gay, accumulating upwards of 4.8 million views and 22,800 comments in three years (shown below, right).

On October 11th, YouTuber myISH uploaded a compilation of 7 notable coming out videos on YouTube (shown below, left). On December 2nd, English Olympic diver Tom Daley posted a video on YouTube in which he reveals he is bisexual (shown below, right). Within three years, the video gained over 11.7 million views and 4,300 comments.

On February 14th, 2014, the Human Rights Campaign YouTube channel uploaded footage of actress Ellen Page coming out as a lesbian on stage at the Time to Thrive conference (shown below, left). On August 27th, a friend of then 19-year-old Georgia resident Daniel Pierce uploaded a video titled “How not to react when your child tells you that he’s gay” to YouTube. In the video, Pierce informs his family that he is gay, to which they respond by telling him he will have to move out of their house before physically and verbally assaulting him (shown below, right).

On January 14th, 2015, the brothers Aaron and Austin Rhodes posted a video of themselves coming out as gay to their father over the phone (shown below). In the first year, the video received upwards of 21 million views and 68,300 comments. On January 21st, the brothers appeared as guests on The Ellen Show to speak about the experience (shown below, right). The following month, the YouTube trends blog^[1] published an article about coming out videos on the video-sharing site.

Search Interest

External References

Work in progress! Feel free to request editorship.

About

Seaponies are a race of aquatic ponies originating from G1 of My Little Pony, which also gained a huge following in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom. While mostly referring to the show characters, especially Lyra Heartstrings, re-imagined as a seahorses the term is also used for other types of water-dwelling ponies, such as octopus ponies (mostly Octavia) and various fish.

Origin

They were first seen in the “My Little Pony Special” movie^[1], aired in 1984, where they appeared briefly to help the protagonists, performing a musical number. The song’s catchiness and phrases “Shoo-be-doo” and “Call upon the sea ponies” became associated with the species. Video containing the song (shown below) was uploaded to Youtube on October 10th, 2006 and gained over 550 000 views since then.

Despite being fondly remembered by fans, they didn’t gain any significant internet following until August 22nd, 2011, when DeviantArt user johnjoseco^[2] uploaded an image featuring Lyra as a seapony (seen below, left).

The My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comics include Seaponies and Mermares as part of their canon, with Princess Celestia mentioning them and having an appearance in Issue #14^[3] (below, right).

Spread

As of February 2016, there are over 1085 images on Derpibooru with the tag “seapony”^[4] and 96 tagged “octopony”^[5]. Additionally, searching “seapony lyra” tag alone returns 220 images^[6].

On Deviantart, searching “seapony” gives 5363 results^[7] (February 2016), and they contain drawings, pictures, plushies (below, right) and other forms of craft arts.

Various Examples

External References

About

Alberto Barbosa is a name commonly used to represent a nondescript man from Portugal among users on 4chan’s /int/ (international) board. The phrase “t. Alberto Barbosa” is often placed alongside a photoshopped illustration of an African man from the Age of Empires II expansion The African Kingdoms with a Portuguese flag on his turban, mocking the inclusion of Portugal in the game. Additionally, the character is often referenced in the context of We Wuz Kings jokes on the image board.

Origin

On November 5th, 2015, The African Kingdoms expansion for the real-time strategy game Age of Empires II was released. On 4chan, many users on the /int/ board criticized the expansion for including the country Portugal and began posting the illustration of an African man from the game’s cover art wearing a turban with the Portuguese flag photoshopped on front along with the phrase “t. Alberto Barbosa” (shown below). The abbreviation “t.” represents the parting phrase “regards.”

Spread

On December 14th, an anonymous 4chan users submitted an Alberto Barbosa thread to /int/,^[4] to which other users spammed the phrase “t. Alberto Barbosa” in comment replies (shown below).

On December 15th, Redditor /pol/ack submitted a screenshot of a 4chan post complaining about the “t. Alberto Barbosa” meme to /r/4chan^[1] (shown below).

The following day, the /r/albertobarbosa^[3] subreddit was launched for discussions about the in-joke. On December 19th, Redditor cammyfawkes submitted a post asking about the meme to the /r/albertobarbosa,^[2] to which Redditor smretsnikov cited its origins on /int/. On December 29th, 2015, YouTuber Incognito Walröss submitted a video featuring the African king illustration with a man espousing the Black Egyptian Hypothesis in the background (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

“Marge Krumping”, also known as “Marge Dance” or “Marge Pose” refers to a still of the character Marge Simpson, from the TV show The Simpsons, trying to krump, which has been used as exploitable.

Origin

The still originates from the episode Little Orphan Millie,^[1] where Marge tries to cheer Bart up by Krumping,^[2] but failing to do so. The image is taken from a still in the middle of Marge’s dance. The first know instance of the frame is in a post of Marge seeing “420” on a clock, and the next panel showing the frame. The image was posted to the Simpsons Shitposting Facebook group, where it gained 1,800 likes and 1,000 shares.^[5]

Spread

An image of the Marge Krump fighting Dragon Ball character Vegeta paired with a Top Ten Anime Battles style caption was uploaded to tumblr on January 31st 2016, where it obtained over 50,000 notes.^[3] A GIF of Marge preforming a Shoryuken was uploaded to tumblr on February 2nd 2016, where it gained over 9,000 notes.^[4] Those posts inspired several parodies, which were consequently shared on Tumblr.^[6]

Various Examples

External References

About

Squidward Dab is a Vine video of a man costumed as Squidward at the Nickelodeon Universe park hitting the Dab while in costume. The Vine gained massive spread outside of the site, on sites like Tumblr and Instagram .

Origin

The original video was posted by Instagrammer and Viner Deon_dunk on January 26th, 2016^[2] .

He posted the video on both his Vine and his Instagram. Although his Instagram is private, his Vine video received 22 million loops. The video was quickly reuploaded to the Instagram page Daquan, where it gained 259,000 likes. ^[1] The video quickly spread from the page, quickly hitting other pages on Instagram such as hoodclips, and Vine, including a remix by Certified Viner michael k., which gained 7,000,000 loops, uploaded on January 27th, 2016.

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Instgram – Squidward hits the fucking dab

^[1]Vine – Squidward dabs

currently WIP

About

The 2016 Flag Incident refers to an online and offline controversy that sparked in East Asia over K-pop band TWICE member Tzuyu Zhou (tc: 周子瑜, kr: 쯔위, also known as Chewy) being accused of being a radical advocate of Taiwanese independence by an older artist Huang An.

Background

The legal status of Taiwan has been a complex and sensitive topic in cross-strait relationships between the ROC and the PRC.^[1][2] The current political status quo is neither a true independence nor a true unification, which often is a source of controversy, such as the meaning of “China” on the two sides of the debate.

The usage of the Taiwanese flag in events have been viewed by the Chinese government as a challenge to the status quo. Earlier incidents involving China censoring the Taiwanese flag include singer-songwriter Deserts Chang being banned in China after a London performance.

Huang An (黃安), a Taiwanese artist famous in the 90s, became famous in China for his strong sentiments against Taiwanese independence and starting a witchhunt of other artists for whom he labeled as “independence radicalists”, earlier instances include Taiwanese singer-songwriter Crowd Lu (盧廣仲) and Hong Kong actor Wong He (王喜).

Developments

On January 8th, 2016, Huang posted on Weibo^[3], accusing Zhu-yu Chou, a member of the Kpop band TWICE, as being a radical Taiwanese independence advocate because she waved a Taiwanese flag during a video. Huang asked his followers to spread the word to bar all activities of TWICE in China.

Initial fallout

Apology Video

On January 15, 2016, the night before the 2016 Taiwanese general election, JYP Entertainment released an apology video from Tzuyu. The video garnered 6 million views within 2 weeks.

大家好，我有話想對大家說。我是周子瑜，對不起，應該早些出來道歉，因為不知道如何面對現在的情況，一直不敢直接面對大家，所以現在才站出來。中國只有一個，海峽兩岸是一體的，我始終為自己是一個中國人而感到驕傲，我做為一個中國人在國外活動時，由於言行上過失，對公司對兩岸網友的情感造成了傷害，我感到非常非常地抱歉，也很愧疚，我決定中止目前中國的一切活動，認真反省。再次再次地向大家道歉，對不起。

Translation:

Greetings everybody, I have something to say. I am Tzuyu Zhou, I am sorry, I should have apologized earlier, because I don’t know how to face the current situation, I was afraid to face everyone, which is why I came out just now. There is only one China, the two sides of the strait are the same, and I have always been proud for being Chinese, me being Chinese, during activities outside of my country, because of the mistakes in my actions and words, have harmed the emotions to the company and netizens on both sides, for this I feel deeply apologetic and regretful. I have decided to halt all activities in China, and reflect upon this. Once again, I apologize deeply to everyone, I am sorry.

Impact after video

Many media outlets called the video “ISIS-like”^[4][5] and criticized JYP entertainment for forcing a 16 year old girl to speak on a political issue to protect themselves, although a later statement indicated that this video was produced after permission from her parents.

Chinese netizen “expedition” to Facebook

Notable Examples

About

Cristi, Bă Cristi" (English: “Cristi, Hey Cristi!”) is a catchphrase taken from a viral video of a Romanian man struggling to shoo away a small dog tugging on his boot. In late January 2016, the soundbite became a popular subject of parodies after a remix version featuring footage of the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis went viral on the Romanian web, along with the quote itself, which is oft-repeated in the comments section and chat rooms on sites like YouTube and Twitch.

Origin

The video was first posted on February 2nd, 2015 by YouTube user ElTricon3. In the video, a smoking man is being attacked by a small dog, and he is calling for the dog’s owner to free him. The video has gained 1.8 million views as of February 4th, 2016; in addition, several mirrors of the video have also gained millions of views.^[2]

The dialogue, in English (translated by Dan Tanasă)^[1]:

Man with dog: Please take him away!

Guy filming: Kick him!

Other man: Jump on the fence!

Man with dog: Please call Cristi! (Cristi is a name of a person, man, probably the owner of the dog)

Man filming calls for Cristi several times.

Man filming: Watch it! It will break your boot!

Man with dog calls for Cristi again, and asks the others to go get Cristi. He is also asking the other men to put the dog in chains.

Eventually Cristi comes and the dog releases the man.

Spread

On January 23rd, 2016, YouTuber Dead Guy OV uploaded a remix of the original video that combines press conference footage of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis with the soundbite of the man yelling “Cristi, Bă Cristi!" The video gained over 357,000 views on YouTube as of February 4th. With the soaring popularity of the Klaus Iohannis remix of the video, more parodies proliferated; there are over 26,000 results for “Cristi Ba Cristi” videos on YouTube.^[3] On January 26th,, the Romanian news site HotNews^[6] reported that users on Facebook had created an event where people were invited to the subway in Bucharest to create a flash mob of people shaking their legs and screaming “Ba Cristi!”; over 9,900 people said they were interested in the event, and 3,200 people marked themselves as attending.^[4] Meanwhile, English-language commenters on YouTube started asking things like “Is this where the Twitch meme comes from?” on the original video and its mirrors, indicating that the term was in high usage in Twitch game stream chats, which are currently unsearchable.^[5]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

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About

“Berniebro” is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactic aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.

Origin

The term “Berniebro,” which is a portmanteau of “Bernie” and Bro, was coined by The Atlantic staff writer Robinson Meyer^[1] in an article published on October 17th, 2015. Titled “Here Comes the Berniebro,” the article lists a series of stereotypical attributes and behaviors associated with an annoyingly fanatical male supporter of Bernie Sanders on Facebook.

“The Berniebro is not every Bernie Sanders supporter. Sanders’s support skews young, but not particularly male. The Berniebro is male, though. Very male.”

“The Berniebro might get into big performative arguments about how feminism saved his life. Or, the Berniebro might always seem like he’s going to say that we need economic equality for all genders but doesn’t actually say it, because he knows that it wouldn’t go over well.”

“The Berniebro is someone you may only have encountered if you’re somewhat similar to him: white; well-educated; middle-class (or, delicately, “upper middle-class”); and aware of NPR podcasts and jangly bearded bands.”

Spread

On November 6th, 2015, NY Mag^[8] published an article titled “The Bernie Bros vs. The Hillarybots,” which identified many Sanders supporters as misogynists who “diminish, demean, and infantalize women.” On December 3rd, The Baffler^[7] published an article by writer Amber A’Lee Frost, who argued that Berniebros were the over-exaggerated invention of high-profile feminist Clinton supporters. On December 22nd, Salon^[9] published an article by staff writer Amanda Marcotte, who argued “The Bernie bro phenomenon of young men whose enthusiasm for socialism is goosed by an unacknowledged sexism appears to be a real, measurable phenomenon.” On January 29th, 2016, Mashable^[4] published an article titled “The bros who love Bernie Sanders have become a sexist mob,” which cited the /r/SandersforPresident subreddit as a haven for “BernieBros.”

“Their messages, which are oftentimes derogatory and misogynistic, are geared at Clinton supporters (or anyone who disagrees with Sanders for that matter).”

The same day, BuzzFeed^[6] published an article titled “The Bernie Bros Are a Problem and the Sanders Campaign is Trying to Stop Them.”

On January 31st, The Intercept^[2] published an article by staff writer Glenn Greenwald, which accused the narrative surrounding the pejorative of being invented by pro-Clinton journalists as “a cheap campaign tactic masquerading as journalism and social activism.”

“the goal is to inherently delegitimize all critics of Hillary Clinton by accusing them of, or at least associating them with, sexism, thus distracting attention away from Clinton’s policy views, funding, and political history and directing it toward the online behavior of anonymous, random, isolated people on the Internet claiming to be Sanders supporters.”

On February 3rd, Slate^[5] published an article titled “Everyone is Wrong About the Bernie Bros” by staff writer Amanda Hess, which described the argument over the term as a “flame war” that is “emblematic of how social media has accomplished the impressive feat of making American political discourse even more annoying.” The following day, Gawker^[10] published an article listing various definitions of the pejorative term.

Search Interest

External References

About

Forty Keks is an image macro featuring the Superman’s arch enemy Lex Luthor appearing to be in the middle of laughing, with a caption below reading “forty keks”. In discussion forums and image board communities, it is used as a reaction image to express one’s laughter.

Origin

The original image macro (below left) was inspired by an infamous Lex Luthor Took Forty Cakes illustration (below right) from the 1978 children’s dictionary The Super Dictionary. The word “cake” was replaced with a homophone “kek”, which is used in image board communities in a similar way as the word “lol”. The earliest known archived use of the image macro can be traced down to thread on 4chan’s /co/ (comics and cartoons) board in February 26th, 2014^[1].

Spread

Various Examples

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External References

About

Martin Shkreli is an American entrepreneur best known for founding the company Turing Pharmaceuticals which controversially increased the price of the medication Daraprim in late 2015, earning him the nickname “Pharma Bro” on various websites and news outlets online.

Online History

In June 2011, Shkreli launched the @MarinShkreli^[3] Twitter feed, garnering upwards of 56,000 followers over the next five years.

Daraprim Price Hike

In February 2015, Shkreli founded the company Turing Pharmaceuticals. On September 20th, The New York Times^[2] reported that the company Turning Pharmaceuticals raised the price of the anti-malarial and antiparasitic drug Daraprim, a life saving drug for HIV-postive people infected with Toxoplasma gondii, from $13.50 to $750 per tablet after acquiring the drug the previous month. The price increase by widely criticized in the news and social media, with many directing attacks at Shkreli as the company’s CEO. Shkreli defended the increase, arguing that it would make patient co-pays lower and that Turing Pharmaceuticals provided many of their drugs for low or no cost.

YouTube Channel

On November 4th, 2015, Shkreli launched a YouTube^[6] channel where he broadcast regular livestreams of himself talking directly to viewers, playing video games and offering financial advice. Within three months, the channel gained over 846,000 video views and 8,600 subscribers.

Wu-Tang Clan Feud

On December 9th, 2015, Bloomberg Businessweek^[5] revealed that Shkreli won an auction for the sole copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $2 million. On January 26th, 2016, TMZ posted a clip of Wu-Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah mocking Shkreli’s nose by comparing it to Michael Jackson’s (shown below).

On January 28th, Shkreli released a video of himself threatening Ghostface Killah and demanding an apology while being surrounded by a group of masked men (shown below).

Arrest

On December 17th, 2015, Shkreli was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy charges in connection to his former position as the co-founder and CEO of the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and biotechnology firm Retrophin LLC. According to the indictment,^[4] Shkreli allegedly misappropriated millions of dollars in cash and stock from Retrophin “in an effort to satisfy [his] personal and unrelated professional debts and obligations,” much of which were owed to his investors while serving as the CEO of MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare between 2009 and 2012, during which Shkreli repeatedly lied to them by grossly misrepresenting the performance of the fund. In addition to the federal indictment, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed a similar lawsuit accusing Shkreli of lying to his investors about the hedge fund he ran.

Following his arrest, the company KaloBios Pharmaceuticals terminated Shkreli as CEO. In December 2015, Shkreli resigned as CEO from Turing Pharmaceuticals.

Congressional Hearing

On February 4th, 2016, Shkreli appeared before the United States House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for a hearing on prescription drug prices. During the hearing, Shkreli pleaded the Fifth and declined from answering questions from members of Congress.

Personal Life

Shkreli was born on April 1st, 1983 and grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. According to NBC News,^[1] his parents were Albanian and Croatian immigrants who worked as janitors. After nearly dropping out of high school, he managed to receive a diploma through a work-study program. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Shkreli claims to have discovered an interest in chemistry after witnessing a family member struggle with depression. Shkreli is known to play League of Legends under the handle “Imagine Cerebral”.

Search Interest

External References

About

“What Rhymes With Rape” Refers to the Snowclone phrase
“You know what rhymes with X? RAPE”, specifically for things that do not actually rhyme with rape. It is often posted with pictures of unintentionally scary looking creatures or characters.

Origin

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Various Examples

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About

The Golden Ratio, sometimes referred to as the Golden Spiral, The Golden Mean, or the Divine Proportion, is a special number, found in mathematics, found by dividing a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part. An image of a curving, declining spiral, often used to represent the golden ratio in art and design, is often overlaid on memetic images as a demonstration of their natural balance or aesthetic.

Origin

The origin of the mathematical concept of the golden ratio is unknown, but dates back at least as far as the Greek mathematician Euclid. The expression of the equation as a spiral inside of a dividing rectangle comes from this time, when the initial rules of geometry were being written.^[1] However, the spiral was later often referred to as the Fibonacci Spiral^[2], based on the name of the mathematician who determined a series of ever-increasing numbers that approached the golden ratio, but never officially met it.

Since the Enlightenment, the image of the golden spiral has been used as part of classical arts education, especially to teach the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, who used the ratio to create his compositions like the Mona Lisa. This is also known as “the Rule of Thirds” in art and composition.^[3]

Spread

Online, the spiral image is often overlaid on memetic images to demonstrate (either ironically or not) that these viral images are as pleasing as a classical composition. On Tumblr, both “the golden spiral”^[4] and “the golden ratio”^[5] will bring up these types of images. Many popular subjects have been overlaid with the golden spiral; for instance, on December 15th 2015, a picture (below, left) of Donald Trump in which the direction of his hair was shaped by the golden spiral was uploaded to /r/pics, and received 4,133 points (87% upvoted)^[6]. Another popular facial golden spiral overlay was created by the Russian graphic designer Igor K in January 2014, who created images that re-arranged the faces of celebrities like Nicolas Cage to fit the ratio (below, right).^[7]

Other popular subjects of the overlay include Sonic the Hedgehog] who’s spines are arranged to fit the spiral, and Vladimir Putin, who is often pictured with the spiral focusing on his nipple in shirtless photos. In addition, the popular webcomic xkcd maintains an unrelated page titled “Spiral” that contains random photographs overlaid with the golden spiral.^[9]

Related Memes

Manchester New Year’s Photo

The Manchester New Year’s Photo is a photoshop meme based on a photograph taken during 2016 New Year’s Eve revelry in Manchester, England. Later that same day, BBC senior news producer Roland Hughes tweeted the photograph, comparing the high level of drama with that of a beautiful painting. As of January 5th, 2015, the tweet has received over 25,600 retweets and 29,600 favorites. Due to Hughes’ reference to painting in the image, many respondents to the tweet began altering the image to produce painting-like results.One of the first to do so, shortly after Hughes’ originally tweet was the user GroenMNG, who detailed the way in which the photograph reflected the golden ratio.

Notable Examples

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About

Sleeping in the Office on the First Day of Internship is a photoshop meme featuring a photograph of a young man sleeping in a chair at an office surrounded by coworkers.

Origin

On February 2nd, 2016, Redditor TheOrangeDuke submitted a post titled “TIFU by falling asleep at the job on my second day” to the /r/tifu (today I fucked up) subreddit. The following day, the TIFU_mods account removed the post for not being a proper “fuck up” since “nothing bad happened” as a result. Prior to being removed, the post gained over 3,000 votes (94% upvoted) and 340 comments.

Spread

The same day, Redditor ElNutimo posted the photograph to the /r/photoshopbattles^[2] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 6,000 votes (96% upvoted) and 1,100 comments in the first 72 hours. In the comments section, many Redditors replied to the thread with digitally edited variations of the photo (shown below).

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

The Lathland “Microwave Raids” are a series of raids that occur on twitch.tv where viewers of Lathland’s stream will flood a small channel and start spamming microwave related messages into chat, sometimes even breaking moderator chat-bots in the process. To date (02/05/2016) 3 chat-bots have been broken by the Microwave Raid.

About

Daryush Valizadeh, better known by his online handle Roosh V, is an American blogger and pickup artist best known for running the manosphere website Return of Kings. Valizadeh has been widely criticized online for promoting misogyny and rape in written opinions on gender and sexuality.

Online History

In March 2005, Valizadeth created the blog DC Bachelor^[18] to provide dating advice for men living in the Washington, D.C. area. In November 2006, Valizadeth launched his personal blog RooshV,^[17] containing posts related to seduction and pickup artistry. In June 2007, Valizadeth uploaded the first video to his Roosh V^[20] YouTube channel, titled “How a Chef Cuts an Onion” (shown below).

In 2008, he published the book Bang, describing it as a “pickup textbook intended for men who wren’t born with the natural ability to sleep with a lot of women.”^[19] According to an interview with the men’s rights blog A Voice For Men,^[21] Valizadeth became a full time writer after due to the book’s commercial success. On February 19th, 2012, Valizadeth uploaded a video titled “Alpha Male vs Beta Male,” comparing the dating strategies of two different types of men (shown below).

Return of Kings

On May 5th, 2012, Valizadeh launched the site Return of Kings,^[1] which describes itself as “a blog for heterosexual, masculine men” who believe in traditional gender roles.^[2] The site’s “About” page previously criticized the “Men’s Rights Movement”":http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/men-s-rights-movement, saying “we are generally against men’s rights and how they portray men as victims in need of state assistance.” The mention of men’s rights was removed in 2016.

Southern Poverty Law Center Report

In March 2012, the non-profit advocacy organization Southern Poverty Law Center^[4] (SPLC) listed “Roosh V” in a report titled “Misogyny: The Sites,” citing Valizadeh’s pickup artist manuals and statements about “hate fucking” women as evidence of his misogyny:

“Roosh Vörek is a Maryland-raised PUA (”pick up artist") whose specialty is sex with foreign women; his blog is a sales vehicle for his books like Bang: The Pick Up Bible and Bang Iceland: How to Sleep With Icelandic Women in Iceland, which one Icelandic feminist group described as a ‘rape guide.’ Vörek likes to talk about his many ‘notches’ (seductions) and such things as ‘American cunts who I want to hate fuck.’ He adds: ’I’ll be the first to admit that many of my bangs in the United States were hate fucks. The masculine attitude and lack of care these women put into their style or hair irritated me, so I made it a point to fuck them and never call again.’"

On March 9th, Business Insider published an op-ed by journalist Michael Dougherty titled “A Civil Rights Group Is Now Criticizing Random Jerks For Not Calling Women Back After Sex,” which argued that the SPLC was ruining its reputation by going after pickup artists. On May 12th, the SPLC^[5] published a followup report titled “Intelligence Report Article Provokes Fury Among Men’s Rights Activists,” which claimed the purpose of the original report was to “call out specific examples of misogyny and the threat, overt or implicit, of violence.”

“How to Stop Rape” Article

On February 16th, 2015, Valizadeth published an article titled “How to Stop Rape” on his personal blog,^[6] which argued that rape should be legalized if done on the rapists private property.

“I thought about this problem and am sure I have the solution: make rape legal if done on private property. I propose that we make the violent taking of a woman not punishable by law when done off public grounds.”

The article was widely condemned online, with many news sites criticizing Valizadeth for promoting sexual assault.^[7][8][9] On August 8th, The ConU YouTube channel uploaded footage of a woman throwing a beer in Valizadeth’s face and yelling “this is the guy who thinks rape should be legal” at a bar in Montreal, Canada (shown below).

On February 2nd, 2016, Valizadeth posted a tweet^[16] claiming that the article was written as “satire,” and that he did not believe rape should be legalized (shown below).

Petitions

In July 2015, a petition was created on Change.org^[12] to “DENY Roosh V Accommodation in Canada for the Purposes of Disseminating Hate.” By the end of September, the petition garnered upwards of 46,900 supporters.

In August, a petition was created on Change.org^[13] urging Amazon to cease selling Valizadeth’s pickup artist manuals, referring to them as “rape books.” Within six months, the page accumulated more than 47,290 supporters.

Global Meetup Event

On January 6th, 2016, Valizadeth announced^[11] plans for an international “Tribal Meetup Day” to be held in 40 different countries on February 6th, describing the event as the first of what would be “regular meetups that serve men in their local communities in a way that internet platforms do not.” On January 31st, a Change.org^[14] petition to prevent a meetup from occurring in Sydney, Australia was created, gaining over 100,241 supporters in five days.

On February 3rd, Valizadeth posted an announcement^[10] that the event was cancelled due to concerns about the “safety or privacy of the men who wants to attend.” The following day, The Daily Mail reported that Valizadeh had called police after receiving death threats for planning the events, and that he was living in his mother’s basement in Silver Springs, Maryland.

Personal Life

Valizadeh was born on June 14th, 1979 in the United States to parents that had immigrated from Armenia and Iran. In 2001, he received a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Search Interest

External References