About

Mobile Ringtone Covers are instrumental tributes and musical remixes featuring custom arrangements of trademark ringtones that typically come preloaded with most cellular phone and other mobile devices. On YouTube, many musicians and instrumentalists have shared audio and video recording of themselves performing the familiar melodies.

Origin

One of the earliest known instrumental tributes to cell phone ring tones can be attributed to YouTuber Andrea Vadrucci’s drum medley of Nokia’s early monophonic ringtones (shown below) uploaded on August 16th, 2007. The video has accrued more than 4.2 million views as of May 2016.

Spread

On November 22nd, 2007, YouTuber Foggiano83 uploaded a video of an Italian musical ensemble performing an impromptu cover of Nokia’s famous “Gran Vals” ringtone in jest after they’re interrupted by a ringing cell phone of one of the audience members (shown below).

On December 25th, 2008, YouTuber Shivam220 uploaded a hip hop remix sampling a Nokia ringtone. On May 17th, 2010, YouTuber Al Wood uploaded a recording of himself performing a Ukulele rendition of Nokia’s “Gran Vals” ringtone.

On July 30th, 2011, YouTuber Greatmilan uploaded a video of classical violinist Lukáš Kmiť performing a solo concert at Orthodox Jewish Synagogue in Presov, Slovakia, during which the music gets interrupted by the sound of a Nokia cell phone ringing from the audience. Immediately afterwards, Kmiť whimsically proceeds to play out the melodies of “Gran Vals” (shown below). A few months later, the video went viral after it was submitted to Reddit on January 21st, 2012.

On May 17th, 2012, YouTuber JulianSteelMusic uploaded a duet performance of iPhone’s “Marimba” ringtone on the marimba (shown below, left). On May 19th, 2014, MetroGnome uploaded a video of himself mixing iPhone’s “Marimba” ringtone using a launchpad (shown below, right)

On April 1st, 2016, YouTuber ToxicxEternity uploaded a heavy metal tribute to a series iPhone ringtones (shown below, left). On May 11th, 2016, Tony Ann uploaded a video of himself performing a piano arrangement inspired by various trademark ringtones associated with mobile phone companies (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

Sounds Like Music refers to various video clips which contain sounds produced by people, animals or non-musical objects that resemble beats or melodies heard in popular music.

Origin

On February 27th, 2009, YouTuber astark92 uploaded a video titled “Fire Alarm Jam Session,” in which a band incorporates the noise made by a fire alarm into a live performance (shown below). Over the next seven years, the video gained over 820,000 views and 1,200 comments.

Spread

On October 8th, 2009, YouTuber Fadem12 uploaded a video titled “Super Mario Ping Pong,” featuring footage of a ping pong ball which sounds like the theme song for Super Mario Bros. as it lands on the table (shown below).

On August 4th, 2010, YouTuber dddeluxe uploaded a video titled “Death Metal Drumming Washing Machine,” featuring a recording of a washing machine set to the death metal song “The Lords of Plasticine” by eZah (shown below, left). Within six years, the video received more than 2.1 million views and 2,100 comments. On April 30th, 2011, YouTuber Ryan Flynn uploaded a recording of himself singing the 2005 alternative rock song “Feel Good Inc” by Gorillaz with a wild bird (shown below, right).

On January 21st, 2012, YouTuber rawrderder uploaded a remix video featuring two children smashing their heads with books and a desk set to the tune of the Super Mario Bros. theme (shown below, left). Within four years, the video accumulated upwards of 4.5 million views and 2,700 comments. On January 12th, 2014, the /r/unexpectedmusic^[2] subreddit was launched for users to submit “videos of people and the world making music together.” On October 27th, the /r/JammingWithThings^[1] wubreddit was launched, featuring videos of music produced with “unusual instruments” and “everyday-use objects.” On April 30th, YouTuber Sergey Ivanushin uploaded footage of an auctioneer set to a hip-hop beat, which received more than 1.4 million views and 900 comments in two years (shown below).

On May 17th, 2015, YouTuber Shonky Brothers uploaded a recording of a fart sounding like a “major seventh arpeggio in the key of B flat,” garnering upwards of 3.7 million views and 1,500 comments over the next year (shown below, left). On July 6th, YouTuber isgsagFeed posted a video titled “Smells Like Teen Shovel Coub,” featuring a clip of a boy dropping a shovel on the ice remixed to the tune of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana (shown below, right). Within 1 year, the video gained over 6.7 million views and 1,100 comments.

The following day, Redditor manapod created the /r/SoundsLikeMusic^[3] subreddit for videos containing “random noise” that “Sounds just like that song you know.” On January 21st, 2016, YouTuber Viralzo uploaded a compilation of “Sounds Like Music” remix videos (shown below, left). On March 6th, 2016, YouTuber DCwars12 published a similar montage featuring .webm videos taken from “you laugh you lose” threads on 4chan (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Goat Edition Remixes

Many pop songs have been edited with clips of yelling goats added to the chorus following a remix of the Taylor Swift song “I Knew You Were Trouble” uploaded by YouTuber Goosik in February 2013 (shown below).

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Vagina Bones is an internet slang term that refers to a woman’s pelvic bones. While it has been occasionally used to describe the visible outlines of the femurs in casual conversations, mostly in the context of female characters in Japanese anime and manga, the word became a target of online mockeries in May 2016 after being mentioned in a tweet protesting the censorship of a female character’s physical features in the Western version of the Japanese role-playing video game Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

Origin

On September 16th, 2006, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Leah&Jenna submitted an entry for “vagina bone,” defining the term as slang for “pelvis bone.”

Spread

On February 23rd, 2011, the Japanese entertainment blog Japanator^[8] highlighted a screenshot of a poorly-translated scene from the anime series Dream Eater Merry, in which young boy complains that a swimsuit doesn’t show off a female character’s “vagina bones” (shown below).

On July 7th, 2012, a Baby Center Forums^[7] member submitted a post titled “24 weeks and my vagina bones feel broken,” in which she complained about experiencing pelvic pain after giving birth. On March 29th, 2013, a Cheat Engine Forums^[6] user commented on a video game character’s attractiveness by remarking “she got them vagina bones.” On June 12th, 2015, NarutoBase Forums member NukaCola referred to the Naruto character Sarada’s pelvis as her “vagina bones” (shown below).

Censorship Controversy

On May 13th, 2016, Twitter user @Sebban_E posted a tweet comparing the differences between a female character’s depiction in the Japanese and Western versions of the role-playing video game Tokyo Mirage Sessions, claiming that the character’s “cleavage” and “vagina bones” had been removed (shown below).

Following the tweet, some Twitter users mocked @Sebban_E for using “vagina bones” while others defended his use of the slang term (shown below).

On May 14th, Redditor B-Volleyball-Ready submitted @Sebban_E’s tweet to the /r/KotakuInAction^[4] subreddit, requesting that the community would turn “vagina bones” into a “meme.” On May 17th, The Daily Dot^[3] published an article mocking the “vagina bones” tweet. The following day, HeatStreet^[5] published an article about the online controversy, noting that user @Sebban_E was referencing “a five-year-old meme.”

Search Interest

External References

W.I.P.

About

Transhumanism is a futurist philosophy and international intellectual movement with the purpose of transforming the human condition through the development of widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance the physical and psychological capacities of humans.^[8] Strongly influenced by works of science fiction, the transhumanist vision of a technologically transformed humanity has received a large amount of supporters and detractors from a wide range of backgrounds.

History

The term transhuman was inspired by the term Übermensch which means superman or overman, proposed in the 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.^[1] This term however referred to individuals whom threw off slave-morality and pursued personal growth and cultural refinement which is significantly divergent from the definition of transhuman.^[2] The word transhumanism was first used by Julian Huxley.^[3] In Julian Huxley’s 1927 book Religion Without Revelation there is a proposition of a new belief system called transhumanism (described below).

The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself – not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way – but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature.

Turing Test

In 1950 Alan Turing published a paper titled Computing Machinery and Intelligence which put forth the notion of a test to determine if a computer was intelligent.^[10] The test is called the imitation game in Turing’s paper and proposes a game where an interrogator would interrogate a human and a computer and if the interrogator could not tell which was which then the computer is deemed intelligent since we judge other people’s intellect by external observation. Notable atheist materialist philosopher of the time Bertrand Russell in reference to the paper said he “enjoyed it very much.”^[10] The test has gone on to become an important part of transhumanist culture due to it being a measurable basis for achieving artificial intelligence. A documentary detailing Alan Turing and the origins of the imitation game was released in 2014 called The Imitation Game (trailer shown below). It won an Oscar for best writing and adapted screenplay and was nominated for seven others.^[11]

1990

The year 1990 saw multiple advances which strongly influenced transhumanist culture. Max Moore wrote the influential piece Transhumanism: Toward a Futurist Philosophy which is considered by most the basis of modern transhumanist thought^[14] and contains the modern description of transhumanism (described below).^[15]

Humanism is a eupraxophy or philosophy of life that rejects deities, faith, and worship, instead basing a view of values and meaningfulness on the nature and potentials of humans within a rational and scientific framework. Transhumanism is a class of philosophies that seek to guide us towards a posthuman condition. Transhumanism shares many elements of humanism, including a respect for reason and science, a commitment to progress, and a valuing of human (or transhuman) existence in this life rather than in some supernatural “afterlife”. Transhumanism differs from humanism in recognizing and anticipating the radical alterations in the nature and possibilities of our lives resulting from various sciences and technologies such as neuroscience and neuropharmacology, life extension, nanotechnology, artificial ultraintelligence, and space habitation, combined with a rational philosophy and value system.

That same year on September 14th, the first gene therapy trial was performed on a four-year old girl. She had adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency so some of her white blood cells were removed, had the correct genes for ADA injected into them, and were then reinjected into her. Dr. W. French Anderson developed this clinical trial while working at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.^[16] This helped pave the way for future genetic engineering which is a core focus of transhumanists. That same year, the first web page was posted on the internet.^[17] The internet has served both as a hub for transhumanist supporters to mingle and as a focus for transhumanist culture in regards to its applications in virtual reality and immortalization by means of uploading one’s consciousness to the internet.^[18]

Related Subcultures

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation of an interactive 3D environment, either realistic or fabricated. Simulations are typically navigated using headsets and other devices that allow users to move freely in the environment or create a variety of sensory experiences. The earliest known VR-style device was created in 1962 by inventor Morton Heilig, who built the Sensorama machine allowing users to view several short films while stimulating their sense of sound, smell and touch simultaneously.^[13]

Robots and Artificial Intelligence

Robots are automated mechanical entities often created to either resemble an organic organism, or to perform a specific function that would normally be carried out by an organic organism. An artificial intelligence is any software that exhibits intelligence derived from computer processing power. It is distinguished from natural intelligence due to the fact that it is stimulated by man-made machines.

The Internet

The Internet is a system of interconnected computer networks linking billions of machines worldwide using the TCP/IP Internet protocol suite.^[19] The internet has served both as a hub for transhumanist supporters to mingle and as a focus for transhumanist culture in regards to its applications in virtual reality and immortalization by means of uploading one’s consciousness to the internet.^[18] Use of the Internet in the West expanded rapidly throughout the 1990s, growing over 100x within two decades.^[20] Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, numerous packet switching networks were developed, including Tymnet, Telenet and the eventual forerunner of the Internet, ARPANET.^[21] In 1990, ARPANET was decommissioned and the first web page was posted on the internet.^[22]

3D Printing

3D Printing is the practice of creating objects from three-dimensional digital models. A core technology discussed in transhumanist culture is 3D bioprinting which is slowly developing from 3D printing.^[12] Online communities have arisen for 3D printing enthusiasts, including open-source databases where digital models can be downloaded, including Makerbot’s Thingiverse and Defense Distributed’s DEFCAD.

The Matrix

The Matrix is an American science fiction film about a computer hacker who learns some hard truths about his own reality. The film has heavily influenced and spread transhumanist culture through its depictions of futuristic technology, artificial intelligence, and fully immersive virtual reality simulations. It is the first film in The Matrix trilogy. The Matrix was released on March 31st, 1999.^[4] The film stars Keanu Reeves as computer hacker Neo, Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, Neo’s teacher of sorts, and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, Neo’s love interest.

Deus Ex

Deus Ex is a cyberpunk-themed action role playing video game franchise set in the 21st century, where secret societies are fighting for power and control over world, and various types of body augmentation are being practiced. The series is widely known around the internet’s video gaming communities and delves into numerous transhumanist concepts. It has its own Wikia^[5] and /r/deusex sub-reddit on Reddit^[6]. The original game in particular has a large following, and is often regarded as one of the best games of all time. It has a large modder community, with mods ranging from bugfixes and graphic overhauls to total conversions, to be found on sites such as ModDB^[7].

Futurama

Futurama is an animated TV series based around the main protagonist Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from the 20th century who was cryogenically frozen for 1000 years, and his adventures in the future. It has thoroughly delved into transhumanist culture with its references to The Matrix, complex scientific jokes, and depictions of future technology often discussed in transhumanist culture. At the same time, Futurama has been observed to be a strong argument against the teachings of transhumanism by the PBS Idea Channel (shown below). The show was created by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. Besides Fry, the main cast includes Turanga Leela, Bender Bending Rodríguez, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Hermes Conrad, Doctor John A. Zoidberg and Amy Wong, with a secondary cast of Zapp Brannigan, Kif Kroker, Nibbler and Scruffy.

Related Memes

The Singularity

The Singularity, sometimes referred to as “the technological singularity”, is a hypothetical future event in which technological progress will supposedly begin to occur at a near vertical rate. It is often associated with the “intelligence explosion” event, which would result in artificial intelligence systems improving recursively until they become superhuman intelligent beings.

Search Interest

External References

“beebo” is the nickname for Brendon Urie created by Tumblr user bombshellbutt.

Fan’s caught on and the nickname became extrememly popular. In May 2016, Brendon Urie had a tshirt made with “who the fuck is brendon urie.”

Spoilers follow.

In Captain America: Civil War, Helmut Zemo relentlessly pursues information from Hydra (ex) soldiers, spurring much of the movie’s plot. His frequent, unchanging requests for this intel take the form of his demanding “Mission report: December 16th, 1991” from various characters. This insistent command is repeated verbatim frequently within the film, without alteration. The persistent, detached tone Zemo adopts, along with his constant use of the exact same, unusually direct phrasing, seems to have prompted the meme.

The meme consists of sentences, phrases, and short comics/image sets wherein a common situation ends unexpectedly with a request for said report, with the same unvarying phrasing. So far, the meme mainly seems to satirize Zemo’s dogged determination, as his character/catchphrase being used in any/every situation implies that his character essentially has no thoughts, feelings, or desires apart from his one perpetual inquiry. Additionally, his popping up without warning in completely unrelated situations is, similar to Rickrolling and Unexpected John Cena, a simple bit of bait-and-switch humor.

The meme recently began spreading via facebook, with a eponymous group already collecting examples (see link).

About

Shipfu Analysis is a series of images of various Gijinka warships (Kanmusu) with labeling on various features, explaining how they are seen by many as being waifu material. While it started within the Kantai Collection fandom, it has spread to similar games, such as Warship Girls.

Origin

The phrase “Shipfu” is a combination of the words Ship and Waifu.^[1]. The oldest known usage of the meme uses the Kanmusu Kongou. The original artwork used in the image was uploaded to Pixiv in May 2014 ^[3]. The Shipfu analysis version of this images dates to at least October 2014.

Spread

Versions of various different Kanmusu have subsequently been made, some using the in game artwork, others using various pieces of fanart.
On September 22, 2015 a thread on Himeuta.com was made encouraging users to make versions based on the simmilar themed game Warship Girls. ^[2]

Various Examples

Search Interest’

External References

Hispachan (site domain: hispachan.org)^[1] is a popular imageboard in Spanish, created in 2012.

It’s the largest anonymous imageboard in Spanish, and the 5th most active on the internet. It has more than 5,000,000 posts as of May 2016 (about 2,500,000 made in the last 12 months).

Hispachan is a global site and is visited by people from all hispanic countries. While most boards on Hispachan are meant for Spanish speakers, there is also an International board (/int/) where English and other languages are allowed.

Its logo is a “ñ”, the most representative character in Spanish.

Traffic

Hispachan is ranked 38,702 worldwide and it’s in the top 1000 in countries like Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Spain (May 2016).^[2]

Features

- Posting anonymously
- Identify yourself as the OP of a thread
- Thread auto-updater
- Hide threads and posts
- 8 CSS styles
- Safe mode (hide NSFW images)
- New threads and new posts notifications
- Etc.

History

Before Hispachan, there were several imageboards in Spanish focused on specific local regions or countries (Sectachan for Mexico, 6-chan for Chile, etc.). Hispachan was the first one to include the whole Spanish speaker community. This difference made it grow very fast and created a new community, as the staff was not related to the old imageboards.

The creator (or creators) name is “Zeta”. Officially, nobody knows the nationality of Zeta, even if he/she is a man or a woman.

From its beginning, Hispachan has been involved in several media stories and controversies:

In December 2015 Raúl Robles – hacker and security adviser of the mexican government – was murdered in Guadalajara (Mexico). Mexican authorities investigated the death threats published on Hispachan before the murder, because he was murdered at the exact moment and place posted on Hispachan.^[3]

In December 2015 hackers from /ve/ board (Venezuela) hacked Cantv site – the main venezuelan ISP– to complain about their poor quality internet services.^[4]

In May 2015 some Hispachan users were responsible of cyberbullying and harrassment of feminist and lesbian activists. The case was published on Latin American press.^[5]

In May 2014 some Hispachan users created a fake child escort agency to cheat pedophiles. Dozens of pedophile profiles that demanded the services were revealed and sent to authorities.^[6]

In 2013 Hispachan was used by some neonazi groups to organize actions against homosexuals in real life. They recorded some videos beating up gay people in Spain, similar to what russian neonazis did.^[7]

Hiroyuki Nishimura, owner and administrator of 4chan, did an “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) session on Hispachan in March 2016.^[8]


Search Interest

External references

^[1]Hispachan – Hispachan.org

^[2]Alexa – Hispachan Alexa Ranking

^[3]Vice – This Murder Has Exposed the Dark Side of Mexico’s Hacking Community

^[4]Diario de Caracas – Public ISP Cantv site has been hacked (in Spanish)

^[5]La Izquierda Diario – Death and violation threats against young feminists on Twitter (in Spanish)

^[6]Revolución 3.0 – Child escort agency reveals pedophiles in search of children on Facebook (in Spanish)

^[7]Europa Press – Detenido otro miembro del grupo que denuncia homosexuales vía Internet e imputado un menor (in Spanish)

^[8]Hispachan Blog – Hiroyuki Nishimura on Hispachan

About

Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 live-action comedy film loosely based on the video game franchise of the same name by Nintendo starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper. Super Mario Bros. is the first video game movie adaptation but it received negative reviews from critics.^[1][2]

History

[Researching]

Reception

[Researching]

Fandom

[Researching]

Search Interest

External References

About

George Zimmerman is an American formerly employed as an insurance underwriter who is known for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin in February 2012. Since being acquitted of second degree murder in July 2013, Zimmerman has remained a controversial figure in the media.

History

Trayvon Martin’s Death

On February 26th, 2012, African American teenager Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by 28-year-old community watch captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. According to the official report, Martin was unarmed and found dead on the scene upon the arrival of police officers, who responded to a non-emergency call made by the shooter shortly before he approached Martin on his own. Zimmerman described the incident as an act of self-defense after a physical scuffle ensued between the two. Though Zimmerman was taken into custody that evening, officers were unable to find any evidence contradicting Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense and no charges were filed.

Though the case would go on to make national headlines in the news media and spark yet another round of debates over firearm control laws in the United States, it did not receive attention until Martin’s parents launched an online petition. On July 13th, 2013, the jury delivered a verdict declaring Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter after 16 hours of deliberation.

George Zimmerman’s Celebrity Boxing Match

On January 30th, 2014, celebrity news site TMZ reported that George Zimmerman has teamed up with boxing promoter Damon Feldman and agreed to participate in a three-round celebrity boxing match against a randomly chosen contender to be held sometime in March. According to Zimmerman, who took up boxing as a hobby prior to and during his trial last year, all proceeds from the event will go towards a charity. In the article, Feldman was quoted as saying that Zimmerman would be open to fight anyone while openly inviting people to sign up for the boxing match via fightgeorge@hotmail.com.

On February 1st, TMZ reported that at least two American hip hop artists, The Game and DMX, have taken up the challenge to fight George Zimmerman in the ring. According to the article, DMX was quoted as saying that he is “going to beat the living fuck out of [Zimmerman]… I am breaking every rule in boxing to make sure I f**k him right up” and “once I am done with him, I am going to whip my d**k out and piss on him … right in his muthaf**kin face.”

On February 2nd, an online petition to “Stop George Zimmerman and Promoter Damon Feldman from using murder & racial hate in America for Profit” was created on the White House’s We The People^[3] website. As more details about the celebrity boxing match came to light, the petition reached nearly 100,000 signatures in the first 72 hours.

On February 5th, TMZ confirmed that DMX has been chosen as Zimmerman’s opponent in the celebrity boxing match. In the following 24 hours, the news quickly spread across the Hollywood gossip and hip hop blogosphere, and unsurprisingly, it immediately prompted a heavy backlash on Twitter against both parties involved, as well as Feldman. Later that same day, however, DMX’s publicist released a statement clarifying that the match has yet to be confirmed due to the ongoing contractual negotiation. Once confirmed, the date, time and location of the fight will be announced at a news conference on February 12th.

George Zimmerman’s Retweet

On Friday, September 25th, 2015, George Zimmerman began tweeting the name and phone number of a man named Micah Williams, who used the Twitter Handle @SonusCarAudio. Zimmerman claimed that the man “believes paying for his wife’s abortion from an affair is an excuse 2 not pay child support,” and called on his 10,000 followers to call him and inform him otherwise.^[4] In response, one of Zimmerman’s followers tweeted a photograph of Trayvon Martin’s dead body at Zimmerman and Williams, with the text “Z-man is a one man army” (below).

Screencap of the tweet from the New York Daily News. The original tweet was uncensored.

When the tweet was later removed by Twitter after a public outcry, the story was subsequently picked up by the New York Daily News,^[7] Complex,^[8] and Perez Hilton,^[9] among others. In response, Zimmerman tweeted a series of images of “wanted”-style posters bearing his face, complaining how Twitter refused to remove these types of images. In addition, he again tweeted the name and phone number of Micah Williams and directed any “press inquiries” to the man. Finally, he tweeted a photograph of himself on the beach, smoking a cigar.

Gun Auction

On May 11th, 2016, Zimmerman placed the Kel-Tec PF-9 9 mm caliber pistol used in the fatal shooting of Martin for sale with a starting bid of $5,000 on the firearm auctioning website GunBroker.com.^[10] In the description field, Zimmerman claimed that a portion of the money earned would go towards fighting “violence against police officers” by the Black Lives Matter movement and “Hillary Clinton’s anti-firearm rhetoric” (shown below).

In an interview with the Orlando, Florida television station WOFL, Zimmerman revealed he was auctioning the weapon because he was “a free American” and could do whatever he likes with his possessions. Meanwhile, the Trayvon Martin Foundation issued a statement to the press, saying the nonprofit organization “has no comment on the actions of that person.” On May 12th, the auction page was removed. That day, several posts about the auction reached the front page of the /r/nottheonion^[11] and /r/news^[12] subreddits. The following day, a new auction was placed for sale on UnitedGunGroup, where a user named Racist McShootface continued to bid on the firearm until it reached over $65 million prior to the account’s suspension (shown below).

On May 18th, the United Gun Group tweeted^[13] a statement announcing that Zimmerman was “in the process of vetting several offers” through the online firearms auctioning service (shown below). Later that day, TMZ^[1] reported that Zimmerman’s gun was successfully auctioned for over $120,000.

Personal Life

Zimmerman was born on October 5th, 1983 in Manassas, Virginia. He was raised Catholic and attended the All Saints Catholic School in Manassas for part of his childhood. After graduating high school, Zimmerman moved to Lake, Mary Florida, where he worked at an insurance agency.

Search Interest

External References

About

A Day With Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie (UNAUTHORIZEDMOCKUMENTARY), often shortened to A Day With Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie or just ADWSS is a supposed 2011 unreleased direct-to-DVD film by Reagal Films and distributed by MVD films starring Spongebob Squarepants. Since 2014 the film has gained a large internet following from sites like The Lost Media Wiki, Reddit, and 4chan due to its elusive nature and the lack of any information or proof of its actual existence, any verifiable clips or stills of the movie, or any actual physical copies known to exist. All that is known about the movie is a 5 sentence summary on the film’s entry on Amazon.^[1] As of today the film is mostly known for the ongoing search efforts for any evidence of its existence.

Origin

ADWSS was supposedly released on Amazon on November 22nd, 2011. Up to that point there had been little coverage on the film. The film was supposedly available for a day before going out of stock. The description for the film read:
“In this mockumentary, SpongeBob lives above ground like all Hollywood superstars. Afraid that SpongeBob is becoming old news, his boss runs a contest called “Spend a Day with SpongeBob.” The contest makes SpongeBob the talk of the town, as thousands of kids enter to win. The lucky winner is Seth, and he is ecstatic about his day with SpongeBob. However the day becomes a rollercoaster ride as things don’t go quite the way they planned."^[1]

Spread

On 2014 Wiki user LarryInc64, found the film on Amazon, finding little to no information about it anywhere else, created a page for it on the Lost Media Wikia(the original Lost Media Wiki).^[2][3] But even then it didn’t receive much coverage.^[2] The first real notable coverage of the film came from the film being mentioned on the Youtube video “Top 20 Lost Kids Films” by user blameitonjorge on July 1st, 2015, which to date has over 1 million views(shown below).

The search for the movie gained further popularity when famous Youtuber RebelTaxi uploaded a video on the subject on September 8, 2016, which to date has over 300,000 views(shown below)^[3]

A post on Reddit’s r/unsolvedmysteries board about the film and recovery efforts for it was posted that same month and recieved 100 upvotes and 85 comments before being archived.^[4] On November 4th, 2015 Gawker published an article on its “Weird Internet” section detailing the ongoing search efforts for the film.^[5] The next day French newspaper La Monde published an article on the subject.^[6] As of today the Lost Media Wiki’s forum for the film has over 2,000 posts.^[7]

Hoax Images/Videos

Following the film’s sudden increase in popularity, an influx of videos and images came from people who claimed them to be from the actual film itself. Most of these images and videos were declared false, but only spread the infamy of the film as a result.^[2][5]

Notable Videos

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Amazon – A Day With Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie

^[2]Lost Media Wikia – A Day With SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie

^[3]Lost Media Wiki – A Day With SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie

^[4]r/UnsolvedMysteries – The internet hunt for the (possibly non-existent) A Day With Spongebob Squarepants Unauthorized Mockumentary movie.

^[5]Gawker – The Internet’s Obsessive Hunt for a Bootleg SpongeBob Movie That May Have Never Existed

^[6]La Monde – La quête obsessionnelle d’un film sur Bob L’Eponge… qui n’a sûrement jamais existé

^[7]Lost Media Wiki Forum – A Day With Spongebob Squarepants

About

That Poppy is an American teenage singer-songwriter who has garnered internet fame for her innocent, childlike appearance and a series of avant-garde monologues and music videos on YouTube.

Online History

In November 2014, the ThatPoppy YouTube channel was launched, which features footage of Poppy delivering strange monologues in a series of videos produced by artist Titanic Sinclair.^[5] The first video uploaded to the channel features footage of Poppy eating a stick of cotton candy (shown below, left). On December 3rd, a video titled “My Phone Is Not Plugged In,” featuring several short skits of Poppy alone in a room with a guitar and rotary telephone (shown below, right).

On January 6th, 2015, Poppy published a video in which is shown repeating the phrase “I’m Poppy” for 10 minutes (shown below, left). On July 24th, the ThatPoppyVEVO channel released the music video for her song “Lowlife” off her debut EP Bubblebath (shown below, right).

On August 18th, Poppy published a video in which she introduces a dog to her audience, pronouncing the word “dog” as “doge” (shown below, left). On November 9th, a video titled “young girl makes crazy video on YouTube” was uploaded to Poppy’s YouTube channel, in which she thanks her fans and mocks internet clickbait headlines (shown below, right).

On December 15th, Poppy released a short video titled “Everyone was a Baby Once,” in which she delivers a strange monologue about the internet, music and living on planet Earth (shown below, left). On May 4th, 2016, Poppy posted a video to YouTube titled “I love the internet so much,” in which she discusses her use of various web applications while ominous music is heard playing in the background (shown below, right).

Social Media Presence

In January 2011, Poppy created the @thatPoppy Twitter^[1] feed, accumulated more than 12,300 followers in five years. On November 4th, 2014, the That Poppy Facebook^[2] page was launched, gathering upwards of 11,600 likes in the next two years. On July 6th, 2015, the @thatpoppy Instagram^[4] feed was created, which gained over 30,700 followers in one year.

Interviews

On November 23rd, 2015, the TTFMagTv YouTube channel uploaded an interview with Poppy, in which she discussed the meaning behind her stage name and described her visual aesthetic as “Barbie, kawaii child” (shown below, left). On March 1st, 2016, the 92.3 AMP Radio YouTube channel posted an in-studio interview with Poppy, in which she spoke about herself in the third person and revealed that she is vegan and does not smoke marijuana (shown below, right). On March 3rd, the music blog IHeartRadio^[7] published an interview with Poppy, in which she discussed her YouTube videos made with Titanic Sinclair.

Reception

On April 11th, 2016, the fashion blog Racked^[6] published an article about Poppy titled “Parsing the Aesthetics of That Poppy, Pop Singer and Internet Enigma.” On May 19th, Redditor Topher1999 submitted the “Everyone was a Baby Once” video to the /r/DeepIntoYouTube^[3] subreddit, where it received more than 650 votes (90% upvoted) and 120 comments in the first 24 hours.

Search Interest

External References

About

Brick Wall Optical Illusion is a Facebook post which challenges its viewers to identify a visual oddity within a seemingly unexceptional photograph of a brick wall. Upon being uploaded to Facebook on May 16th, 2016, the photograph went viral due to its unexpectedly difficult and deceptive nature.

Origin

The optical illusory image has been circulating online since as early as the late 2000s, with the earliest known instance posted by Javier Blanes^[1] on his paranormal investigative blog on August 25th, 2008 (shown below). In the following years, the image continued to spread across the Spanish-speaking web, including a Facebook post^[2] highlighting the image on the official page for Academia Nakis, a high school located in Lugones, Spain, on May 30th, 2014.

Spread

However, the image didn’t draw massive attention on the English-speaking web until May 16th, 2016, when British Facebook user Arron Bevin^[3] shared the image with a caption challenging others to spot an oddity (shown below).

Within 72 hours of the post, the Facebook image garnered more than 75,000 likes, 68,000 comments and 55,500 shares. Soon, the news about the “brick wall illusion” challenge began spreading across Twitter.^[4] In the following days, the viral image of the brick wall was highlighted by over a dozen of news outlets and internet culture blogs in the U.S. and the U.K., including Slate^[5], Metro^[6], The Huffington Post^[7], Cnet^[8], New York Magazine^[9], The Telegraph^[10], Uproxx^[11] and Bustle,^[12] among others.

The Answer

While the photograph may appear as an ordinary brick wall at a casual, first glance, a closer examination of the image reveals a cigar stuck into a crevice on the brick wall.

Search Interest

External References

About

Fruit Fingering refers to the practice or simulating manual genital stimulation using edible fruits that have been cut in half as props.

Origin

On May 23rd, 2011, YouTuber harleage uploaded footage of a person vigorously fingering a mango (shown below).

Spread

On August 24th, 2013, YouTuber DBsExertionFilms uploaded a video titled “Sex Pose Man and Fruit,” featuring a man seductively touching an avocado and orange cut in half (shown below).

On October 19th, 2015, the Simple Pickup YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “How to Finger a Girl,” in which a man provides a tutorial on how to properly perform manual genital stimulation using various halved fruits as props for a woman’s genitalia (shown below). Within seven months, the video gained over 5.5 million views and 2,600 comments.

Stephanie Sarley’s Videos

On December 27th, Oakland-based artist Stephanie Sarley uploaded a short video clip of herself lightly stroking and penetrating the inside of a grapefruit with her finger on Instagram^[1] (shown below). Within five months, the video gathered upwards of 2,400 likes and 900 comments. Over the next several months, Sarley uploaded over 35 more videos in which she fingers other edible fruits, including a blood orange, papaya, kiwi, lemon, lime and strawberry.

On February 3rd, Sarley launched a YouTube^[2] channel where she uploaded many of the fruit fingering videos from her Instagram page. Within four months, the channel gathered upwards of 140,000 video views and 230 subscribers.

Search Interest

External References

About

Gil da Esfirra vs. Galerito is a Brazilian meme originated circa 2006/2008 on the police television show Canal Livre, broadcasted for the Amazonas region on the local Rede Bandeirantes station TV Rio Negro (currently known as TV Bandeirantes Manaus), hosted by the now-deceased MP Wallace Souza and his brothers. However, only on early January 2016, the meme reached a high popularity, thanks to the various uploads of this scenes to YouTube, along with related posts on various Brazilian Facebook pages (mainly South America Memes).

History

Canal Livre was a popular news program in Brazil. It was presented by the former police officer and former politician Wallace Souza and was the most popular show in the city of Manaus. Souza’s popularity as host of Canal Livre saw him get elected on three occasions to political office. One of the things that more leveraged the success of the program was Gil (full name: Gilson Luiz dos Santos do Carmo), a stage entertainer and sfiha seller (who suffered bullying constantly being called as Rogério) and their fights with the puppet Galerito. The program ended in 2009, due to various controversies envolving the presenter and the production of the program, returning in 2013 under the name programa Livre on the local SBT station TV Em Tempo.

The fights

A recurring scene on the program was various members of the cast (specially Galerito) commonly bullying Gil, calling various names, including gay, queer and the most common: Rogério, accompanied by the song Viúva de Rogério by Renato Fechine. When Gil gets mad, he starts to fight with who’ve been bullying him, whit this fights sometimes accompanied by the song Ele é corno, mas é meu amigo by the clown, humorist and MP Tiririca. The most famous fight was during the act of local musician Nunes Filho, being later revealed that the singer was making playback when its microphone failed. In that scene, the catchphrases Matando barata, tuxina no toba, coceira na prega, Foi no fogo do amor que o Nunes queimou a rosca and Solte o meu cabelo! became extremely popular.

Repercussion

In early January 2016, a YouTube user from the Amazonas region uploaded a video with the best moments of the Gil vs. Galerito fights, originally intended for the Amazonian viewers. However, the video quickly became a success on other Brazilian regions, reaching similar fame to other memes like Faustão and Pai de Família, being a recurring subject on Brazilian comedy pages like South America Memes":https://www.facebook.com/SouthAmericaMemesIV/.

The return

In February 15, 2016, due to the large repercussion of the meme, Gil (now living in São Paulo) returned to the program, ending up to fight with the show’s new puppet Macaco Lek Lek (which replaced Galerito). A peace deal was tried on the episode of February 24, but falied, followed by Gil’s anniversary celebration on March 23 in which Lek Lek offered to Gil a bra and panties sat, ending up again in confusion.

Why is this funny?

The bizarrity of the show, along with the soundtracks used during it, were an essential step to this fights now being famous nationwide. Another important factor for its popularity is the catchphrases said by the two main characters like Rogério!, Foi no fogo do amor que o Nunes queimou a rosca, Eu gostei do bolo, esse bolo é muito gostoso! and O Diabo não tem pai!.

About

“I was born with thick skin.” is a quote from the character Manny Pardo from the game Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number. The character says this as a reply to a SWAT officer when discussing a murder case.

Origin

After the release of the second Hotline Miami, fans created fan images based on the character Manny Pardo because of his role as a stereotypical “hard-as-nails” cop, and his pessimistic attitude throughout the game.

W.I.P.

About

Memetics is the study of memes and their social and cultural effects.^[4]

History

In 1976, Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene was published.^[1] In the book Richard Dawkins invented the terms meme and memeticist. The term memeticist is treated in the book as synonymous with one whom would track trends in a market (shown below).^[2]

If it is a style of women’s shoe, the population memeticist may use sales statistics from shoe shops.

Memeticist is analogous to geneticist but instead of being one whom studies genes it’s one whom studies memes.^[3] The memeticist analyzes memes with the assumption they are analogous to genes though this analogy is not perfect.^[3] The exact term memetics is never used in the book but is implied to exist by Richard Dawkin’s term memeticist because one cannot be a memeticist unless one studies memes and memetics is the study of memes. In January, 1983, a column by Douglas Hofstadter was published in Scientific American titled Metamagical Themas which discussed the nature of memes.^[6] In 1985 he published a book containing an eclectic collection of early 1980s articles of his published in Scientific American (shown below).^[7]

On page 65 of the book he suggests the study of memes should be called memetics after receiving a piece of mail suggesting the name (shown below).^[8]

After writing this column, I received much mail testifying to the fact that there are a large number of people who have been infected by the “meme” meme. Arel Lucas suggested that the discipline that studies memes and their connections to humans and other potential carriers of them be known as memetics, by analogy with “genetics”. I think this is a good suggestion, and hope it will be adopted.

Notable Terms

Memetics uses a specialized scholarly set of jargon that is key to understanding how memes function and why they function how they function.^[9] The notable ones are listed below.

Ideosphere

The realm of memetic evolution, as the biosphere is the realm of biological evolution. The entire memetic ecology. (Hofstadter.) The health of an ideosphere can be measured by its memetic diversity.^[9]

Metameme

Any meme about memes (such as: “tolerance,” “metaphor”).^[9]

Memeplex / Meme Complex

A set of mutually-assisting memes which have co-evolved a symbiotic relationship. Religious and political dogmas, social movements, artistic styles, traditions and customs, chain letters, paradigms, languages, etc. are meme-complexes.

Meme Pool

The full diversity of memes accessible to a culture or individual. Learning languages and traveling are methods of expanding one’s meme pool.^[9]

Memotype

1. The actual information-content of a meme, as distinct from its sociotype. 2. A class of similar memes.^[9]

Sociotype

1. The social expression of a memotype, as the body of an organism is the physical expression (phenotype) of the gene (genotype). Hence, the Protestant Church is one sociotype of the Bible’s memotype. 2. A class of similar social organisations.^[9]

Replication Strategy

Any memetic strategy used by a meme to encourage its host to repeat the meme to other people. The hook co-meme of a meme-complex.^[9]

Mimicry

An infection strategy in which a meme attempts to imitate the semiotics of another successful meme. Examples include: pseudo-science (Creationism, UFOlogy); pseudo-rebelliousness (Heavy Metal); subversion by forgery (Situationist detournement).^[9]

Censorship

Any attempt to hinder the spread of a meme by eliminating its vectors. Hence, censorship is analogous to attempts to halt diseases by spraying insecticides. Censorship can never fully kill off an offensive meme, and may actually help to promote the meme’s most virulent strain, while killing off milder forms.^[9]

Fandom

Fan Art

Videos

Related Memes

Memes

Memes are broadly defined as culturally transmitted information, or ideas and beliefs that can be spread from one organism, or group of organisms, to another.^[5] A key component to the meme concept is that the information is able to self-replicate, and in turn undergoes a type of natural selection, much like genes. The word was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He postulated that perhaps not only biological information undergoes natural selection, and that anything that is capable of replicating itself would also be susceptible to selection pressures, like ideas and beliefs.

Bait / This is Bait

Bait in memetics is defined as the part of a memeplex that promises to benefit the host (usually in return for replicating the complex).^[9] It is also an internet slang term used to describe comments or opinions which are considered to be made purposefully to troll other posters or to start a flame war. The term is commonly found on message boards and in comment sections, including the 4chan imageboards.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

#Elbowgate refers to a physical altercation that occurred during an assembly at the House of Commons of Canada in late May 2016, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accidentally elbowed New Democrat Party (NDP) member Ruth Ellen Brosseau while attempting to lead Conservative Party whip Gordon Brown to his seat.

Background

On May 18th, 2016, the House of Commons of Canada held a meeting to vote on a motion regarding Bill C-14, which would grant medical practitioners the ability to perform assisted suicides for mentally competent adults. The voting was momentarily delayed when Ruth Ellen Brosseau and other NDP members of the parliament surrounded the Conservative Party whip Gordon Brown to block him from taking his place. Upon witnessing the confrontation, Trudeau briskly walked over and attempted to break off the barricade, during which Brosseau was accidentally struck by Trudeau’s elbow. That day, YouTuber David Akin uploaded video footage of the confrontation (shown below).

Developments

Following the incident, NDP House leader Peter Julian criticized Trudeau’s actions, accusing the Prime Minister of “manhandling” Brown. Additionally, NDP MP Tracey Ramsey claimed Trudeau yelled “get the fuck out of my way” as he “violently” grabbed Brown.

Trudeau’s Response

The same day, Trudeau publicly apologized for his behavior at the House of Commons (shown below).

Online Reaction

That day, the hashtag #elbowgate began trending on Twitter, with some criticizing Trudeau’s actions, some defending the Prime Minister and others mocking the incident.

On May 19th, the Rebel Media YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “Elbowgate is being blown way out of proportion” (shown below). The same day, Redditor tribalDemon submitted a post asking about the scandal to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[3]

On May 20th, the Canadian political news site Ipolitics^[2] reported that there were over 5,400 tweets mentioning Brosseau and the elbowing incident, with 48% being “negative or critical” of her actions.

Search Interest

External References

About

Polygon is a video game news site owned by Vox Media.

History

On October 4th, 2012, Polygon^[1] was launched as the third web property by Vox Media out of the company’s tech news blog The Verge.

Controversies

GamerGate

In the wake of the Zoe Post that spawned the GamerGate movement, many criticized Polygon editor Ben Kuchera for donating to the Patreon page of video game developer Zoe Quinn prior to reviewing her game. On August 26th, Polygon released a statement announcing that all writers must disclose any contributions they have made to developer’s Patreon accounts.

Rock Band 4 Review

On June 1st, 2015, Polygon^[2] published an article about the game Rock Band 4. The article was widely criticized for

The following day, TotalBiscuit posted a dramatic reading of the article on SoundCloud, in which he mimics the accent of a wealthy aristocrat (shown below).

Doom Gameplay Footage

On May 12th, 2016, Polygon uploaded a 30-minute video containing footage from the recently released reboot of the “Doom”: video game series (shown below). In the video, the player is shown moving erratically and repeatedly missing targets while shooting various weapons. After many viewed left comments pointing out the player’s lack of first-person shooter experience, the comments and ratings were disabled for the video. That day, the video was mocked on the /r/gaming^[3] and /r/KotakuInAction^[4] subreddits.

Traffic

Search Interest

External References

Phil Kessel is a professional hockey player in the NHL. While playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins, after beating the Tampa Bay Lightning on May 18th, 2016, Phil Kessel was interviewed by Pierre McGuire.The interviewer wanted to know if Phil was out of breath or tired, so he asked, “How’s your breath?”

Phil misinterpreted the question as if the interviewer wanted to know if his breath stunk after playing hockey, so he replied, “Not good, eh?”

The interview instantly went viral, and many news sites began publishing the humorous misunderstanding.

The next game, on May 20th, 2016, The Pittsburgh Penguins, looking to have a little fun, put Listerine mouth wash and an assortment of gum atop Kessel’s dressing room stall, to help him with his “bad breath.”