About

“Scared Squidward” refers to a still image of Squidward Tentactles looking around a white space with a scared look on his face. The image gained notice on Twitter due to it’s apparent forced nature and it’s resemblance to SpongeGar.

Origin

The still image originates from the season one Spongebob Squarepants episode SB-129 in which Squidward is trapped in an area known as “nowhere”, and is unable to find a way out.

On June 18th, 2016, Twitter user @IceSeason101 posted the still with the title “Random Season 1 Spongebob screenshot. The internet is gonna make this into a terrible meme watch.”, which has gained over 300 retweets and 500 likes in one day. This post led to other Twitter users creating edits of the image.

Spread

On June 18th, 2016, Twitter user Squidward Talks posted an image of Scared Squidward along with a text bubble with the line “when you become a meme”.^[1] The image has since gained over 30 retweets and 100 likes in one day. On June 18th, 2016, Twitter user Scared Shane posted an image of Scared Squidward ascending to heaven along with the text "When someone misspells Scared Squidward as “Sacred Squidward”". The image has since gained over 60 retweets and 150 likes in one day.^[2]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not Yet Available

External References

^[1]Twitter – when you become a meme

^[2]Twitter – When someone misspells Scared Squidward as Sacred Squidward

About

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is a 3rd person stealth action game from the long running Metal Gear series developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami. The game takes place in 1964 during the height of the cold war and tells the origin story of the character Big Boss as he infiltrates into the Soviet Union in order to stop the military faction GRU from starting a world war and kill his mentor who defected from the United States.

History

Metal Gear Solid 3 was first announced during Konami’s pre-E3 press conference on May 12th, 2004 (shown below, left).^[1] The game was released on November 17th, 2004, exclusively for the Sony PlayStation 2. On March 14th, 2006, an updated version of the game titled Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence was released exclusively for the PlayStation 2. The updated version contains new features and gameplay such as the option to toggle in a 3rd person camera, new uniforms and face camo, a playable version of Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, as well as an all new multiplayer mode dubbed Metal Gear Online. Metal Gear Solid 3 was subsequently ported to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 8th, 2011, and to the PlayStation Vita on June 12th, 2012. A slighlty revamped version of Metal Gear Solid 3 titled Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D was released for the Nintendo 3DS on February 21st, 2012 (shown below, right).

Pachinko Machine

On October 5th, 2015, Kotaku reported that Konami Parlor Entertainment has filed in a trademark for “Big Boss”, suggesting that Konami plans to make a Metal Gear themed pachinko machine.^[2] On June 1st, 2016, KPE released the trailer for an upcoming pachinko machine that is themed after Metal Gear Solid 3 (shown below).

Reception

WIP

Online Presence

WIP

Related Memes

Big Boss Salute

Big Boss Smile

WIP

Remember The Basics Of CQC

You’re Pretty Good…

Snake Eater / What a Thrill

Search Interest

External Reference

About

Norman Reedus Holding Things is a photoshop meme based on a still image of actor Norman Reedus cradling an infant in the trailer for the upcoming Hideo Kojima video game Death Stranding.

Origin

On June 13th, 2016, Kojima Productions released the first trailer for Death Stranding, in which Reedus wakes up naked on a beach next to an infant, whom he tries to cradle in his arms before it turns invisible and crawls away from him

That evening, Twitter user @etescetera^[5] tweeted a photoshopped picture of Reedus cradling Hideo Kojima’s head, which accumulated more than 5,400 likes and 5,200 retweets over the next week (shown below).

Spread

The following day, Twitter user @markyanna^[6] tweeted a photoshop of Reedus holding a statue of the video game character Waluigi (shown below). Within one week, the tweet garnered upwards of 1,500 likes and 1,000 retweets.

Also on June 14th, Redditor, PwnagraphicX submitted an edited image of Reedus tightly holding a PlayStation 4 console to the /r/gaming subreddit (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Twitter user @Nibellion^[2] posted a photoshopped picture of Reedus cradling a copy of the upcoming Wii U game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (shown below, right). Within one week, the tweet gathered upwards of 1,600 likes and 1,500 retweets.

That day, Tumblr^[3] user zabka-zee posted an edited Christian painting featuring Kojima and Reedus (shown below). On June 15th, the video game news blog Destructoid^[1] published an article about the photoshop meme. On June 17th, Mashable^[4] published a listicle highlighting several notable examples.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

“You Hear About Video Games?” is a series of parodies based on a cartoon strip from the popular webcomic series Ctrl+Alt+Del in which Ethan, the protagonist character and the owner of the video game store GameHaven, pretentiously lectures a customer on the negative consequences of unconfirmed rumors about video games in development. The photoshopped parodies, which typically begin with a customer trying to strike up a conversation about video games with Ethan and ends with him holding up his arms out of frustration, can be seen as a mockery of the protagonist’s obsession with video games.

Origin

The original comic, titled Misinformationalized, was posted on the Ctrl+Alt+Del website on November 19th, 2010. While the source of the earliest known edit remains unknown, it has been speculated that the parody phenomenon began on 4chan. On January 16th, 2012, the earliest archived post featuring the two-panel edition of the original cartoon strip was posted on the British forum Overclockers.^[2]

Spread

In the following years, the two-panel edition of the original comic was used on numerous occassions as a situational reaction image. On December 2nd, 2015, Tumblr user acedefectiveinvestigations uploaded an image of Shovel Knight character Plague Knight mimicking Ethan’s “arms in the air” gesture (shownbelow), gaining over 2,400 notes within the next 6 months.^[3] Since then, additional parodies based on Misinformationalized began to surface on Tumblr

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

“Updog” is a made-up term based on a wordplay of the colloquial expression “what’s up, dog?” that is commonly used as a practical joke to elicit the question “what’s updog?” from someone, to which the prankster typically responds with the punchline "Nothing. What’s up with you?

Origin

The exact origin of the joke is unclear. On December 6th, 2000, Ars Technica Forums^[4] member Col. Forbin submitted a variation of the prank to a thread titled “jokes that make you groan and/or wanna smack your forehead.”

Spread

On May 1st, 2003, Urban Dictionary^[1] user hairy chonch submitted an entry for “up dog,” defining it as a “corny joke.” On January 19th, 2006, Season 2 Episode 13 of The Office was broadcast, which features a variation of the joke during the show’s opening skit (shown below).

On February 13th, 2011, League of Legends Forums^[5] member renticletape submitted a post joking that “Updog is way too powerful” in the MOBA game. On April 10th, 2013, Redditor youre_a_big_guy submitted several multi-pane Game of Thrones image macros featuring various updog jokes (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 3,000 votes (88% upvoted) and 240 comments on /r/gameofthrones.^[3]

On December 19th, 2014, BuzzFeed^[6] published a listicle titled “The 21 Greatest Updogs of 2014,” highlighting various social media posts referencing the joke. That month, the parody communications platform Updog.pw^[2] was launched. On August 6th, 2015, the GameGrumps uploaded a animated skit about the joke (shown below). Within nine months, the video received upwards of 3.2 million views and 2,800 comments.

Search Interest

External References

Create by the French Youtube pooper Yoonns, this meme is compose of a vidéo with Cristiano Ronaldo Disguise as a homeless :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxBfD1SC06M
and the songs Runaways by All Time Low :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1X7YLJBtLk

This is the original video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTFTTbAOekg

He appears instead of something unknown (like an Item in a chest) Or when someone put his hand on his glasses like that :
https://youtu.be/pYX_8k6sNac?t=10

Origin

Kekcroc is an obscure video game released in 1993 for the Sega Genesis. Little is known about the game as there appears to be nothing about it online except for the box art itself. The game has been described as low effort and unlicensed, and generally appearing the the clearance sections of various local discount stores throughout the 1990s. The game is also rumored to have been ported from Genesis to MS DOS, NES, and Gameboy. Various screenshots have also been posted but have not been confirmed as real, as well as box art and pictures of floppy disks for the apparent DOS version from 1994. The box art features the world “KEKCROC” in 3D Text along with a very crude 3D Model of the titular character surrounded by phrases such as “Rock around the Croc!” and “A fun family experience!”.

Spread

In June of 2016, the box art was posted to 4chan’s /v/ board and later spread to [s4s] due to “kek” being included in the name. The box art was rumored to have been found on old archives of a local game store’s website although this origin is also unknown. The image is generally used as a reaction image and is most popular on 4chan’s s4s board, again due to it’s name and crude box art.

Gameplay and Investigation

Although there are no videos of gameplay, descriptions of the game from anons from /v/ who claimed to have played include crude animations, jerky controls and movements, a terrible password system in the DOS port, the ability to collect “crocodollars”, and a location called “Toasty’s Castle” in level 5. Kekcroc himself is depicted as a generic crocodile wearing a yellow straw hat, and the game’s default weapon has been said to be a toilet plunger. An anon who claimed to work at a video game store during the 1990s posted images of a document asking for more information on the game after seeing it’s box and questioning it’s quality dated April 1993, which indicates that it was even obscure in its own time.
The last and most important proof of the game’s existence is a short sound clip from the game featuring very good voice sampling for a genesis game. The sound clip is of the titular character Kekcroc saying “Hi, I’m Kekcroc”.

About

“Kiwi!” is a 2006 CGI animated short film created by New York-based artist Dony Permedi^[1] and scored by Permedi’s high school friend Tim Cassell that depicts a flightless kiwi bird’s attempt at flight. Since the film was uploaded in mid 2006 the video has been viewed millions of times and has received a sizeable fanbase online whose members have created their own endings to to the film.

Origin

On June 27, 2016, then New York City School of Visual Arts student Dony Permedi (under his username Madyeti47) uploaded the short film to YouTube, stating in the video description that it was his Master’s Thesis animation.^[2] As of June 20, 2016 the video has been viewed over 40 million times.

Spread

On December 20, 2006 YouTube user Blueinferno Disco uploaded a video that paired Kiwi! with the 1982 song “Mad World” by English rock group Tears for Fears.^[3] As of June 20, 2016 this version has received over 5.6 million views. After the video won “Most Adorable” in YouTube’s first ever video awards, it was mentioned by several media outlets.^[4][5][6]

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Don Permedi – Senior Animator | CG Artist

^[2]YouTube – Kiwi!

^[3]YouTube – Kiwi Mad World Version

^[4]ABC News – YouTube Goes Hollywood

^[5]Washington Post – Ask a Ninja,’ OK Go Win YouTube Awards

^[6]New York Times – YouTube Awards the Top of Its Heap

WiP

About

Alice-chan! / ありすクソコラグランプリ refers to a series of image edits which feature THE iDOLM@STER character Alice Tachibana lying in an exhausted manner. The edits have appeared mostly on predominantly Japanese speaking sites, most notably within the Japanese speaking community of the social networking site Twitter

Origin

On June 20th, 2016, Twitter user @Aya_tobi uploaded an image featuring the character in the background of said image exhausted on the ground as well as a second image which showed a close-up of Alice (shown below).

Spread

That same day @Aya_tobi posted several other images featuring Alice in odd places such as a Kung Fu dojo (shown below, left),^[1] and the underground passage of the Shinjuku Station (shown below, right).^[2]

In the following hours many twitter users began uploading their own edits under the hashtag “#ありすクソコラグランプリ”^[3] which roughly translates to “Alice Fucking Kola Grand Prix.” The following day various Japanese news and blog sites reported on the hashtag including ACGer^[4] and ITmedia.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available

External Links

About

Crying LeBron is a photoshop meme and Twitter caption series based on a photograph of Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James crying while embracing teammate Kevin Love following their team’s championship win against the Golden State Warriors in late June 2016. The series has been widely compared to the Crying Michael Jordan photoshop meme.

Origin

On June 19th, 2016, the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors 93 to 89 in the NBA Finals championship game, marking the team’s first championship victory in 52 years. Immediately after the match, LeBron James celebrated by embracing his teammates and collapsing to the ground while crying (shown below).

That evening Twitter user Ross Bolen^[1] tweeted a photograph of James embracing teammate Kevin Love while crying, along with the caption “This is the photo that becomes the crying LeBron meme” (shown below). Within 48 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 5,200 likes and 3,200 retweets.

Spread

Also on June 19th, Twitter user Brandy Jensen^[3] posted the photograph of James along with the caption “When u r drunk and Landslide comes on,” gathering upwards of 1,900 likes and 800 retweets in two days (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Twitter user Sophia Benoit^[2] captioned the photo with the joke “when that one couple in your friend group finally breaks up for good” (shown below, right).

Also on June 19th, the CringLeBronJames Instagram^[4] feed was created, which gathered more than 6,600 followers in the next 48 hours. On June 20th, other Twitter users began photoshopping a cutout of the face on to other base images of various contexts, along with the hashtag #CryingLebron^[12] (shown below).

Meanwhile, the Clevver News YouTube channel posted a round-up of celebrity reactions to the LeBron James Crying photograph (shown below).

On June 21st, the Good Morning America Twitter account posted a tweet about #CryingLeBron, which mislabeled the Kermit the Frog tea-sipping image with the hashtag “#tealizard” (shown below, left). That day, the post was widely mocked by other Twitter users, including Vine comedian Victor Pope Jr. (shown below, right).^[5] In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the Crying LeBron meme, including Quartz,^[6] US Weekly,^[7] Cosmopolitan,^[8] E! News,^[9] UpRoxx^[10] and Complex.^[11]

Search Interest

External References

Work in progress

About

Thicc is a bastardization of the term “thick”, used as slang by black communities in order to refer to women’s hips or bottoms. Online, the term is used to refer to curvy individuals or big posteriors.

Origin

The term comes as a corruption of “thick”, typically used by black men to refer to pronounced hourglass-like figures and butts on women. For a long time, the term had a niche use on pornography, but its use started to rise on some communities like Twitter, Tumblr and iFunny in middle 2015. On October 13th, 2015, Urban Dictionary user thiccbitchrivermonster submitted a definition to the word, gaining over 150 positive votes in the following months.^[5]

Spread

[WIP]

T H I C K

He Got Rolls

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

#TeaLizard is an alternative nickname for the image of Kermit the Frog sipping a cup of tea that was famously featured in the “But That’s None of My Business” image macro series. In June 2016, the nickname went viral in the form of a hashtag on Twitter after it was erroneously used by ABC’s morning TV show Good Morning America to refer to the meme in a tweet about the emergence of LeBron James Crying.

Origin

On June 20th, 2016, Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James, who led the team to earning its first NBA championship title in history, returned home wearing a cap embroidered with an image of The Muppets character Kermit the Frog sipping tea. That same day, James posted an Instagram of his meme-themed hat alongside the Larry O’Brien Trophy with the caption taunting his critics and skeptics.

On June 21st, LeBron James’ humorous fashion statement was picked up by several news sites and sports blogs, including USA Today, Washington Post, GQ, New York Daily News and BarStoolSports. In addition, ABC’s morning TV news program Good Morning America (GMA) also chimed in on the emerging Crying Lebron photoshop meme with a tweet asking the followers whether it should be counted among the ranks of other well-known memes in the sports world, including Crying Michael Jordan and “That’s None of My Business,” which erroneously mislabeled Kermit the Frog’s tea-sipping image with the hashtag #teallizard.

Spread

In the following hour, GMA’s tweet was met with a slew of snide remarks and reaction images from its followers and others on Twitter who noticed the misnomer #tealizard, as well as the curious inclusion of the hashtag #smockin (a misspelling of “smokin”) in reference to a picture of the titular character from _ The Mask_. By afternoon on June 21st, the hashtag #tealizard had begun trending on Twitter, while several entertainment and sports news sites began reporting on the story.

Various Examples

GMA’s Response

About an hour after the original tweet went live, GMA subtly acknowledged its mistake with a follow-up tweet featuring an image of Kermit the Frog doing the facepalm along with a short apology directed at The Muppets character’s Twitter handle.

Kermit the Frog’s Response

At 3:04 p.m. (ET), Kermit the Frog’s official Twitter account responded to the mix-up of the memes with the hashtag "#PutSomeRespekOnMyName":knowyourmeme.com/memes/put-some-respeck-on-my-name, a reference to a memorable quote said by American rapper Birdman during a guest appearance on a radio show in April 2016.

Search Interest

External References

About

FrankJavCee is the online handle of musician and vlogger Francisco Jav Contreras, who is best known for posting YouTube instructional videos for creating various types of web content, most notably related to aesthetics and vaporwave.

Online History

In January 2010, Contreras launched the @frankjavcee^[2] Twitter feed, gaining over 14,000 followers in the next seven years. In May 2011, he created the FrankJavCee SoundCloud page.^[3] On December 19th, 2011, Contreras uploaded a chiptune remix of the 2011 dubstep song “First of the Year (Equinox)” by Skrillex to his FrankJavCee YouTube channel (shown below, left). On May 4th, 2012, he posted a “caffeinestep” remix of the 2012 Lana Del Ray track “Off to the Races” (shown below, right).

In September the FrankJavCee Tumblr^[4] blog was created. On July 21st, 2014, Contreras uploaded a comedy tutorial video titled “How To Make Vaporwave,” in which he describes how to make vaporwave music with FL Studio software (shown below, left). Within two years, the video gained over 899,000 views and 1,600 comments. On November 14th, he released an instructional video for making songs in the trap genre (shown below, right).

In February 2015, the Frankjavcee Facebook^[5] musician page was launched, garnering more than 14,400 likes within two years. That same month, the /r/FrankJavCee^[6] subreddit was created. On April 10th, 2016, Contreras posted a tutorial video for making Simpsonswave content (shown below, left). Within two months, the video received upwards of 312,000 views and 1,300 comments. On June 16th, Contreras released a synthwave music video made in collaboration with YouTuber Hot Dad titled “R.I.P. Meme,” with lyrics lamenting the brief lives of viral internet memes (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

New Zealand Gardening Ban Hoax is an online rumor which asserts that home gardening and other horticultural activities are illegal in the island country of New Zealand.

Origin

One of the earliest online discussions regarding the legality of growing vegetables in New Zealand can be found on ENZ forum^[2] in a thread posted on November 26th, 2011. In the thread, several participants cited critical and even alarmist interpretations of Food Bill 160-2, a legislative proposal calling for sweeping reforms and amendments to New Zealand’s domestic food regulatory regime, many of which implied that the bill could result in severe restrictions on home gardening and selling homegrown produce.

Food Act 2014

The rumor of New Zealand’s purported nationwide ban on personal gardening stemmed from public discussions about Food Bill 160-2^[1], which was first introduced by the New Zealand Parliament on May 26th, 2010. After several years of deliberation and reviews of the proposal, Food Bill 160-2 was legislated into law by the New Zealand Parliament on June 6th, 2014, and went into effect as of March 1st, 2016.

Spread

On May 23rd, 2013, Yahoo Answers user Trashcan submitted a question^[3] titled “Is it really illegal to grow your own food in New Zealand?” to which several users responded by mentioning the Food Bill, with some clarifying that the law wouldn’t impose restrictions on personal horticultural activities, such as growing vegetables and fruits at home.

On November 25th, 2014, Redditor WhyNotSmeagol submitted a post titled “can you have a garden in New Zealand” to /r/newzealand, asking the locals about the legal status of owning a garden in the Oceanic island country. Prior to its archival, the post garnered 1,379 points (97% upvoted) and 377 comments, with virtually all participants in the thread offering a range of fabricated, tongue-in-cheek explanations that support the hearsay cited in the original post.

On November 26th, New Zealand news site Stuff reported on the birth of the bizarre myth on Reddit, which highlighted several facetious replies from the thread. On November 27th, MetaFilter user Sebmojo submitted a link to the Stuff article in a post titled “The Spring Bok-Choi Riots of 1981,” along with an excerpt of a comment posted by Redditor Sacredsnowhawk in the original thread.

“My brother was killed in the Moutua Gardens protest. My uncle lost an arm in the 1981 Spring Bok-choi Riots. My sisters were arrested and thrown into prison, without trial, by a police-led mob after they were discovered re-potting gardenias. Every day I live in fear, alienated by my community for having relatives marked by the Green Thumb. I envy the dead.”

Resurgence in 2016

In 2015, the rumor gradually waned following the legislation of the bill. Then in June 2016, the rumor resurfaced online with a new twist amidst a critical shortage and price inflation of avocados in New Zealand. On June 16th, 2016, Redditor DinaDinaDinaBatman submitted a photograph of his mom posing with a peace sign and a scarf around her face in a post titled “Even My Mom Flouts the Law….Growing her Own Avocado in her Illegal Garden.” Over the next seven days, the post garnered more than 4,818 points (91% upvoted) and 696 comments on /r/newzealand, eventually reaching the front page of Reddit.

On June 19th, Redditor SiameseVegan re-posted the photograph originally submitted by Redditor DinaDinaDinaBatman to /r/pics in a post titled “New Zealand Woman Poses with Illegally Planted Avocado Tree,” which once again reached the front page of Reddit after garnering 4,866 points (80% upvoted) and 2,959 comments. That same day, Redditor Heavy_Metal_Viking submitted a photograph of a rectangular pit on a lawn in a /r/newzealand post titled “My garden was seized today. Fuck you /r/NZ , you brought too much attention to this issue,” alleging that his garden had been recently inspected and seized by officials from the Department of Agriculture.

Well well, loose lips sink ships. A few members of the Dept. of Agriculture showed up and ripped it all out. They practically goose stepped in with jack boots. This is what I was left with. I was barred from my own property while they did their work, and now I have a cease and desist letter and a hefty fine.

On June 20th, Redditor submitted a photograph of a sit-down protest to /r/pics in a post titled “New Zealanders take to the streets to protest absurd gardening ban. Show them some solidarity,” garnering 3,788 points (87% upvoted) and 674 comments (shown below). That same day, Redditor StampAct submitted a question about the alleged gardening laws in a /r/outoftheloop post titled “Is the New Zealand anti-gardening law real or not? Seriously I’m sick of this someone just tell me the truth.”

Search Interest

External References

Work in progress.

About

(You) is a term used in 4chan as equivalent to the word “reply”, usually employed as response to posts that are seen as trolling or bait, being often used as the catchphrase “Here’s Your (You)”.

Origin

4chan, along with several imageboards, has a feature that adds (You) to the post number when replying in order to ease the navigation to users. It’s unknown when (You) became associated to provocative posts, but one of the earliest archived uses of the catchphrase comes from a /vg/ post from October 26th, 2014.^[1]

Spread

During the following months, the catchphrase began spreading to other boards, remaining dormant until early 2015.^[2][4][5] Along with the phrase, several edited images featuring the word were created, like one featuring a character from Kantai Collection dating back to February 16th, 2016.^[3]

Various Examples

Overview

#ProudToBe is an online video campaign launched by YouTube in support of the LGBTQ community and celebration of LGBT Pride Month in June 2016. Upon its launch with an official YouTube Spotlight video featuring a rotation of popular vloggers, the campaign drew an influx of coming out videos from closeted members of the LGBTQ community on YouTube, as well as a raid operation by anonymous trolls on 4chan.

Background

On June 26th, 2015, YouTuber Jeremy Judkins uploaded a coming out video titled “#Proudtobe My Coming Out and Same Sex Marriage Story,” in which he discussed his experience with marrying another man and encouraged others to “do what makes you happy” (shown below, left). On May 25th, 2016, YouTuber NyeDav uploaded a coming out video titled “My Coming Out Story #ProudToBe,” in which he discussed his early childhood experiences with gender identity and sexual orientation (shown below).

Developments

YouTube Spotlight Video

On June 21st, 2016, the YouTube Spotlight uploaded a video titled “#ProudToBe: Coming Together to Celebrate Identity,” featuring a montage of LGBTQA people discussing their gender identities (shown below).

Meanwhile, the YouTube Official Blog^[1] published an article about the video and hashtag campaign, noting that the video-sharing site was “a place where anyone can belong no matter who they are or who they love.” Within 24 hours, the video gained over 5.5. million views and 238,000 comments, many of which were engaged in arguments regarding the video’s message.

4chan Raid

That day, the video was submitted to several threads on 4chan’s /b/ (random) board, where viewers were invited to raid the comments section for the purpose of intentionally angering LGBTQA activists and mocking gender identity politics.^[2]

Online Reaction

On June 21st, Twitter user @CalumMcSwiggan^[5] posted a photograph of himself holding an arrow sign with #ProudToBe written on the front (shown below).

The same day, the WOWPresents YouTube channel uploaded a #ProudToBe video featuring various contestants from the reality television show Ru Paul’s Drag Race (shown below, left). Meanwhile, YouTuber This Is A Commentary uploaded a video titled “Who I’m #ProudToBe,” in which he discusses coming out as bisexual (shown below, right).

Also on June 21st, Redditor fabslabs submitted the video to /r/CringeAnarchy.^[6] The next day, Redditor AttilaTheSean submitted a post about the YouTube videos comment section to /r/OutOfTheLoop,^[3] to which Redditor tacutamon cited the 4chan threads as the primary cause of the negative comments. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the hashtag, including Tubefilter,^[7] The Daily Dot^[9] and The Huffington Post.^[8]

Search Interest

External References

About

My Wife’s Son is a pejorative term that originated from 4chan to insult those who are apart of the Regressive Left. The term is similarly used to the word cuck, and is often paired with Carl the Cuck.

Origin

On August 30th, 2015, an Anonymous poster on 4chan’s fitness board, /fit/, posted a topic titled “>tfw brought my wife’s son to the gym for the first time today and showed him some basic exercises”. The thread was later screencapped on the subreddit, /r/4chan, where it got 1,186 upvotes.

Spread

The term is often used around 4chan, with over 4,400 results from the /pol/ board^[1], and and 4,300 from the /tv/ board^[2].

On March 17th, 2016, KnowYourMeme user Don, uploaded a photo originally from 4chan, depicting Carl the Cuck, with a smaller version of himself, with the text “Don’t Talk to Me Or My Son Again”. The picture became highly redirected, garnering over 25,000 views, and the phrase in the photo also became used similarly to My Wife’s Son.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Smockin” is an intentional misspelling of the catchphrase “smoking” uttered by the protagonist in the 1994 comedy film The Mask, which is often associated with a photograph of Jim Carrey’s costumed stunt double from the film.

Origin

On January 14th, 2015, Redditor Join_You_In_The_Sun submitted a photograph of The Mask co-stars Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz posed next to their two stunt doubles to /r/Moviesinthemaking^[8] (shown below).^[8] In the comments section, Redditor notfromhere23 remarked that Carrey’s stunt double resembles the Feels Guy.

Spread

On February 13th, 2015, Redditor mark2d resubmitted the photograph to /r/movies,^[7] where it garnered upwards of 3,000 votes (94% upvoted) and 370 comments prior to being archived. On April 9th, the @Realmaskparody parody Twitter account was launched, written from the perspective of The Mask stunt double.

On April 18th, the account tweeted the word “Smockin!”^[4] According to an article by Complex,^[5] the term “smockin” was subsequently popularized by Twitter user @trillballins in reference to the stunt double. On August 12th, Twitter user @MikeAkaleroy^[2] posted a photograph of The Mask stunt double photoshopped on to Mt. Rushmore along with Guy Fieri, Crying Michael Jordan and the Tom Brady courtroom sketch (shown below, left). That tweet was subsequently deleted. On August 13th, the Twitter feed for the morning talk show Good Morning America retweeted the image, speculating that it may be the “most popular meme” (shown below, right).^[1]

On November 19th, Twitter user @ChrisVannini^[9] tweeted a photograph of a Michigan State Spartans football fan holding a sign featuring The Mask stunt double (shown below).

On June 21st, 2016, the Good Morning America Twitter account posted a tweet about #CryingLeBron, which referred to The Mask stunt double photo as “#smockin / the mask” and the Kermit the Frog tea-sipping image with the hashtag “#tealizard” (shown below, left)

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Hajime no Ippo (The First Step) is a Japanese boxing manga series written and illustrated by George (Jōji) Morikawa and published by Kodansha. It follows Makunouchi Ippo, a young boy who dreams of becoming a professional boxer. The series has been adapted into an anime television series by Madhouse which went on for three seasons.

History

The first chapter of Hajime no Ippo was published in 1989 in Kodansha’s Weekly shonen Magazine. Since then it was published over 1000 chapters and is still ongoing. In 2000 the manga was adapted into a 76 episode anime television series by Madhouse titled Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting!. In 2003 Madhouse produced a TV movie of the series titled Champion Road. In 2009 Madhouse produced a second season titled Hajime no Ippo: New Challenger and in 2013 a third season titled Hajime no Ippo: Rising. On December 11, 2014 a fighting video game titled Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting was released on the Playstation 3 in celebration of the series 25th anniversary.

Online Presence

The Series has gained a large fan base over the course of it’s run. It has it’s own wiki and a subreddit that has 2,218 subscriptions. On January 1, 2015, Matt and Pat of the Super Best Friends Youtube group published a video titled Super Best Friends Boxing: THEFIGHTING– Hajime no Ippo – The Fighting in which they played the Hajime no Ippo – The Fighting, video game.

Reception

The series has received good reviews with manga earned an average of 8.7 on MyAnimeList.net, making it 52nd best manga on the site. The first, second, and third season of the anime have ratings of 8.8, 8.8, and 8.7 on MyAnimeList.net respectively.

Search Interest

External References

Wikipedia- George Morikawa

Wikipedia- Hajime no Ippo

Wikipedia- TV Anime

Wikipedia- TV Movie

Wikipedia- Manga

Hajime no Ippo wiki- Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting (video game)

About

“shoutouts to simpleflips” is a phrase used when one shouts out the twitch live-streamer “simpleflips”.

Origin

Shouting out simpleflips dates back as far as may 2014. People would often shout him out for speed running Super mario 64.

Spread

On april 1st, 2016, a rom hack of Super mario 64 called “Super ultra kaizo memeio road 128 stars extreme edition revenge deluxe” was uploaded to google drive by the user Kaze Emanuar.

Within this hack, Mario is stuck in a wheelchair, and many memes are scattered throughout the game. i.e. “my b”, John Cena’s theme, and of course, “shoutouts to simpleflips” which replaces nearly every text box in the game.

On may 9th, 2016, Twitch user Vargskelethor (a.k.a. vinesauce joel) streamed the hack and later uploaded a Highlight video to Youtube.

This page is a work in progress.