Amethyst’s Burrito comes from the twentieth to twenty-first episode of the third season of Steven Universe which involves a part where Amethyst makes a pizza, and puts it into a burrito, and soon eats it in a very interesting way the scene after.

Editor’s Note: This entry is a WIP. Please request editorship or suggest a change if you think you can help.

About

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OwO What’s This? is a snowclone meme, parodying both furries and online roleplay. The snowclone is often used in random locations for humorous effect.

Origin

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Editor’s Note: This entry is a WIP. Please request editorship or suggest a change if you think you can help.

About

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Come to Brazil is a phrase often associated with Brazilian social media users requesting various celebrities to visit their home country. The phrase is often used sarcastically to mock Brazilian users in a similar manner to how Cyka Blyat is used to mock Russians.

Origin

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Sad Samus is a meme created by Niboc.Rock when he made a render of Samus sitting down, looking sad. The meme is basically Samus sitting in situations for comical purposes. The render was uploaded to twitter August 6, 2016, without a comment. This meme (as of typing) has mainly stayed within twitter, but it might expand to other websites later.

History

This meme was made in celebration of Metroid’s 30th anniversary, or the lack of celebration on Nintendo’s part. It also represents the fact the Nintendo put a stop to the remake made by fans to celebrate the occasion.

About

Does Bruno Mars Is Gay? refers to an engrish article that investigates whether or not pop singer Bruno Mars is gay.

Origin

In 2014, the article, written by Ndoro Alisan, appeared on brunomars.us under the title “The Rumor Come Out: Does Bruno Mars is Gay?”^[1] The first paragraph reads:

Bruno Mars is gay is the most discussed in the media in the few years ago. Even it has happened in 2012, but some of the public still curious about what is exactly happening and to be the reason there is a rumor comes out about his gay. At that time he became the massive social networking rumor. The public, especially his fans are shocked. He just came out with his bad rumor which is spread massively. This time is not about his music career, but his bad rumor. The rumor is out of standardize of hoax, according the last reported this singer revealed himself as homosexual. Do you still believe or not, this rumor is really much talked by people even in a person of his fans.

Spread

The article remained relatively unseen until May 17th, 2016, when the Game Grumps brought it up in an episode of their Let’s Play of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. ^[2] As of August 8th, 2016, the video has over 515,000 views. The same day, a screenshot of the opening paragraph appeared on Onsizzle.^[3] Soon after, the article appeared on Reddit in both the /r/titlegore^[4] and /r/engrish^[5] subreddits, where it received 190 points, 96% upvotes and 56 points, 87% upvotes respectively. On July 18th, 2016, a Facebook page^[7] dedicated to the article and memes surrounding it was created and accrued over 2,000 likes in less than a month. On August 4th, Game Grumps posted an animated video by ToriDomi of their conversation about the article (shown below),^[6] which gained almost 900,000 views in four days, leading to the height of the phrase’s popularity.

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(Entry W.I.P)

About

Spongebob History Memes is a series of images that feature scenes from various Spongebob episodes with captions added relating the information with actual historical or war related images. Some images would be given a caption colorized if the situation is set during the 1800’s or 1950’s.

Origin

In early August 2016, an image got submitted to the subreddit r/Bikinibottomtwitter by user JRA50 that shows Spongebob and Sandy with the image comparing it to an event during World War 1.

This image started gaining attention on the subreddit and it later inspired other users to take screenshots from various Spongebob episodes and adding a caption (sometimes in black and white) that is set in a historical event featuring Spongebob & Friends.

Spread

A few days later on the same subreddit, user Tr0nJ0n submitted another image that features Spongebob with text about Pearl harbor. This image got the most attention from users with a total of 12 comments. These images would also start spreading on Twitter the in early August 2016. Later images also featured Filthy Frank which had also become popular in social media.

Various Examples

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About

Tonga Flag Bearer is a nickname given to Tongan Taekwondo champion Pita Taufatofua following his appearance at the 2016 Rio Olympics opening ceremony in early August 2016, where he was seen carrying his country’s flag while shirtless and covered in oil. Following his appearance, many internet users joked about his attractive physique and oily torso.

Origin

On August 5th, 2016, Taufatofua led the Tongan delegation as a flag bearer at the Olympics opening ceremony at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was seen shirtless, covered in oil and wearing a traditional ta’ovala skirt. That day, the NBC Sports YouTube channel uploaded footage of the flag bearer, gaining over 460,000 views and 1,500 comments within 72 hours (shown below).

Spread

That day, Twitter user @GraemeONeil^[2] posted a video clip of Taufatofua along with a joke that his country “now has a shortage of oil” (shown below). Within 72 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 1,100 likes and 800 retweets.

Shortly after, Twitter user @SlavaMalamud^[5] tweeted “the sound you hear is your wife running away to the Tongan flag bearer,” accumulating more than 1,600 likes and 500 retweets in three days. Meanwhile, the @BBCSport^[6] Twitter feed posted a photo of Taufatofua with the caption “Tonga’s flag bearer has gone a bit heavy on the oil” (shown below. Within three days, the accumulated more than 1,600 and 3,800 likes respectively. Also on August 5th, a moment feed titled “We need to talk about Tonga’s flag-bearer” was created on Twitter.

On August 6th, Redditor Blue-Black submitted several photos of Taufatofua to the /r/Ohlympics^[1] subreddit. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Taufatofua’s opening ceremony appearance, including The Daily What,^[3]Yahoo! Sports,^[7] UpRoxx,^[8]The Daily Mail,^[9]BuzzFeed^[10] and The Daily Dot.^[11]

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About

Trailer Park Boys is a Canadian television show created by Mike Clattenburg. It’s a mockumentary-style comedy following the lives of the residents of the fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The main characters are Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles.

History

The characters Julian and Ricky first appeared in 1998 in the unreleased, Clattenburg-drected short film One Last Shot, while Bubbles originated in the 1995 film, The Cart Boy, also unaired.^[1] The original Trailer Park Boys feature film was released in 1999 and shown at the Atlantic Film Festival. It was then developed into a series, and picked up by Showcase. The show ran from 2001-2007, and was revived in 2014 and picked up by Netflix. There have been ten seasons and three films released in the series.

Plot

Trailer Park Boys follows Julian, Ricky, and Bubbles as they pursue petty crimes while avoiding the park’s alcoholic supervisor, Jim Lahey. Every season follows the gang trying to pull off one big scheme, ending with them either going to jail or succeeding, but blowing their success in the interim between seasons.

Recurring characters include Randy (Patrick Roach), Leahy’s assistant and part-time lover; J-Roc (Jonathan Torrens), a wannabe-rapper; Lucy, Ricky’s lover and mother of his child; Cory (Cory Bowles) and Trevor (Michael Jackson), two hapless admirers of Ricky and Julian who desperately want to be their friends; and many more. Famous guest stars include Sebastian Bach of the heavy metal band Skid Row playing a caricaturization of himself, Snoop Dogg doing the same, and a young Ellen Page playing Mr. Lahey’s daughter, Treena.

Online Presence

Trailer Park Boys developed a cult following during and after its initial run, and has grown a sizable internet fanbase. The /r/trailerparkboys^[2] subreddit has over 52,000 followers. The Trailer Park Boys Facebook page^[3] has over 1.6 million likes. The Trailer Park Boys Twitter^[4] has over 144,000 followers.

Related Memes

Rickyisms

“Rickyisms” are malapropisms that are a trademark of Ricky’s speech, i.e. “What comes around, is all around.” They’ve inspired their own memes^[5] and a Facebook page^[6] that has over 626,000 likes.

Shitology

Mr. Lahey commonly puts the word “shit” into phrases where they don’t belong, i.e. “The Shithawks.” This has turned into its own running gag on the show.

Randy on the Bus

A gif of Randy’s gut bumping a passenger on the bus has commonly been used as a way to bump older threads.

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About

You vs. The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About is an exploitableTwitter joke format where the poster posts two pictures, the one on the left representing “you” and the person on the left representing “the guy she told you not to worry about,” who is generally an upgrade or more attractive looking person.

Origin

The earliest known instance of this kind of tweet was posted by @AmBlujay^[1] on October 25th, 2015, shown below. As of August 8th, 2016, the tweet has almost 4,000 retweets and 1,550 likes.

Spread

The tweet format was copied a few times in the following month, but became a Twitter fad on August 7th, 2016, when tweets using the joke format featuring pop culture references^[5][6] and meme icons like Harambe^[3]and Guy Fieri^[4] gained thousands of retweets. The spike in the trend made “you vs. the guy she told you not to worry about” a “Twitter moment.”^[2]

Various Examples

External References

About

#PhelpsFace, also known as Angry Michael Phelps, is a hashtag series of jokes based on broadcast footage and images of American swimmer and Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps looking rather sullen while focusing on his pre-game meditation for the 200-meters Butterfly semifinals match in men’s swimming at the Summer Olympics in August 2016.

Origin

On August 8th, 2016, just moments before the 200m Butterfly semifinals went underway, one of NBC Sports camera crews covering the event spotted Michael Phelps, the American competition swimmer and the most decorated Olympian athlete of all time, mentally preparing himself in the bench area with a very serious look on his face, while his South African competitor Chad le Clos could be seen jumping around and shadowboxing in the vicinity (shown below; embed disabled).

Spread

As video clips and screenshots of Michael Phelps from the live broadcast began entering online circulation, viewers on Twitter quickly started churning out jokes that characterize the celebrity athlete as an irritable individual easily distressed by mild inconveniences and nuisances^[3][4][5], including several instances that cross-reference other popular media franchises and internet memes, such as the plot of the Star Wars saga,^[1]“Arthur’s Fist” and Harambe the gorilla.^[2]

On August 9th, Redditor BroLo_El_Cunado submitted an image of the frowny-faced athlete with the caption referencing the “Some of You Guys Are Alright” meme to /r/BlackPeopleTwitter^[11] in a post titled “Active Swimmer Situation down in Rio,” parodying a generic headline that is typically associated with breaking news stories on mass shootings. Within the first three hours, the post gained 2,662 points (93% upvotes) and hundreds of comments.

News Media Coverage

That same day, dozens of major U.S. news outlets covered the online reaction to Phelps’s single-minded warm-up routine, including The Daily Dot,^[6]CNN,^[7]USA Today,^[8] Rolling Stone^[9] and others,^[10] many of which underscored the moment as the latest meme to spring up from the Summer Olympics under its new moniker “Angry Michael Phelps,” while CNN described it as the 2016 successor to the Unimpressed McKayla meme featuring American gymnast McKayla Maroney that had gone viral during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Various Examples

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About

Frank Ocean is an American singer, songwriter and rapper, best known for his critically acclaimed 2012 R&B album Channel Orange.

History

In 2005, Ocean moved to Los Angeles, California, where he began ghostwriting songs for several prominent artists, including Justin Bieber, John Legend, Brandy and Beyoncé. In 2009, Ocean joined the hip hop collective Odd Future. On February 18th, 2011, Ocean released his debut mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra. On July 28th, Ocean leaked a demo version of his song “Thinking Bout You” on his Tumblr blog, before promptly removing the track. On April 10th, 2012, the song was officially released as the lead single for his debut studio album Channel Orange (shown below).

On July 10th, Channel Orange was released, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling upwards of 130,000 copies within one week.

Boys Don’t Cry

In February 2013, Ocean announced that he was working with Tyler the Creator, Pharrell Williams and Danger Mouse on a new record, claiming it was largely influence by the classic rock bands The Beach Boys and The Beatles. In March 2014, the song “Hero” on the upcoming album was released on SoundCloud (shown below).

In November, Ocean released the track Memrise off the upcoming album on his official Tumblr page.^[1] In April 2015, Ocean announced that his new album would be released in July, but was subsequently postponed. In July 2016, Ocean posted a photograph of a library card labeled “Boys Don’t Cry” with a final due date stamp of “July 2016” on his official website (shown below).^[2]

On August 1st, a stream of Ocean playing various instruments on a loop was featured on his official website. That day, The New York Times^[3] reported that the album was “due” the coming Friday.

Meanwhile, Twitter user @notjefe^[6] posted an Arthur’s fist photoshopped image with the caption “When you’ve been listening to the same album for 4 years” (shown below). Over the next eight days, the tweet gained over 28,600 likes and 23,000 retweets.

On August 4th, Twitter user Jay Versace uploaded a video demanding Ocean release his new album immediately (shown below). Within five days, the tweet garnered upwards of 132,000 likes and 100,000 retweets.

The following day, the @hiphopmindset^[4] Instagram feed posted a mock track list for Ocean’s upcoming album (shown below, left). On August 6th, MTV News^[7] published an article about the online reactions to the album delay. On August 8th, Redditor Roujj posted a “troll poster”: of Frank Ocean to /r/FrankOcean^[5] (shown below, right).

Online Presence

In September 2010, Ocean launched his official Tumblr blog.^[9] On April 22nd, 2012, the /r/FrankOcean^[8] subreddit was launched for discussions about the artist. As of August 2016, Ocean does not maintain a Twitter feed or Facebook page.

Related Memes

A Potato Flew Around My Room

“A Potato Flew Around My Room” is a misheard lyric from Frank Ocean’s 2012 R&B song “Thinkin’ Bout You” that became a popular subject of online mockeries on Vine after it was first said by Viner pg bree in a video clip he uploaded in October 2014.

No Church in the Wild

No Church in the Wild is a music video by artists Kanye West and Jay-Z. Online, several lines uttered by Ocean in the song are often quoted ironically on various image macros.

Personal Life

Ocean was born Christopher Edwin Breaux on October 28th, 1987. In 2010, his named was legally changed to Christopher Francis Ocean. On July 4th, 2012, Ocean released an open letter on his Tumblr blog^[10] revealing that he experienced unrequited romantic feelings for another man when he was 19-years-old.

“I don’t know what happens now, and that’s alrite. I don’t have any secrets I need kept anymore…I feel like a free man.”

Search Interest

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About

Gudetama is a popular Japanese mascot developed by Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty. He is an egg with crippling depression.^[1] Its name derives from the Japanese characters meaning “lazy” and “egg.”^[2]

Origin

Gudetama made his debut in 2013 following a contest internally run by Sanrio to introduce food-based characters. He came in second, but popularity since has far surpassed his competitors.^[3]

Spread

Gudetama soon became Sanrio’s most popular creation since Hello Kitty. ^[4] Since 2013, his face has appeared on over 1,700 items of merchandise. He also has a short television series featuring his deep malaise that airs on the Japanese network TBS. As of 2015, there have been hundreds of episodes of the show.^[5]

In 2014, Sanrio rolled out a series of Gudetama stickers developed for online chat.^[6] As of August 9th, 2016, Gudetama has nearly 160,000 Facebook likes,^[7] 668k Twitter followers,^[8] and 12.7 Instagram followers.^[11]

2016 found Gudetama gaining Western exposure, as news outlets like First We Feast, The AV Club,^[9] Today Online,^[10] and PRI covered the spread of Gudetama and investigated why such an outwardly depressed egg captured Japan’s heart. Speaking for PRI, AltJapan co-founder Matt Alt explained the phenomenon.

“The reason Gudetama is so popular is, well, the cute design. But also because all of us feel like retreating into our shells from time to time. And he is literally retreating into his shell.”

Various Examples

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Overview

Donald Trump’s “Titties” Gaffe refers to an apparent mispronunciation of the word “cities” as “titties” made by the Republican presidential nominee while giving a speech detailing his economic policy at a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan in August 2016.

Background

At around noon on August 8th, 2016, Trump delivered a speech outlining his presidential campaign’s economic policy at a campaign rally in Detroit, Michigan. While discussing the benefits of his lower business tax plan, especially for Detroit and other major cities suffering from high unemployment and low investment, Trump’s utterance of the word “cities” was largely interpreted as “titties” by viewers at home and journalists alike (shown below).

Our lower business tax will also end job-killing corporate inversions, and cause trillions in new dollars and wealth to come pouring into our country – and into titties like Detroit. To help unleash this new job creation, we will allow businesses to immediately expense new business investments.

Spread

Shortly after the speech was broadcast, a clip of the “titties” gaffe was posted on the /r/EnoughTrumpSpam^[2] subreddit. The same day, BuzzFeed Politics reporter Andrew Kacsynski tweeted the video clip with the description “Look, the man said titties. There’s no way around it” (shown below, left).^[4] Minutes later, the @LOLGOP^[3] Twitter feed tweeted a joke about the video clip (shown below, right). Within 24 hours, the tweets garnered upwards of 2,500 and 340 likes respectively.

That evening, The Young Turks released a video highlighting notable jokes and commentaries from Twitter users (shown below), as well as an different video recording of the same speech wherein Trump can be heard pronouncing “cities" quite clearly, which in turn led some to speculate alternative explanations of the Republican presidential nominee’s spoonerism, including audio-technical issues like “mic pop.”^[12] In the following 24 hours, several news sites published articles about gaffe, including Mic,^[1] The Inquisitr,^[5] Elite Daily,^[6] Mediaite,^[7]The Daily Mail, US Weekly, Boing Boing^[10] and Daily Kos.^[11]

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External References

TheKAIRI78 is a French YouTuber from Mantes-La-Jolie, in the Yvelines.
He is widely know by the French YouTube and Twitter community by his videos.

Overview

Donald Trump’s “Second Amendment People” Joke refers to a joke the Republican presidential nominee made that seemed to suggest the only way to prevent Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton from “abolishing the Second Amendment” was assassinating her.

Background

On August 9th, 2016, Donald Trump gave a speech in Wilmington, North Carolina where he tried to drum up support by insinuating that Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment that states Americans have the right to bear arms. While talking about the possibility of Hillary getting to put anti-gun judges on the Supreme Court, Trump appeared to jokingly encourage “Second Amendment people” to shoot Clinton.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment, and by the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks…Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno.”

Developments

Shortly after the comment, many news outlets published articles interpreting it as a joke about assassinating Clinton, including Gawker,^[1]TMZ,^[2] Uproxx,^[4] and more. Meanwhile, Twitter erupted with horror and humor as journalists, activists, and comedians voiced their takes.^[7]

The Trump campaign quickly published a statement claiming “dishonest media” had misinterpreted the quote and that Trump was saying 2nd Amendment supporters should go out and vote.

New York Magazine^[3] and The Washington Post^[6] published articles investigating just how horrible Trump’s comment was. Slate^[5] noted how Trump’s comments suggested he thinks Second Amendment supporters are “lunatics.”

Notable Reactions

Several prominent political figures responded to the comments. The U.S. Secret Service’s official Twitter account responded bluntly, “The Secret Service is aware of the comments made earlier this afternoon.”^[8] The tweet (shown below, left) gained 30,000 retweets. Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted “.@realDonaldTrump makes death threats because he’s a pathetic coward who can’t handle the fact that he’s losing to a girl.”^[9] That tweet (shown below, right) has gained over 53,000 retweets and 98,000 likes.

On the Republican side, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani defended Trump on Good Morning America by arguing that if Trump really wanted to advocate assassinating Hillary Clinton, he would have said so outright.^[10] Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan refused to condemn the comments, calling them “a joke gone bad.”^[11]

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About

#ManyPeopleAreSaying is a Twitter hashtag mocking Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s frequent use of phrases like “many people are saying” to preface controversial statements and conspiracy theories. In August 2016, the hashtag began trending worldwide after Trump posted a tweet claiming that “many people are saying” Iran executed nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri for being mentioned in Hillary Clinton’s emails during her tenure as Secretary of State.

Origin

On June 13th, 2016, The Washington Post^[4] published an article titled “‘A lot of people are saying…’: How Trump spreads conspiracies and innuendos,” which examined Trump’s use of the phrases “a lot of people think” and “a lot of people are saying” when presenting controversial opinions. On August 1st, Twitter user @ripple2012^[3] posted a tweet joking that Trump referred to passengers aboard an airplane shot down by Russia as “a bunch of losers” along with the hashtags “#Manypeoplearesaying” and “#DangerousDonald” (shown below).

Spread

On August 8th, 2016, Trump posted a tweet that claiming that “many people are saying” Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was executed due to “Clinton’s hacked emails” (shown below). Within 48 hours, the tweet gathered upwards of 31,700 likes and 12,700 retweets.^[2]

That evening, the hashtag #ManyPeopleAreSaying^[11] began trending worldwide on the social networking platform, with tweets containing various jokes and conspiracy theories about the Republican presidential candidate (shown below).

Meanwhile, American director Rian Johnson tweeted^[1] a photoshopped picture of the Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks as a Sith Lord along with the “#ManyPeopleAreSaying” hashtag (shown below). Within 48 hours, the tweet gained over 2,400 likes and 950 retweets. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the hashtag, including Yahoo News,^[5] SF Gate,^[6] The Huffington Post,^[7] Fusion,^[8] Mashable^[9] and Mediate.^[10]

Various Examples

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When you’re dog lays on her back and looks so willing…. You just have to take a picture. “Jack, draw me like one of your French Girls” fit the description nicely. She does look perfect on that couch, I think that it’d be a nice drawing!

Inspiration: The movie the Titanic and, well, my dog.
Tools Used: Basic Windows Paint

About

Brandon Wardell is an American comedian currently located in Los Angeles, California. He specializes in online humor, having a verified Twitter account with over 30,000 followers, and over 8 million loops on his Vine account among others. He gained traction around 2016 with his help of spreading Dicks Out For Harambe.

Origin

Wardell was grew up in Fairfax Virginia. Wardell was featured early in his career by the Washington Post ^[1] . Following the article, Wardell, who was attending VCU, dropped out and moved to Los Angeles to pursue comedy.

Spread

External References

About

Anarcho-Capitalism, often abbreviated as Ancap, is a libertarian political philosophy promoting individual freedoms, private property and free markets through the removal of state governments. As a right-wing branch of anarchism, ancap is distinct from traditional left-wing branches that are typically associated with communist, syndicalist and mutualist economic theories. Online, ancap-themed web comics often use black and yellow colors taken from the Swedish AnarkoKapitalistisk Front flag.

History

Anarcho-capitalism is rooted in classical liberalism, a political ideology promoting individual freedoms with minimal government intervention initially developed in the 19th century United Kingdom from Whiggery and radicalism. Classical liberalism later inspired the individualist anarchist movement in the United States, which was promoted by political philosophers Lysander Spooner, Benjamin R. Tucker and Murray Rothbard.

Online Presence

On April 29th, 2007, an entry for anarcho-capitalism was created by Urban Dictionary^[9] user Robin d’Hood, who defined the philosophy as “capitalism without rulers.”
On November 18th, 2008, the /r/Anarcho_Capitalism^[3] subreddit was launched for discussions about the political ideology. On March 9th, 2009, an entry on anarcho-capitalism was created on Rational Wiki.^[8] On March 18th, 2011, YouTuber Morrakiu uploaded a music video parody of the 2010 rap song song “Black And Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa (shown below).

On October 8th, 2011, the Anarcho-Capitalism Facebook^[6] page was launched, gaining over 67,000 likes in the next five years. On May 9th, 2012, the Learn Liberty YouTube channel posted a lecture on anarcho-capitalism by Dr. Nigel Ashford (shown below).

On August 3rd, the /r/AnCap101^[4] subreddit was created for academic discussions about the political philosophy. On February 16th, 2014, a Facebook^[7] page mocking ancap was launched titled “Still Laughing at ‘Anarcho’-Capitalism”.

Comics and Image Macros

On June 21st, 2013, the Anarchyball Facebook^[1] page was launched, featuring Polandball-style comics related to anarchism. On August 9th, 2016, Redditor MemesThief posted a collection of web comics and image macros to the /r/Anarcho_Capitalism^[2] subreddit, many of which feature various ancap-themed dystopian scenarios presented by a black-and-yellow colored smiley face (shown below).

The same day, a post titled “Ancap Meme Thread” was submitted to the /pol/ (politically incorrect) board on 4chan, featuring similar image macros and comics.^[5] featuring various comics and image macros about anarcho-capilatism. As of August 2016, over 2,300 ancap-themed images have been shared on iFunny under the tag “#ancap”^[10].

Search Interest

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Overview

The Trump Tower Climber is a nickname given to Stephen Rogata, a 20-year-old man who gained notoriety for scaling the glass facade of the Trump Tower, a prominent skyscraper owned by Donald Trump and located in Manhattan, New York City, with a harness, ropes and suction cups, in an effort to gain a “private audience” with the Republican presidential nominee.

Background

At approximately 3:00 p.m. (ET), Stephen Rogata, a 20-year-old resident of Great Falls, Virginia, began climbing the Trump Tower, a 68-story skyscraper located in Midtown Manhattan that serves as the primary residence of Donald Trump and the headquarters of his conglomerate, The Trump Organization, and his 2016 presidential campaign. Upon arriving at the scene after receiving the first 911 call around 3:30 p.m. ^[1], the authorities made several attempts to halt Rogata’s ascent by verbal persuasion and interception using a ladder, though none could deter him from climbing. Over the course of the next two hours, Rogata made it to the 21st floor of the building.

Developments

Arrest

At about 6:30 p.m., NYPD Detective Christopher Williams and his partner managed to stop Rogata by pulling him inside through a window they had set up as a point of interception on the 21st floor of the building. Rogata was subsequently taken into police custody and transported to Bellevue Hospital for psychological evaluation, and later, arrested on the charges of criminal trespass and reckless endangerment.^[3]

Online Reaction

Onlookers began to film the climber, and several newscasters documented the climb on the real-time streaming app Periscope. According to the New York Times,^[2] a stream on Facebook from WABC-TV received more than four million views. It was soon revealed that Rogata had released a Youtube video the day before titled “Message to Mr. Trump (why I climbed your tower),” shown below.

The story attracted the fascination of Twitter as well, as the story trended and became a “Twitter moment”^[4] as onlookers and celebrities including Josh Groban, Tyson Beckford, Jordan Spieth, and more tweeted their reactions.^[5] Donald Trump tweeted “Great job today by the NYPD in protecting the people and saving the climber,” shown below.

On Reddit, two threads, one providing a link to ABC News’ coverage of the climb^[6] and one posting a gif of Rogata being captured,^[7] gained over 5,000 points and thousands of comments.

Search Interest

External References