Overview

YouTube Advertiser Boycott refers to a global boycott of YouTube’s advertising service by various companies protesting ads run along with content deemed questionable or offensive.

Background

On March 17th, 2017, the Times of London^[6] published an article about advertisements run by the British government and “several private sector companies” appearing on YouTube videos made in support of terrorist organizations. On March 21st, Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler published a blog post^[8] announcing a plan to enforce stricter policies to prevent running ads on offensive content. On March 23rd, Business Insider reported that more than 250 brands had removed advertising campaigns with Google, including McDonald’s, Toyota, AT&T, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Verizon and Walmart. On March 27th, analysts from the brokerage firm Nomura Instinent speculated that Google could lose up to $750 million from the boycott.^[7]

Developments

Online Reaction

On March 27th, YouTuber Philip DeFranco posted a video about the controversy (shown below). Within 72 hours, the video gained over 1.49 million views and 13,900 comments.

On March 29th, Ethan Klein of h3h3productions tweeted that YouTube had demonetized many of his videos, including “Vape Nation” and "Thank You for 3 million, with “no notification or option to appeal” (shown below).^[1] That day, posts about Klein’s tweet reached the front page of /r/h3h3productions^[2] and /r/KotakuInAction.^[3] Meanwhile, YouTuber Jenna Marbles replied to Klein, claiming many of her videos were demonetized as well (shown below, right).^[4]

That evening, the @TeamYouTube^[5] Twitter feed tweeted an announcement that they had “identified a bug” that prevented appeals to videos that had been demonetized (shown below, left). On March 30th, YouTuber Cr1tikal posted a tweet asking if the “YouTube advertiser apocalypse” was a result of the Wall Street Journal’s articles accusing PewDiePie of antisemitism (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

Cristiano Ronaldo Bust refers to jokes made about a statue that was intended to be the likeness of international soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. The statue’s poor likeness of Ronaldo made it the target of jokes on social media in late March, 2017.

Origin

On March 29th, 2017, Ronaldo attended Madeira International Airport (now renamed Aeroporto Cristiano Ronaldo) for the unveiling of a bust in his likeness.^[1]

Almost instantly, Twitter users began joking about the ugliness of the statue in comparison to Ronaldo. One of the earliest was tweeted by @tds153^[2] who tweeted a picture captioned, “I defy you not to feel better after viewing this picture of Cristiano Ronaldo alongside his portrait bust.” His tweet gained over 2,800 retweets.

Spread

The image of the bust became a trending topic on Twitter that day, as users made jokes photoshopping the statue onto Ronaldo himself and comparing the statue to famous pop-culture monstrosities, such as Sloth from The Goonies (shown below).

The jokes were covered by The New York Times,^[1] Buzzfeed,^[3] The Verge,^[4] The Daily Dot,^[5] and more. Many commented on the fact that Ronaldo’s notorious vainness helped contribute to the spread of the jokes.

Various Examples

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External References

About

Someone Turned This Into a Real Game is an image macro series featuring photographs taken in the real world accompanied by faux-naif captions joking that the picture represents a video game that had been re-imagined in real life.

Origin

On December 1st, 2016, Twitter user @memeprovider^[1] tweeted a photograph of a pool table with the caption “oh shit haha / someone made 8 ball pool into a real game 😂” (shown below). Within three months, the tweet received a total of 32,500 and 12,300 retweets.

Spread

On March 29th, Redditor I_Am_Foo1ish submitted a photograph of a young boy wielding an AK-47 with the caption ”oh shit haha / someone made Rust into a real game” to /r/dankmemes^[4] (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Redditor spacesloth42 posted a photograph of guitarist Saul Hudson (a.k.a. “Slash”) joking that “someone made Guitar Hero into a real thing” to /r/dankmemes^[3] (shown below, right).

That day, Redditor -Striiker- submitted a screenshot of @memprovider’s tweet to /r/MemeEconomy^[2] in a post asking if Real Game memes were “on the rise”. Within 24 hours, the post gathered upwards of 9,400 points (90% upvoted) and 130 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Whoppy Machine Broke is a text-based snowclone popular on Tumblr in which one person approached another asking for something, and depending on what it is, the other person responds with “X machine broke.”

Origin

On November 26th, 2016, Tumblr user golfgalaxy^[1] posted a dialogue text post wherein a person goes into a Burger King and begins ordering a “Whoppy” (slang for “Whopper”) when the Burger King employee interrupts him by saying “Whoppy machine broke.” The post, shown below, has gained over 9,700 notes.

Spread

Over the course of the next few months, the post began being applied in snowclones where “whoppy” was replaced with various other things. One of the most popular, posted by unlocklist, referenced Full Metal Alchemist and gained over 6,800 likes (shown below).

On March 29th, 2017, memedocumentation^[2] documented the meme, noting that references to “whoppy” and fast-food-based text posts had existed before “whoppy machine broke,” but the snowclone itself didn’t originate until November 26th, 2016.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Alex Rodriguez Thinking is a reaction image, referring to a tweet from the former New York Yankee, in which he posted a picture of himself deep in thought under the caption “Who will win the World Series this year? #mlb.”^[1] On Twitter, the image has been widely used to express intense or even painful thinking.

Origin

On March 28th, 2017, Alex Rodriguez tweeted a photo of himself thinking with the caption “Who will win the World Series this year? #mlb.” Within 48 hours, the tweet gained over 2,900 likes and 1,100 retweets.^[1]

Spread

Shortly after he tweeted the image, users began responding to his photo with other images of people deep in thought (shown below).

Additionally, others captioned the original picture with jokes about Rodriguez or their own common thoughts and difficulties (shown below). In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the reaction image, including Sports Illustrated,^[2] Mashable^[3] and USA Today.^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External Links

Here’s a picture for Emma Watson for a better day.Enjoy!

Overview

Nick Robinson “Krystal From Star Fox” Controversy refers to a tweet sent out by social media comedian and Polygon writer Nick Robinson saying that anyone who claims they had not masturbated to the character Krystal from Star Fox Adventures is lying. The tweet drew backlash from a feminist blog and created a dialogue on Twitter in March of 2017.

Background

On March 26th, 2017, Robinson tweeted^[1]“no offense but anyone who acts like they didn’t jack off to Krystal from Star Fox Adventures is lying to you.” His tweet gained over 900 retweets and 3,000 likes.

The following day, Anita Sarkeesian of blog Feminist Frequency angrily responded^[2] to Robinson’s tweet, saying “Nobody in our office feels that way about Krystal. In fact, we find her character deeply disappointing. Here’s why.” She then linked to a video produced by her team on the “damsels in distress” trope of video gaming (photoshop collage of the whole exchange below).

Developments

Instantly the moment became a target of jokes on Twitter as people mostly agreed that Sarkeesian’s response and the ensuing dialogue about sexual-attraction to video game characters was over-the-top.

On the 28th, popular Twitter user @leyawn^[3] tweeted a mashup of the discourse with Expanding Brain and Kirby’s Human Feet to satirize the stupidity of the conversation (shown below).

On the 29th, a thread about the controversy was posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop^[4] and gained 825 points.

Jokes About the Controversy

Search Interest

External References

About

You Mess With Crabo, You Get a Stabo is a snowclone in which an animal or object is shown in a threatening position with the caption "If you mess with X, you get Y. In the snowclone, Y rhymes with X, with at least one of the words intentionally misspelled for humorous effect.

Origin

In February of 2016, a video of a crab apparently wielding a knife went viral (shown below).

A year later, on March 21st, 2017, Twitter user @biggestmate^[1] tweeted a screenshot of the knife-wielding crab captioned “you mess with crabo, you get a stabo.” The tweet gained 9,200 retweets and 14,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

As the tweet spread over the course of the day, it was reposted by several meme-focused accounts without credit.^[2] On Facebook, it was posted by T h e M e m e A e s t h e t i c^[3] where it gained over 17,000 likes and reactions and over 53,000 shared. On /r/me_irl,^[5] a screenshot of the tweet gained over 15,700 votes. Meanwhile, some variations began appearing in response to @biggestmate’s tweet. A few hours after his tweet, user @Octopusuu^[4] tweeted an image macro of a lizard holding a thumbtack reading “You mess with gecko you get a pecko” (shown below).

The variations became a popular trend on meme-focused subreddits in the following week, appearing on /r/dankmemes,^[6] /r/me_irl, and /r/memeeconomy.^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

“Amused soldier” is a still image of a Team Fortress 2 character, soldier. With a very amused and out of the ordinary facial expression. From one of RockyDoctor65’s Gmod animations known as “Soldier gets an error”. The first comment posted on the video says “Great video, live how realistic it is” by Phoenix Slayer78. Rocky later replied with “thank u”. The video is very new and has yet to become popular. Here’s the origin of the meme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqcAoDrZ54s

About

He Protec but He Also Attac is an intentionally misspelled variation of the expression, “He protects, but he also attacks,” which is used online to caption various image macros featuring subjects preparing to defend against or engage an enemy.

Origin

On November 8th, 2016, the @fijichecks^[4] Instagram posted photographs of a nude man wielding a light saber along with the caption “he protec / but he also attac” (shown below).

Spread

On February 5th, 2017, the b3pis Instagram^[1] page posted a picture of a stuff cow toy wielding a knife with the caption “He protec. / but he also attac” (shown below). Within two months, the image received more than 2,800 likes. On February 13th, the sketchymemes Instagram page posted a similar image macro featuring screenshots from the film Cat in the Hat (shown below, right).

On March 15th, a 4chan user posted a Based Stickman variation of the image to a thread on /pol/ (shown below, left).^[4] On March 30th, Redditor MrAdorDeplor submitted a post to /r/MemeEconomy^[5] asking how “he protec” memes were doing “on the market,” along with a version of the image macro featuring comedian Lester Green (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

“Tag a Friend and Don’t Say Anything” and “Tag a Friend and Say Nothing” are popular captions on posts with strange content. The direction “tag a friend and say nothing” helps the post spread by inviting users to tag their friends, inviting them to see it, while providing no context that would explain the content. Posts with this caption experienced a surge in early 2017.

Origin

The caption appears to have started appearing as early as mid-2015. Some of the earliest known posts to use variations of the phrase include a Vine^[1] of a soccer save posted July 27th, 2015, and a video using the Spider-Man Ass Slap posted to Instagram^[2] on October 29th the same year. On November 29th, 2016, an Instagram video by @funnyhoodvidz with the caption was posted to YouTube (shown below), though the original post has since been deleted.

Spread

“Tag Yourself and Don’t Say Anything” started becoming a proper meme in the beginning of 2017, when dozens of videos appeared on YouTube and Instagram with that title. One of the first posted that year came on January 30th, and showed a remix of the Brazil Dog Dance.

Several other videos with the caption appeared in the coming months. However, none were as popular as an animation by Kirsten Lepore titled “Hi Stranger” (shown below).

On March 23rd, Facebook page Viral Thread^[3] picked up Lepore’s film with the caption “tag a friend and say nothing” added. The video in that post was seen over 100 million times as of March 31st, 2017, as well as shared 1.3 million times and liked nearly 500,000 times.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

Background

On April 1st, 2017, various websites and online services released gag videos, products and features in honor of April Fools’ Day.

Notable Developments

The Washington Post^[1] has kept an updating list of noteworthy pranks associated with the holiday, which many began celebrating on March 31st, as April 1st, 2017 is a Saturday.

Google Maps Pac-Man

One of the most popular April Fools jokes released on March 31st was Google Maps’ Pac-Man app. Google made it so it was possible to play Pac-Man on real-live streets via their maps app.^[2] They released a similar app on April Fools Day in 2015.

Kars4Kids

Kars4Kids, a program with a notoriously awful jingle and confusing mission, released a video joking that cars donated to the service would be given to kids to drive.

Harambed

The company Lucid Mattress released a video advertising the “Harambed,” a mattress made in honor of Harambe.

Fake “Smart” Products

A few non-tech companies advertised that they would be introducing “Smart” products to track personal habits. For example, Quilted Northern advertised “smart” toilet paper which would track users’ bathroom usage and KFC introduced a “smart” bucket.^[1]

Netflix Live

Netflix released “Netflix Live,” a video that shows comedian and actor doing a stream-of-consciousness monologue Will Arnett narrating over mundane visuals.^[3]

Search Interest

External References

About

Games Repainted is an community where many people is changed the entire well-known video games including cut-scenes, music and textures like Super Mario Sunshine, Paper Mario series, Rhythm Heaven and Undertale into a humorous and absurd effect.^[1]

Origin

[Researching]

Related Memes

Buff Riku

Buff Riku is an fan-illustration of the character in Kingdom Hearts with many muscles, Buff Riku is become so popular as it reappears the entire Games Repainted.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

/r/place is Reddit’s 2017 April Fool’s Day event subreddit, which contains a shared HTML5 1024 × 1024 pixel canvas for users to place one pixel from 16 available colors every 10 minutes.

Background

On April 1st, 2017, the /r/place^[1] subreddit was launched, which gathered filled with upwards upwards of 86,000 subscribers by 3pm that day.

Developments

The Red Corner vs. The Blue Corner

The Red Corner and Blue Corner (/r/RedCorner^[2] and /r/BlueCorner^[3] respectively) were two of the most immediate opposing groups created. The Blue Corner gained much more support than their Red counterpart, and was able to cripple The Red Corner’s efforts very quickly, as well as creating the largest contiguous pixel space at the time of writing.

Trans Flag & 4chan Raid

The Trans Flag (/r/TransFlagPlace) was an effort to create a ‘blue-pink-white-pink-blue’-patterned stripe, spanning the entirety of the canvas both horizontally and vertically. Upon taking notice, 4chan’s /pol/, /b/, and /v/ boards concocted plans to hijack the stripe by overwriting existing artwork and projects, in an attempt to create conflict between the Trans Flag group and others.

• Note the two figures at the top-left. This was a primary target of the /pol/ false flag raid to overwrite artwork using the trans flag.

• Also note the void mass to the right of the origin. The trans flag originally passed directly through the mass, but was eventually overrun by Void users.

Black Hole / Void

The Black Hole / Void was a group dedicated to expanding a contiguous black ‘void’ in the canvas. Early on, there was a small black demon representing the group, but it was later swallowed as the void expanded.

Art

Many ‘pixel-art’ styled displays were created and destroyed during the event.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

LONGENTRY IS LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG

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Dodongo Kong is a mashup of Donkey kong, and a Dodongo.
Dodongo Kong takes the appearance of Donkey Kong, but with the head poorly photoshopped with the head of a Dodongo.

Dodongo is a meme shared amongst the member of a Minecraft server called Pundertale.
Many interpretation of Dodongo Kong has been made by the members, from Hoodies, to posters of famous shows but with Dodongo Kong as the main character, to full raps of Dodongo Kongs.

Dodongo Kong was first created when one member started stating different Donkey Kong names (e.g Konkey Dong, Lankey Dong, etc) when they said Dongo Dong, and then every member started stating the infamous meme from Legend of Zelda, “Oh boy, I can’t wait to bomb some Dodongos!” and inserted kong at the end, “Oh boy, I can’t wait to bomb some Dodongo Kongs!”

Many believe it to be George Bush but recent studies show the Homogeneous Khalidius is the main factor leading to this attack

About

Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism is a phrase associated with far left movements on the internet. It envisions and idealistic society where gender norms have been abolished to such an extent that there is little to no difference between gay and straight, and due to automation, luxury is available to all people. Some communities substitute “queer” for “gay” as it is perceived as more inclusive. Other communities replace “Communism” with more specific ideologies such as Anarchism.

Spread

On November 5th 2016, /u/BlackBeatles305 submitted the question “What is Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism?”^[1] to /r/Communism101 where it recieved 231 upvotes.

On December 4th the same question was posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop ^[2] where it recieved 1821 votes. The top comment compared the concept to sci fi author Ian M. Banks’ utopian society known as “The Culture.”

On November 17th the facebook page Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism was created.

Search Interest

External references

^[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/5b9weg/what_is_fully_automated_luxury_gay_space_communism/
^[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/5geol2/what_the_hell_is_fully_automated_gay_luxury_space/?sort=top
^[3] https://www.facebook.com/FullyAutomatedCommunism/
Work in Progress

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