About

Gina Indelicada it’s a brazilian meme that means something like “indelicate Gina” in English. It all started from a Facebook page called “Gina Indelicada”^[1]
The page consists of screenshots of messages sent to Gina by its fans asking questions about anything, which are always answered in a sarcastic way. “Brazilians are known for their friendliness, for their love of hugging and all that, what can sometimes be seen as fake. So whenever a person comes around who breaks that stereotype, people will relate to them as someone who speaks their mind and is sincere. Gina is all of that,” says Lopes.

Origin

On August 2012, the brazilian student Ricck Lopes created a Facebook page called “Gina Indelicada”. The name “Gina” was taken from a famous company that makes toothpicks in Brazil, “Rela Gina”.
The creator, who at the time was only 19, said he got the idea to create a page while cooking and saw a box of toothpicks on the table, and immediately linked the image of women of toothpicks with “Gina Indelicada”, what he judged a good idea for a Facebook page.

Spread

The page was created at 14th August (2012) and on 17th of the same month, had already reached more than 200,000 likes. It was a phenomenon that has spread throughout the brazilian Facebook very quickly, perhaps because the creator had other pages well known. With the popularity, the “Rela Gina”^[2] discovered the existence of the page, and ponder the possibility of processing Ricck Lopes by using the brand name and defame Gina, as she is a person who really exists, but the company realized that it would be more beneficial not to insist on a judicial problem and has partnered with the creator.^[3]

Forbes mentioned the meme. ^[4]

External References

About

NeoGAF is a gaming forum, originally hosted on the news site Gaming Age as “Gaming-Age Forums”. Due to the significant impact it and its communities have on the industry and the talented members, it has been the origin of many memes and gif images. The site is particular active during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) held every June.

The forum is notable for its strict moderation, with new users having to wait months or more than a year to be approved to reach the “junior member” status and at least another 6 months to become regular members. A slight case of misbehavior may result in ban or permanent ban by the administrators.

Origin

The original “Gaming-Age Forums” was established in 1999, and was later relaunched as “NeoGAF” in 2006 with two major forum sections: “Gaming”^[1] and “Off-topic”^[2]. It has been said that a lot of the members joined the forums for the gaming side, and stayed for the off-topic discussions. Two more sections: “Gaming Community” and “Off-topic Community” were later added.

Memes

Some of the memes that came out of the forum include, but not limited to: Dudebro, Translator San, All my friends are dead, the #TeamCG vs. #TeamReal debate and Adam Orth’s “Always On” Twitter Gaffe.

Logo and Mascot

The official logo of NeoGAF is a green and orange colored circle. This logo featured in the video game “Scribblenauts” as an easter egg.

Although the forum does not have an official mascot, in a recent thread where users were asked to create one, two popular candidates emerged. One of them being GAF-Man, a socially awkward superhero figure. The second one being Belle Eve, the mascot of PonyGaf from one of the site’s communities^[3].

Traffic and Search Interest

As of April 8, 2013, Neogaf.com is currently ranked #3,922 in the world according to Alexa traffic rankings^[4]. On October 11, 2010, a local journalist visited the site from North Korea, which at that time marked the moment when the site had received visits from all the countries in the world plus Antarctica^[5].

External References

Note: Work in Progress

About

Let’s Go! Onmyouji (Japanese: レッツゴー！陰陽師; lit. Let’s Go! Yin-yang Masters) is a song taken from the fighting game Shin Goketsuji Ichizoku: Bonnou Kaihou, which was used for a CG-animated music video made specially for the game. The song and the video has since went on to gain widespread popularity on the Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga (NND), shortly after its relaunch on 2007, inspiring video remixes, musical covers, and dance parodies.

Origin

The song was originally used as the background theme for character Thin Nen from the Japanese fighting game Shin Goketsuji Ichzoku: Bonnou Kaihou^[1], released in Japan for the PlayStation 2 on May 25th, 2006. The song would be then featured for a CG-animated music video, which features the song being sung and danced by characters Hikomaro Yabeno and Kotohime, while being accompanied by the Bozu dancers as backup. The video would later be uploaded to Youtube (shown below) by Youtuber bussan00 on May 28th, 2006, three days after the games release.

Spread

[researching]
The oddness of the video managed to gain mild attention with users after it was uploaded, but has since gained over 5.1 million views as of April 2013. One of the earliest known remixes of the song was uploaded to Youtube by Youtuber c0ldcup on February 10th, 2007, which was a mash-up with the Touhou remix “”http:" />Marisa Stole the Precious Thing." (shown below)

A month later, the original video would be reprinted to Nico Nico Douga^[2] on March 6th, during the same time of the official relaunch of the video-sharing. As of now, it is currently the oldest video within the site, amassing over 13.3 million views in just six years.

Search Interest

External References

About

Vadering is a photo fad that involves two people recreating the Star Wars scene in which Darth Vader uses the Force to grab an opposing character in a choke hold.

Origin

While preparing for Easter weekend festivities, a group of staff members from Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX got together to attempt a Hadokening photo, which Rob Martinez shared on his Instagram account^[9] on March 29th, 2013. Following this, Martinez posted two different images to his Instagram account^[10][11] staging faux choke holds. He used the hashtag #Vadering, encouraging his followers to create their own. The same day, he shared a third image on Twitter (shown below), mentioning fast food restaurant Chick-fil-A, hoping for a retweet.

<a href="https://twitter.com/chickfila">chickfila</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23vadering">#vadering</a> <a href="http://t.co/kwOGNRjpXC" title="http://twitter.com/Broccoli_Robb/status/317825215503679488/photo/1">twitter.com/Broccoli_Robb/…</a></p>&mdash; Rob Martinez (Broccoli_Robb) March 30, 2013

Spread

That same day, Martinez’ Twitter photo was reposted on the /r/pics subreddit^[1], where it garnered more than 16,900 upvotes and 480 comments within a few days. On March 30th, the same photo appeared on 9GAG^[2], where it received similarly positive reviews. In the following days, the hashtag #Vadering continued to spread on Twitter^[3] and Instagram^[12], spawning a number of derivative attempts. On April 2nd, Vadering photos were shared on the 501st Legion Facebook page.^[6] The same day, the photo fad saw its first blog coverage on Nerd Approved^[4] and Neatorama.^[5] On April 3rd, Kotaku^[7] featured a handful of the Vadering images, resulting in coverage on College Humor^[13], Laughing Squid^[14], Mashable^[15], the Hollywood Gossip^[16] and Yahoo! News^[17] the same day. Over the course of the next several days, Vadering was featured on My Modern Met^[18], the Daily Dot^[19], the Chive^[20], Geekologie^[21], The FW^[22] and MSN Now.^[23]

Notable Examples

Creator’s Response

Following the unintentional success of the photo fad, Rob Martinez spoke with the Houston Chronicle^[8] about the photos, where he said he did not intend to launch an internet meme. Fellowship Church’s pastor Ed Young Jr. noted that he planned on working in the meme to a sermon, as a small example of a fun thing a church can do to bring people back to serious discussions.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

#nowthatchersdead is a Twitter hashtag that can be read either as “Now Thatcher’s dead” or “Now that Cher’s dead” depending on its capitalization. While it may have been iniitally associated with the death of Margaret Thatcher in April 2013, the hashtag quickly took on a different meaning to imply that the American singer and pop culture icon Cher died.

Background

On April 8th, 2013, prominent British conservative politician and former prime minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke. Befitting her reputation as the “Iron Lady” who redefined British and modern European politics, the news of her death was met by mixed feelings from liberals and conservatives on Twitter. Meanwhile, it soon became apparent that many younger Twitter users had little knowledge who Margaret Thatcher was, especially after the British boy band One Direction’s Harry Style tweeted a condolence message.

RIP Baroness Thatcher .x

— Harry Styles (@Harry_Styles) April 8, 2013

The confusion quickly prompted the launch of the Tumblr satire blog Who is Margaret Thatcher^[11], numerous articles concerning the public unawareness of the Thatcher’s legacy^[12], as well as the duplicit Twitter hashtag #nowthatchersdead.

Notable Developments

In between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. (ET), #nowthatchersdead was used in nearly 7,000 tweets, according to the Twitter analytics service.^[6] In the following hour, the hashtag prank was tweeted by British comedian Ricky Gervais and several journalists, further propagating the hoax that Cher was dead.

Some people are in a frenzy over the hashtag #nowthatchersdead.It’s “Now Thatcher’s dead”. Not, “Now that Cher’s dead” JustSayin’

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) April 8, 2013

Twitter Feed

External References

About

Shodan is a search engine that indexes servers, webcams, printers, routers and other devices that are connected to the Internet, which is often used as a tool to discover vulnerable systems that could be compromised by hackers. The engine was named after the artificial intelligence villain in the 1990s cyberpunk role-playing games System Shock and System Shock 2.^[9][10]

History

In November of 2009, computer programmer John Matherly hosted an early version of the Shodan computer search engine on the website Sutri.^[3] On November 25th, Intern0t Forums^[4] member s3my0n created a thread about Shodan, which sparked a discussion about whether it would be abused by malicious hackers known as “script kiddies.” On February 18th, 2010, the engine relocated to the domain ShodanHQ.^[1] On February 23rd, Matherly submitted a link to ShodanHQ in a post titled “search engine for hackers” on /r/netsec subreddit,^[2] where it received over 150 up votes and 35 comments. On April 24th, cyber security researcher Ruban Santamarta tweeted that he had located a control system for a particle-accelerating cyclotron by using Shodan.

SHODAN 1 – Berkely National Labs 0. Seems its B88 Cyclotron: http://tweetphoto.com/19795092 I’ve already contacted US-CERT

— Ruben Santamarta (@reversemode) April 24, 2010

On February 24th, 2011, YouTuber softgens uploaded a video presentation about Shodan, which demonstrated its ability to discover vulnerable computer systems (shown below).

Trendnet Webcam Exploit

On January 10th, 2012, a hacker using the handle “someLuser” published a blog post^[5] about a security vulnerability he discovered in the firmware of Trendnet home surveillance webcams, which would allow Internet users to anonymously access video feeds using a URL. The exploit was turned into a script utilizing Shodan search to discover other vulnerable cameras connected to the Internet. On February 3rd, the tech news blog The Verge^[8]published a post about the security flaw, noting that links to compromised video feeds were being shared on sites like Reddit and 4chan. On February 7th, The BBC^[6] published an article about the controversy reporting that Trendnet had immediately addressed the issue by releasing an updated version of the firmware.

On January 22nd, 2013, The Verge^[15] published a followup post about the security flaw, noting that many cameras remained vulnerable and included a screenshot of Google Maps app^[14] giving access to various Trendnet cam streams (shown below). As of April 2013, the map has since been disabled.

Reception

On August 21st, 2012, YouTuber vissago uploaded footage of a presentation by Dan Tentler at the hacker conference Defcon, in which he showed how to use Shodan to access web cameras and power control systems (shown below). Within eight months, the video gained more than 20,000 views and 40 comments.

On April 8th, 2013, CNN^[11] published an article about the search engine, noting the troubling discoveries made by Tentler and other cyber security researchers. The same day, the article was submitted to the /r/technology^[12] subreddit, where it received upwards of 730 up votes and 120 comments within the next 24 hours.

Search Interest

Search query volume for the keywords “shodan search” increased dramatically in February of 2012 after the Trendnet webcam exploit was publicized.

External References

About

Ohhh face is an exploitable picture of man frowning while having an “O” expression. Its usage as a reaction face was combined with animated gifs and images reusing the frowning stare and the O-shaped mouth which convey a meaning close to the Watch out, we have a badass over here! meme.

Origin

According to the Bodybuilding forums, the panel was extracted from the third issue of Defenders comic book published in 2005^[1].
It is revealed that the man, drawn by artist Kevin Maguire, is actually Bruce Banner from The Incredible Hulk making faces while seemingly trying to transform into Hulk in order to trick Umar, a villain from the comic.

“In the latest Defenders series, an amusing situation occurs when Umar seduces the Incredible Hulk in order to turn him against his Defenders allies. Unfortunately their tryst proves so completely satisfying to the Hulk, that post-coitally he reverts back into Bruce Banner, much to Umar’s disappointment. The experience was apparently so satisfying that even torture was unable to upset him, forever earning Umar the title of “Best Lay in all of Marveldom.” "

[WIP]

Spread

[WIP]

Michael Jordan Laughing

One of the most famous animated gifs reusing the face parodied Michael Jordan’s awkward laughing face he made on stage of the 27th episode of the 20th season of The Oprah Winfrey Show that aired in October 2005. Oprah surprised Jordan with a visit from Charles Barkley.

[WIP]

External References

^[1]Body Building Forums – Itt: Origin of the oh face / 6/19/2011

Bring that beat back.

the video was when scout is a 8 bit version and at the end of the video scout bumped into heavys legs

About

Juan is the most common name that America and the world may relate to mexicans.
Frequently, it has been subject of jokes using it as a type of pun. Just like Bad Joke Eel

Origin

It started as just an stereotypical joke, but now is a very known type of reference to mexicans or inmigrants of any kind.

(HELPNEEDED) (RESEARCHNEEDED)

About

Hallway Swimming is a video fad in which participants lay on the ground and push themselves back and forth across a freshly buffed floor to give the appearance of swimming from wall to wall.

Origin

The earliest hallway swimming video was created by a group of music students and posted to YouTube by Joe’s Untitled Web Show on May 17th, 2009. As of April 2013, the video has more than 18,500 views.

Spread

On October 13th, 2009, another hallway swimming video was uploaded by Kailyn Jensen^[1], though it is unclear if Jensen had been inspired by the previous video. Between 2009 and 2013, a handful of additional swimming videos were uploaded to YouTube, but none of them garnered any significant level of attention. On April 2nd, 2013, Cole Pugsley uploaded a version (shown below) that was posted to Reddit^[2] later that day, where it gained more than 4,100 upvotes and 2,000 points overall within a week. Within the same time frame, Pugsley’s video was watched more than 2.9 million times.

The video was shared on the Huffington Post^[4] the next day, followed by Geekosystem^[5], Smosh^[6], The Daily What^[7]MSN Now^[8] and Fark^[9] throughout the week. On April 7th, a video of Soulja Boy hallway swimming was posted to World Star Hip Hop.^[10]

Notable Examples

As of April 2013, there are more than 25,000 search results for “hallway swimming” on YouTube.^[3]

Search Interest

External References

About

“You Know Nothing, Jon Snow” is a memorable quote attributed to the Wildling character Ygritte from George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire. Due to its repeated appearance throughout A Storm of Swords and the HBO TV series Game of Thrones, the quote has been regarded by some fans as obnoxious and celebrated by others in the form of fan art illustrations and image macros.

Origin

The quote was originally said by Ygritte in Chapter 15 of A Storm of Swords (page 213, U.S. paperback edition). In the chapter, Ygritte says the line to Jon Snow in anger. This happens because Jon asks why she was crying because of a song about “the last of the giants” when he had just seen hundreds of them.

There were tears on Ygritte’s cheeks when the song ended. “Why are you weeping?” Jon asked. “It was only a song. There are hundreds of giants, I’ve just seen them.” “Oh, hundreds,” she said furiously. "You know nothing, Jon Snow…

In Game of Thrones, Ygritte (played by Rose Leslie) delivers the line once in “A Man Without Honor” (Season 2, Episode 7) that aired in May 2012 and it is expected to make additional appearances throughout Season 3 in accordance with the novel series.

Spread

Similar to Eddard “Ned” Stark’s “Winter is Coming”, the quote soon evolved into a popular catchphrase among the fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. On May 23rd, 2010, the Facebook fan page^[7] titled “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow” was launched. In addition, the quote has inspired a notable collection of fanart illustrations on Deviantart^[2] and Tumblr,^[6] as well as some image macros on Quickmeme.^[3]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

“Liberty 285” is a stock dispatch sound effect that has been used in countless films and television shows.

Where the sound was first used is unclear, but many people attribute it to a shareware game from the 90’s called, “Spiderman Cartoon Maker”.

Screened.com, however, reports that it was first seen on a sound compilation called, “Sound Ideas – Sound Generals Series 6000”, though the first film that it was ever used in has yet to be discovered.

Background

On April 8th, 2013, American country singer-songwriter Brad Paisley released select songs from his upcoming studio album Wheelhouse set to debut on the following day. One of the pre-released tracks was a duet song featuring rapper LL Cool J titled “Accidental Racist,” which attempted to explain why a Southern white man would still wear Confederate flag merchandise despite its stigma associated with slavery.

That same day, the music video for “Accidental Racist” was uploaded to YouTube and subsequently submitted to the /r/Cringe^[3] subreddit on the social news site Reddit. However as of April 10th, the original video and most of the duplicate uploads have been removed or blocked in the United States.

Lyrics

An annotated explanation of the lyrics can be found on Rap Genius.^[10]

Notable Developments

Twitter Reaction

In the hours following the video’s release, Twitter users began speaking out against the song, which amounted to 31,385 mentions^[5] of the phrase “Accidental Racist” on that day alone. Later that day, Mashable^[6] and the NY Daily News^[7]compiled a handful tweets admonishing the songs and the artists for creating it.

LL Cool J & Brad Paisley’s new song marks the first time that country music & hip hop fans have agreed on something: that it’s bad.

— Mark Campbell (@MrWordsWorth) April 8, 2013

Reaction Videos

On YouTube, video bloggers followed suit with reaction videos discussing the covert racism in Paisley’s lyrics as well as LL Cool J’s rap section. As of April 10th, there are more than 2,300 search results for “Paisley Accidental Racist reaction.”^[12]

News Media Coverage

The song was quickly picked up by several music and entertainment news sites like ESPN Grantland^[4], Gawker^[11] and Rolling Stone,^[1] with many authors expressing ambivalence towards the meaning of the lyrics or describing it as “questionable.” On April 9th, editorial pieces on The Atlantic^[8] and TIME^[9] questioned the actual racism behind the song lyrics, citing LL Cool J’s lack of previous political involvement via lyrics. The same day, stories about “Accidental Racist” were shared on NPR^[13], the New Yorker^[14], Fox News^[15] and the Washington Times^[16], among others.

Artists’ Response

As early as 10 p.m. (ET) on April 8th, Paisley began responding to criticisms of the song via Twitter, where he shared^[17] a link to a Tumblr post^[18] containing some positive thoughts about the song. Upon the official release of the album on April 9th, he tweeted a series of messages hoping that the song will “evoke feelings” and “raise questions”^[19] for the listeners while stating that he wouldn’t change a thing about it.^[20] Also on the 9th, Paisley appeared on Ellen (shown below) and stated that Hollywood and talk radio had already covered race relations and it was time for music to have its say.

When asked about the mixed reception of the song in an interview with Entertainment Weekly,^[2] Paisley was quoted as saying that “art has a responsibility to lead the way” when it comes to hard issues and that the song was meant to be an open discussion about a sensitive subject. Meanwhile, LL Cool J told CNN^[21] he was proud of the song, calling it a “bold statement” in a field where artists don’t always push sensitive boundaries. He also defended Paisley for being brave enough to talk about slavery^[22], as he claims no other artist, country or not, is discussing the subject.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Joel Osteen Resignation Hoax was an elaborate Internet prank which aimed to fool people into thinking that American pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen had abandoned his Christian faith.

Background

Joel Osteen is the senior pastor of the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, where he hosts the church’s television program reaching 7 million viewers in 100 countries.^[17] He has written two commercially successful books, titled Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential and Become a Better You: 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day. Osteen is considered a reputed figure in the Christian community, having been named one of ABC News’ “10 Most Fascinating People” and “Most Influential Christian in America” by The Church Report.^[18][19]

On April 2nd, 2013, the now-suspended fake Twitter account @PastorJoelOsten was created with its first and only tweet reading “I am leaving the Christian faith and I have resigned as pastor. Please visit our site at joelostenministries.com for more info.” The now-defunct website referenced in the tweet looked similar to Osteen’s official site but contained a message announcing his resignation as pastor.

“Thank you for visiting. As many of you may know, and may have heard in the news recently, many of my sermons have deviated from traditional Christian doctrine. I have been accused of altering the ‘message’ to fit my own doctrine and dogma. Others have accused me of preaching ‘feel good Christianity’. I have also been accused of profiting greatly from my ministry, with my books and television deals.”

The same day, the ChristianityNews YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring photoshopped images of news sites reporting that Osteen had renounced his faith in Christianity (shown below).

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

On April 2nd, 2013, Yahoo Answers^[8] member Christianity submitted a post asking if Osteen had rejected his faith, which linked to the ChristianityNews YouTube video and a “Christianity News Texas” Blogspot^[7] post containing a false news report about Osteen’s resignation. On April 3rd, Redditor christiantexas linked to the same Blogspot site in a post submitted to the /r/atheism^[6] subreddit. The post received a majority of down votes, with several comments expressing skepticism in regard to its authenticity. According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[3] tweets containing the keyword “Osteen” reached over 5,000 mentions on April 7th, 2013.

News Media Coverage

On April 6th, 2013, the Christian news blog Christ Culture News^[12] published an article about the fabricated news reports and their questionable authenticity. In the following days, the hoax was reported by several other news sites, including Gawker,^[13] The Daily Dot,^[14]NPR,^[5] Daily Mail,^[11] The Huffington Post,^[15]CNN,^[16] Fox News^[10] and the Examiner.^[9]

Joel Osteen’s Response

On April 8th, 2013, the official @JoelOsteen Twitter account responded to a tweet asking if his resignation statement was true, simply dismissing it as “a false rumor.”

<a href="https://twitter.com/petro6239">petro6239</a> It is a false rumor: Pastor Joel is not leaving the church. -JOM Team</p>&mdash; Joel Osteen (JoelOsteen) April 8, 2013

On April 9th, Osteen appeared on the ABC talk show Good Morning America, during which he proclaimed that his faith remained intact and that he held no ill will toward the hoaxer.

Hoax Creator’s Statement

On April 9th, NPR^[2] published an interview article with an individual claiming to be the creator of the hoax, who answered a series of questions via e-mail and stated his wish that Osteen would “do away with the soft ‘positivity’ and cliche-peppered Sunday messages and use his high visibility to address more serious social issues.” On April 10th, Nevada resident Justin Tribble^[4] came forward as the creator of the hoax and appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America to explain his actions (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Gundam is a popular anime series produced by Sunrise^[1]. Starting with the original anime Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979, the series has grown a considerable following worldwide, and becoming one of the most famous and profitable franchises of all time.

History

The original Gundam series, titled Mobile Suit Gundam^[2], was first broadcast on April 7 1979, and finished serialization on January 26 1980. The series is set in a fictional universe in which a nation titled “The Principality of Zeon”^[3] declares independence from the Earth Federation^[4], and soon launches a war of independence. The main plot centers around a newly deployed Earth Federation warship, named the White Base, arriving at a research base to pick up new secret weapon for the Federation. However, they are followed by Zeon forces, who attack White Base, despite orders not to, killing many of the crew and civilians located on the White Base. A citizen named Amuro Ray^[5] finds the Federation’s weapon, named the RX-78 Gundam, and solves the problem. The show then follows the adventures of the boy, as well as the new crew aboard the White Base, and how it effects the war. Although the series was not popular at first, the series eventually received critical acclaim, and garnered a large fanbase, becoming one of the most famous anime of all time. The show’s popularity led it to start a large franchise, including around 31 different animated films and series^[6], a live action film^[7], a number of manga and novelizations^[8], and a number of different video games^[9].

Online Relevance

Gundam has a massive online following, such as on 4chan’s /a/ Anime & Manga^[10] and /m/ Mecha^[11] boards, as well as on Tumblr^[12] and Reddit^[13]. Gundam also has a number of groups on DeviantART^[14], as well as fan sites such as Gundam Seed Net^[15]. There are also multiple Gundam wikis, such as the Gundam wikia^[16], as well as a Gundam Fanon wiki^[17]. There is also a wide variety of fanart and cosplay, linked with the Gundam series.

Fanart & Cosplay

Notable Sub-Memes

We’re Jumping Onto White Base

We’re Jumping onto White Base, refers to a musical remix revolving around a line uttered during the original Mobile Suit Gundam series. After the original video was posted to Youtube on Febuary 11 2008, a number of other parodies were created, utilizing the song.

Cardboard Box Gundam

Cardboard Box Gundam is a meme based of a piece of cosplay originally worn by Gundam fan Paul M. Palgen during Anime Central 2003. Due to the humorous nature of the cosplay, the costume was subject to parody across the web.

Chinese Gundam

Chinese Gundam refers to a robot statue, built at an amusement park in Sichuan, China on December of 2010. Due to the resemblance to that of Gundam, the statue grew in popularity on the Japanese internet, spawning a online fandom and fanart.

Shining Finger Sword

Shining Finger Sword refers to a special move used within the anime Mobile Fighter G Gundam^[18]. Due to the cheesiness and humor of the original scene, the video is often subject to parody.

Zeta Punch

Zeta Punch, is a series of parodies revolving around scenes in the anime Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam^[19], in which the main character punches numerous other characters. The original video was posted to YouTube on March 29 2007, and consisted of these scenes, accompanied by the meme Falcon Punch.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Snickers meme is a six-panel comic featuring a problem being solved with the titular snack, with different celebrities taking the role of the “hungry” and “satisfied” versions of the afflicted.

Origin

Snickers began their “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign during Super Bowl XLIV in 2010, where grumpy people in troublesome situations were portrayed by celebrity actors Betty White and Abe Vigoda. Upon eating a Snickers bar provided by concerned friends, the person would find their mood improved (and their appearance back to normal).

Others featured different celebrities, such as this UK advert with Dynasty stars Joan Collins and Stephanie Beacham in 2012:

This version would be the one sampled in a macro comic featuring prominent Koreans Kim Jong-un and PSY (Park Jae-sang):

About

Sakurafish is a daily dose type image mainly posted on 4chan’s /a/ (anime & manga) and /jp/ (otaku culture) boards. The image shows the character Sakura, one of the main female heroines in the Fate/Stay Night visual novel, forcefully biting into a fish. The idea of the image is to post them on such a regular basis that even those that initially hate it will eventually grow used to it and like it. Due to this threads featuring sakurafish are commonly accompied with the text “I’m going to post this every day until you like it.” Although initially seen as widespread trolling in 2007 and 2008, through 2009 and later opinions about sakurafish became more positive, resulting in the image seeing often usage in photoshops.

Origin

Sakura Matō (shown below, left) is one of the three main heroines in Fate/Stay Night visual novel^[1] developed by Type-Moon, although she only has a more significant role in one of the three possible routes. Fate/Stay Night rapidly became one of the most popular visual novels in history after its release on January 30th, 2004, resulting in a large fan following of the series which also spread to the western web. The earliest version of the image used in sakurafist posts can be traced back to a Sakura collection post^[3] on the South Korean search portal Naver^[5] posted on October 6th, 2006 (shown below, right). The watermark on the image in the post traces the creator back to Naver blogger yoow889.^[4]

The first archived instance of a sakurafish thread dates back to February 7th, 2008, on the online archive, Foolz.^[2] Sakurafish threads were already active on 4chan as early as 2007 and possibly 2006, but have been lost as Foolz does not trace back that far.

Spread

Over the course of 2008, the catchphrase “I’m going to post this every day until you like it” made a common appearance as a style of troll posting. Even though sakurafish threads were still the most common amongst the posts, other recurring topics often involved disturibing or aggrevating content such as gore or the King of Get.

[Researching]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Sports Balls Replaced With Cats is a single topic blog featuring photoshopped images in which balls from various sports games have been replaced with pictures of cats.

Origin

The “Sports Balls Replaced With Cats” (SBRWC) Tumblr^[1] blog was launched on April 7th, 2013, with the first posted image featuring a rugby player getting tackled in mid-air while holding a small kitten (shown below).^[2] Within four days, the post garnered over 40 notes.

Precursor: Boozecats

The photoshop meme Boozecats was created by Brooklyn resident Ryan Darrenkamp in July of 2009, featuring photographs in which alcoholic beverages have been replaced with superimposed cats (shown below). Darrenkamp subsequently created the Boozecats^[15] single topic blog to highlight notable examples of the edited images.

Spread

On April 8th, 2013, Redditor Iammattieee posted a link to the Tumblr blog on the /r/funny^[3] subreddit, where it received only 15 up votes in the next 72 hours. The same day, a Facebook^[12] page titled “Sports Balls Replaced With Cats” was launched, which accumulated upwards of 1,800 likes within the same time frame. On April 9th, several notable examples from the blog were posted on the Internet humor site College Humor.^[4] That same day, 24-hour comedy ticker site WitStream^[5] reblogged a SBRWC post of a basketball player preparing to slam dunk a cat (shown below). Within 48 hours, the post gained more than 590 notes.

In the following days, compilations of SBRWC image posts were highlighted on several news sites and Internet humor blogs, including Mashable,^[6] BuzzFeed,^[7] The Daily Dot,^[8] The Huffington Post,^[10] NY Daily News,^[11] Laughing Squid^[13] and Pleated Jeans.^[14]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not yet available.

External References

Overview

Rehtaeh Parsons was a Canadian teenager who committed suicide in April 2013. Like fellow Canadian teenager Amanda Todd, her death was closely tied to cyberbullying following an X-rated viral photo.

Background

In November 2011, Rehtaeh Parsons attended a house party where she was allegedly gang raped by a group of four boys. One of them took a photograph of the act and distributed it among her classmates and friends at Cole Harbour District High School. Humiliated by the incident and subsequent harassments, Parsons and her family eventually moved to Halifax, where the girl spent nearly six weeks in a hospital after she began contemplating suicide. In November 2012, the police decided not to pursue the case further on the grounds of insufficient evidence and declared the spread of the photos a “community issue.”

Suicide

On April 4th, 2013, after continued harassment, Parsons made an attempt on her life by hanging herself in the bathroom. She remained on life support for three days in the hospital before she was declared brain dead on April 7th. That evening, her mother Leah created a Facebook fan page^[1] to memorialize her seventeen-year-old daughter. Within four days, the page accrued nearly 30,000 likes.

Notable Developments

News Media Coverage

After the Canadian newspaper Chronicle Herald^[2] ran a front page article about her death on April 9th, the story quickly began circulating in the news media and internet culture blogs including the Huffington Post^[3], the Daily Dot^[4] and the Frisky.^[5] The next day, actress Jada Pinkett Smith^[6] shared a photo of Parsons along with her story on Facebook, where it gained more than 16,000 likes and 2,600 shares. In the following days, Parsons’ story was featured on ThinkProgress^[7], Feministing^[8]. the Daily Dot^[9] and People^[10], who referred to the case as the “Canadian Steubenville.”

Father’s Response

On April 10th, Parsons’ father Glen Canning released a statement about his daughter and her death on his personal blog.^[11] The site quickly became unavailable due to heavy influx of traffic and the piece was re-published on the Huffington Post^[12],CBC^[13] and the Chronicle Herald^[14] later that same day. In his statement, Canning said that he wanted her name to be associated with the positive aspects of her life and not what happened at the end of it, concluding with a plea to the Justice Minister of Nova Scotia to revaluate the “digital trail” of evidence surrounding his daughter’s case and why the police waited months before even interviewing the accused.

I had to write something about this. I don’t want her life to defined by a Google search about suicide or death or rape. I want it to be about the giving heart she had. Her smile. Her love of life and the beautiful way in which she lived it.

I found out this afternoon my daughter saved the life of a young woman with her heart. How fitting.

She also gave someone a new liver, a kidney, a new breath, and a new chance to love. She saved the lives of four people with her final gift of life. She was that wonderful.

Someone out there is going to look at the world with my daughter’s eyes. The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.

Official Response

The same day, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Ross Landry revealed his intention to revisit the rape allegations, saying he hoped to have a meeting with Leah Parsons about the problems she had in pursuing the case. Following this news, spokesman for the Halifax Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Scott MacRae stated that the photo in question was evaluated to see if it would have been considered child pornography, but refrained from confirming any details of Parsons’ allegations. He also noted that the police are concerned with how the social media vigilantism and the “sensitivity of the family” might lead to unforeseen consequences such as spread of misinformation (shown below). Following this statement, Motherboard^[16] examined why the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were failing young girls like Parsons and Amanda Todd, both underage girls who had illicit photos of themselves distributed online against their will.

Anonymous Involvement

Also on April 10th, Anonymous issued a video communiqué (shown below) called #OpJustice4Rehtaeh^[17], calling for the government to move forward with the case and threatening to release the boys’ names to the public if no further actions were taken. They claimed it took them two hours to find the identities of two of the boys in question.^[26] Leah Parsons made a public plea^[18] to keep the names quiet, as she believed her daughter would not want more bullying. Anonymous-affiliated Twitter account @YourAnonNews^[19] responded later that day, asking people not to reveal the boys’ names out of respect for Parsons’ mother. On April 11th, news of the Anonymous operation associated with the case was reported on the Huffington Post^[20], International Business Times^[21], Reddit^[22], the Daily Dot^[23] and Salon.^[24] Following the attention from Anonymous, Premier Darrell Dexter announced that cabinet minister Marilyn More would oversee the response to the girl’s death in an attempt to figure where the government failed her.

Search Interest

[Not Currently Available]

External References