About

Vidya, or Vidya Gaem, is a slang term used on the internet as the contraction for video game. The term is commonly used on online image boards and discussion forums when video games are the topic, most notably 4chan’s /v/ (video games) board.

About

King of the Hill is an adult animated sitcom about the middle-class family The Hills and was created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels and first aired on January 12th, 1997.^[1] The family’s father, Hank Hill, often pronounces the word “video” as “vidya”. This mispronouncation was first made clear in the second season episode “Hank’s Dirty Laundry”, which aired on March 1st, 1998.^[2]

Spread

[Researching]

Vidya Gaem Awards

The Vidya Gaem Awards^[3][4] are an annual event organised by posters on 4chan’s /v/ (video game) board in reply to the board’s negative opinion on Spike’s Video Game Awards.^[5] The /v/GAs run on zero budget and are based entirely on the feedback of /v/, with a specific aim to contain as little Reddit influence as possible.

Search Interest

External References

Ojete Moreno saltando en gallumbos.

About

Confession Kid is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a young boy performing a facepalm hand gesture. The captions typically contain confessions about naive and embarrassing childhood beliefs.

Origin

On April 27th, 2013, Redditor Notmiefault submitted an image macro titled “Confession Kid” to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[2] subreddit, recollecting how he used to believe as a child that automatic doors were controlled by an unseen person viewing a surveillance camera (shown below).

Confession Bear

The image macro series bears some resemblance to its precursory advice animal character Confession Bear, which is used by Redditors to confess taboo behaviors and controversial opinions that are often kept secret for fear of being ostracized.

Spread

The same day, Redditor ballplay3 posted an image macro revealing he thought the moon had followed him as a child to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[3] subreddit (shown below, left). Within the next 48 hours, the post gained more than 1,100 up votes and 20 comments. On April 28th, 2013, Redditor spacecruise submitted an image macro with the caption “I thought my ballsack / held my pee” (shown below, right) to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[4] subreddit. In the first 24 hours, the post garnered upwards of 8,900 up votes and 190 comments.

The same day, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[2] posted a compilation of notable examples from the series. On April 29th, the Internet news blog UpRoxx^[5] posted an article about the meme.

Notable Examples

As of late April 2013, the Confession Kid Quickmeme^[6] page has received over 1,800 submissions.

Search Interest

External References

We’ve all seen it before. In YouTube comments, there’s always one. Don’t say that you’ve never seen something like this:

‘you are correct. i really got shocked when i receive my ipad3 without any dime @ my home yesterday. Listen to this, you just need to give email addrss and tell them where you want to send. i found it here => bit.ly/YZXIhM?=jywrj’

Or this:

‘yeah, i couldn’t believe it when my friend told me about this site. i can tell you one thing, i get sent a list of high paying surveys every few days and easy make around $60 off each list. you can get it from here: bit.ly/12qbRI8?=qqpyl’

Or even this:

‘yes, this is really fantastic. i know one thing for sure, really lucky that i registered and earning more than $40 daily from this web site :). i found it here: bit.ly/ZJLtZR?=sjxsk’

And what’s hilarious is that they all seem to follow the same 5-step formula:

1. Make some crude attempt at making the comment match the video, usually with a feeble handwave like ‘this is great’, or, even in cases where it makes no sense, ‘yes, you are correct’ etc.

2. Tell some clearly made-up story about how you/your friend/a family member found ‘this awesome site’.

3. Go on to describe how much money you can make daily/weekly/hourly from ‘this awesome site’.

4. Provide a TinyURL’d link that’ll probably riddle your computer with viruses, complete with a side order of identity thefts and crashes.

5. Rinse and repeat on other videos.

Top it all off with some atrocious grammar, and there you have it: the ’You’re Right/Correct, I’m So Lucky to X’ subculture!

It’s a steadily growing group of people whose pitiful existence seems to be only to advertise these cheap shot sites that are evidently computer-crippling Trojans. Though many don’t realise it, it’s a fast-growing trend, and it’s now near impossible to go onto a YouTube video’s comments without seeing at least one, usually accompanied with a flag for spam and several infuriated responses.

To get an idea of how bad it’s gotten, here’s a prime offender, a Mr. ‘Wilson Molina’ who’s been at it since 2011: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuviTkv1R3QqdRqjNhMc1rQ/feed?filter=2

Notice how ALL OF HISCOMMENTSCONSIST OF THIS.

Again, it’s nigh-on impossible to check out the comments of a popular video without seeing one, especially in the 5-step format outlined above. Go on. Try it.

Overview

Mars One is a planned spaceflight project to establish a permanent human colony on Mars. The project aims to send a communication satellite and a path finder to the planet by 2016, followed by the first arrival of a transport carrying four astronaut-settlers in 2023. Due to the science fiction-like premise of the one-way mission, Mars One has garnered significant attention on the web and in the news media since being announced in early October 2012.

Notable Developments

[researching]

Search Interest

External References

About

Character Name Generators are a series of index cards featuring a list of the English alphabet letters with each representing a unique word, from which a combination of two or more words are individually assigned to participants based on their first and last names.

About

Hyperbole and a Half^[1] is a webcomic and blog maintained by Oregon resident Allie Brosh.^[2] Launched in 2009, the comics feature MS Paint-style drawings often paired with dark themes about growing up or depression.

History

Brosh launched Hyperbole and a Half in July 2009, opening with a text post^[3] dedicated to the loud basslines emanating from her neighbor’s apartment. Later that month, Brosh began incorporating drawings in to her posts illustrating a story^[4] in which she accidentally drank from a sprinkler releasing pesticides.

The blog began receiving large amounts of attention in the first half of 2010, when it was featured on Serious Eats^[5], Skippy’s List^[6], Strange Future^[7] and Beauty Geeks.^[8] In April 2010, Brosh contributed a bear fashion guide based on her bear comics to The Gloss.^[9] The same month, she was able to earn enough money from merchandise sales to make blogging her full time job.^[10] The following month, Brosh did an interview with True/Slant^[11] where she described her writing and drawing processes and noted Rage Guy as one of her artistic influences.

Book Deal

In May 2011, Brosh announced^[12] on her blog that she had signed a book deal with Touchstone with an anticipated release date of fall 2012, half of which would be brand new material and the other half taken from the blog. Following the announcement of the book deal, Brosh ceased to update the comic blog regularly.

On April 5th, 2013, Touchstone Books posted a photo of the manuscript to their Instagram account^[19], which was shared two days later on the /r/Books subreddit^[20] and earned more than 3,700 upvotes. As of April 2013, the book is ranked #7 on Amazon^[21]’s Comic Strips chart, slated for release on October 29th, 2013.

Hiatus

In August 2011, Brosh posted a note^[13] to the Facebook fan page to explain her extended absence due to her working on the book. On October 27th, 2011, she posted Adventures in Depression^[14], touching on her ongoing struggle with clinical depression. As of April 2013, there has not been another update to Hyperbole and a Half.

In March 2012, Redditor honeytrap submitted a question to /r/AskReddit^[15] inquiring about Brosh’s whereabouts. The following day, Brosh responded to the thread^[16] wherein she revealed that she had been taking a hiatus to seek help. On March 7th, 2013, a friend of Brosh under the handle “Minion” took over her personal Facebook fan page.^[17] The following day,
“Minion” posted a status update acknowledging that she had received 11,000 private messages for Brosh in the past day.^[18]

Highlights

The Alot

The Alot is a fictional mammalian creature that first appeared in the comic “The Alot is Better Than You at Everything”^[22], posted on April 13th, 2010. Brosh imagined the animal as a method of dealing with her desire to correct people’s grammar when the phrase “a lot” is misspelled “alot.” The same day, the comic was shared on Reddit where it gained more than 2,100 upvotes. In 2012, a subreddit^[23] dedicated to the Alot was created.

X all the Y

X all the Y is an exploitable image macro series derived from two panels in the comic “This is Why I’ll Never Be an Adult”^[24] published on June 17th, 2010. The two panels illustrate the differences in her motivations to participate in stereotypical adult activities while coping with her responsibilities. After initially being remixed on Canvas, the image became a popular exploitable on Reddit, resulting in the creation of the /r/AllTheThings subreddit^[25] in July 2011.

Traffic

In May 2011, Hyperbole and a Half was receiving between 3 to 7 million visitors per month.^[10] According to Quantcast^[26] data, the blog sees approximately 10,500 monthly visitors as of April 2013.

Search Interest

External References

About

Go Titans One is a controversial photoshop meme featuring an exploitable photograph of a young boy with down syndrome holding a sign that reads “Go Titans One,” which is often replaced with insulting messages.

Origin

The original photograph of Nashville, Tennessee resident Adam Holland posing with his drawing was taken during an art class for mentally disabled students at Vanderbilt University in 2004.^[9] However, the image didn’t gain notoriety until in 2006, when a page titled “Retarded Handicap Sign Generator”^[3] was launched to allow users to customize the text in the sign (shown below, right).

Spread

On April 20th, 2007, a post was published on the Angry Medic^[2] blog featuring an edited sign with the words “I used to be a Cambridge medic!” (shown below, left). On July 10th, 2008, the Internet humor blog Belch^[7] posted about homeschooling special needs children and highlighted the photo with an edited sign reading “I hit that poo-see” (shown below, right).

On February 24th, 2009, the Internet humor blog The Chive^[6] featured an edited version of Holland’s photo with the sign reading “I can count to potato” (shown below). On May 24th, 2010, Fark^[8] user Lou Stoolz used the “poo-see” variation to comment on an article about a mentally handicapped Florida man claiming to have been raped by a 14-year-old girl.

On July 16th, 2012, a Quickmeme^[4] page titled “Ben the Retarded Kid” was created with an image macro series based on the photograph, although it didn’t see any significant growth on the site. On November 25th, FunnyJunk^[5] user misturzero reuploaded the “poo-see” version of Holland’s photo under the title “Cunt Destroyer”.

Controversy

On April 25th, 2013, the Nashville City Paper^[9] reported that Tennessee residents Bernard and Pamela Holland were suing three different defendants for using edited photographs of their son Adam without consent. Among the accused were the Florida radio station WHPT-FM, which used Holland’s photograph as part of a segment titled “Retarded News” on the Cowhead Show, Flickr user Russell LaLevee and owner of the website Sign Generator Dave Brown. The couple sued each defendant for $3 million in compensation and $3 million in punitive damages for a total of $18 million. In the coming week, the lawsuit was reported on by several news sites, including the New York Daily News,^[1] The Huffington Post^[10] and Salon.^[11] On April 29th, the Holland family’s lawyer Larry Crain spoke to the television news station WSMV about the lawsuit (shown below).

WSMV Channel 4

Search Interest

External References

About

Como você é burro (means something like “How you’re stupid”) is a part of a quote said by brazilian singer Caetano Veloso during an interview on a TV show, answering the question of the journalist Geraldo Mayrink.

Answering to what the journalist had asked, Caetano Veloso introduced (translated to english): "no, you’re stupid, man, this is crazy. .. how you’re dumb .. this is absurd .. You’re saying stupid things.. stupid things.. I cannot remember anything you just said because you speak in a dumb way. ".

Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso, better known as Caetano Veloso, is a musician, producer, arranger and Brazilian writer.

The video (not the whole interview, only the part that “generated” the meme):

Origin

It all started on a Brazilian television show called “Vox Populi”. Caetano Veloso was there answering several questions. In one of the questions, a reporter asked a question about the military regime in Brazil and Caetano replied repeating several times “you’re stupid.” The interview was first displayed in 1978.

Spread

Despite being a fairly old interview (dated 1978), the interview became popular on the internet recently, after the station who had displayed this interview reprise the interview as a celebration of 40 years of broadcasting. A user posted a video in 2012 that had the whole answer given by the singer to the question of the journalist Geraldo Mayrink. Therefore the date of the video name of the video was “Caetano Veloso Puto 5 – Detonando Geraldo”. A fraction of the full interview, which had been posted on Youtube previously. Soon, the video started getting known and is now a meme widely used by Brazilians.

The Whole Interview (in portuguese):

Han shot first is a phrase used by Star Wars fans to show their distaste with the change mad to the scene in Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope, where Han Solo shoots Greedo the bounty hunter.

Origin

In 1997, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition was released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. George Lucas, the director of the Star Wars series, made several changes to the original trilogy while remastering it. Most of these changes were aesthetic, however one scene that was changed was the confrontation between Han Solo and Greedo, a bounty hunter sent by Jabba the Hut, in Mos Eisley Cantina. In the original 1977 release, Han shoots Greedo under the table while Greedo is pointing his blaster at him. In the altered 1997 version however, Greedo shots at Han first and misses, and then proceeds to be shot by Han.

Fan Reaction

Many fans were displeased with the changes made to the original film, as they believed it compromised Han’s rebellious and ruthless qualities that added to his development from a selfish smuggler to a brave member of the Rebel Alliance. Fans also criticized the probability that Greedo would miss his shot, as he fired from point blank. In 2004, the website called Han Shoots First.org was launched as a petition to get an unchanged version of the films released and as a rant for fans to express their disdain for the changes Lucas made to the movies. The website was mentioned by Forbes Magazine and Movies.com. The changes made to the original trilogy helped to form a hatred of George Lucas in the Star Wars fandom.

Spread

Han shot first has been used all over the internet in images, videos, and other media. The phrase has also been used by fans to show contempt with any changes made to the original movies. Merchandise that include the phrase, such as t-shirts, are very popular. Han shot first has also been referenced in several movies and TV shows, such as Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, and MythBusters.

Notable Examples

“Not bad…”

The never ending jingle of the running candidates for the upcoming election in my country…
To bad nothing really change, but their jingles sure are entertaining lol

About

Geki Oko Punpun Maru (Japanese: 激おこぷんぷん丸 or 激おこプンプン丸) is a neologism meaning “Very Angry”, which was coined by Japanese Gyaru.^[1]

In the spring of 2013, Japanese internet users had been creating parody photo collages, illustrations and 8-bit style video games by getting inspiration from this laughable but impressive expression.

Origin

Japanese Gyaru had been using “Oko”, a shortened form of a verb “Okoru” (Get Angry), since around 2011. And this word had been ranked in the 6th place in 2011 Gal’s vogue word award held by a Japanese fashion research service Gal Reseach Press.^[2] However, ordinary Japanese people hadn’t noticed neither this term nor its derivative “Geki Oko Punpun Maru” till the beginning of 2013. It finally began spreading whole of the web by one tweet by Twitter user Yuto.com™ (@yuto_com_tm) on March 2nd, 2013.^[3] That was a list of six stages of anger in Gyaru words (shown below).

ＧＡＬが怒った時に使う言葉【弱め】おこ【普通】まじおこ【強め】激おこぷんぷん丸【最上級】ムカ着火ファイヤー【爆発】カム着火ｲﾝﾌｪﾙﾉｫｫｫｫｵｵｳ【神】げきオコスティックファイナリアリティぷんぷんドリーム←New

— Yuto.com™ (@yuto_com_tm) March 2, 2013

Translation:

Gal words of anger:
Weak: Oko (Angry)
Normal: Maji Oko (Really Angry)
Stronger: Geki Oko Punpun Maru (Very Angry Punpun Boy)
Strongest: Muka Chakka Fire (Angry Fire Burst)
Explosion: Kam-chakka Infernooooooh (Come Fire Inferno)
God: Geki Oko-stic Finaleality Punpun Dream (Very Agnristic Finaleality Punpun Dream)

Interpretation

• “Oko” and “Muka” are a shortened form of verbs “Okoru” (Get Angry) and “Mukatsuku” (Get Annoyed). Both of them sound mild and cute.
• “Punpun” is a comical onomatopoeia of anger expressing like steam coming out from one’s head. It is mainly used expressing anger of children or young girls.
• “-Maru” suffix is for formatting terms to classic personal names (eg. Orochimaru in Naruto, Sesshomaru in Inuyasha, Shameimaru in Touhou Project, etc…).
  
  

Spread

The ridiculously incoherent sense of language of this Gyaru’s wordplay fascinated many Japanese internet users. In particular, the 3rd-stage word “Geki Oko Punpun Maru” soon went viral because it had so nice ring to it. This tweet had earned near 20,000 retweets and 10,000 favorites within its first two months. And Its online popularity was covered by several online news media^[4][5] as well as a Japanese morning news show on April 4th, 2013 (shown below).

Moreover, it didn’t end in a mere vogue word, but derived to other online creations by people’s playful mind.

Six Stages of Anger Parodies

The Gyaru’s laughable six stages of anger in the tweet firstly caused a photo collage fad of reproducing its ridiculous changes in the same manner of Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies. Naver matome Archives have dozens of photos collages by Twitter users.^[6]

On the other hand, online illustrators communities also reacted to this meme’s bandwagon by their favorite template-based illustration method like Expression Meme. Several blank templates were posted to both pixiv and niconico Seiga. Both sites have more than 200 illustrations tagged as “Geki Oko Punpun Maru”, “Six Stages of Anger” (怒りの六段活用) or “Six Geki Oko Variations” (激おこ六段活用) in total.^[7][8]

Video Game

Another creative movement came from the name of “Geki Oko Punpun Maru”, which has quite nostalgic note reminding middle-aged people of classic NES games like Ninja JaJaMaru-kun^[9] or Kaiketsu Yanchamaru.^[10] The movemnt was ignited by title screen image of NES game “Geki Oko Punpun Maru”, which was set up that it was released in 1985. This image was posted by a Twitter user Hiromu (@hiromgogo) on April 12th, 2013 (shown below).^[11]

ファミコンソフト「激おこぷんぷん丸」1985年発売twitpic.com/cip39j

— ヒロム (@hiromgogo) April 12, 2013

In addition to this tweet, since a Japanese video game composer Manabu Namiki^[12] and chiptune musician Professor Sakamoto made songs in this imaginary video game^[13][14], people started the pletend play of recalling memories and digging out archives of this game that they had really played in 1980s.

Title Theme by Manabu Namiki

Stage 1 BGM by Professor Sakamoto

These milestones triggered creative chain reaction among amatuer/professional creators. They had continually uploaded source many materials of this game to Nico Nico Douga^[15] and Soundcloud.^[16] Then, it finally reached to the release of playable “Geki Oko Punpun Maru” game for Windows/iOS/Android, which is consisting by consolidating those individual creations and comments from viewers.^[17] Of course, the developer said “It’s very happy that we’ve got an opportunity to port this 1985 video game.”.

This creator’s completely unexpected but happy collaboration via social networks was reported by Japanese online news sites^[18][19][20] as well as Twainanese online otaku news site 宅宅新聞.^[21]

Notable Examples

Photo Collages

Illustrations

Video Games

Song Collection

Art works

Box Art, Instruction Card and Guidebook Cover

Another Version (Downloadable from the original video page^[22])

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.

About

Attack on Titan Opening Parodies are a series of MAD featuring the theme song from the opening sequence for the Japanese anime television series Attack on Titan. On Nico Nico Douga, the song has been paired with various footage from other TV shows to give them a dramatic feel, in a similar vein to the Guile’s Theme Goes With Everything remixes.

Origin

The anime series Attack on Titan, which is based on the manga of the same name, premiered on April 6th, 2013. The earliest known MAD remix using the show’s opening theme song (shown below, left) was uploaded by Nico Nico Douga^[2] user (´ω｀)ﾊﾔﾙ on April 8th, featuring footage from several other anime series, including Anpanman, Future Diary, Gintama and Deadman Wonderland (shown below, right).

Spread

On April 11th, 2013, Nico Nico Douga^[3] user ねろーん uploaded a video featuring footage from a Bollywood film accompanied by the opening theme from Attack on Titan (shown below, left), which received more than 96,000 views and 1,800 comments in the first three weeks. On April 15th, Nico Nico Douga^[5] user ミッフィーの人 uploaded a mashup video featuring footage from a TV commercial for the fabric softner Snuggle and the opening theme song (shown below, right). Throughout the rest of April, the video garnered over 630,000 views and 8,900 comments.

On April 17th, Nico Nico Douga^[6] user ミッフィーの人 uploaded a live-action parody of the show’s opening sequence (shown below, left), which gained upwards of 2,800 views and 110 comments in 16 days. On April 20th, YouTuber ossiandbg uploaded a video featuring footage from the stop-motion claymated television series Pingu set to the Attack on Titan theme song (shown below, right). In the following 10 days, the video received over 125,000 views and 200 comments.

On April 25th, the Gawker Media video game blog Kotaku^[1] published an article about the remix videos, highlighting several notable examples from the series.

Notable Examples

As of early May 2013, there are over 695 Attack on Titan remix videos uploaded to Nico Nico Douga.^[4]

Search Interest

External References

About

Netflix is a streaming video service available in more than 40 countries supplemented with a DVD-by-mail service within the United States. It has more than 33 million subscribers as of May 2013.^[2]

History

Netflix^[1] was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings^[3] and Marc Randolph who wanted to rent and sell DVDs online. Since DVDs had only been introduced in 1995, they were still relatively rare in brick and mortar video rental stores like Blockbuster, but the entrepreneurs believed the format would eventually replace the bulky VHS.^[4] The site opened for business on April 14th, 1998^[5] with a selection of 925 DVDs, including some softcore pornography. 48 hours after the site went live, it had to shut down for a short period of time due to overwhelming demand. The disks could be rented for seven days at $4 each with an additional cost of $2 for shipping. The site also offered DVD purchases for several months before switching to rental-only.

Netflix Prize

In 2000, Netflix introduced a recommendation system known as CineMatch that utilizes Oracle database systems to cluster similar movies together using information from customer ratings. On October 2nd, 2006, the Netflix Prize^[20]was launched, which encouraged researchers to create a more accurate algorithm for rating titles using a provided training data set of more than 100 million ratings for 17,000 movies. Within six days, someone had achieved a more accurate root mean square error (RMSE) with the data^[21], beating Cinematch’s accuracy score. In June 2009, a group of scientists from across the globe achieved a 10.05% improvement in RMSE over Cinematch, winning the grand prize of $1 million.^[22] That September, their algorithms were released online.^[23] However, the winning code was never implemented^[24] due to the extra engineering costs needed to make it work.

Features

Streaming

In January 2007, Netflix introduced a streaming video service^[25] for PC users, making less than 1.5% of its 70,000 titles available for a limited of hours per month, based on the user’s subscription plan. Within the first six months, at least 2,000 titles had been streamed more than 5 million times.^[26] By late 2007, Netflix began testing out unlimited streaming, and by January 2008, all restrictions on streaming service had been lifted.^[28] In October 2008, streaming services were opened up to Mac users for the first time.^[27] By fall 2009, 42% of Netflix’s 11.1 million subscribers were streaming at least 15 minutes of video.^[29]

Original Programming

Netflix launched their first original series Lilyhammer^[30] in February 2012, a week after its broadcast premiere on the Norwegian television station NRK1. Starring The Sopranos actor Steve Van Zant, the series detailed the life of a member of the mob who is relocated to Norway on witness protection after testifying against his former boss. Netflix made all eight episodes of the series available for streaming at the same time, setting itself apart from network and cable television by allowing viewers to avoid the wait between episodes..

On February 1st, 2013, Netflix released the pilot season of its second in-house production House of Cards^[31] (shown below, left), a political drama series starring Kevin Spacey and adapted from a BBC miniseries and novel of the same name. House of Cards received much positive critical reception, culminating in a special achievement Webby Award for its producers in 2013.^[32] Between March and April 2013, Netflix unveiled the comedy series Bad Samaritans, the film Shotgun Wedding and the horror series Hemlock Grove (shown below, right), contributing to more than 2.03 million new streaming subscribers in the first quarter of 2013 in the United States alone.^[33] As of May 2013, Netflix has five additional original series in progress^[34], including the highly anticipated fourth season of cult comedic sitcom Arrested Development.

Reception

In September 2003, Hacking Netflix^[35] was launched to provide the latest news on new releases, movie reviews and news about Netflix itself. In 2008, the first subreddit^[36] dedicated to Netflix was created on Reddit, gaining more than 22,000 subscribers as of May 2013. A second Netflix subreddit, /r/NetflixBestOf^[37], was created in April 2010 specifically to solicit recommendations for instantly streamable content. Outside of these communities, many Netflix subscribers have used image macros^[38] (shown below, left) on message boards and blogs to express their feelings about the services, most notably on Cheezburger^[39], FunnyJunk^[40] and Tumblr.^[41] Additionally, there are Quickmeme pages for both Scumbag Netflix^[42] (shown below, center) and Good Guy Netflix^[43] (shown below, right), each discussing the pros and cons of the service.

Highlights

Qwikster

On September 18th, 2011, Reed Hasting announced via an email to subscribers that the company would be splitting their DVD rental and streaming services into two separate operations. The DVD rental was to be rebranded as Qwikster, named for quick mail delivery. As the news spread, people sought out Qwikster’s social media accounts, including a Twitter account belonging to a man named Jason Castillo who had no affiliation with Netflix. Though Castillo’s account had been inactive for months, he began tweeting again on September 19th, offering to sell his account.

Within days, a handful of Qwikster spoof Twitter and Tumblr accounts were created, parodying Castillo’s original avatar depicting Sesame Stree character Elmo smoking weed. On October 10th, Netflix announced that they would be abandoning Qwikster and leaving both services under the Netflix brand. Castillo’s Twitter account has not been updated since October 11th, 2011.

Great Netflix Purge

On April 30th, 2013, InstantWatcher.com^[7] announced that nearly 1,800 titles including two James Bond titles, fifteen seasons of South Park and a number of classic films would be removed from Netflix’s streaming service on May 1st. Slate^[8] confirmed the removal, noting it was due to expiring contracts with studios including MGM, Warner Bros. and Universal. Between April 30th and May 1st, news of the lost titles was shared on Mashable^[9], Gizmodo^[10], Forbes^[11] and the Huffington Post.^[12] News of the mass removal struck a chord on Twitter, resulting in more than 110,000 mentions of Netflix that day^[14], up from an average of 63,000 mentions per day that week. In a statement to The Verge^[13], a Netflix representative stated that they would be adding more than 500 recent titles on the same day.

Traffic

By December 2000, slightly more than two years after the site went live, Netflix had 292,000 customers and was shipping more than 300,000 DVDs a week. In February 2003, the company hit 1 million subscribers^[15] who were renting an average of 5.5 movies per month from a library of more than 5.5 million discs.^[15] In May 2011, four years after introducing its streaming services, Netflix accounted for 24.71 percent of all internet traffic, with viewers using gaming consoles to stream media downloading more than 2.5 GB from the site per day.^[16] As of May 2013, Netflix has more than 30 million global subscribers^[17], with more than 10.6 million unique users in the United States per month.^[18] Netflix.com has an Alexa^[19] ranking of 99 globally and 21 in the US.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Nanomachines, Son” is an expression uttered by the final boss character in a cinematic sequence from the 2013 action video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. On the web, the phrase is typically employed as a non sequitur response to an unrelated question, in a similar vein to the use of Aliens.

Origin

In the video game Metal Gear Rising, the final boss character Senator Armstrong is confronted by the game’s protagonist as to why he cannot be killed, to which he responds “Nanomachines, son” (shown below). The phrase is meant to indicate that he is using nanotechnology to repair himself and achieve immortality.

Raiden: Why won’t you die?
Senator Armstrong: Nanomachines, son!

Spread

On February 21st, 2013, YouTuber SSSniperWolf uploaded an extended version of the scene (shown below), which gained over 19,000 views and 200 comments in the next 10 days, with the majority of comments made in reference to Senator Armstrong’s nanomachines. On the following day, Gamespot Forums^[3] member Kobe_Got_Jam linked to the YouTube video in a thread titled “Time to spread a ‘Nanomachines Son’ meme!”

Also on February 22nd, “Nanomachines, son” was added to a list of quotes about nanontechnology on the pop culture database site TV Tropes.^[2] On March 15th, a Meme Generator^[4] page titled “Nanomachines, son” was created, featuring a still shot of Senator Armstrong as the template image (shown below).

On March 8th, a Facebook^[5] page titled “Nanomachines, son” was launched. On March 31st, Urban Dictionary^[1] user OhShitSon submitted an entry for “Nanomachines, son,” which defined the term as a catch-all answer to a variety of questions.

Search Interest

External References

W.I.P. This is an old meme with a bit of a history which I am trying to dig up. Could use help finding examples. Research is still ongoing. Bear with me

About

“No soup for you” or “NO SOUP 4 U” is a notable quote used used in various image macro’s for it’s blunt humor. The phrase is often used in reply to other users making request or demands that are denied or cannot be fulfilled or simply a blanket statement for flat out denial of service/cooperation.

Origin

The quote comes from the 1995 Seinfield episode “The Soup Nazi” which features an excessively strict kitchen owner (played by Larry Thomas^[6]), nicknamed “Soup Nazi” for his strict regimentation and serious demeanor.^[1]

During one particular scene of the episode where the character Elaine discusses with the Soup Nazi, Elaine makes a friendly comment on the Soup Nazi, only to have the Soup Nazi heatedly ban Elaine from having any soup served to her for an entire year. The Quote “No soup for you! Come back – One year!” became a memorable line among TV viewers which later spread throughout the internet as an aggressive and staunch denial of service.

Spread

Since the debut of the Seinfeld episode “The Soup Nazi” in 1995: The quote and the character that spoke it, remained memorable and iconic in the Seinfeld series. The Soup Nazi became a hero among Seinfeld fans, even spawning specific merchandising^[11] for the quote until running foul of legal disputes.

Although records of the quote’s use on the internet from 1995 to 2005 are scarce, it appears to have maintained a consistent amount of fame, long enough to be quoted on forum posts as early as 2005.

The perseverance of the phrase has allowed it to remain significant in numerous meme related communities such as Memecenter^[7], Funnyjunk^[8], Quickmeme,^[9] and other meme collection sites^[10].

Seinfeld fans have also created songs^[12], Tumblr pages^[13], YTMND’s^[14] and multiple Facebook pages^[15] all dedicated to either the quote itself, the Soup Nazi or the Seinfield episode that aired it.

Example Images

Search Interest

External References

This video was launched only a few days ago and it has over 600k views. It is a Persian-Armenian auto transmission/mechanic shooting a low-budget commercial.

It has been featured on:
JUSTADDED– ELLENSHOW: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqjBkoroD_w)
mashable (cant find link)
huffington post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/29/arlens-transmission-service-commercial-is-the-next-dance-craze_n_3178562.html)
the hollywood gossip (http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/shift-it-local-auto-repair-shop-goes-viral-with-hilarious-commer/)
college humor (http://www.collegehumor.com/embed/6887234/shift-it-amazing-transmission-commercial)
the orange (http://theorange.co/rhett-links-shift-it-commercial-is-creepy-mcgee/)
rhett and link (https://rhettandlink.com/videos/shift-it-amazing-transmission-commercial)
laughing squid (http://laughingsquid.com/shift-it-rhett-links-auto-repair-shop-commercial-featuring-a-singing-mechanic/)
and more that I cannot find at the moment and until the time this has been submitted I am certain a lot more sites will mention and/or write some article about it (it was released only 2 days ago!)

The picture submitted is when the mechanic is helping the hot girl grind a car part on a grinder and he’s “showing her” how to do it while giving a creepy/seductive look into the camera. He is a Persian/Armenian mechanic working in Burbank, CA and before this commercial he was sort of a local celebrity because he had a show on the local Persian channel. The picture should definitely be a meme with funny captions like “bro, do you even shift?” or anything related to creepy mechanic + hot girl.

About

Brent Rambo is a child model featured in a promotional video for Apple’s desktop products in the early 1990s. On Reddit, the animated GIF of Rambo giving a thumbs up gesture in the video has been paired with humorous and suggestive clips as a seal of approval, in similar vein to the use of Approval Guy on 4chan.

Origin

In the early 1990s, Apple Inc. released a promotional video for their Macintosh and Apple II products. In the video, a young boy identified as Brent Rambo is shown nodding at a computer monitor while narrating a letter to Apple CEO John Sculley^[8] (shown below).

Breant Rambo: “Dear Mr. Scully,
Mac rules the world.
Your Mac friend,
Brent Rambo”

On March 25th, 2013, Redditor ToadLicker93 submitted a post titled “Have an upvote!” to the /r/funny^[7] subreddit, which featured an animated GIF of Brent Rambo nodding approvingly from the Apple promo video (shown below). Within the next two months, the post garnered upwards of 13,000 up votes and 130 comments.

Spread

On March 28th, 2013, Redditor DapperJules submitted the same GIF in a post titled “MRW I see boobs on the front page” to the /r/reactiongifs^[3] subreddit, receiving over 3,400 up votes and 35 comments within the first month. On April 3rd, IGN Forums^[4] member bibabo posted a thread asking for the origin of the GIF. On May 1st, Redditor HotelWomb submitted a GIF of Rambo watching a video of a woman eating cereal out of a bathtub filled with milk (shown below) to the /r/gifs subreddit.^[2] Within 24 hours, the post gained more than 11,900 up votes and 430 comments. In addition, the /r/BreantRamboApproves^[1] subreddit was created with a selection of derivative GIFs based on the original video, gaining more than 670 subscribers within the same day.

The same day, the /r/BreantRamboApproves^[1] subreddit was created, featuring various edited versions of the GIF with added scenes from other videos. In the same time frame, the subreddit received over 670 subscribers. Also on May 1st, the Internet humor blog PandaWhale^[5] posted about the animated GIF series, which outlined its spread on Reddit and linked to a Facebook^[6] page of man named Brent Rambo.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Good Guy Gay Greg (GGGG) is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of a bare chested man, standing in front of a LGBT rainbow flag. The captions explain how the homosexual character puts his habits to use into a benevolent manner for others.

First seen at http://sanjoyouknow.tumblr.com/post/49499259782