About

The Russiasphere is a part of the internet that serves as a left-wing fake news bubble.

History

Before Zack Beauchamp dubbed this in the article on Vox^[1] on May 19, 2017, there are instances of this. One of the examples include the 2012 Fobos-Grunt episode involving notorious sock-puppet Starkiller88 and BatteryIncluded on Wikipedia happened right after the failure and crash of the Russian Mars moon probe meant to restart the country’s space program. It ended with Starkiller88 being banned with darkly unfounded statements justifying the unilateral ban by administrators, kicking off the conspiracy theory fueled by fake news.

At the onset of the election win and inauguration of Donald Trump, Beauchamp discovered why liberals and conservatives alike fell for fake news and conspiracy theories that made these possible.

Reputation

Some mainstream figures and publications are starting to validate Russiasphere claims. For instance, after the New York Times published the Mensch piece back in March, former DNC chair Donna Brazile tweeted out the story, with a follow-up thanking Louise Mensch for “good journalism”.

A current DNC communications staffer, Adrienne Watson, favorably retweeted a Mensch claim that the Russians had “kompromat,” or blackmail, on Rep. Jason Chaffetz.

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Vox Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia – Vox

About

Bullet Men, also known colloquially as “モルゲッソヨ” (pronounced “Morregessoyo”), which translates to “I have no idea,” is the name for the statues of three silver, naked muscular men wearing phallic helmets found outside the Olympic Media Center in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Origin

Located in front of the Alpensia Ski Jumping Center in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the “Bullet Men” were designed by Korean artist Kim Ji-hyun and installed in 2009.^[1] The statues (shown below) symbolize “the human desire for a cool body, wealth, honor with a concrete image.”

Spread

With the start of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang on February 7th, people began noticing the statues. That day, Twitter began using the hashtag“#モルゲッソヨ” (translation: “I have no idea”) to discuss the statues.

That day, Twitter^[2] user @p7dea46c tweeted to an article o worldfn.net^[3] about the objects. This is the earliest known usage of the hashtag (shown below, left).

The following day, Twitter^[4] user @wakuteka_the1st shared an article from Tokyo-Sports.co.jp^[5] about the statues, using the hashtag. The tweet (shown below, center) received more than 800 retweets and 580 likes in five days.

That day, Twitter^[6] user @KigaNatsuno tweeted an ASCII image of the statues, making it one of the earliest known uses of the statues as a meme. The tweet (shown below, right) received more than 380 retweets and 400 likes in five days.

The following day, Twitter^[7] user @CPUX4 tweeted a video of the statues dancing. The video (shown below) received more than 35,000 retweets, 40,000 likes and 1.5 million views in four days.

Several media outlets covered the Bullet Men, calling attention to its popularity as a meme. These outlets include, BuzzFeed,^[8] New York magazine,^[9] The Daily Dot,^[10] HuffPost,^[11] Cosmopolitan^[12] and more.

On February 12th, Twitter^[13] published a Moments page calling the Bullet Men “Japan’s favorite Olympic meme.”

Various Examples

External References

Overview

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an immigration policy by former United States President Barack Obama. The policy protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, referred to as DREAMERs. The policy has been the subject of intense scrutiny from Republicans, who accused Obama of executive overreach when the plan was implemented. In 2017, President Donald Trump put the policy at the front of the country’s immigration debate, giving congress until March 5th, 2018 to sign DACA into law or allow it to expire.

Background

DREAM Act

In 2001, the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) was a bill introduced into congress. The purpose of the bill was to grant legal status to certain undocumented immigrants who were brought the U.S. as children.^[1] The bill did not pass. However, since its introduction, undocumented immigrants that would have fallen under the protection of the bill have been referred to as “DREAMers.”

DACA

On June 15th, 2012, in a Rose Garden speech at the White House, President Barack Obama announced the DACA policy, which would prevent certain undocumented immigrants from deportation (speech below). The policy would also grant these immigrants the ability to obtain two-year work permits that could be renewed. However, the restrictions for the program included that the recipient must be younger than 31 as of June 15th, 2012, they must have been younger than 16-years-old when they were brought to the U.S., and must have lived in the country since 2007.^[2]

Developments

Republican Reaction

Republicans reacted negatively to Obama’s policy, particularly in how it was executed. Many believed the maneuver to be example of executive overreach. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa said, “The president’s action is an affront to the process of representative government by circumventing Congress and with a directive he may not have the authority to execute.”^[3]

During the speech, a reporter for the conservative news website The Daily Caller interrupted the speech to ask a question about whether or not the policy was good for “legal American workers.”^[4]

#burnmyMAGAhat

On September 5th, 2017, Donald Trump announced he would be repealing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA),^[7] a program from the Obama administration which allows children of undocumented immigrants to receive a two-year deferment from deportation and the possibility of attaining a work permit.^[5][8] Trump gave congress a six-month window to reach a legislative compromise on the act. However, on September 13th, 2017, Trump met with Democrats and following the meeting, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer announced “We agreed to enshrine the protections of DACA into law quickly, and to work out a package of border security, excluding the wall, that’s acceptable to both sides.” The following morning, Trump posted a series of cryptic tweets that seemed to say that while no deal was reached and he still wanted his promised wall on the border of Mexico and the United States, he did not want to deport hard working people in America (examples shown below).

While details of the meeting and potential agreement Trump made with Democrats remain unclear, Trump supporters, feeling betrayed by the news, responded angrily with the hashtag #AmnestyDon. On the morning of September 14th, Twitter account @TheRightDefense^[9] tweeted “Trump supporters have already started burning #MAGA hats and shirts in protest to Trump’s amnesty. Everyone post videos of it. #AmnestyDon.” @KausMickey^[10] quote-tweeted that tweet and suggested the #burnmyMAGAhat hashtag. Twitter account @TrumpTrumpsUp^[11] then tweeted a picture of a burning "MAGA":memes/make-america-great-again hat that afternoon (shown below).

For the remainder of the day, many more people posted their burning MAGA hats under the hashtag.

Trump’s Shithole Comments

During such immigration negotiations on January 12th, 2018, President Trump invited representatives from congress to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal. When the prospect of protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries, the president reportedly said, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”^[6]

According to people familiar with the meeting, Trump continued that the U.S. should bring in more immigrants from countries, like Norway, before saying, “Why do we need more Haitians? Take them out.”

Following Trump’s alleged remarks, many online denounced his assertion to that those countries are “shitholes.” On Twitter, many people said that this was another example of President Trump’s perceived attitudes towards non-white people (examples below). Some went on to say, “Trump is a racist.”

Online Discussion

Since its announcement, DACA has been a topic of discussion on various online forums, especially since it has been reintroduced into the public consciousness with the deadline imposed by President Trump. On Reddit, the subject has been discussed in numerous subreddits.

On September 4th, 2017, Redditor^[12] CommonsCarnival posted in the /r/politics subreddit that Bernie Sanders called “Trump ending DACA‘one of the ugliest and cruelest decisions ever made by a president.’” Within four months, the post received more than 28,000 points (78% upvoted) and 5,100 comments.

That day, Redditor^[13] SpicyComment posted a picture of a man holding a sign with a “Roses are red”/memes/roses-are-red-violets-are-blue poem on it in the /r/PoliticalHumor subreddit. The image (shown below, left) reads “Roses are red, tacos are enjoyable, don’t blame Mexicans cause you’re unemployable.” The post received more than 32,000 points (75% upvoted) and 2,400 comments in less than six months.

On January 15th, 2018, Redditor^[14] TooShiftyForYou posted an image in the /r/pics subreddit with the heading “On MLK Day, ICE deports Jorge Garcia, a married father of 2 kids in metro Detroit who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years. He was brought to the U.S. when he was 10 years-old by undocumented family members, making him too old to qualify for DACA.” The image (shown below, right) received more than 92,000 points (70% upvoted) and 9,000 comments in less than one month.

Additionally, threads in /r/politics,^[17][18][19]/r/The_Donald, ^[20][21] /r/IAmA^[22] and more.

#GoNancyGo

On February 7th, 2018, House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor for more than eight hours to push for a vote on DACA. The speech was the longest speech on the floor since 1909.^[15] However, despite this Speaker of the House denied the vote.

Online, people applauded Pelosi’s filibuster under the hashtag“#GoNancyGo.” Twitter user @KaivanShroff tweeted,^[16] Nancy Pelosi is a 77-year-old wealthy white woman who could be sipping rosé on a beach anywhere in the world right now, but instead she has been on her feet for nearly 7 hours fighting for DREAMers. She is the best of the Democratic Party no matter what some might say. #GoNancyGo" The tweet (shown below) received more than 9,500 retweets and 35,000 likes in six days.

Search Interest

External References

About

Ultimatum Dispatcher refers to an exploitableGIF from the Looney Tunes cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century in which Daffy Duck fires a bullet towards Marvin the Martian that stops before hits him and unfurls a message. What the message says is changed in the variations.

Origin

The GIF comes from Looney Tunes cartoon Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century, which was released July 25th, 1953.^[1] In the original clip, Daffy Duck pulls out a gun labeled “Ultimatum Dispatcher,” which reaches Marvin the Martian and unspools to read a message demanding he surrender. Marvin fires back with an actual bullet (clip shown below).

Spread

A GIF of the scene was uploaded to Imgur on July 18th, 2015.^[2] One of the first variations of the scene was posted to GIPHY on July 2nd, 2016,^[3] and featured Dickbutt (shown below).

More variations began appearing after a post of the original clip to /r/funny^[4] on February 12th, 2018 gained over 88,000 upvotes. After that post grew popular, variations on the template began spreading on Reddit. On the 13th, Redditor dank420memes1337^[5] uploaded a variation that read “RGB Useless,” gaining over 13,000 upvotes (shown below).

Several examples were also posted to /r/dankmemes. The most popular post used a Your Mom Gay joke, gaining over 4,300 upvotes^[6] (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References

don is a weeb

About

FaZe Clan is a collection of eSports competitors and and gamers who compete in games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and more. A collection of YouTubers are also part of the clan and have a large following on the site, where they do skits and work to extend the brand of FaZe, though they do not compete in gaming.

History

Faze Banks Barley House Bar Brawl

Faze Banks Barley House Bar Brawl refers to a violent altercation in which YouTubers Ricky “Faze” Banks and Alissa Violet clashed with staff at the Barley House bar in Cleveland, Ohio. After the incident, Banks and Violet accused the bar staff of physically and sexually assaulting them prior to the bar refuting their claims with security camera footage. On November 26th, 2017, Banks tweeted "Some guy just hit Alissa. Watch my Snapchat, please help. Shortly after, Banks tweeted a Snapchat video in which he points at the Barley House bar and claims he was “choked” and that some “guy tried to grab my girlfriend’s ass” (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Lancaster Amateur Police Sketch refers to a series of jokes and memes about a “cartoonish” drawing of a suspect that led to an arrest in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Origin

On February 7th, 2018, the Lancaster City Police Department announced on Facebook^[1] that an amateur sketch helped identify a man named Hung Phuoc Nguyen, who was suspected of sealing an undisclosed amount on February 6th. In the report, the post said, “While the sketch provided by the witness may have appeared amateurish and cartoonish, it, along with the distinctive physical descriptors, jogged the memory of at least one investigator to provide a potential suspect name.”

The following day, CBS^[2]tweeted the image of the sketch next to the image of Nguyen. The post (shown below) received more than 13,000 rewteets and 30,000 likes.

Spread

Shortly after CBS made their post, people online started making jokes about the drawing. On February 8th, Twitter^[3] user @SonOfA DooG tweeted, “officer looks at doodle.
officer looks at suspect. / officer looks at doodle. / officer looks at suspect, squinting. / officer looks at doodle. / ‘yup this is him.’” The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 1,700 retweets and 9,500 likes in less than four days. Twitter^[4] user @SeeDaneRun tweeted a picture of the cover for singer Jason Mraz’s “We Sing, We Dane, We Steal Things” with the caption “Somewhere, @jason_mraz: ‘Whew.’” The post (shown below, center) received more than 250 reweets and 3,100 likes in four days.

On February 13th, Redditor^[5] CallMeBicBoi posted a variation of the You Vs. The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit (shown below, right)

Several media outlets covered the popularity of the photograph, including the Washington Post,^[6]TIME,^[7]NBC^[8] and more.

On February 9th, Twitter^[9] published a Moments page about the reaction to the image.

Search Interest

External References

About

Piers Morgan is an English journalist and television host known for hosting Good Morning Britain. He is particularly known online for his Twitter presence, where several times he has gone viral for specific tweets.

History

Morgan was born on March 30th, 1952 in Sussex, England as Piers Stefan O’Meara.^[1] He later took on his stepfather’s last name, Morgan. Morgan studied journalism at Harlow College. He worked at the South London News and the Streatham and Tooting News before he was recruited to join The Sun by editor Kelvin MacKenzie. There, he worked until 1994, when he left and joined News of the World. In 1995, he left and joined the Daily Mirror as the editor until 2004. In 2003, he presented a documentary series called The Importance of Being Famous. Through 2006, he worked as a judge on America’s Got Talent as a replacement for Simon Cowell. He also appeared on Britain’s Got Talent and The Celebrity Apprentice. Morgan was the winner of The Apprentice in 2008. Morgan describes himself as a close personal friend of Donald Trump, and often defends Trump on television, which has led to controversy and arguments with high-profile celebrities. Morgan joined the desk of Good Morning Britain in 2015.

Online Presence

Online, Morgan has a significant following. On Twitter, Morgan has 6.38 million followers.^[2] On Facebook^[3] he has 199,000 likes. Morgan has an extremely popular tweet. On September 2nd, 2012, Morgan tweeted “I want to die.”^[4] The tweet has gained over 161,000 retweets and 117,000 likes (shown below). It has also been covered by Gawker^[5] and The Spinoff.^[6] It appears Morgan was tweeting about a recent soccer transaction.

Omarosa Allegation

On February 13th, 2018, Morgan posted an op-ed in The Daily Mail^[7] talking about former Apprentice contestant and White House employee Omarosa Manigault-Newman. In the op-ed, he called Omarosa a vile human and also said that she attempted to sleep with Morgan for power on the show. He recounts the proposal thusly:

‘Piers, do you want a showmance?’ ‘A what?’ I replied. ‘A showmance. You know, a romance on the show – we get it on together. Happens all the time on Apprentice. Everyone has sex together. Then we can make lots of money out of it.’ I stared at her grasping, ferociously ambitious little eyes, and laughed: ’You must be joking, you deluded woman.’ She didn’t take it well. ‘What are you? Gay?’

He then recounted a period of abuse Omarosa unleashed upon him where she mocked him for being divorced and questioned his sexuality.

Related Memes

What’s Piers Morgan Saying?

What’s Piers Morgan Saying refers to a series of image macros in which people captioned a screenshot of Piers Morgan with humorous quotes that Morgan looks like he’s saying. On May 17th, 2017, Piers Morgan interviewed a gender non-binary couple on Good Morning Britain (shown below). During the interview, Piers conducted the talk with his arms crossed.

Following the interview, Twitter user @joegolby tweeted a screenshot of Piers (shown below) from the show with the caption “‘well i’m sorry madame but it simply won’t do. we asked for butter and this is clearly margarine. we shan’t be settling the bill.’” The tweet received more than 300 retweets and 1,200 likes.

Various Examples

Piers Morgan Rimming Donald Trump Cartoon

Piers Morgan Rimming Donald Trump Cartoon refers to an illustration of British talk show host Piers Morgan which his face buried in the bare butt of President Donald Trump that Morgan tweeted several times in outrage, claiming it was a double standard that the BBC could broadcast that image but would not do the same if it was of high-profile women. That Morgan repeatedly tweeted the image drew reactions online, as people found the event humorous. On February 2nd, 2018, British satirical news television show The Mash ran a segment about Morgan’s interview with Trump prior to the President’s State of the Union address. Commentator Rachel Parris showed the body language in a typical political interview with an illustration of a politician and journalist talking to each other face to face, then compared it to Morgan’s interview with Trump with a picture of Morgan’s face in Trump’s butt.

The day the segment aired, Morgan tweeted the image three separate times while decrying a double standard, saying high-profile women would not be portrayed in such a photo (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Side Eye is an English-language term to describe the act of looking at someone to the right or left without moving one’s head. The expression generally expresses suspicion, scorn, annoyance, jealousy and more.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the term was published on March 19th, 1797 in the periodical Rememberancer for Lord’s Day Evenings.^[1] The selection says:

“Here we come to what calls for the strongest eye-sight, the most steadfast gazing. Our being in Adam has been looked on with a side eye. The subject has provoked dislike; I may almost say, contempt. It is now painful to speak of it.”

Spread

In 1922, the expression was used in James Joyce’s seminal work Ulysses.^[2] In the book, Joyce writes:

“A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun’s flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands.”

Side Eyeing Chloe

On September 12th, 2013, YouTuber KAftC^[3] uploaded a video titled “Lily’s Disneyland Surprise… AGAIN,” which shows two sisters, Lily and Chloe, reacting to the news of a surprise trip to Disneyland on their way to school. As the older sister, Lily, breaks into tears of joy, Chloe is briefly seen on camera with a disturbed look on her face.

The image of Chloe (gif below) side eyeing her sister became the basis for numerous memes and reaction images.

On May 22nd, 2017, Chloe’s Instagram^[4] posted the image used for an advertisement for Google. The photo (shown below, right) received more than 333,000 likes in less than one year.

Side-Eying Michelle Obama

On January 20th, 2017, ahead of the the Inauguration of Donald Trump, United States President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump gifted Michelle Obama with a Tiffany’s box. Michelle seemed confused with what to do with it for a moment, and briefly glimpsed at a nearby camera in a fashion that some described as a side eye.

The incident was one of several moments captured throughout the day when Michelle Obama appeared irritated by the proceedings, sparking jokes on Twitter.

Shortly after the incident went viral, in February 2017, the term “side eye” was added to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.^[1] On February 7th, Merriam-Webster tweeted,^[7]“‘Side-eye’ is now in the dictionary. Our earliest example of it in use comes from 1797.” In the tweet, they defined the term as a "sidelong glance or gaze especially when expressing scorn, suspicion, disapproval or veiled curiosity. The tweet (shown below) received more than 760 retweets and 1,200 likes in one year.

Kim Jo Jong Side Eyes Mike Pence

On February 9th, 2018, during the 2018 Winter Olympics, Twitter user @flyosity tweeted^[5] a video clip of Kim Yo Jong standing behind Mike Pence with the caption “Mike Pence vs. Kim Jong Un’s sister is basically amazing.” The post (shown below) received more tahn 70 retweets and 200 likes in four days.

Two days later, Business Insider^[6] published an article that called the look a “side-eye.” The post received more than 280,000 shares in three days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

• ABC 7’s “P.F. Chang” 2018 Mix-up* refers to a mistakenly used graphic used on an ABC news affiliate. The graphic was supposed to read Pyeongchang, the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics, but instead read “P.F. Chang’s,” referring to the chain Chinese food restaurant.

Background

Of February 10th, 2018, WLS-Ch.7 news, an ABC affiliate in Chicago, accidentally broadcasted a graphic that read the name of Chinese food chain restaurant “P.F. Chang’s” instead of the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics Pyeongchang.

Search Interest

About

Lucas the Spider is a series of CGI short films created by animator Joshua Slice depicting the adventures of the titular spider Lucas. Since the first video was uploaded in November 2017, the series has received tens of millions of views.

Background

According to an article on BoredPanda, creator Joshua Slice said he created the initial video as an “animation test” of a “character he was working on” and revealed that he did all the design, modeling, rigging, animation, lighting, and rendering by himself while the voice acting was done by Slice’s nephew Lucas.^[1]

Origin

On November 5, 2017 the first video in the series was uploaded to YouTube by animator Joshua Slice.^[2] Simply titled “Lucas the Spider”, the video served as an introduction to the character. As of February 14, 2018 the video has received over 14.8 million views and over 348,000 likes.

Spread

As of February 14, 2018 the Lucas the Spider YouTube channel has over 881,000 subscribers and has been covered by news outlets such as Nerdist,^[3] LaughingSquid,^[4] and Mashable^[5].

Search Interest

External References

^[1]BoredPanda – Meet Lucas, The Most Adorable Spider That Will Cure Your Arachnophobia

^[2]YouTube – Lucas the Spider

^[3]Nerdist – THEADORABLELUCASTHESPIDER IS COLDANDWANTS TO COMEINSIDE

^[4]Lucas the Spider Finds Himself Trapped Under an Upside Down Wineglass on the Counter

^[5]A small, talking, animated spider might be the cure to your arachnophobia

About

Birth Control Effectiveness is a series of photoshopexploitables in which people compare the success rates of two common forms of birth control (condoms and pills) and one personality or interest that would dissuade a potential suitor from sexual relations.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the meme was posted on March 30th, 2010 by an anonymous user on joyreactor.com.^[1] That day, they posted an image (shown below) with the heading “Birth Control Effectivness.” Underneath, the image shows “Condoms 99%,” “Birth Control Pills 99%” and “Crocs 100%.”

Spread

Two years later, on August 21st, 2012, Redditor^[2] Ninjabot5000 posted the image in the /r/funny subreddit. Before archiving, the post received more than 1,400 points (91% upvoted) and 290 comments.

The following year, Redditor^[3] Thrillwaukee posted a variation of the image, replacing “Crocs” for a “Fedora”, in the /r/funny subreddit. The post (shown below, left0 received more than 1,800 points (90% upvoted) and 1,400 comments.

Three years later, on August 16th, 2016, ShitpostBot 5000^[4] user CARADEMONO added a template of the meme to the site. The post (shown below, center) received a 41 rating.

On February 13th, Redditor^[5] nunyabidnez201 posted a variation that replaced the third spot with a noose and the text “killing yourself 100%.” The post (shown below, right) received more than 5,400 points (97% upvotes) and 70 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not Available.

External References

Overview

Galentine’s Day is a fictitious holiday created in the sitcom Parks and Recreation which celebrates women and female friendships and takes place February 13th, the day before Valentine’s Day. After the episode featuring the holiday aired, the event has gained increasing prominence online on February 13th each year since.

Background

The Parks and Recreation episode “Galentine’s Day” aired February 11th, 2010.^[1] During the episode, the protagonist, Leslie Knope, holds a party for her girlfriends, single or not, in which they hang out, exchange gifts, and celebrate their friendships.

Developments

The holiday began seeing significant spread online in 2012. That year, Bitchmedia^[2] covered the holiday, listing some examples of Galentine’s Day celebrations posted online, including a Tumblr^[3] post in which user lethifolds posted images of gifts and waffles they’d made for their own friends modeled after the Parks and Recreation episode (examples shown below).

With each subsequent year, the holiday saw increased media and corporate attention. Buzzfeed^[4] compiled a list of “Galentine’s Day Cards” in 2013. The same day, a definition for the holiday was submitted to Urban Dictionary. ^[5]

Other publications to offer Galentine’s Day tips include The Atlantic,^[6]NPR,^[7] and Mashable.^[8] The New York Post^[9] ran an op-ed condemning the day. Corporations also began capitalizing on the holiday by pushing products and sales tailored for the event (examples shown below).

Cast Reunion

On Galentine’s Day 2018, Parks and Recreation actress Aubrey Plaza posted a picture of female members of the cast reuniting for the occasion, gaining over 282,000 likes (shown below). The photograph was covered by Daily Dot,^[10] EW,^[11] Huffington Post,^[12] and others.

Search Interest

External References

About

LiveLeak is a video sharing website known for publishing extremely graphic content, such as murders, fights and terrorist beheadings.

History

Ogrish

Ogrish.com launched in 2000 and acted as a precursor to LiveLeak. It’s intended purpose was to “Uncover reality,” as their slogan stated, by publishing content mainstream media outlets censored. The site rose to prominence in 2002 after it hosted videos of people jumping from the Twin Towers during the September 11th, 2001 attacks. ^[1] The site shut down on October 31st, 2006 and began redirecting to LiveLeak.com.^[4]

Hayden Hewitt, the only public member of LiveLeak’s founders, said of Ogrish:

“Ogrish had gone as far as it could go. It risked becoming a parody of itself. Ogrish was a very serious site, it wasn’t like a lot of the gore sites you might see now that are based off that model. It was tremendously serious, everything was researched, there was no laughing at dead people or anything like that, the community was actually remarkably reserved.

“We’d gone as far as we could go with [Ogrish] … Traffic was still climbing, but we felt we reached a point where we didn’t want to progress with it. We closed it down before we ran the risk of becoming like the imitators.”

LiveLeak

LiveLeak launched on October 31st, 2006, offering a less explicit version of Ogrish.^[2]

Two years later, Dutch politician Geert Wilders produced a documentary short called Fitna. Due to the film’s highly critical view of Islam, the film required a vast amount of security for public screenings. Veers had his personal website suspended for screening the film, so he enlisted LiveLeak to host the video. According to Hewitt, “half of the Netherlands logged into the site that day[…]quite literally half the country.”

Features

LiveLeak.com features a variety of ways to view videos. Users can log into their accounts and see videos from a variety of categoris, including “News & Politics,” “Must See,” or by country like Ukraine and Syria.

The site also offers a “Safe More,” which blocks explicit preview images and avatars. When a user turns off Safe Mode, they are given the following prompt:

“Turning the safe mode off will disable the current protection that prevents mature preview images and avatars from showing. By clicking OK you agree that you are 18 years and over and want to turn the safe mode OFF.”

LiveLeak also has a section called “Yoursay,” where users can upload their own videos and vlogs.

Highlights

In July 2007, British police urged sites like YouTube to remove videos of child fights.^[3] LiveLeak founder refused to remove videos. Co-founder Hayden Hewitt said at the time, “Of course it’s horrible. It’s not about me morally defending anything here. We have to take a stance of saying ‘look all this is happening, this is real life, this is going on, we’re going to show it.”’

Isis Ban

On August 19th, 2014, LiveLeak hosted an uncensored version of the beheading of American journalist James Foley. Site traffic increased significantly after posting the video. On August 20th, 2014, the site had recived more than three million unique visitors.

However, the site soon decided not publish anymore ISIS videos, banning the group from the site. In statement they wrote, “We’ve shown the world the true horror of this form of execution more than once in the past and we cannot find any compelling reason to even be thought of as promoting the actions of this group.”^[4]

Search Interst

External Refrences

About

Minister You, Satoshi is a catchphrase spread through 4chan which indicates good luck in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency endeavors. The phrase appears to be a nonsensical reference to the unidentified creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Origin

The catchphrase is referring to the unidentified creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. The catchphrase was popularized by a If You See This Image While Scrollingimage macro featuring his supposed face with text reading “This tread visited by Satoshi Nakamoto. He will give you luck in trade but only if you write ‘Minister You, Satoshi.’” One of the earliest posts to feature the image was posted June 11th, 2017 by an anonymous 4chan user.^[1]

Spread

The image was posted in several 4chan threads in the following month, with users responding to the image saying “Minister You, Satoshi.”^[2][3][4] On September 25th, 2017, a thread with the phrase was posted featuring a picture of Hibike! Euphonium character Kumiko Oumae appearing to dab. This image became associated with the phrase in future threads, as did various pictures of anime characters (shown below).

On September 29th,^[6] another thread using the phrase incited anger in one anonymous user, who wrote, “EXPLAINTHISMOTHERFUCKINGMEME. YOUPOSTTHISDUMBSHITEVERYFUCKINGDAYAND NO ONEEVEREPXLAINS IT YOUSTUPIDMOTHERFUCKERSPROBABLY DON’T EVENKNOWWHAT IT MEANSYOURSELF THAT’S WHYYOU DON’T EXPLAIN IT TO ME. FUCKYOU.” Another user responded, “That’s the meme.”

On October 1st, a thread inquiring about the phrase was posted to /biz/,^[5] inspiring users to post guesses as to the origins of the phrase, including:

Minister is someone who evangelizes and spreads to good news, and Satoshi Nakamoto invented crypto. The girl in the image is Japanese and they all have terrible English, called Engrish. So she is trying to tell the inventor of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, to spread the good news of cryptocurrencies to the world, or minister it, if you will, when she says “MINISTERYOU, SATOSHI”

The meme comes from one of the times someone tried to figure out who the real Satoshi Nakamoto was. The tracks led the investigators to the front door of an older Japanese gentleman in Kyoto. There was considerable media attention, including reporters camping out in front of his house,and waiting for him to come out, to shout questions at him, but the old man denied being Satoshi and refused to talk to the media or the legion of hangers-on gathering around his house. Every day he went to work, the crowd would yell “Mister Satoshi, Mister Satoshi!!!”, trying to get his attention. So one day, he got really frustrated, and yelled back a jumbled engrish “Minister YOU, Satoshi!” (meaning something like “I’m not Satoshi, you fucking nerds, how about YOU’RE Mr. Satoshi!” and this was the only thing he said on the topic. Witnesses of the outburst took it as some sort of an Evangelical statement, akin to Jesus’s sermon on the mount, with a touch of Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You” thrown in. The common interpretation was that the man was saying, in effect: “I may or may not be Satoshi Nakamoto, but that is irrelevant, because we each have Satoshi Nakamoto within our hearts, and so our search for salvation begins, and ends, inside.” From that point on, the phrase was repeated again and again, bolstered by the fact that the old man died that day in a tragic car accident. That’s really it. When people post this meme, they are essentially saying: “Don’t worry about your troubles (gainz, etc.) because the peace you seek is within you already.”

In the following months, threads with the phrase continued to be posted, much to the frustration of other users. However, in all these threads, nobody would explain the origin, making it appear as though the meme evolved as a way to troll users who did not understand the phrase.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

.

About

Pigzilla refers to a viral video of a massive wild board eating out of a dumpster.

Origin

On February 6th, 2018, the Facebook^[1] account tu.com.hk published a video of a massive wild board eating out of a dumpster. The video (shown below) received more than 3,100 reactions, 7,600 shares and 700,000 views in less than one week.

According to News.com.au,^[10] the video was shot by videographer Tu Dong, who was walking his children to school in Hong Kong.

Spread

Less than one week later, Twitter^[2] user @TJmaxxx1987 posted an image of the pig juxtaposed with a picture of Bebop from The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon with the captioned “You vs. the guy she tells you not to worry about…”. The post (shown below, left) received more than 850 retweets and 2,800 likes in two days.

The following day, CBS News tweeted^[3] an image of the pig with the caption "Gigantic wild boar dubbed “Pigzilla” seen rummaging through dumpster." The post (shown below, center) received more than 2,200 retweets and 4,100 likes in 24 hours.

On February 14th, Twitter^[4] user @bea_ker posted an object labeling version of the image with the words “Me” over the boar, “a fucking great bin full of rubbish” over the dumpster and “My friend trying to stop me eating rubbish” over the other boars in the video. The image (shown below, right) received more than 180 retweets and 1,200 likes in less than 24 hours.

On February 13th, Twitter^[5] published a Moments page to archive the reaction to the video.

Several media outlets covered the popularity of Pigzilla, including The Daily Mail,^[6] Mashable,^[7]CBS,^[8] Newsweek^[9] and more.

Search Interest

External References

About

Eating Cheetos With Chopsticks refers to the practice of consuming the cheese-puff snack Cheetos with chopsticks, ostensibly for the purpose of not getting the powder covering the snacks on one’s fingers. The practice was popularized by a viral photo of actor Oscar Isaac eating Cheetos with chopsticks.

Origin

On March 5th, 2010, webcomic Wondermark^[1] posted a comic referencing the practice (shown below).

Spread

On March 24th, 2011, the Facebook page Eating Cheetos With Chopsticks^[2] launched. This caught the attention of Buzzfeed^[3] on May 21st, 2012. This then led to coverage of the practice in Bon Appetit.^[4] In January of 2015, an Actual Advice Mallard about the practice was posted on imgflip^[6] (shown below, left). On April 30th, 2015, an Imgur^[5] post by 420blazeitfaggot illustrated the practice (shown below, right).

On January 20th, 2017, Panic! at the Disco singer Brendon Urie posted a video of himself doing the practice (shown below).

Oscar Isaac Photo

On March 19th, 2016, Twitter account @OscarIsaacPosts^[7] uploaded a picture of actor Oscar Isaac eating Cheetos with chopsticks. The post gained over 330 retweets and 500 likes (shown below).

The image quickly gained notoriety. The day it was posted, Tumblr user snoopchien^[9] posted the image, gaining over 162,000 notes (shown below). The following day, Jezebel^[8] wrote an article about the image.

A since-tweet featuring the three leads of the Star Wars sequels cast posted by @reysridley featuring Daisy Ridley and John Boyega working out while Isaac ate Cheetos (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References

About

Nujak, also known as Nujack and Nu Wojak, is a series of illustrations featuring a cartoonish depiction of the MS Paint character Wojak, which has been widely accused of being a forced meme on various 4chan boards.

Origin

On January 19th, 2018, a cartoon-style Pink Wojak was submitted in a thread about cryptocurrency crashes to 4chan’s /biz/ board (shown below).^[2] In response, many derided the updated illustration as being “too Reddit.”

That day, another thread was submitted to /biz/ with the message “Only one shall previal,” in which several users speculated the original artwork was created by an artist using the online handle “ignacio_9” (shown below).^[4]

Spread

That same day, an anonymous 4chan user claiming to be Redditor secondhandfather submitted a Pink Wojak-style illustration of Nujack to the /s4s/ board,^[1] claiming the image was “an edit not original.” On January 20th, a thread discussing the new illustration was submitted to /biz/,^[3] in which another anonymous commenter identified the artist by the online handle “ignacio_9” (shown below).

On February 6th, 2018, a thread titled “Nu-Wojak Discussion” was submitted to the /qa/ (Question & Answer) board on 4chan,^[5] which featured several reskinned variations of the character.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

Background

At approximately 2:00 p.m. EST on February 14th, 2018, a gunman opened fire at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Initial news reports indicated that 14 people had been hospitalized do to injuries from the attack.

Developments

That day, Twitter user @TheCaptainAiden posted tweets from inside the school during the shooting, saying “My school is being shot up and I am locked inside. I’m fucking scared right now” (shown below).

The same day, YouTuber DinkleBerg uploaded Snapchat video footage from the shooting (shown below).

Meanwhile, a post about the shooting reached the front page of the /r/news^[3] subreddit. That day, the Miami Herald^[2] identified the suspected shooter as 19-year-old former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Nicolas de Jesus Cruz.

Search Interest

External References