About

Edward Snowden is an American system administrator and a former employee of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) before leaking highly classified information on the agency’s top-secret PRISM surveillance program to the British newspaper The Guardian in June 2013.

Online History

Career

This account is based on profile articles and interviews published by The Guardian^[15]:

In May 2004, Snowden enlisted in the United States Army as a special forces recruit but was discharged in September after suffering injuries on both of his legs while training. He then worked as a security guard for the National Security Agency’s covert facility at the University of Maryland, before joining the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an IT security personnel. In 2007, Snowden was dispatched to Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked as a network security administrator with diplomatic cover. In 2009, he left the agency for a private contractor company and worked inside an NSA facility on a U.S. military base in Japan. Little is known is about Snowden’s whereabouts thereafter, but sometime between late March and early April 2013, he began working for U.S. defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton as a system administrator inside an NSA facility in Hawaii. In May 2013, Snowden took a temporary medical leave from his position. According to the real estate agents, Snowden and his girlfriend moved out of their home on May 1st.

2013 NSAPRISM Scandal

In January 2013, Snowden made contact with Laura Poitras, a Freedom of the Press board member and documentary filmmaker who previously reported on the NSA official William Binney’s whistleblowing for the New York Times in 2001, according to Poitras. In February, Snowden began working with The Guardian‘s Glenn Greenwald, followed by first direct contact with The Washington Post’s Barton Gellman in May. According to the journalists, Snowden communicated using encrypted mail under the codename “Verax,” Latin for “truth-teller,” and requested not to be quoted at length to safeguard identification by semantic analysis.

The Guardian Interview

On June 8th, three days after The Guardan published the story about NSA surveillance programs, Snowden revealed his identity to the public’s eye in an interview with the UK newspaper. In the video, Snowden provides a brief description of the agency’s data-mining infrastructure and its capabilities, such as intercepting e-mails, phone calls, passwords and credit cards.

“Now increasingly we see that [clandestine intelligence gathering is] happening domestically and to do that they, the NSA specifically, targets the communications of everyone. It ingests them by default. It collects them in its system and it filters them and it analyses them and it measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that’s the easiest, most efficient, and most valuable way to achieve these ends. So while they may be intending to target someone associated with a foreign government or someone they suspect of terrorism, they’re collecting you’re communications to do so.”

The Guardian also reported that Snowden first thought about exposing government surveillance in 2007, but Barack Obama’s election in 2008 gave him a sense of hope. However, Snowden became disenchanted after Obama “ultimately advanced the surveillance policies rather than reforming them.” When asked about the motive behind his whistleblowing, Snowden told The Washington Post that he wanted to raise public awareness of “surveillance state” that the country was becoming so they could decide.

Online Reactions

Petitions

On June 9th, an online petition titled “Pardon Edward Snowden” was submitted to the White House^[3], demanding the Obama administration to “issue a full, free and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs.” The petition was quickly picked up by the news media and blogospher, reaching more than half of its signature goal of 100,000 in the first 48 hours. On June 10th, after The Guardian reported that Snowden may be seeking asylum in Iceland, a petition was submitted to Change.org^[5] requesting the Icelandic government to grant asylum to Snowden. That same day, a crowdfunding campaign seeking to thank Snowden with a reward was launched on Crowdtilt.^[10]

Search Interest

External References

About

“You Know What Really Grinds My Gears” is a memorable quote from the 2005 animated comedy film Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.^[1] On the web, the expression is used to preface an airing of grievances in an advice animal image macro series featuring Family Guy protagonist Peter Griffin.

Origin

While the phrase has been used as an English idiom to introduce one’s pet peeve since as early as 1987 in the comedy film Planes, Trains & Automobiles,^[13] its online popularity can be largely attributed to a gag featured in the 2005 direct-to-DVD animated film Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.

In the film, Peter Griffin hosts a local access news program titled “You Know What Really Grinds My Gears,” in which he complains about things and people that irk him, including Lindsay Lohan, people who lived in the 19th century, and the lack of new jokes about priests and rabbis. The gag is a parody of the 1976 satirical film Network^[2] that follows the story of a newscaster whose on-air rant causes ratings to skyrocket and ultimately save his job.

Spread

As early as December 16th, 2005, complaint threads titled “What really grinds your gears?” began appearing on message boards including HeroClix Realms^[4] and Xbox 360 Achievements.^[5] In October 2007, a blogger named Gracie created You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?^[6] (shown below, left), a personal blog journaling her pet peeves and other problems. In March 2008, another blog named This Is What Really Grinds My Gears^[7](shown below, right) was launched, showcasing frustrations and personal problems submitted by the readers.

On June 25th, 2011, a Meme Generator^[9] page was created for “Grinds My Gears Peter Griffin,” using a still image of Griffin seated at a desk from the local access show scene in the movie. One of the first instances to be submitted to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit^[14] was posted on August 23rd, 2012, suggesting that the poster was irked that the image macro series was not already established (shown below, left).

Although a number of additional instances continued to appear throughout the rest of 2012, the advice animal character did not make the front page until May 15th, 2013,^[15] paired with a complaint about people using images of mechanical gears that do not fit together with the expression (shown above, right).

Notable Examples

As of June 2013, there are more than 3,100 submissions of Grinds My Gears Peter Griffin on Meme Generator, with an additional 70 instances on Quickmeme.^[10] Additional instances can be found on Reddit^[11] and Tumblr.^[12]

Search Interest

External References

About

A Creepshot refers to an image that has been photographed and uploaded online without the subject’s knowledge or consent.

Origin

Spread

2012 Reddit Controversy

Gawker’s ViolentAcrez Expose Controversy refers to an online dispute between Gawker’s staff writer Adrian Chen and community members of Reddit that erupted in October 2012, after the former wrote and ran a feature story exposing the identity of Reddit’s prominent moderator ViolentAcrez and his role as the curator of several controversial subreddit forums including /r/Jailbait.

External References

About

Hachune Miku (Japanese: はちゅねミク)^[1] is a nickname givne to a fan-made Vocaloid character inspired by Hatsune Miku. This cute incarnation of Miku is the first milestone of official recognition and commodification of fan creations in the Vocaloid fandom.

Origin

What put the character later called Hachune Miku out into the world was Miku’s parody video for Loituma Girl which was posted to the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) on September 4th, 2007^[2], just 5 days after the release of Hatsune Miku the software. This song was composed by Otomania^[3], Japanese music creator and flash animator who was well known for his many musical contributions in the 2channel Flash Movie movment in the first half of 2000s. And the comical illustration of Miku was drawn by Tamago (たまご)^[4], also Japanese flash animator.

On September 11th, 2007, Otomania announced in his blog post that they decided to call her “Hachune Miku”.^[5]“Hachune” is a mispronunciation of “Hatsune”, which shows her childishness.

Spread

Because of its cutenss, Hachune Miku succeeded to indicate various ways of Vocaloid creations not limited to songs, and she is one of the most iconic characters in the Vocaloid fandom. In the fandom, her personality is usually drawn like wild and big eater by the influence of these 2 early instances: MAD video featuring the raging voices of Angery German Kid (shown below, left)^[6] and music video of she singing the names of foods along with the melody of The Tower of DRUAGA (shown below, right)^[7]

As of May 2013, over a thousand amount of videos and illustration featuring Hachune Miku are uploaded to NND^[8], YouTube^[9], pixiv^[10], Piapro^[11] and deviantART.^[12]

Swedish newspaper Yle Uutiset also covered Hachune Miku in their report for the Ievan Polkka meme in 2010.^[13]

Official Recognition

Hachune Miku is the first fan-made character which was officially recognized by Crypton Future Media and became to be utilized in commercial media. Its debut as an official recognized character was the 373th episode in Toro Station published on November 16th, 2007, which was a push news delivery service in an online game for PlayStation3 console Mainichi Issho.^[14] Her official recognision was also announced in this episode.

Toro Station Ep. 373

Then, a slapstick comedy manga featuring Hachune and other Vocaloid characters, Hatsune Miku no Nichijō Roipara, started on a monthly comic magazine by Otomania & Tamago in December 2007. It had continued to October, 2011, and released 4 volumes of books.

Hatsune Miku no Nichijō Roipara Cover Arts

Many kinds of Hachune Miku goods have been released in the official Vocaloid franchise lines. Not only figurines and plushies, her steamed meat bun called “Mikuman” was also released in the collaboration campaign with a convenience store group Famil Mart in 2012.

Figurine, Plushie and Mikuman

Aftermath

“Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru♪” and Leek Dance

Hachune Miku gave a huge influence to the beginning of original song creations in the Vocaloid music scene because many amatuer composers who started composing with Vocaloid got an inspiration for lyrics from Miku’s personality which was being gradually consisted by the chain reaction of preceding fan creations. The leek swing by Hachune Miku had the biggest impact among those precursors.

One of the most notable examples is the lryics of “Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru♪”^[15], the first and biggest hit tune in the all-time Vocaloid music scene. Its line “Without any leek attachment, but I want one if I could” was not only featured in the 3D CGI music video (shown below, left)^[16], but also derived to a comical dance called “Leek Dance” (ネギ踊り, Negi Odori), which was created by Nippori Honsha (日暮里本社), a flash movie creator famous for smooth animation in his flash movies (shown below, right).^[17]

When this song included to sega’s Vocaloid music game Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA^[18] released in 2010, this Leek dance was partly ported to the game together.

Character Item Memes

By the example of “Miku and Leek” coupling excerted by Hachune Miku, people had continued to give the iconic item to each of subsequent Vocaloid characters and featured it in the fandom over the next several years. Famous examples are “Kagamine Rin/Len & Road Roller”, “Megurine Luka & Tuna Fish” and “Kaito & Ice Cream”.

For more information about that particular phenomenon, please check the KYM entry for Vocaloid Character Items.

Notable Examples

Illustrations

Videos

Left: “Ode to Joy”^[19] | Right: Heart Sutra Parody^[20]

SOMESAT Project

The Social Media Satellite Development, SOMESAT, is a satellite-launching project which has been totally run by NICO-TECH, a user group of non-industrial engineers who love niconico since 2009.^[21] And this project aims to launch a CubeSat^[22] with a Hachune Miku figure and realize her leek swing in the outer space. As of June 2013, it’s still ongoing.

Miku Miku Dance Promoting Movie for SOMESAT Project^[23]

On the other hand, its spin-off campaign “Miku to Venus”^[24] succeeded to gather 14,000 signitures and include three aluminium plates of Hatsune/Hachune Miku illustrations to JAXA’s spacecraft Akatsuki^[25] in 2010.^[26]

Aluminium Plates

Hachune Miku Downsizing War

In 2008, NICO-TECH engineers also began the competition to reproduce Hachune Miku’s leek swing in more smaller scale, which were called “Hachune Miku Downsizing War” (はちゅねミク小型化戦争, Hachune Miku Kogataka Sensou).^[27] The war started with the swing by a 4-cm paper doll which was actuated by electric magnets (shown below, left).^[28] Then, engineers passion broke millimeter and micrometer scale barrier partly by the help of highly abstraction. In April 2013, it had finally achieved reproducing the leek swing in 2 micro meters consisting of 200 nanometers plastic beads manipulated by optical tweezers (shown below, right).^[29] It also reached to the smallest scale that could be caught by the limit performance of existing optical microscopes.

Search Interest

External References

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

About

Creepy Animal Crossing Villager is a nickname given to the male protagonist character of Nintendo’s social simulation video game franchise Animal Crossing. Following the announcement of his inclusion as a new character for the Super Smash Brothers franchise in June 2013, fans of the game quickly began characterizing the Villager as a psychotic and ruthless killer through image macros and video remixes.

Origin

During the Nintendo Direct broadcast at 2013’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, a promotional trailer for the Super Smash Brothers Wii U and 3DS games was revealed. The trailer, which begins with the Animal Crossing Villager opening his mailbox and discovering a letter sealed with the Super Smash Brothers logo, shows the character attacking Mario with an insect net, alongside the two additional characters Capcom’s Mega Man and Nintendo’s Wii Fit Trainer.

Spread

Within two hours of Nintendo’s online broadcast, GIFs of the Villager’s in-game moves as shown in the trailer began appearing on Tumblr, with one of the earliest sets^[2] gaining more than 21,000 notes in one day. Throughout the day, several posts vilifying the Animal Crossing character as a calculating, poker-faced killer started to emerge under the tag “The Villager”,^[3] with many pointing out his stoic expression and perceived sinister glare during his melee combat and his unique ability to pick up and claim any weapons or objects thrown at him. Later that day, fan art illustrations similarly painting the Villager as a cold-blooded murderer began circulating on Tumblr. One of the earliest posts, drawn by El Sato^[4], portrayed the Villager as Jack Torrance in the iconic scene from the 1980 horror film The Shining.

Art depicting the Villager covered in blood also was shared on deviantART.^[5] Several 4chan threads discusses the Tumblr personalization of the character on /co/^[6] (Comics and Cartoons), /vp/^[7] (Pokemon) and /sp/^[8] (Sports). A number of the posts from Tumblr were also shared on Reddit, where two Villager-related posts hit the front page of /r/Gaming^[9][10] on June 11th with more than 1,600 overall points each. Two additional front page posts about the Villager were made on the following day^[11][12], with a GIF showing the character watering a tree while Samus and Mario fight behind him gaining more than 5,700 upvotes, 2,100 points overall and 250 comments within 11 hours.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Dunkin’ Donuts Customer Rant refers to a YouTube video of an enraged woman complaining about not receiving a receipt and directing various insults and racial epithets toward the coffeehouse chain staff.

Background

On June 8th, 2013, YouTuber sally salvenie uploaded a video featuring a woman demanding a free order for failing to receive a receipt at a Dunkin’ Donuts chain restaurant. In the video, she expresses concern that the employees will urinate, spit or defecate in her food and directs a racial slur toward a female employee (shown below).

The same day, Redditor cryptical33 submitted the video to the /r/videos^[2] subreddit, where comments were disabled after Redditors began posting her personally identifiable information. In the first four days, the YouTube video gained more than 87,000 views and the Reddit post garnered upwards of 890 up votes.

Notable Developments

On June 9th, 2013, the NewsMaster11 YouTube^[1] channel uploaded a duplicate version, receiving over 500,000 views and 8,300 comments in the next 72 hours. In the following days, the video was highlighted by several news sites, including Guyism,^[9] Gawker,^[10] The Huffington Post,^[11] UpRoxx^[12] and the New York Daily News.^[13]

Customer’s Identity

On June 10th, The Smoking Gun^[3] published an article outing the woman as 27-year-old Florida resident Taylor Chapman,^[8]who had previously appeared in marketing videos for a local Chinese food restaurant (shown below, left) and an auto repair business (shown below, right). By the next day, the Smoking Gun article had been posted on the /r/JusticePorn^[5] subreddit, where it received upwards of 3,900 up votes and 1,100 comments in the first 24 hours.

Dunkin’ Donuts Employee’s Identity

Also on June 10th, The Smoking Gun^[4] also identified the Dunkin’ Donuts employee who was filmed during the rant as Abid Adar, an 18-year-old who had recently graduated from high school at the time of the recording. Meanwhile, an Indiegogo^[7]crowdfunding campaign for Adar and his coworker Nithi was subsequently created, which gained more than $1,100 of its $10,000 goal in the first 48 hours.

Company’s Response

Also on June 11th, Dunkin’ Donuts posted a tweet announcing that the company planned to recognize Adar for properly handling the incident.

<a href="https://twitter.com/grumpyhaus">grumpyhaus</a> We're proud of how r crew member handled this situation. The franchise owner of the restaurant plans 2 recognize the crew member</p>&mdash; Dunkin' Donuts (DunkinDonuts) June 11, 2013

On June 12th, Gawker^[7]published an article about Adar, which included a statement from Dunkin’ Donuts about his recognition:

“We commend the franchisee’s crew member for handling this difficult situation with grace and patience. We believe this is a powerful example of great customer service and the respect our crew members have for our guests. The franchise owner of the restaurant has reached out to the crew member privately to express and demonstrate his personal appreciation.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Bold Move Cotton, or “Bold Strategy Cotton,” is an advice animal macro series based on a screen capture of two sports announcers from the 2004 comedy film Dodgeball. The captions typically describe a controversial or risky course of action undertaken by an individual or group, followed by the sarcastic phrase “It’s a bold move Cotton, let’s see if it pays off.”

Origin

The original image comes from a scene in the movie Dodgeball in which ESPN8 sportscaster Cotton McKnight (played by Gary Michael Cole) announces that one of the finalist teams has forfeited the championship, to which his co-announcer Pepper Brooks (played by Jason Bateman) responds by calling the decision a “bold strategy” (shown below).

“It’s a bold strategy Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for him.”

On February 25th, 2012, a Quickmeme^[2] page titled “Bold Move Cotton” was created, which featured a screen captured image from the Dodgeball scene. In the first 16 months, the page accumulated over 680 submissions.

Spread

On April 19th, 2013, Redditor wingsofgod submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[1] subreddit, referencing the police arrest of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (shown below, left). Within the first month, the post gained more than 16,500 up votes and 130 comments. On April 25th, Redditor toxicdelights submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[5] subreddit, which joked about hitting the snooze button on an alarm clock while already late for an engagement (shown below, right).

On April 28th, Redditor splad posted a video clip of the Dodgeball scene to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit in an effort to correct image macros misquoting the word “strategy” for “bold.” In the following three weeks, the post received upwards of 680 up votes and 50 comments. On May 19th, Redditor oldswarlz submitted an image macro about a black minister who opened his sermon with a racial joke (shown below, left) to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[4] subreddit, where it garnered over 7,200 up votes and 100 comments in the first month. On the following day, Redditor Ruri posted an image macro referencing the often combative restaurant owners on Gordon Ramsay’s reality television show Kitchen Nightmares (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Consists of people changing their profile picture to a picture of Donkey Kong and commenting “oo” on every post in their news feed.

About

Chris Hadfield is a retired Canadian astronaut who is best known for his active social media presence while serving as the commander of the International Space Station (ISS) from December 2012 through May 2013. In addition to his online recognition, Hadfield has received numerous awards and honors during his career over the last two decades.

Online History

In September 2010, the Canadian Space Agency appointed^[1] Chris Hadfield as the commander for the 2012 ISS mission known as Expedition 35, becoming the first Canadian ever to command the space station. During his training and leading up to his flight, his sons helped him set up Facebook^[2] and Twitter^[3] accounts to document his experiences and answer followers’ questions about space. On April 9th, 2011, Hadfield participated in his first RedditAsk Me Anything (AMA) thread^[8], moderated by one of his sons. In May 2012, The Daily Mail^[4] published an article about Hadfield’s Twitter interactions, highlighting several personal photos he had shared during his training including physical preparations (shown below, left) and technology he was working with (shown below, right).

World Tour Photo Challenge

In June 2012, he launched the Chris Hadfield World Tour Photo Challenge^[5], asking his followers and fans across the web to either photograph themselves with a printed 2D effigy of Hadfield or photoshop his likeness into digital images of their choice. The contest ran through Hadfield’s return to Earth on May 13th, 2013, during which 866 pictures were submitted by his fans around the world. The winning photo (shown below) was submitted by J.J. Curling Elementary School in Newfoundland Canada and received more than 11,000 viewer votes.

2012 ISS Mission

On December 12th, 2012, Hadfield launched a YouTube channel^[6] where he uploaded several videos from his training. The following day, he completed his second Reddit AMA thread^[7], which gained more than 23,000 upvotes, 4,100 points overall and 3,300 comments prior to being archived. Days later, on December 19th, 2012, Hadfield boarded the Soyuz ship with his two crew mates Roman Romanenko and Thomas Marshburn for their trip to the ISS.

At the time of his departure from Earth in late December, Hadfield had a modest 20,000 Twitter followers. By January 2013, his follower count had shot up to nearly 200,000, as he began tweeting photos from space and continued to interact with fans and celebrities^[9], even launching a Tumblr^[14] on January 15th as another outlet for his photography. The astronaut also began to upload YouTube videos to the Canadian Space Agency channel^[19] explaining how certain activities, like washing one’s hands or clipping one’s nails, were done in space.^[10]Additionally, Hadfield recorded space sounds and uploaded them to his SoundCloud page.^[18] In early 2013, his photos were featured on Maclean’s^[11], Space.com^[12] and TIME NewsFeed.^[13]

Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit

On February 17th, 2013, Hadfield took part in a third Reddit AMA,^[15] which gained more than 46,000 upvotes, 5,100 points overall and 7,600 comments prior to being archived, making it the 11th most popular AMA of all time as of June 2013. Following the AMA, his Twitter follower account had risen to more than 420,000.^[16]

Musical Collaboration: “Is Somebody Singing”

In February 2012, Hadfield participated in the first Earth-to-space musical collaboration with Canadian pop group the Barenaked Ladies and the children’s choir, The Wexford Gleeks. The performance consisted of an original song titled "I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing), celebrating music education in Canada.

A Tribute to “Space Oddity”

On May 12th, 2013, the day before his trip back to Earth, Hadfield posted a music video of himself covering David Bowie’s 1969 pop hit “Space Oddity” in the ISS (shown below). As of June 2013, the video has nearly 16 million views.

Retirement

On June 10th, 2013, Hadfield announced his retirement from the Canadian Space Agency after 35 years of government service, effective July 3rd. Initially revealed with a tweet^[17] about saying goodbye to his coworkers, his official announcement was uploaded to YouTube (shown below) on June 12th.

Personal Life

Chris Hadfield was born on August 29th, 1959 in Sarnia, Ontario. He became interested in space when he was nine years old, after seeing the Apollo moon landing on television. After graduating high school, Hadfield joined the Canadian Armed Forces, during which he received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. After excelling in flight training, he served as a tactical fighter pilot, flying intercept missions for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). After serving as an exchange officer with the U.S. Navy, he was selected as one of four Canadians to join the Canadian Space Agency from a field of 5,330 applicants. He worked at Houston’s NASA Johnson Space Center, Russia’s Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center, and the Aquarius underwater laboratory prior to becoming commander of the ISS. Though he has announced his retirement, he continues to be active on Facebook^[2] and Twitter^[3], where he has more than 389,000 fans and 1 million followers respectively.

Search Interest

External References

About

Wii Fit Trainer is the computer animated personal trainer from the fitness video game Wii Fit for the Nintendo Wii console. The fitness instructor gained notoriety online after she was revealed as a playable character in the fighting game Super Smash Bros. unveiled at the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

Origin

The video game Wii Fit was released for the Nintendo Wii console on December 1st, 2007, featuring a female virtual personal trainer that guides the player through various exercises. On June 11th, 2013, Nintendo announced that the franchise-crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS and Wii U consoles would launch in 2014 during their presentation at the E3 conference. In the reveal trailer, the Wii Fit personal trainer was presented as a new playable character (shown below).

Spread

The same day, Redditor Tmoseley20 submitted a post to the /r/Games^[1] subreddit about the Wii Fit Trainer’s inclusion in the upcoming video game, which gained over 1,800 up votes and 530 comments in the first 48 hours. On June 12th, 2013, Redditor MrBison123 submitted an image macro featuring a screen capture of the Wii Fit Trainer to the /r/gaming^[2] subreddit, which included the caption “I’ll help make you fit / into a coffin” (shown below, left). Several hours later, Redditor lit0st submitted a gallery of Wii Fit Trainer image macros to /r/gaming.^[3] Within the next 24 hours, both posts accumulated more than 1,000 up votes. Also on June 12th, the Cheezburger site Memebase^[6] posted an image macro with the caption “first we will burn your calories / Then we will burn the rest of your body” (shown below, right).

On June 13th, Redditor DoYouLikeMySweater submitted another image macro with the caption “Your ideal heart rate / is zero” (shown below, left) to /r/gaming,^[7] garnering upwards of 17,000 up votes and 900 comments in the following 16 hours. The same day, Redditors MyLilDashie and herehaveamedkit submitted manga-style illustrations (shown below, middle, right) of the Wii Fit Trainer to the rule 34 subreddit.^[4][5]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About:

The popular video shows that David Mudler was provoked by Aaron Jeffries while he is on performance.

Origin:

The original uploader of the video is oathyRICH. Holding 14,000,000 views and 61,000 Likes.

Remixes:

Some Youtubers made some remixed videos for the viral video:

AirXGaming360

News:

David is facing investigation after attacking Aaron for assaulting him, some people disdains the investigation and believed that Aaron is wrong.

AN official investigation has been launched into a Surfers Paradise busker who became an internet sensation after punching a drunken street pest in the mouth.

Human statue David Mulder made world headlines after punching the passerby who was taunting him in Cavill Mall.

After being poked, prodded and having a saliva-soaked finger stuck in his ear, Mr Mulder – a 50-year-old devout churchgoer – snapped and hit the young agitator who was left bleeding in front of stunned onlookers.

A mobile phone video of the incident, posted to YouTube by a Brisbane university student, went viral and Mr Mulder was swamped with international media attention.

Despite widespread public support, Mr Mulder has apologised for his actions and vowed to keep his cool from now on.

But the Surfers Alliance, which hires street performers, said it was investigating.

“While I sympathise with the busker, it’s clear both parties didn’t behave as best they could. Harassment and assault are not welcome in Surfers Paradise,’’ Alliance chair Laura Younger said.

“We will be investigating the situation this week.

Mr Mulder’s wife, Andrea, said her husband planned to meet with Alliance officials today to tell them his retaliation was a one-off.

“He will tell them that this sort of behaviour is extremely rare and is not something he’d like to repeat,’’ she said, speaking on behalf of her husband who was back working in Cavill Mall yesterday.

“He’s been hassled before but doesn’t normally come out swinging – it takes a lot to provoke him.

“It happened in a split second – it was like ‘get out of my space’. He didn’t even think he was going to punch the guy but it just happened.

“Dave certainly doesn’t condone his actions and isn’t proud of them.

“He’d like to apologise to the young fellow he punched too – and maybe have him apologise to Dave – but he’s probably feeling a bit sheepish.’’

Mrs Mulder said she normally kept a close eye on her husband while he was performing to ensure he was not harassed.

She said it would be impractical to hire security guards to protect buskers but police were usually close by and Cavill Mall was also monitored by surveillance cameras.

Mrs Mulder said her husband was receiving ‘overwhelming’ public support back out on the street.

“He’s had comments like ’don’t mess with the statue’,’’ she said.

Surfers Paradise Alliance boss Mike Winlaw could not be contacted for comment.

Earlier, it was reported that the video of Mr Mulder punching the heckler in the face had gone viral and racked up more than 400,000 views in a matter of hours.

In the 35-second YouTube video,Mr Mulder is shown doing his routine on Surfers Paradise shopping strip Cavill Ave, before being taunted by a male passer by.

After being poked and prodded for 20 seconds, even receiving a saliva-soaked finger in his ear, Mr Mulder finally snaps and punches the young man in the face, to gasps from the crowd.

The ultimate professional, Mr Mulder did not miss a beat and immediately resumed his statue routine.

Mr Mulder was back at his post in Cavill Ave last night and said he was not proud of lashing out but could only take so much.

“He was in the wrong, but at the same time I was in the wrong for striking out,” he said.

“Violence is never vindicated.”

He said he would even apologise to the man if they crossed paths again. Mr Mulder has been busking in Surfers Paradise for five years and has encountered few problems in the past.

Other street performers said the bizarre incident was the inevitable result of years of tolerating antagonistic antics from hecklers and pests.

“We put up with so much crap,” said one.

“It was probably only a matter of time before somebody popped.”

Brisbane student Richard Choeun, 21, said he was “shocked” to capture the incident while filming his 12-year-old cousin interacting with the busker on a family holiday last Saturday.

“When it happened we stopped recording because we were a bit concerned, the guy was bleeding from the mouth,’’ he said.

“He walked over to his friends, he stood there for a bit and then he just walked away. I think he knew he was being an idiot.

“The busker pretty much just went back to his performance, he was great.

“Everyone in the crowd was really shocked, they didn’t say anything, they were really surprised. I think they knew that he deserved it so they didn’t really care.’’

Mr Choeun said he was "very surprised’’ when the video went viral, prompting phone calls and emails from global media organisations such as NBC and The Huffington Post.

“I only uploaded it for fun to show my Facebook friends, then I wake up and there’s like 10,000 views on it and I’m being contacted by media,’’ he said.

Overview

Sebastian De La Cruz’s National Anthem Performance refers to a rendition of the “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by an 11-year-old boy during a National Basketball Association (NBA) game that resulted in a barrage of racist tweets directed at the young Mexican-American singer.

Background

During the summer of 2012, De La Cruz appeared as a contestant on the talent show America’s Got Talent (shown below, left), managing to progress all the way to the show’s semifinal round. On June 11th, 2013, De La Cruz was invited to sing the the United States national anthem at an NBA Finals game between the San Antonia Spurs and the Miami Heat (shown below, right).

Immediately following the broadcast of his performance, many Twitter users watching the broadcast began mocking the Hispanic heritage of De La Cruz with racial slurs. On June 12th, the Internet news site The Daily Dot^[1] published an article about the racist tweets, highlighting several examples (shown below).

Notable Developments

San Antonio Mayor’s Reaction

On the same day, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro tweeted words of encouragement to De La Cruz, telling him to not let the racist remarks bother him. In the first 48 hours, the tweet gained over 440 retweets and 200 favorites.

Sebastien de la Cruz, your rendition of the national anthem was spectacular! Don't let a few negative voices get you down. selcharrodeoro</a></p>&mdash; Mayor Julián Castro (JulianCastro) June 13, 2013

De La Cruz’s Reaction

Also on June 12th, De La Cruz was interviewed by Fox 29 news, during which he revealed that he was born and raised in San Antonio and that his father was in the United States Navy (shown below, left). On the following day, De La Cruz spoke with the KENS 5 San Antonio news station in which stated that he was not letting the racist remarks bother him (shown below, right).

“With the racist remarks, it was just people how they were raised. My father and my mama told me you should never judge people how they look.”

Encore Performance

On June 13th, Cruz was invited to sing the anthem in a second NBA Finals game. That day, President Barack Obama published a tweet encouraging followers to watch the encore performance, which accumulated upwards of 2,500 retweets and 1,500 favorites in the next 24 hours.

Don't miss selcharrodeoro</a>&#39;s encore performance of the national anthem at the <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NBAFinals&amp;src=hash">#NBAFinals</a> in San Antonio tonight.</p>&mdash; Barack Obama (BarackObama) June 14, 2013

That evening, De La Cruz was introduced by San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro prior to singing national anthem (shown below). On the following day, several news site published articles praising De La Cruz for his courage, including NPR,^[2] Gawker,^[3] Fox Sports^[4] and The Huffington Post.^[5]

Search Interest

External References

About

Twiface is an exploitable image of the character Twilight Sparkle from the cartoon My Little Pony Friendship is Magic starring at the viewer with a scrunched face and squinted eyes. The caption often has something that would be considered rude, violant, or sexual. It is often used with the phrase You Came to the Wrong Neighborhood, Motherfucker. or “Get out”

Origin

On Episode 10 of Season 1 “Swarm of the Century”^[1] there is a scene where Princess Celestia receives a welcome from the Mane 6 in the form of a bow, when Twilight Sparkle stands back up she has the scrunched face (shown below)

Spread

In June 2012 the user Yurp uploaded an image^[2] of the scene to Derpibooru with the caption “Varying degrees of want” receiving 20 votes up (shown below, left) the few people who commented noticed Twilights expression and commented about how the characters are in fear while she has a look of joy. In March 2012 a user uploaded a image^[3] of a Facebomb with the Twiface, receiving 52 votes up (show below, right.) After which several users of Derpibooru began uploading images using the exploitable under the tag Twiface^[4].

Notable Examples

External References

^[1]YouTube – My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic – Season 1 Episode 10 Swarm of the Century [HD]

^[2]Derpibooru – Varying degrees of want

^[3]Derpibooru – Facebomb

^[4]Derpibooru – Twiface Tag

iron man makes toddler cry

Overview

NSAPRSIM Scandal is an ongoing controversy surrounding the U.S. National Security Agency’s data-mining operation of millions of customers from major telecommunications providers in the United States, as well as its clandestine electronic surveillance program known as PRISM.

Background

On June 5th, 2013, The Guardian^[1] published an exclusive report that the U.S. National Security Agency is collecting the telephone records of millions of customers of Verizon. The article detailed a classified order from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was obtained by the U.K. daily newspaper and made publicly available on its website^[2], directing Verizon’s Business Network Services to hand over all “telephony metadata” created by the mobile service provider within the United States and abroad.

Notable Developments

The Guardian’s leak of the court document was universally met by criticisms of the Obama administration from both ends of the political spectrum, as well as news media outlets^{[4][5][8][9][10][11]} and civil rights advocacy groups.^[12] That same day, the New York Times^[7] published an editorial titled “President Obama’s Dragnet,” slamming the president’s abuse of executive power, especially in the light of another recent scandal that the Justice Department secretly monitored the Associated Press and Fox News, and adding that the Obama “administration has now lost all credibility.”

Online Reactions

On Facebook, The Guardian’s story was shared more than 103,000 times before 2 p.m. (EST) and the story was met by similar reactions of anger, confusion and even a few jokes about Verizon’s “share everything” plan and its ever-so-fitting catchphrase “can you hear me now?” On Twitter, the original story published by The Guardian was shared more than 10,200 times before 10 a.m. (EST) while the hashtag #NSA immediately shot up to the top trending topic of the day, leading to nearly 250,000 mentions in less than 24 hours.

PRISM Program

Also on June 6th, 2013, The Guardian^[14] published an article reporting on a previously undisclosed government surveillance program called PRISM, which gives the NSA the power to gain direct access to search history, emails, file transfers and live chats from various Internet services, including those provided by Google, Facebook and Apple. The details of the program were revealed in a leaked PowerPoint presentation, which claimed the program was run with the assistance of the Internet companies involved.

n response to questions about their involvement with the program, each company The Guardian contacted denied any knowledge of PRISM, including Google who released the following statement:

“Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”

The article noted that the program raised many concerns about due process, as it allows the NSA to directly access company servers to obtain information in complete secrecy. The director of ACLU’s Center for Democracy Jameel Jaffer criticized PRISM for being military surveillance of civilians:

“This is unprecedented militarization of domestic communications infrastructure. That’s profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation.”

On June 7th, The Guardian^[15] published a follow-up article, reporting that the United States Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed the existence of PRISM, but insisted that it only covered surveillance of communications with foreigners, not United States citizens.

Official Response

That same day, President Barack Obama held a press conference in which he defended the surveillance programs, arguing that they did not apply to United States citizens, were subject to Congressional oversight and required the authorization of federal judges (shown below).^[16]

Leaker’s Identity Revealed

On June 8th, The Guardian^[17] published an interview with Edward Snowden, a former technical assistant for the CIA and employee of the defense contractor Booze Allen Hamilton, who revealed himself as the person responsible for leaking the NSA documents to the press. In the article, he described his early years of career rising through the the ranks of the United States army and Special Forces, where he went on to join the CIA working in technical security. After leaving the CIA, Snowden became an infrastructure analyst contractor at an NSA facility in Hawaii, where he gained access to classified documents detailing the agency’s various surveillance programs. In the interview, Snowden claims he never wished to be an anonymous source and had immediately fled the United States to seek asylum in Hong Kong.

Snowden went on to reveal that he had risked a $200,000 salary, a girlfriend and a home in Hawaii to expose the programs but that he wishes to avoid the media spotlight to keep the public’s attention on the surveillance controversy. To avoid being spied on, he lined his hotel room door with pillows and covered his head and laptop while entering passwords. Snowden could potentially be extradited to the United States to be criminally prosecuted but hopes to receive political asylum in Iceland. On June 9th, a petition was created on the White House “We the People” website,^[18] calling for the government to grant Snowden a full pardon. Within 24 hours, the petition gained over 19,000 signatures.

Notable Parodies

Verizon Wireless Parodies

Shortly after The Guardian broke the story on June 6th, BuzzFeed ran an article titled “Help Us Reimagine Verizon Ads,” featuring a compilation of image macros parodying the Verizon Wireless advertisements and their well-known slogan “can you hear me now?” In the following days, additional jokes and wordplays centered around Verizon Wireless and its “Share Everything” data subscription plan continued to appear on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Tumblr.

Also on the day of the leak, American actor Jason Biggs tweeted a joke referencing Verizon’s advertising catchphrase “Can you hear me now?”, which received over 330 retweets and 130 favorites in the first 24 hours.

“Can you hear me now?” – Verizon customers"Yep." – The U.S. government

— Jason Biggs (@JasonBiggs) June 6, 2013

Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain tweeted a sarcastic statement to Verizon customers, congratulating them on being spied on “without probable cause.”

Congratulations, Verizon subscribers! The NSA is spying on you without probable cause! bit.ly/1b8Uuhp

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) June 6, 2013

#NSACalledToTellMe

Other Twitter users began posting jokes about the scandal with the hashtag #NSAcalledtotellme.

#nsacalledtotellme that my choice of DrWho over AmericanIdol was unpatriotic #watchingfordrones

— Nicholas Brown (@nicholasbrown85) June 7, 2013

Obama is Reading Your E-mails

On June 8th, the “Obama is Checking Your Email” Tumblr^[29] blog was launched to mock the Obama administration’s involvement in the NSA surveillance scandal, highlighting various photographs of President Obama staring at computer monitors and smart phone screens as if he is spying on private citizens (shown below).

Two days later on June 10th, several news and tech sites highlighted notable examples from the Tumblr blog, including BuzzFeed,^[30] The Daily Dot,^[31] Mashable^[32] and the New York Daily News.^[33] The same day, Redditor sligowaths posted a link to the blog on the /r/toosoon^[34] subreddit, where it gained upwards of 820 up votes and 40 comments in the first 24 hours.

#NSAKidsBooks

Also on June 8th, Twitter user @Darth^[19] asked his followers to submit parody titles of children’s books incorporating the NSA’s domestic surveillance scandal with the hashtag #NSAKidsBooks.^[20] After more than 2,800 mentions of the hashtag over the weekend^[21], @Darth used the submissions as his inspiration for a series of children’s book cover illustrations. (shown below)

Operation Troll the NSA

On June 10th, BuzzFeed staff writers Chris Baker and Mike Lacher launched a crowdsourced scheme titled “Operation Troll the NSA” with an objective to overload the spy agency’s surveillance system by transmitting a scripted email loaded with suspicious keywords en masse and all at the exact same time. The official website TrollTheNSA.com asks its readers to electronically send the scripted message to a friend at 7 p.m. (ET) on June 12th, 2013.

IF MILLIONS OF US, ALL AT THESAMEEXACTTIME, CALL OR EMAILSOMEONEWITHOURKEYWORDS-OF-TERROR-FILLEDSCRIPT, WE CANGIVEOUR NATION’S IMPRESSIVESURVEILLANCEAPPARATUSTHEKIND OF TEST IT DESERVES. THEYSAYTHEY DON’T READ OR LISTEN TO THECONTENTS OF OURMESSAGES. WHYNOTTEST IT OUT? IT’LL BE FUN.

PRISM Slideshow Redesign

On June 11th, a few days after the Washington Post’s publication of the PRISM slideshow, Paris-based freelance designer Emiland De Cubber uploaded a slideshow file titled “Dear NSA, let me take care of your slides,” revamping nearly every aspect of the top-secret Powerpoint presentation to modern standards in visual communications design. Within the first 24 hours, Cubber’s slideshow gained more than 412,800 views on Slideshare (shown below).^[24]

According to Cubber^[25], he initially took notice of the PRISM slideshow through a tweet mocking the poor sense of design posted by American data theorist Edward Tufte.

Dreadful spy-PRISM deck sets new record for most header logos per slide: 13 washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special…#powerpoint#ppttwitter.com/EdwardTufte/st…

— Edward Tufte (@EdwardTufte) June 7, 2013

Search Interest

External References

About

Half-Life 3 Confirmed is a catchphrase associated with the announcement and release of the fifth installment in the popular Half-Life franchise by Valve. Since the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in October 2007, fans have long anticipated the next installment in the franchise, which over time lead to numerous intentionally fake theories that have little to nothing to do with the games, alongside various stories which claim the release of the game to be coincident with the rapture.

Origin

Valve’s Half-Life^[14] franchise started on November 19th, 1998, and was as well the debut title of Valve Software. On November 16, 2004, Valve released Half-Life 2, the sequel to the original game. This was followed by Half-Life 2: Episode One on June 1, 2006, and Half Life 2: Episode Two on October 10, 2007. Originally, Valve intended to release the episodes 6 months apart. Instead, Episode Two was released over a year after Episode One, and Half-Life 2: Episode Three, which was supposed to follow 6 months after Episode 2, has been delayed indefinitely.^[15][16]

Since the episode’s announcement in 2006, and the release of a number of concept art images in 2008 (shown above), there have been a number of rumours and hoaxes regarding the supposed announcement of a release date for Episode Three, all of which have been denied by Valve.

Spread

Prior to large gaming events, such as the Electronic Entertainment Expo, speculations on the announcement of Half-Life 3 are often made surrounding Valve’s presentation during the events, which are commonly later debunked by various gaming websites as it becomes clear the sequel won’t appear during the event.

In early August of 2012, numerous rumors were released which speculated that Valve was working on a new gaming engine. This was later confirmed during a visit of 4chan’s /v/ (videogames) board at Valve in celebration of Gabe Newell’s 50th birthday (shown below) in early November of the same year. Both the rumors and the confirmation on the new engine lead to various websites speculating it to be the reason Half-Life 3 was delayed numerous times, such as VG 24/7,^[1][2] Joystiq,^[3] Eurogamer,^[4] Trusted Reviews^[5] and Now Gamer.^[6]

On June 8th, 2012,^[12] and April 2nd, 2013,^[13] Julia Lepetit and Andrew Bridgman submitted 2 comics to the videogame humor sharing website Dorkly about the constant excitement of Half-Life 3 and the common release claims on April Fools’ day. As of June 17th, 2013, both comics received respectively more than 990 abd 5,400 Facebook likes.

On June 10th, 2013, a picture appeared (shown below) on the r/gaming sub-Reddit^[10] which showed a Half-Life 3 poster at the convention, which was subsequentally posted on FunnyJunk^[11] the same day. Although the picture was proven fake pretty early, it managed to gain nearly 5000 upvotes on Reddit and more than 600 on FunnyJunk in less than a week.

Notable Examples

Additional examples can be found through the Tumblr tags “half life 3”^[7] and “half life 3 confirmed”,^[8] and through FunnyJunk by searching for “half life 3 confirmed”.^[9]

Search Interest

External References

About

The Geek Code is a series of letters and numbers contained in signature blocks^[9] used by self-identified geeks to describe their interests, personalities, appearance, skills and opinions to other members of the geek community. The codes were initially used by newsgroup posters in their email signatures, later progressing to message board signatures and dedicated sections on homepages.

Origin

The Geek Code was created by Robert A. Hayden of Minnesota State University, Mankato, who submitted the first version^[10] to the Usenet groups alt.geek and rec.humor on August 11th, 1993. The code contained elements pertaining to a person’s vocation, dress style, political views, computer interaction, skills with Linux and Unix, education level, musical interests, physical shape, eating habits, living arrangements, friendships, vision status, weirdness, love of Star Trek, experience with role-playing and sex life.

Precursor

The Geek Code was inspired by a number of similar codes used as signatures in dating and sex newsgroups to clearly announce one’s sexual preferences of fetishes. This may have been inspired by handkerchief code^[8], a flagging system popularized in the 1970s to help members of different sexual subcultures identify each other in public. Participants would wear a colored handkerchief associated with their particular fetish (chart shown below). If a person wants to be on the receiving end, the handkerchief is worn on the right side of their person, often in the back pants pocket or on a belt loop. If they want to be on the giving end, the handkerchief is worn on the left side.

The first online flagging system was The Bear Code^[1], created on November 23rd, 1989 by Bob Donahue and Jeff Stoner. The code was used to help gay men who identify with the bear subculture^[2] simply provide information about their physical appearance (i.e. amount of hair, weight and height) as well as aspects of their sexual interest, including touching, history and fetishes. In the early 1990s, discussion of the Bear Code appeared on a number of different newsgroups including soc.bi^[3], alt.sex.fetish.hair^[4] and alt.personals.^[5] In 1990, the Smurf Code^[6] and the Twink Code^[7] also began to circulate the web.

Spread

As early as 1994, a second version of the code was shared via HTML web page^[11], adding sections for information on one’s car and spoken language as well as experience with Perl, Windows, Mac and Cypherpunks. A third version was released in 1995, along with the first code generator^[12], allowing users to select the aspects that described them with radio buttons and checkboxes, automatically creating a code for them at the end. This version adding in a number of entertainment sections, including ones for fans of the X-Files and the comic strip Dilbert. In March 1996, the final version of the code was released on the domain GeekCode.com^[13], where Hayden noted he wanted to write a new version for the America Online-era, but became overwhelmed. The final code had 34 sections, double the original 17.

In 1998, Bradley M. Kuhn launched The Geek Code Decoder Page^[14], a script that would easily provide an explanation of a person’s coded answers. Hayden’s Geek Gode was first defined on Urban Dictionary^[15] in August 2005. A second decoder site^[16] launched around Christmas 2006. Though mentions of the code tapered off in the late 2000s, in 2012, discussion of the code appeared on The Recruiters Lounge^[17] and The Geek Anthropologist.^[17]

Derivative Codes

As early as 1995, derivatives of the Geek Code began appearing on other Usenet newsgroups, tailored to other subcultures. That year, the Goth Code^[19] and the Cat Code^[20] were both created. Between 1996 and 2008, codes were created for furries^[22], fans of Chip’n’Dale Rescue Rangers^[23], swingers^[24], Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans^[25], hackers^[26], knitters^[27] and people with Autism.^[28] A number of other codes were linked on The Goth Code’s^[21] 1998 homepage.

Search Interest

External References

About

Feminist Taylor Swift is a novelty Twitter account that parodies song lyrics of the American pop singer with feminist commentaries on romantic ideals that may be deemed patriarchal or heteronormative.

Origin

On June 11th, 2013, Rhode Island-based blogger Clara Beyer^[2] tweeted^[3] (shown below, left) an idea for a single-topic Twitter feed called “feminist Taylor Swift.” The next morning, Beyer created the account @feministtswift^[1] and tweeted a parody of lyrics from Swift’s 2009 hit “You Belong With Me” (shown below). Within five days, it had been retweeted more than 4,400 times and favorited nearly 1,900 times.

She wears short skirts / I wear t-shirts / Neither of us is asking for it

— FeministTaylorSwift (@feministtswift) June 12, 2013

Spread

On June 14th, a selection of tweets from the account were featured on Buzzfeed^[4], who noted the account had accrued more than 7,100 followers with its first 19 tweets. The same day, additional tweets were featured on BroBible^[5], Entertainment Weekly^[6], Mashable^[7] and PopHangover^[8] and by the end of the day, the account had grown to 20,000 followers. On June 15th, Feminist Taylor Swift was featured on the Huffington Post^[9], gaining another 27,000 followers overnight. Over the next 48 hours, the tweets were featured on the Washington Post^[10], MSNNow^[11], United Press International^[12] and the Sydney Morning Herald.^[13] By June 17th, Feminist Taylor Swift had accrued more than 76,000 followers. That day, Beyer was interviewed by The Daily Dot^[14], during which she said that her motivation came from what she perceived as the “problematic nature of Top 40 lyrics” in general and trying to justify being a feminist while enjoying Swift’s music.

Notable Examples

Derivative: Feminist Kanye

On June 14th, a similar novelty Twitter account called @FeministKanye^[15] began tweeting Kanye West lyrics with feminist commentary. Though the owner of the account has yet to come forward, Feminist Kanye has gained more than 6,200 followers in three days. The following day, several tweets from the account were featured on Salon.^[16]

PINKASSPOLOSAND A FUCKINGBACKPACK / EVERYBODYKNOWYOUDON'T SUBSCRIBE TO GENDER-NORMATIVECOLORSCHEMES

— FEMINISTKANYE (@feministkanye) June 14, 2013

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Miss Utah 2013 Marissa Powell’s Flub refers to a fumbling answer about income inequality given by the Utah representative at the 2013 Miss USA beauty pageant. Shortly after its broadcast, a video of the incident was uploaded online and mocked in a similar fashion to the Miss Teen South Carolina clip from 2007.

Background

On June 16th, 2013, 21-year-old Marissa Powell competed as Miss Utah in the Miss USA beauty contest held in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the question portion of the competition, actress NeNe Leakes asked Powell about economic inequality between genders, to which the contestant responded with a fumbling and incoherent answer (shown below).

NeNe Leakes: “A recent report shows that in 40 percent of American families with children, women are the primary earners, yet they continue to earn less than men. What does this say about society?”
Marissa Powell: “I think we can re … relate this back to education and how we are … continuing to try to strive to … [smiles] … figure out how to create jobs, right now. That is the biggest problem in … I think, especially the men, are, um … seen as the leaders of this, and so we need to try to figure out how to … create education better so that we can solve this problem.”

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

That evening, the keywords “Miss Utah” became a trending topic on Twitter with over 9,500 mentions, according to the analytics site Topsy^[8] (shown below).

Many of the tweets mocked her grammatically incorrect statement “create education better”^[8] and compared her to Miss Teen South Carolina’s fumbled response during the 2007 Miss USA pageant.

Hey, Miss South "Maps" Carolina! You're finally off the hook. Send the thank you card to Miss Utah! #missusa

— Ryan (@RyanWoodDFW) June 17, 2013

On June 17th, 2013, Redditor sorzer submitted a clip of Powell’s answer to the /r/videos^[1] subreddit, where it received over 3,600 up votes and 850 comments within the first 16 hours.

News Media Coverage

That same day, several news and Internet humor sites published articles about Powell’s appearance, including People,^[3]MSN,^[4] E Online,^[5] The Huffington Post^[6] and The Daily Beast.^[7] Also on June 17th, the Gawker Media sports site Deadspin^[2] posted a transcript of the beauty contestant’s answer, accompanied by the Ultimate Insult Man quote from the 1995 comedy film Billy Madison.

Search Interest

Not yet available.

External References

About

eBay^[1] is an online auction and shopping site that allows its users to buy and sell a wide range of goods and services. Since its launch in 1995, the company has vastly expanded its operations in size and scope, facilitating localized auctions in more than 30 countries as of June 2013.

History

eBay was first conceived as AuctionWeb^[3] (shown below) on September 5th, 1995 by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar^[4] as part of the homepage for his consulting firm Echo Bay. After making a humorous listing for a broken laser pointer as a test, it sold for $14.83 to a person collecting broken lasers.^[5] AuctionWeb quickly became popular and after Omidyar had to upgrade his personal website to a business space, he began charging fees for users selling their items on the site. By 1996, Omidyar hired his first employee as well as a company president. That November, eBay mentions began appearing in the tech news blogosphere, with news of airline tickets being sold on the site.^[6] The following month, AuctionWeb was named as a solution for getting rid of unwanted holiday presents.^[7]

In January 1997, AuctionWeb hosted 2,000,000 auctions, an 800% increase from 1996’s total of 250,000 auctions. The next month, Cnet^[8] published an article about the popularity of AuctionWeb, citing that the site generates more than $3 million worth of sales per month. The first About.com guide^[9] to eBay transactions was posted on April 29th, 1997. That September, on the second anniversary of the site’s launch, the company officially changed the name of its auction services to eBay (shown below). Also in 1997, the company sold its 1 millionth item while serving 3 million daily page views for items in 371 different categories.^[10]

On September 23rd, 1998, eBay joined the stock market with an initial public offering (IPO) of $18 per share. They closed at $47.375, up 163% from its opening price.^[11] With 3.5 million shares sold, the company raised more than $63 million that day and within two quarters, the stock grew 1000%.^[12] In 1998, eBay also began acquiring other online auction and classified advertising companies, accruing 42 as of June 2013. By the end of 2000, eBay was serving 22 million registered users from seven different countries. The same year, the site introduced the “Buy It Now” option, allowing users to skip the auction in order to purchase an item from a seller. In June 2006, the eBay Wiki launched, described as the world’s largest commercial wiki.^[13] However, it was taken down by 2008.

Features

eBay offers free accounts for people looking to bid on or purchase items. Sellers can list a certain number of items for free per month, based on the type of account. eBay also calculates a fee based on the final selling price of the item.^[17] As of June 2013, there are 35 high-level categories^[18] which are each broken down into dozens of more specific sections.

Highlights

P-P-P-Powerbook!

The P-P-P-Powerbook was a fake Apple laptop computer created with a binder by Something Awful forum member Jeff Harris in retaliation to an eBay scammer in 2006. After Harris realized the person who had won the auction for his 19-day-old Powerbook, he enlisted the help of other Something Awful users to scam the buyer.

Seven-Legged Spider

The Seven-Legged Spider was a drawing completed by David Thorne as part of an October 2008 prank in which he attempted to use the drawing to pay his overdue utility bills. After the post documenting his prank went viral, Thorne attempted to sell the drawing on eBay for $10,000. Though a winning bid was made for $15,000, bidder Patrick Munoz declared he had no intention of actually paying for the drawing.

Beyblades Auction

The Beyblades eBay Auction was set up as a punishment for two young children on February 5th, 2011 after they had destroyed their parents’ bathtub with the toys. The photo that accompanied the listing depicted one of the children crying while the other held up a plastic bag containing the metal Beyblades. The link was shared on a number of gaming sites before it ended up on 4chan where users began to photoshop other items into the Beyblades bag. Within 24 hours, the auction page had been viewed more than 200,000 times. The next day, the auction was removed from eBay after a number of fake bids. The owner chose not to relist the item after receiving a number of harassing emails.

Princess Beatrice’s Royal Wedding Hat

Princess Beatrice’s Royal Wedding Hat had already been the subject of a photoshop meme immediately after the British royal wedding in April 2011. The following month, the unique hat designed by Philip Treacy was auctioned off to raise money for charity, with the proceeds split between Unicef and Children in Crisis. The auction ended on May 22nd, raising US $131,341.47.

HP Touchpad Drawing Auction

After HP dropped the price of their Touchpad tablets from $399 to $99, a Greenfield, Ohio resident placed a hand-drawn HP Touchpad up for auction beginning at $0.99. Within an hour, the auction was viewed more than 5,000 times and other eBayers began to put their own Touchpad drawings up for auction. As bids creeped up to $100,000, the item was the most-watched auction in the Art category, with more than 900 users monitoring its status. Three days before the auction was due to close, eBay removed the listing for violating the site’s terms and conditions.

Stoned Fox

The Stoned Fox (Упоротая лиса) is a Russian photoshop meme that began with an eBay auction for an anthropomorphic stuffed fox. In October 2012, British artist and taxidermist Adele Morse sold the fox on eBay for 330 pounds. Several days after the auction ended, she began receiving messages from Russian fans in appreciation of the fox. The next month, she learned the animal had become popular on the Russian web, where people began photoshopping it into well-known movie scenes and other images.

Guinea Pig Armor

In June 2012, Sean McCoy decided to auction off handmade Guinea Pig Armor after his pet Lucky passed away to raise funds for the Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue of Virginia. The armor, originally listed at $5, began to gain attention after an image of Lucky from the auction was shared on the /r/Funny subreddit. The photo gained more than 9,200 upvotes and 2,700 points overall within four days, causing a number of news sites including the Huffington Post and CNN to feature the story. As of June 18th, the auction has a high bid of $15,100 and is set to end on June 21st.

Traffic

As of June 2013, eBay has an Alexa^[14] rank of 21 in the world and 7 in the United States. According to Quantcast^[15], eBay serves 85.8 million unique visitors monthly and is also ranked #7 in the US. In the first quarter of 2013, eBay served 116 million users, selling $3.5 billion worth of items listed as clothing, shoes, health and beauty, accessories and jewelery, $4 billion in electronics and video games, $2.7 billion in home and garden items and $1.7 billion in vehicles.^[16]

Search Interest

External Referencs