About

Misandry is a word used in both the original sense and in a sarcastic manner by feminists, particularly on Tumblr.
The word itself means “hatred of men”, and is used in serious discussions about gender equality by both feminists and Men’s Rights Activists. However, online the word is used to mock overzealous MRAs who see misandry everywhere, much like how people have mocked feminists for seeing misogyny where there isn’t any. This usually comes in the form of a .GIF showing a woman hitting or otherwise treating a man badly. Less commonly, the .GIF simply consists of a man being hurt, often in a comical or exaggerated way.

Origin

This meme began with the birth of the Men’s Right’s Movement, or MRM. These activists (Men’s Rights Activists or MRAs) often do their work online, fighting against the oppression of men. The MRM often refers to misandry, or the hatred of men, as a cause for this oppression, much like how the feminist movement uses the term misogyny. Feminists began bullying the MRAs by painting them all as radical and paranoid and mocked their overusage of misandry.

Spread

The use of these .GIFs first began on Tumblr and has since spread to other parts of the web as generic Computer Reaction Faces.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Guinea Pig Armor Charity Auction refers to an online auction of a scale armor suit for a pet guinea pig that was posted on eBay in June 2013.

Background

On June 11th, 2013, eBay^[1] user Sean McCoy (mightys0x) posted an auction titled “Hand-made guinea pig scale-mail and helmet (armor),” featuring several photos of his deceased guinea pig Lucky wearing a custom suit of silver armor (shown below). The bidding for the armor was initially listed at $5 and reached $12,500 within one week.

Notable Developments

On June 13th, Redditor Amorphous_Shadow posted a photograph of Lucky from the eBay page to the /r/funny^[5] subreddit, which gained more than 9,200 up votes and 140 comments in the following four days. On June 16th, The Huffington Post^[6] published an article about the charity auction, noting that all profits received would be donated to the Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue^[7] in Virginia. On the following day, Redditor BgGrlsDontCry submitted a photo of Lucky wearing the armor while riding a miniature jet ski (shown below, left) to the /r/photoshopbattles^[2] subreddit, where it received over 2,400 up votes and 60 comments in the first 24 hours. In the comments section of the post, many Redditors submitted various photoshopped versions of the photo (shown below, middle, right).

Also on June 17th, Sean McCoy was interviewed in a segment on CNN about the eBay auction (shown below), in which he admitted that Lucky did not enjoy wearing the armor and was only forced to don the garb during a 10-minute photo shoot.

Immediately after the broadcast, Redditor AWildSketchAppeared submitted a screen capture of his guinea pig sketch displayed during the CNN segment (shown below). In less than 24 hours, the post garnered upwards of 38,000 up votes and 730 comments. On the following day, McCoy posted the interview clip to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit, where it accumulated over 1,200 up votes and 100 comments in the first 18 hours. Also on July 18th, the news sites Laughing Squid^[8] and Time^[9] published articles about the charity auction.

Search Interest

[Not yet available]

External References

About

High School Senior Yearbook Quotes are select quotations that appear below a student’s photograph in the year book for their final year of high school. On the Internet, photographs and scans of prank yearbook quotes are often posted on Internet humor sites.

Origin

The earliest known collection of humorous yearbook quotes posted online was in a compilation of examples highlighted on the online resource site About^[5] on December 15th, 1997, according to Google cache.

Spread

On February 8th, 2011, the Internet humor site Smosh^[3] posted a series of notable example quotes. On April 30th, 2013, the viral content site BuzzFeed published a compilation of 30 notable yearbook quote photos. On May 30th, 2013, the Internet news site The Daily Dot^[2] published an article reporting that a high school senior quoted a tweet from the @horse_ebooks Twitter account in their yearbook (shown below, left). On June 18th, the pop culture blog Hit Fix^[4] published an article about a high school student who used elements in the periodic table to quote Notorious B.I.G.’s line “Fuck Bitches Get Money” from the 1995 song “Get Money” by Junior M.A.F.I.A. (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

External References

(Work in progress)

About

“That Guy” is a blanket term for someone who represents undesirable traits. These can represent general traits as well as ones ascribed to a specific subculture.

Origin

Spread

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

The Salad Revolution (Revolta Da Salada) refers to a series of ongoing social protests that erupted across Brazil in mid-June 2013. The demonstrations initially began in São Paulo in response to a hike in public transportation fares, but quickly spread across other cities to address other socioeconomic issues, including police brutality, corruption and government spendings in preparation for the 2014 World Cup. On the web, the protests soon became dubbed the “Salad Revolution” after a Brazilian journalist was arrested for carrying vinegar in his backpack to fight the effects of tear gas.

Background

In January 2013, São Paulo’s mayor Fernando Haddad announced that public bus and subway fare will be increased from R$ 3.00 to R$ 3.20. A few days after the policy went into effect on June 1st, the first major protest against the fare hike was organized on June 6th along Paulista Avenue, where the demonstrators clashed with the military police and left many shops vandalized. In the following week, the public demonstrations across the city continued to grow in size and intensity, which culminated in another major violent clash on June 13th that left several protesters and journalists arrested or injured from rubber bullets.

Notable Developments

Piero Locatelli’s Arrest

Among those arrested at the scene on June 6th were Piero Locatelli, a Brazilian journalist who recorded a video of himself being questioned and detained by a police officer for carrying a bottle of vinegar, which is said to reduce the undesirable effects of tear gas. The footage was subsequently uploaded to YouTube, gaining more than 464,000 views in less than a week.

Piero Locatelli’s arrest instantly sparked outrage against police brutality on Twitter and elsewhere on the web, spawning several vinegar-themed hashtags like #VdeVinagre, #VforVinegar and #pimentavsvinagre in support of the journalist and the Free Fare Movement at large. As the protests began spreading to other cities across the country, the broader social movement soon became dubbed #RevoltaDaSalada (“The Salad Revolution”) by the Brazilian Twitter users and journalists alike.

June 17th: Rio de Janeiro Protests

[researching]

Search Interest

[not yet available]

External References

About

Gangsta Animal Wallpapers are image macros featuring various animal portraits by Portland-based illustrator Ryan Berkley and memorable lyrics from hip hop songs.

External References

^[1]Reddit – /r/GangstaAnimals

^[2]Etsy – Berkley Illustration

^[3]Imgur – Animal Wallpapers

About

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is a 2004 comedy film set in the 1970s starring comedian Will Ferrell as news anchor Ron Burgundy.

History

On July 9th, 2004, the film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy was released in theaters, which centers around the protagonist Ron Burgundy and his relationships with his news team and his love interest Veronica Corningstone (played by Christina Applegate). On June 18th, 2013, a trailer was released for the upcoming sequel Anchorman 2 (shown below, right), scheduled for release in December of that year.

Reception

The film grossed $28.4 million on opening weekend and a total of $90.5 million worldwide, outperforming its $26 million budget. As of June 2013, the film has a 66% rating on the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes.^[7] The film news website Empire^[8] ranked Ron Burgundy as #26 in their list of “100 Greatest Movie Characters” and rankedAnchorman as #113 in their list of the top 500 films of all time.

Fandom

Online Presence

On February 23rd, 2006, YouTuber Sobe58 uploaded a video featuring Will Ferrell’s audition tape for the film (shown below, left), accumulating over 2.3 million views and 1,100 comments in the first eight years. On July 20th, 2008, YouTuber John Burgandy uploaded a video highlighting several memorable quotes from the film (shown below, right). In the next five years, the video garnered upwards of 1.37 million views and 1,500 comments.

On December 1st, 2011, a Meme Generator^[1] page titled “Anchorman” was created, featuring a screen capture of Ron Burgundy with captions written from the fictional character’s perspective. On March 28th, 2012, Will Ferrell appeared as a guest on the late night talk show Conan while in character as Ron Burgundy. A YouTube upload of the appearance (shown below) gained more than 5.28 million views and 5,300 comments in the following two years.

On the following day, the Internet humor site Funny or Die^[6] highlighted several notable animated GIFs featuring scenes from the film (shown below). In the first two years, the post received over 530,000 views and 6,500 Facebook shares.

As of June, 2013, over 30 pages related to the film have been created on the image macro website Quickmeme,^[5] including “Anchorman I dont know what were yelling about,”^[2]“Anchorman Milk”^[3] and “Anchorman”^[4] (shown below).

Reception

The film grossed $28.4 million on opening weekend and a total of $90.5 million worldwide, out performing its $26 million budget. As of June 2013, the film has a 66% rating on the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes.^[7] The film news website Empire^[8] ranked Ron Burgundy as #26 in their list of “100 Greatest Movie Characters” and ranked Anchorman as #113 in their list of the top 500 films of all time.

Related Memes

That Escalated Quickly

“That Escalated Quickly” is a memorable quote uttered by Ron Burgundy often used in online discussions and comments as a response to a situation that has quickly gotten out of hand.

Stay Classy

“Stay Classy” is another quote from Burgundy in the film, which is often used as a sarcastic response to an undesirable action.

I’m Kind of a Big Deal

“I’m Kind of a Big Deal” is an expression taken from Burgundy’s pickup line to Corningstone uttered during the film’s opening sequence (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

“Literally Hitler” is a hyperbolic expression that can be used to denounce an individual or group as being worse than the German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. On the social networking site Reddit, the phrase is also used to mock circle jerk discussions that ultimately manifest into examples of Godwin’s Law.

Origin

In August of 2009, the single topic Tumblr^[1] blog “Obama is Literally Hitler” was launched, which featured photographs of Barack Obama juxtaposed with Adolf Hitler to illustrate tenuous similarities (shown below). As of June 2013, the blog has since removed all published posts.

Background

Around the same time the Tumblr was created, comparisons of Obama to Hitler had been on the rise in response to the growing debate about Obamacare healthcare reform. That month, a video of a Tea Party protester getting chastised by congressman Barney Frank after comparing Obama to Hitler during a townhall meeting surfaced on YouTube (shown below).

Spread

As early as August 10th, 2009, the “Obama is Literally Hitler” blog was highlighted on Gawker^[3] and the viral content site BuzzFeed.^[2] Also in August of 2009, the “Obama is Literally Hitler” blog was highlighted on On February 14th, 2010, the phrase “Obama is literally Hitler” was submitted to the blog Literally Misused.^[4] On October 25th, Bungie Forums^[5] member the squee masta submitted a thread titled “Men without moustaches are useless,” in which he asserted that men without moustaches were “literally Hitler.” On September 26th, 2011, the novelty Reddit account “Literally Hitler” was created.^[16] On November 16th, Redditor ravendward submitted a post to the /r/circlejerk^[12] subreddit, joking that the word “Nickelback” means “literally hitler” in Spanish. Before the post was archived, it received over 3,100 up votes and 100 comments. On January 2nd, 2012, Redditor chromiumsun submitted a video to the /r/videos^[6] subreddit, in which actor Will Wheaton accuses the Kardashian family as being “more depressing to me than Hitler” (shown below). In the comments section, many Redditors mocked Wheaton’s statement by referencing the “literally Hitler” meme.

On the same day, Redditor aidaman submitted a post titled “Upvote because the Kardashians are LITERALLY worse than Hitler” to the /r/circlejerk^[7] subreddit, garnering more than 3,200 up votes and 90 comments prior to being archived. On March 31st, Redditor Sforzato submitted a post titled “This guy is literally Hitler” to the /r/circlejerk^[10] subreddit, containing a photograph of Adolph Hitler (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 3,200 up votes and 50 comments.

On February 4th, 2013, the single serving site Is Literally Hitler^[8] was launched, which features a text input field to make custom images using the phrasal template “X is literally Hitler.” On March 18th, a similar serving site was created at LiterallyHitler.org,^[9] containing user submitted messages accusing others of being “literally Hitler.”

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Murtaugh is a straitlaced veteran homicide detective sergeant and family man. He was a lieutenant of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in the U.S. Army, and served in the Vietnam War. He joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1967 and is considering retirement, hence his catchphrase, “I’m too old for this shit”.

About

“When U Mom Com Home And Make Hte Spagheti” is an intentionally misspelled expression derived from a Tumblr post featuring a GIF of a dancing green alien.

Origin

On April 21st, 2012, Tumblr user familyfriendlyurl^[2] posted an animated GIF of a dancing green alien captioned with the phrase “when u Mom com home and make hte spagheti.” As of June 20th, 2013, the post has more than 98,000 notes. The dancing alien GIF^[3] has been used online since the 1990s in banner ads for mortgage loan services.^[1]

Spread

On May 18th, 2013, the phrase was used on the IGN forums^[4] as the subject of a thread containing nothing else but the dancing alien GIF, which yielded a dozen of confused responses from other posters. The same day, a second thread^[5] dedicated to the phrase was created by another user. By May 20th, derivatives of the phrase began appearing^[6], with posts naming other dishes mom comes home to make, misspelled in a similar manner

On May 30th, the esoteric phrase was used as the title of a thread on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic forum Brohoof.^[7] The same day, TumblTrends2013^[8] reported that both the phrase and the alien GIF has been frequently popping up on Tumblr dashboards. On June 6th, a Facebook fan page^[9] for the phrase was created. In early June, similar threads dedicated to the phrase were posted on music forum Spill It Now^[10] and Phantasy Star Online forum PSO-World.^[11]

Notable Examples

Additional posts can be found on the Tumblr tags “when u Mom com home and make hte spagheti”^[12], “when u mom com home”^[13] and “make hte spagheti.”^[14]

Search Interest

[Not Currently Available]

External References

About

“Pickup Artist” (PUA) is a term used to describe a man who utilizes a variety of techniques to attract and seduce women. Online, there are many advice blogs and discussion forums that cater to the PUA community, each with their own unique set of jargon and slang terms.

Origin

The earliest known methodological approach to seduction may be credited to American motivational speaker Ross Jeffries, who promoted a series of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques named “speed seduction” in the early 1990s. In 1994, the Usenet group alt.seduction.fast (ASF)^[2] was launched by Jeffries’ student Lewis De Payne, which gave rise to the now defunct alternative forum Moderated ASF. On December 25th, 1999, the PUA community entered the realm of popular culture with the release of the drama film Magnolia, in which Tom Cruise plays the motivational seduction speaker Frank T.J. Mackey (shown below).

On April 15th, 2003, Urban Dictionary^[7] user Spit Blood submitted an entry for the term “pickup artist,” defining it as “a person skilled in the art of seduction.”

Spread

On April 5th, 2005, the /r/seduction^[3] subreddit was launched, gaining upwards of 129,400 readers in the next five years. On September 6th, investigative reporter Neil Strauss’s self-help book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists^[4] was published, in which Strauss recounts his experiences shadowing those in the seduction community. The book was subsequently featured on the New York Times Bestseller List two months after its publications and the term “pickup artist” grew in prominence as a result. On August 6th, 2007, the reality television show The Pickup Artist premiered on VH1, starring Erik von Markvok (a.k.a. Mystery) as the dating instructor who coaches the program’s contestants various seduction techniques.

On June 27th, 2008, Gawker^[9] published an article mocking the website of self-proclaimed “world’s greatest lover and seducer” “Dimitry the Lover”^[8] (shown below). On March 22nd, 2010, the Gawker Media women’s interest blog Jezebel ^[10] published an article about the PUAs, claiming that many in the seduction community promoted misogyny.

On March 24th, 2011, Time Out Chicago^[11] published feminist blogger Clarisse Thorn’s interview with The Game author Neil Strauss. On April 12th, the Simple Pickup YouTube channel was created, featuring interviews, pranks and instructional videos for approaching and seducing women. The first uploaded video was titled “Internet Trolls Pick Up Girls,” in which women are approached using Internet meme references by the channel creators Kong, Jesse and Jason (shown below, left). Within three years, the video garnered more than 2.26 million views and 7,100 comments. As of June 2013, the channel has received over 936,000 subscribers and their most popular video has gained upwards of 3.66 million views (shown below, right).

On March 9th, 2012, the webcomic Xkcd^[6][6] published a comic mocking the PUA technique known as “negging,” which involves making deprecating comments to women in order to undermine their self esteem (shown below).

Controversy

Above the Game Kickstarter Controversy

On May 29th, 2013, PUA Ken Hoinsky (a.k.a. TofuTofu on Reddit) launched a Kickstarter^[12] page for an instructional guidebook for “getting awesome with women.” By the end of the campaign’s funding period on June 19th, it had earned over $16,300 of the $2,000 goal.

The same day, Salon^[14] published an article which criticized the project, using Hoinsky’s Reddit comment history as evidence that his techniques were misogynistic and overly aggressive. A comment was quoted from a /r/seduction^[13] post from May 1st, 2013, which gave instructions on overcoming “resistance” from women who refuse to return to a man’s home after a date:

Expect her to offer some resistance when you try to bring her home. Throwing out a “I don’t sleep with someone on the first date.” or “No sex, okay?” will do wonders. It all helps to generate plausible deniability. If it just happened while we were in the moment she will feel much more comfortable knowing she fooled around with you. No girl wants to feel like a slut.

Search Interest

External References

(work in progress)

About

Drunk History is a YouTube series in which a person gets drunk and retells a significant event in American history. Their retelling is then acted out, often by a cast of well-known Hollywood actors.

Origin

Filmmaker Derek Waters^[1] created Drunk History in August 2007 after recording actor Mark Gagliardi^[2] explaining the life and death of United States Founding Father Alexander Hamilton after drinking an entire bottle of Scotch whisky. His storytelling is interspersed with a dramatic reenactment of the story in which Alexander Hamilton is played by actor Michael Cera. Waters premiered the video during his one-man comedy show at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles before uploading it to YouTube on December 23rd, 2007. As of June 2013, this episode has been viewed more than 4.9 million times on YouTube and it has received an additional 1.9 million views on Funny or Die^[3], where it was posted on January 22nd, 2008.

Spread

In December 2007, the first Drunk History episode was featured on CollegeHumor^[4], UCB Comedy^[5] and personal blog Sliced Bread.^[6] In early January 2008, the video was shared on MetaFilter^[7], where it accrued 55 comments and 20 favorites. On February 3rd, 2008, the second episode (shown below, left) was uploaded via YouTube, which depicts writer and producer Eric Falconer^[8] explaining how Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity after 8 mixed drinks. In the dramatic interpretation, actor Jack Black played Franklin.

That July, the third episode (shown above, right) was uploaded, featuring stand-up comedian Jen Kirkman discussing the escape of George Washington’s (played by Danny McBride) slave Oney Judge after a bottle and a half of wine. This episode drew the attention of a number of blogs and news sites throughout 2008 including the New York Times’ The Medium^[9], PoeTV^[10], Oh No They Didn’t!^[11], the Democratic Underground forums^[12], women’s history blog HIstoriann^[13] and Geek Fury.^[14]

On April 5th, 2010 a Facebook fan page^[15] for the series was created, accruing more than 4,800 likes as of June 2013.

HBO Premiere

Comedy Central Deal

In October 2012, The Baltimore Sun^[16] reported that Derek Waters had submitted a pilot to Comedy Central for Drunk HIstory, turning it into a 30-minute long show, each focusing on historical events from a specific city. On June 3rd, 2012, Comedy Central announced^[17] that the Drunk History series would premiere on July 9th at 10pm, with an eight-episode season featuring a number of high profile actors who had previously appeared in the web series, including Will Ferrel, Michael Cera, Ryan Gosling and John C. Reilly.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Neuland, German for “virgin territory,” is a term used by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to describe the current state of the Internet during a joint press conference with President Barack Obama in Berlin on June 19th, 2013. Chancellor Merkel’s remark was instantly met by derisive comments on Twitter, with many German Internet users ridiculing her use of the term “neuland” as being out of touch with the progress that has been made in the field.

Background

On June 19th, 2013, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama held a joint press conference in Berlin to conclude the latter’s three-day diplomatic trip to Europe. During the address, Chancellor Merkel was asked to comment on the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance scandal. to which she responded rather diplomatically:

“We talked about questions of the Internet in the context of PRISM. We talked at great length about the new possibilities and about also the new threats that the Internet opens up to all of us. The Internet is new territory, uncharted territory to all of us. And it also enables our enemies. It enables enemies of a free, liberal order, to use it, to abuse it, to bring a threat to all of us, to threaten our way of life. And this is why we value cooperation with the United States on questions of security.”

Notable Developments

#Neuland

Within minutes after Chancellor Merkel’s speech, German-speaking Twitter users quickly began discussing her use of the term “neuland,” with some expressing incredulity at her comment and many others jokingly embracing the word with a slew of image macros and photoshopped images describing the fictional country.

Parodies

Soon enough, novelty Twitter account @Neuland_Internet sprang up with tongue-in-cheek messages like "when I grow up I want to be Chancellor of #Neuland,” and “It is great that the #NSA carried out inspections across #Neuland.” On Tumblr, single topic blog News From Neuland was launched to document the multimedia parody phenomenon. In addition, a handful of parody animations and remix videos have also surfaced on YouTube.

Official Response

As the hashtag #neuland continued to spread virally on Twitter and elsewhere, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert eventually issued a statement via Twitter to clarify that the chancellor was specifically referring to “new territory for political debate.”

Zur Neuland-Diskussion: Worum es der Kanzlerin geht – Das Internet ist rechtspolitisches Neuland, das spüren wir im polit. Handeln täglich.

— Steffen Seibert (@RegSprecher) June 19, 2013

Search Interest

External References

About

Julian Assange is an Australian journalist and political activist best known as the founder and editor-in-chief of the international whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks. Since November 2010, Assange has been wanted by the British government for extradition to Sweden under an European Arrest Warrant relating to a sexual assault investigation and currently resides inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a political refugee.

Online History

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks was launched in December 2006 as a non-profit project under the directorship of Julian Assange. Within the first year of launch, the site claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents. Assange also serves as member on the Board of Directors for the website’s parent company The Sunshine Press.

2010 U.S. Diplomatic Cable Leaks

Following WikiLeak’s unprecedented expose of sensitive documents containing US diplomatic cables in February 2010, the U.S. government criticized the WikLeaks founder Julian Assange, and began pressing on the affiliates of WikiLeaks to halt their transactions with the Swiss-based website. As a result, WikiLeaks’ server host Amazon dropped their service, while Mastercard and PayPal ceased all transactions of funds donated by the supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

Beginning in December 2011, Amazon took down their hosting of the WikiLeaks servers less than a day after being contacted by the office of Senator Joe Lieberman and was then followed by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and most recently, MasterCard.^[1][2] Official statements from these respective companies cite things like ToS violations and pending investigations but the government intervention in all this is somewhat suspect.^[3][4] There is a letter from the US State Department floating around that was sent to Assange on November 27th, which is now making it’s rounds to the organizations still supporting WikiLeaks.^[5]

Financial Blockade

On October 24th, 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an hour-long press conference that the financial blockade imposed by major American e-commerce companies has made it impossible for the organization to continue operating on donations provided by its supporters. Streamed in real-time via UStream, Assange also revealed during the conference that WikiLeaks has been running on cash reserves for the last 11 months due to the increasing problems with means to receive donations.

Operation Avenge Assange

Following WikiLeak’s unprecedented expose of sensitive documents containing US diplomatic cables in February 2010, the U.S. government criticized the WikLeaks founder Julian Assange, and began pressing on the affiliates of WikiLeaks to halt their transactions with the Swiss-based website. As a result, WikiLeaks’ server host Amazon dropped their service, while Mastercard and PayPal ceased all transactions of funds donated by the supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

Beginning in December 2011, Amazon took down their hosting of the WikiLeaks servers less than a day after being contacted by the office of Senator Joe Lieberman and was then followed by PayPal, Visa, Mastercard and most recently, MasterCard.^[1][2] Official statements from these respective companies cite things like ToS violations and pending investigations but the government intervention in all this is somewhat suspect.^[3][4]

There is a letter from the US State Department floating around that was sent to Assange on November 27th, which is now making it’s rounds to the organizations still supporting WikiLeaks.^[5] In retaliation against the US-led counter-measures and support of Assange, Anonymous contingent launched several waves of DDoS attacks against various companies whom they perceived as “enemies of Julian Assange,” under the catchy-sounding codename Operation Avenge Assange.

The Next Web Media^[22] reported that Paypal has released funds left over in their WikiLeaks account, which was terminated in by the company after an apparent “terms of usage violation” where WikiLeaks^[6] was said to have been “used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.” The account, however, is still closed.

The Fifth Estate

In March 2011, The Guardian^[21] and other news sources^[20] reported that DreamWorks Studio will produce a Hollywood adaptation of Wikileaks and Julian Assange based on WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange and the World’s Most Dangerous Website by former Wikileaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy by British journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding. Titled The Fifth Estate and envisioned as a political investigative thriller, the film will chronicle the history of the organization through the eyes of Domscheit-Berg, from its early days to the eventual fallout between Assange and Domscheit-Berg following their rise to fame.

During the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013, more details about the film and the cast were revealed through a press release, along with the first official photograph of the lead actors (shown above).^[22] Set for theatrical release on November 15th, 2013, the film is directed by Bill Condon and stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) as Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and German actor Daniel Brühl as the former spokesperson of the website Daniel Domscheit-Berg. On January 28th, Assange revealed that he has obtained a leaked copy of the film script and critiqued it as a “mass propaganda attack” during a speech at the Oxford Union (shown below).

About

And this soundtrack… is a Youtube meme.

Origin

The meme originated from the video Are You an 8-Bit Video Game Fan? by Chris Pirillo, posted the 12th june 2009, he is testing the 50 in 1 console by dream Gear, which is an game controller/console hybrid system that contains 50 8-Bit games, that can be connected directly to the TV. He tells that it costs 13$, and then he dances on the main menu’s music.

Spread

The meme was created the 12th June 2011 by ManateeCrab, replacing the original music from the video by the main theme of Duke Nukem. Quickly, many other videos based on this were created. In most of those responses, the word “Soundtrack” in the title is replaced by another word, related to the music that is played in the video.

About

Penny Arcade^[1] is a webcomic about video game culture that launched in 1998.

History

Penny Arcade was created by author Jerry Holkins^[2] and artist Mike Krahulik^[3], who often go by their names of their in-comic alter egos Tycho Brahe and Jonathan “Gabe” Gabriel, respectively, in November 1998. The strip was originally written for the gaming website Loonygames^[4], where it ran until Penny Arcade moved to its own domain in 1999. The first comic strip depicted Gabe waiting for a level to load while playing the first person shooter game SIN, which was known for its extensive loading time between levels.^[5]

Highlights

Child’s Play

[researching]

PAX

[researching]

Video Game

[researching]

Controversy

2013 Twitter Controversy

On June 7th, 2013, Kotaku^[6] published an article on the mobile game HappyPlayTime, intended to gamify female masturbation. The article pointed out that the game was exclusionary to transgendered women, as the available screenshots made it look like the game focuses on clitoral stimulation. The same day, Mike Krahulik tweeted out a link to the article, mocking Kotaku’s criticism of the game. After blogger Shidoshi pointed out that he was excluding transgender men and women, whose genitals do not match with their gender identity, Krahulik stated that he did not find labeling a game for “vagina havers” as a game for women “exclusionary or unreasonable.” That day, a number of Krahulik’s tweets were compiled on Storify by two different users^[7][8], which were viewed more than 8,600 times combined within two weeks.

pikoeri</a> that game was for vagina havers. I don&#39;t think it is exclusionary or unreasonable to lable vagina havers as women.</p>&mdash; cwgabriel (cwgabriel) June 7, 2013

On June 20th, the panels for PAX Australia were revealed, including one titled “Why So Serious? Has the Industry Forgotten That Games Are Supposed to Be Fun?.” The original description of the panel (shown below, left) suggested that questions about race and gender equality in games were overbearing and that games should be exempt from this type of criticism in the spirit of “fun.” As the panel description began to circulate online, it was quickly changed (shown below, right) to remove any mentions of sexism, misogyny and racism.^[9]

The two situations began to mesh together, resulting in a number of social justice bloggers attacking Krahulik and Penny Arcade itself on Twitter. Krahulik responded with more transphobic tweets, telling people who used the term “cis” not to bother tweeting at him (shown below).^[10] Krahulik then addressed the situation on the Penny Arcade blog^[11], where he posted an email exchange between himself and gaming journalist Sophie Prell in which she expressed her concern about the incident and revealed to him that she is transgender herself. At the same time, gaming forums and feminist blogs began to discuss the story, including the Facepunch forums^[12], NeoGAF^[13], the Feminist Gaze Tumblr^[14] and Gay Gamer.^[15] Men’s rights subreddit /r/SRSSucks^[16] also had a conversation about the situation, praising Krahulik for asserting his beliefs.

heads up if you use the word "cis" save yourself some time and don't bother tweeting at me.

— cwgabriel (@cwgabriel) June 20, 2013

On June 21st, Krahulik apologized for his tweets, claiming he snapped and should have walked away from his computer instead of “put[ting] on [his] asshole hat.” Despite his apology, the same day, indie game developer The Fullbright Company^[17] made a blog post noting that they were going to pull their game Gone Home out of this year’s PAX Prime Expo’s Indie Megabooth, scheduled for August 30th, 2013. The post cited not only these recent events, but the 2011 “Dickwolf” incident^[18] in which Mike said it felt “pretty good” to “support rape culture.” Fullbright also acknowledged that the decision would hurt themselves, but as a four person team with two women and a gay person, they no longer felt comfortable aligning themselves with Penny Arcade.

Traffic

By April 2010, Penny Arcade had attracted more than 3.5 million readers.^[20] As of June 2013, the site gets approximately 3.4 million visitors globally per month, with a Quantcast^[21] rank of 1,669 and Alexa^[22] ranks of 1,351 in the US and 4,637 globally.

Search Interest

External References

About

Sweating Towel Guy is an exploitable illustration of a man wearing a green T-shirt while wiping his sweating forehead with a towel which is often used in “my face when” stories (MFW) on 4chan.

Origin

The image was initially a clip art which was often used in health articles about excessive sweating.^[2] On September 30th, 2011, the image was posted in a thread on the /v/ (video games) board on 4chan^[1], in which an anonymous user told a “greentext story”: using the sweating man drawing (shown below). In the post, the sweating towel guy is meant to represent the feeling of anxiety felt by a guy awkwardly trying to leave a Gamestop store.

Spread

On May 11th, 2012, the website Meanwhile On Fit^[3] posted a series of “fat people stories,” one of which featured the sweating towel guy image (shown below).

On September 24th, FunnyJunk^[4] user ianosity posted the image alongside an MFW comment about using Wikipedia to write a book report last minute. On January 23rd, 2013, NeoGAF^[5] member Dresden posted a photoshopped version of the sweating man (shown below, left). On June 15th, an anonymous 4chan^[6] user posted an edited version of the picture resembling a character from the 2011 action role-playing game Dark Souls (shown below, right) to the /tg (traditional games) board.

Search Interest

Not available

External References

About

Hannibal is an NBC thriller television series based on the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. The plot centers around FBI agent Will Graham and forensic scientist Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

History

Development for Hannibal began in 2011 when writer Bryan Fuller was brought on by NBC to write the pilot episode. On February 14th, 2012, NBC immediately granted the series a 13-episode season based on Fuller’s script according to the entertainment news blog Deadline.^[3] On April 4th, 2013, the first episode in the series premiered. On May 30th, 2013, Deadline^[2] reported that NBC had renewed Hannibal for a second season.

Reception

According to the ratings blog TVByTheNumbers,^[5] the premiere episode received approximately 4.36 million viewers in the United States, with each subsequent episode dropping slightly before reaching 1.98 million for the series finale. As of June 2013, the first season of Hannibal received a rating of 69/100 on the review site Metacritic.^[4]

Fandom

On May 31st, 2013, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[1] published a post reporting on Hannibal fans known as “Fannibals.”

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

The Character is famous for showing the low-standard and annoying people.

It’s named as Asa7be [O’ my mate] referring to its friendly manners.

Many people created facebook pages under his name as he got famous in Egypt.

The biggest and first page created for him is Asa7be Sarcasm Society
https://www.facebook.com/asa7bess

Some comics: