About

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared is a short musical film directed by Becky Sloan & Joseph Pelling. The film begins with an anthropomorphic character of a notepad singing a seemingly innocent tune about creativity, but as the song progresses, the lyrics and the video take on an increasingly grimdark tone. Due to the ambivalent nature of the film, it soon gained the reputation of a shock video and many viewers have since shared their reactions and analyses of its hidden meaning.

Origin

The original video was uploaded to Vimeo^[3] on July 28th, 2012, followed by a mirrored upload on YouTube on the next day. The short film was produced by the film and animation group THIS IS IT Collective^[1] and directed by its members Becky Sloan & Joseph Pelling.^[2] The video begins under the premise of a singalong segment typically featured on children’s puppet shows, but takes an unexpected turn with the lyrics exploring darker themes such as death towards the end. As of June 26th, 2013, the film has over 6,000 likes on Vimeo and close to 8 million views and 10,000 likes on Youtube.

Spread

“Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” was screened during various film festivals in 2012, most notably at The Wrap Shortlist Film Festival^[4] and the Sundance Film Festival,^[5] the latter of which was mentioned in an article^[7] published by the The Sundance Institute. The film also received the Midnight Shorts award at the South by Southwest film festival in March 2012.^[6]

In the weeks and months following its release, the short film was featured in numerous articles on art blogs and other websites such as Short of the Week,^[8] Animated-Review,^[9] Whitezine,^[10] Have You Seen This,^[11] Laughing Squid^[12] and This is Colossal.^[13] On May 9th, 2013, Youtube channel The Fine Bros uploaded a video in which well known Youtube celebrities react to the video. As of June 24th, 2013, the video has nearly 5 million views and 10,000 likes. It was also featured various other websites such as the Smosh Pit,^[14] Bloguh^[15] and Loitering Lion.^[16]

Theories

Some viewers have questioned and speculated the possibility of a deeper meaning behind the video, leading to critical analyses of the lyrics that are both serious and facetious. One of the leading theories interprets the film as a metaphor to how children are conditioned to act in a certain way due to some of the lines spoken by the notebook.

Notable Examples

Green is Not a Creative Color

The lyrics “Green is not a Creative Color” gained popularity amongst the viewers due to its randomness, resulting in various fan artworks dedicated to the phrase.

Fan Art

Reaction Videos

Search Interest

External References

About

Quickmeme is an image captioning website that hosts galleries of advice animals and other user-submitted image macros. In June of 2013, the site was banned from the social news community Reddit for alleged vote manipulation.

History

In 2007, the website company Miltz Media was founded by brothers Stephen and Wayne Miltz, with their first site NCGolfers^[2] catered to golfing enthusiasts in North Carolina.Quickmeme was launched by Sprklab founder Shah Pavel Jamal in 2011 and later that same year, it was sold to Miltz Media^[3], a website company founded by brothers Stephen and Wayne Miltz. On June 24th, 2011, a Facebook^[4] page for the site was created, garnering more than 59,000 likes in the next two years. On April 25th, 2012, US News^[5] published an article about the Ridiculous Photogenic Guy advice animal series, which included an interview with Wayne Miltz who revealed that the site received much of its traffic from Facebook, Reddit and Stumbleupon.

Features

The site allows users to upload template images that can be customized with superimposed captions in Impact font. Specific advice animals have their own gallery pages which can be sorted by creation date or popularity.

Controversies

Webtoid

In 2009, Miltz Media launched the social news site Webtoid, which functioned much like Reddit with a similar user interface (shown below). On February 12th, Redditor pizzatime submitted a post to the /r/WTF^[15] subreddit, accusing Webtoid of copying Reddit. Prior to being archived, the post gained over 1,700 up votes and 670 comments. As of June 2013, the site is no longer running.

Reddit Ban

On June 22nd, 2013, /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit moderator jokes_on_you announced^[7] that Quickmeme had been banned from Reddit with a Scumbag Steve image macro (shown below). In the comments section, jokes_on_you revealed that the owner of Quickmeme had become an /r/AdviceAnimals mod with the handle gtw08^[8] in June of 2011^[14] and had since begun using bots to down vote submissions from other websites. Additional evidence was provided in the comment section by former moderator ManWithoutModem, who shared screenshots arguing that someone had been using a vote bot to downvote any submissions that did not come from Quickmeme.

In his comment, ManWithoutModem noted that he had removed gtw08’s mod powers in March^[9] after suspecting that he had a connection to Quickmeme. When other moderators learned ManWithoutModem had continued to investigate the situation in the days leading up to the ban, they removed his moderator powers as well.^[10] As of June 24th, 2013, his powers have not been restored. The following day, Reddit bot qkme_transcriber issued a statement^[11] via its personal subreddit making it clear that the creator of the bot had no affiliation with Quickmeme and does not condone gaming Reddit. The same day, the Daily Dot^[12] reported on the story, noting that Quickmeme had removed all links to Reddit across their site. Quickmeme briefly addressed the situation on their Tumblr blog^[13], but the post has since been taken down. Though many fans have been commenting on the ban on Quickmeme’s Facebook fan page^[4], the site has not responded or posted since June 21st.

Traffic

According to Sprklab founder Shah Pavel Jamal, Quickmeme was receiving five million visits per month within three months of launch. In April of 2012, Wayne Miltz revealed that the site was bringing in almost 70 million unique visitors per month.^[5] As of June 2013, Quickmeme has an Alexa^[6] global rank of 836 and a rank of 270 in the United States.

Search Interest

External References

About

Clinton Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, ethologist and author who is known for coining the word “meme” in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and is intensely critical of creationist and intelligent design religious beliefs surrounding the origins of life.

“Meme” Coinage

The Selfish Gene was published in 1976 by the Oxford University Press, and presents a gene-centered view of evolution in order to explain how behaviors like altruism could be adaptive. When discussing how natural selection might extend beyond biological replication, Dawkins proposed that ideas could be subject to Darwinian principles as well, since they appear to replicate by means of cultural transmission. To label this kind of information, Dawkins coined the word “meme” as the cultural analog to a gene. Under the Dawkins definition, a meme can be any idea, behavior or trend that has the ability to transmit from person to person.

Online History

On February 21st, 2006, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science^[5] website was created, containing a mission statement, project information, banner images and press releases. On March 27th, the website RichardDawkins.net^[1] was launched, which features a blog, news and media, an event calendar, a retail store and a discussion forum.

As of June 2013, Dawkin’s official Twitter^[3] account has gained over 745,000 followers and his Facebook^[4] page has received more than 347,000 likes.

Elevator Gate

On June 20th, 2011, feminist and atheist blogger Rebecca Watson of Skepchick uploaded a video to YouTube in which she complained about a man asking her for coffee in the elevator at an atheist conference in Dublin Ireland.

Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don’t do that. You know, I don’t really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I’ll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and -- don’t invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.

On July 2nd, biology professor PZ Myers wrote a blog post^[19] in support of Watson, to which Dawkins replied in the comments section with a satirical letter directed toward a Muslim woman:

Dear Muslima

Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and … yawn … don’t tell me yet again, I know you aren’t allowed to drive a car, and you can’t leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you’ll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.

Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep”chick”, and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn’t lay a finger on her, but even so …

And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.

The comment was subsequently reported on by several news sites, including New Statesman,^[15] Gawker,^[16] The Atlantic^[17] and Salon.^[18] On July 12th, 2011, YouTuber The Amazing Atheist uploaded a video criticizing Watson’s response (shown below), which garnered upwards of 300,000 views and 12,400 comments in the first two years.

Mutation of the Mind

On June 20th, 2013, Richard Dawkins was interviewed by The Guardian^[6] (shown below) about his upcoming appearance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity with advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi. During the interview, he calls the internet “a first class ecology for memes,” noting that internet memes are a specific subset of his original idea. The same day, Wired.co.uk^[7] elaborated on the appearance, a theatrical piece orchestrated by Marshmallow Laser Feast^[8] with the intent of creating a video that would hopefully go viral. That evening, Advertising Age^[9] reported on the performance.

On June 22nd, two days after the live event, the performance titled “Mutation of the Mind” was uploaded to the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase’s YouTube account. After a short speech, a video featuring Dawkins’ head embedded on swirling psychedelic objects played, followed by Dawkins performing a solo on an electronic woodwind instrument. On June 24th, the video was shared on a number of internet culture blogs and news sites that day including Gawker^[10], BBC America’s blog^[11], The Guardian^[12], Business Insider^[13] and the Huffington Post.^[14]

Search Interest

External References

WIP

About

Emma Watson is an English actress and model, known for portraying Hermione Ganger in Harry Potter movies.

Search Insights

About

“Dong Squad 420” is a catchphrase coined by the League of Legends (LoL) player Michael Santana, better known by his online handle Imaqtipie, that is associated with the champion character Heimerdinger. Although its precise meaning is unclear, the phrase has since been adopted by his fans on the live video chatting service Twit Chat, along with the emoticon phrase “ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ.”

Origin

According to Redditor Cosmoviking,^[5] Santana would often play the LoL champion character Heimerdinger, whom he initially nicknamed “donger.” Santana subsequently used the phrase “dongsquad” as a password for his subscribers, which fans began spamming in Twitch TV along with the code-term “420”, in a similar vein to the expression “420 blaze it”.

Spread

On April 8th, Santana posted a tweet which included the hashtags“#dongsquad” and "#FrankerZ."

TK34LD7Y_467 fill in da letter, #frankerz#dollars4dongers#dongsquad

— Michael Santana (@dignitasQtpie) April 8, 2013

On April 28th, 2013, League of Legends Forums^[2] member TheeSeacow created a thread asking for someone to explain the story behind “dong squad 420,” to which several users cited Santana’s Twitch Chat as the origin of the phrase. On May 24th, a T-shirt featuring an illustration of Santana with the word “Dongsquad” underneath (shown below) was placed for sale on the LoL player website Team-Dignitas.^[6]

On June 17th, Santana tweeted the message “ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers,” which received over 130 retweets and 70 favorites within the first week.

ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers

— Michael Santana (@dignitasQtpie) June 17, 2013

On June 20th, League of Legends Forums^[1] member iJamioo started a thread requesting an explanation for the meaning of “raise your dongers.” On June 22nd, Redditor Spenceful submitted a post titled “ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ raise your dongers ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ” to the /r/nocontext^[7] subreddit, accumulating upwards of 400 up votes and 20 comments in 48 hours.

Search Interest

External References

About

Foodom is the nickname given to the online fandom surrounding Tumblr Restaurant Blogs, which includes both official pages and novelty accounts that are supposed to represent various brand names in casual dining restaurant chains. Many of these accounts have been shipped into romantic pairings by the subscribers on Tumblr, with the most notable example being the romantic pairing of Denny’s and LongHorn Steakhouse, Denhouse.

Origin

Casual family restaurant chain Denny’s launched their official Tumblr blog^[1] on April 9th, 2013 in support of their Baconalia campaign^[2], during which the restaurant offered a special menu of seven bacon-themed dishes. In addition to posting promotional GIFs and images, the account also began interacting with the Tumblr community, reblogging interactive comment threads^[3] and personal anecdotes^[4] found on the Tumblr tag #dennys^[5], while referencing relevant Tumblr memes like I Hope Senpai Will Notice Me.^[6] Their community engagement lead them to be named one of the Best Brands on Tumblr by Huffington Post Tech^[7] on June 10th, 2013.

Spread

In June, an unofficial account for the restaurant chain LongHorn Steakhouse was created, allegedly by an employee of the company as a hobby.^[8] As of June 24th, the blog has been deleted. By the second week of June, the Tumblr community began to create fanfiction and fan art surrounding anthropomorphized versions of LongHorn Steakhouse and Denny’s as if they were in a romantic relationship. The relationship was given the blended name Denhouse as users began to submit fanfiction and fan art to the LongHorn Steakhouse Tumblr, as well as on the Denhouse tag.^[9]’

On June 14th, the Daily Dot^[10] reported on the ship, providing excerpts from two fanfiction stories that were submitted to the LongHorn Steakhouse Tumblr. The same day, Tumblr user narwhalbuddies^[11] notified the Denny’s blog about Denhouse. Denny’s blog curator Amber Gordon told the Daily Dot that she didn’t understand it at first, but enjoyed the practice after shipping was explained to her. On June 15th, the first Denhouse single topic blog Denhouse5ever^[12] was created, followed by Fuck Yeah Denhouse!^[13] five days later.

As popularity for Denhouse grew, a number of unofficial Tumblr blogs for chain restaurants claiming to be representative of the brand began appearing as early as June 19th. That day, Official Cracker Barrel^[14] was established, recreating the snarky voice established by LongHorn Steakhouse. In the following days, blogs were created for Culver’s^[15], Olive Garden^[16], Waffle House^[17], and Arby’s^[18], among many others. On June 22nd, social media blogger Andrea Lopez^[19] commented on the phenomenon, noting many of these novelty accounts were interacting with each other in a positive manner. Posts containing discussion between the blogs, as well as art and screen shots from fans, can be found on the tags Foodom^[20], Restaurant Blogs^[21] and Restaurant Fandom.^[22] Additionally, Culver’s maintains a list of the active restaurant blogs.^[23]

List of Restaurant Blogs

Search Interest

[Not Currently Available]

External References

About

League of Draven is a photoshop meme involving characters and people having their faces replaced by Draven’s, a peculiar character from video game League of Legends, usually sporting a pretty long mustache and a grin.
The photoshop trend, first restricted to League of Legends champions, evolved beyond the game to include various facebombing pictures, image macros and video parodies.

Welcome to the League of Draven

From the late May to the early June 2012, Riot Games, creator of League of Legends, announced a new playable champion for their upcoming patch. On june 4th, a champion spotlight video was released, presenting that new character before its official release on June 6th.

In game, Draven’s humorous catchphrases such as Welcome to the League of Draven and his special way of spelling his name Draaaaaven would greatly cacth attention among fans.
On June 13th, Reddit user arions made a post^[1] on the /r/leagueoflegends subreddit titled Welcome to the League of Draven, which linked to an Imgur album^[2] that featured Draven’s face photoshopped onto various characters from the game.
As of June 2013, the album has received over 8 700 000 views. The post itself attracted more than 400 comments, many of them referencing another big photoshop phenomenon at that time : Nigel Thornberry.

Spread

As early as June 13th and 14th, threads on GameFAQs^[3] and the official League of Legends forums^[4] were made, linking to the gallery.
In the following months, Tumblr accounts^[5] about the phenomenon were registered as well as a /r/leagueofdraven^[6] sub-reddit and a /r/draven^[7] on Reddpics.com.

Videos

External References

^[1]Reddit – Welcome to the League of Draven / 06/13/2012

^[2]Imgur – Welcome to the League of Draven / 06/13/2012

^[3]GameFAQs – Something cool from reddit: The real league of Draven

^[4]League of Legends forum – Welcome to League of Draven

^[5]Tumblr – Welcome to the League of Draven ; Man, I’m good

^[6]Reddit League of Draven

^[7]Reddpics – Not Draven, Draaaven

(work in progress, any help will be greatly appreciated)

about

Drake and Josh is a kids’ sitcom comedy show, played by Drake Bell and Josh Peck aired in the Nickelodeon channel until 2007.

the show was very well loved spawning a few catchphrases, clips and images from the shows are sometimes used as forum weapons and macros as as the main actors who are still loved and appreciated.

the show
The series is focused on a pair of step-brothers of opposite personalities. Drake Parker is portrayed as being a popular aspiring musician idolized by his schoolmates and able to court a countless array of beautiful girls with ease, whereas his brother Josh Nichols is depicted as being a nerdy, eccentric, awkward boy with poor luck with dating and popularity. Drake and Josh live in San Diego, California, with their odd, unfortunate, geeky father; a weatherman named Walter, their loving mother Audrey, and their outrageously manipulative and conniving younger sister Megan. The boys are often in outrageous, typical situation comedy misadventures and obstacles that they are faced with the challenge of overcoming while also handling average teenage situations such as school, dating, and popularity.

one of the show’s major catchphrases is: “hug me brotha!” t:

it gained notable internet popularity and recognition thanks to the sheer warmth and love expressed with it.
examples:

(work in progress will continue later

About

Smoking Alcohol refers to the act of vaporizing alcohol and inhaling it. While it was first popularized in 2004 with the introduction of the AWOL (Alcohol Without Liquid) device, the practice saw a major resurgence on YouTube in early 2013. Inevitably, it has drawn criticisms and concerns from medical experts for its health risks and addictive qualities.

Origin

The practice of inhaling alcohol to get drunk quicker was first reported in 2004 as an emerging trend in the American and British nightlife scenes with the introduction of liquid nebulizers known as Alcohol Without Liquid (AWOL) devices. The earliest known video demonstration of smoking alcohol was uploaded by YouTuber Jmersh on January 4th, 2007. In the video, Jmersh shares an alternative method by pouring alcoholic beverage over dry ice and inhaling it directly. However, in the following years, the trend quickly waned as AWOL devices became banned from many regions.

Then on January 19th, 2013, YouTuber “skippy62able” uploaded a seven-minute video clip in which he demonstrates how to vaporize alcohol using a plastic bottle and a bicycle pump with a cork attached to it. He repeats the process eight times with various alcoholic drinks and mixtures. As of June 25th, 2013, the video has garnered over 2.7 million views and over 21,000 likes.

Spread

Smoking alcohol didn’t become a popular trend until YouTuber skippy62able’s demonstration video uploaded in 2013. In the following months, several additional videos documenting others’ attempt at smoking alcohol were uploaded.

Controversy

On June 25th, 2013, NBC Today’s Jeff Rossen reported on the growing phenomenon of smoking alcohol and the dangers and myths surrounding the trend ^[1]. The dangers described in Rossen’s report are the quickening of alcohol poisoning as well as not being able to vomit, a common reaction to expel alcohol from the body when you’re drunk.

The trend has been also criticized for rumors it permeates, such as notions that inhaling alcohol involves no calorie intake, or that it conceals visible symptoms of intoxication, or underage smoking of alcohol is in the grey area of the law since it doesn’t involve ingestion.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Rusty the Red Panda^[1] is a young male red panda that resides in the National Zoo in Washington D.C.

Background

In early June 2013, after spending a month in quarantine, Rusty was introduced to the zoo’s female red panda, Shama, in hopes that the two would mate during their next breeding season in 2014.^[2] At 11:51 a.m. on June 24th, 2013, the National Zoo tweeted^[3] that Rusty had gone missing and had not been seen since 6 p.m. the night before. Within 24 hours, their tweet had been retweeted more than 3,500 times. A message with additional information about the animal was posted to the National Zoo’s Facebook page^[8], which was shared more than 2,200 times.

We are looking for a missing red panda, a male named Rusty. He was last seen at 6 p.m. last night. pic.twitter.com/JHVB79x8XY

— National Zoo (@NationalZoo) June 24, 2013

Notable Developments

#FindRusty

Within hours of the National Zoo’s tweet, news outlets including Buzzfeed Animals^[5], the Washington Post^[6] and Fox News Baltimore^[7] began to use the hashtag #FindRusty^[4] with descriptions and photos of the panda in hopes someone would spot him. Other Twitter users, including TVLand (shown below), used the hashtag to share humorous images or to suggest places Rusty wanted to see after escaping. According to Topsy Analytics^[9], the hashtag was used more than 1,000 times that day.

What's that buzzfeed</a>? There&#39;s a missing red panda from <a href="https://twitter.com/NationalZoo">NationalZoo We'll get our best friend on the case #findrustypic.twitter.com/GmIQT553wf

— TVLand (@tvland) June 24, 2013

Parody Twitter Accounts

At 12:01 p.m., the first novelty Twitter account for Rusty, @NatlZooRedPanda^[10], was launched, tweeting at the National Zoo asking if they missed him. Within 24 hours, the account gained more than 500 followers. Within half an hour of that account’s creation, @RealRustyPanda^[11] also began tweeting from the perspective of the missing animal.

NationalZoo</a> Miss me?</p>&mdash; Rusty Behind Bars (NatlZooRedPanda) June 24, 2013

Recovery

At approximately 1:30 p.m. actress and D.C. resident Ashley Foughty tweeted a photo (shown below) of an animal she assumed to be Rusty. She tweeted a second photo^[12] a few minutes later, providing the National Zoo with her location. Dan Singer^[13], a local newspaper intern, documented Rusty’s recovery with several tweets that were later compiled by Buzzfeed.^[14] After being captured, he was immediately transported to the zoo’s hospital^[15], where he stayed overnight. As of June 25th, zoo officials are unsure how Rusty was able to escape.^[16]

Spotted near 20th and Biltmore near Airy View condos at 1:25. Are you missing this guy?? NationalZoo</a> <a href="http://t.co/v7KulXpNKE">pic.twitter.com/v7KulXpNKE</a></p>&mdash; Ashley Foughty (AshleyFoughty) June 24, 2013

News Media Coverage

Discussion of how social media users on Twitter and Facebook banded together to help track down Rusty was featured on a number of news and tech blogs on June 24th and 25th including NPR^[17], Computer World^[18], Cnet^[19], the New York Times^[20] and CBC News.^[21] Additionally, Mashable^[22] featured a number of tweets that compared the red panda’s excursion to whistleblower Edward Snowden‘s similar disappearance^[23] after he did not show up for a flight many journalists expected him to be on. The following day, The Washington Post’s free daily newspaper juxtaposed photos of Snowden and Rusty with the captions “lost” and “found” on that day’s cover (shown below).^[24]

Search Interest

[Not Currently Available]

External References

About

Superman is a DC Comics superhero who has appeared in a variety of fictional works, from radio serials, television shows and films to newspaper comics and video games. As the sole survivor of the planet Krypton, Superman is capable of using the sun’s solar energy to render himself invulnerable with superhuman strength, speed, intelligence and senses, such as flight, x-ray vision, eidetic memory and heat vision.

History

Superman was created by students Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster while attending the Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ohio. The character was initially conceived as a bald villain with telepathic powers in the short story “The Reign of the Superman,” published in Siegel’s fanzine Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization #2 in 1933.

The character was later reinvented by Siegel as a hero, with Shuster basing his image on the actor Douglas Fairbanks and his Clark Kent alter ego, whose name was derived from actors Clark Gable and Kent Taylor, on actor Harold Lloyd. Siegel collaborated with artist Russel Keaton to re-envision the character yet again, giving him spectacular superhuman powers and a costume consisting of a tight bodysuit with an S on the chest and a cape. On April 18th, 1938, the superhero first appeared in the comic book Action Comics #1 (shown below).

From 1939 to 1977, a Superman comic strip was created, the television show The Adventures of Superman was broadcast and the Superboy comic series was created. On December 10th, 1978, the film Superman: The Movie was released, starring Christopher Reeve as Superman and Gene Hackman as his arch villain Lex Luthor (shown below, left). Three sequels starring Reeve were subsequently released (shown below), including Superman II (1980), Superman III (1983) and Superman IV (1987).

In 1988, the animated series Superman was launched as well as the live-action program Superboy, which ran until 1992. In 1993, the ABC television show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman premiered, starring Dean Cain as Superman and Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. In 1996, Warner Bros. Animated launched Superman: The Animated Series (shown below, left), which aired until 2000. In 2001, the series Smallville premiered (shown below, right) starring Tom Welling as a teenage Clark Kent, which ended after ten seasons.

In 2006, the film Superman Returns was released as a loose sequel to Christopher Reeve’s Superman II, starring Brandon Routh as Superman (shown below, left). On June 14th, 2013, the film Man of Steel (shown below, right) was released in theaters, starring Henry Cavill as Superman.

Online Presence

On April 28th, 2001, the site Superman Homepage^[2] was launched, featuring Superman-related news, media, discussion forums and links. On March 16th, the site Superman Super Site^[3] was created, which includes a blog, media and information about Superman appearances in comics, films and television. On February 11th, 2005, the site Superdickery^[10] was launched, featuring original Superman comic book covers in which the superhero appears to be selfish, sadistic and unethical (shown below).

On November 28th, 2007, a Facebook^[1] page titled “Superman” was created, gaining over 4.6 million likes in the first six years. On February 11th, 2011, Redditor travosas submitted a comic to the /r/funny^[9] subreddit, in which Superman’s hearing is impaired by a bullet embedded in his ear (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post accumulated upwards of 8,500 up votes and 320 comments.

On February 3rd, 2012, YouTuber darosthemovie uploaded a parody film for the Death and Return of Superman series, which was narrated by Max Landis and starred actors Elden Henson, Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore and Morgan Krantz (shown below, left). In the next two years, the video received over 2.3 million views and 8,100 comments. On April 11th, a page titled “Franchise: Superman” was created on the trope database website TV Tropes,^[4] listing Superman as an example of the “Last of His Kind,” “Physical God,” “Big Good” and “The Cape” tropes. On August 9th, YouTuber EladOffer uploaded a satirical video showing a Superman cosplayer destroying a car before flying away (shown below, right), which gained upwards of 196,000 views and 170 comments in the first 10 months.

On June 6th, 2013, the costume site HalloweenCostumes^[7] published an infographic featuring the evolution of the Superman “S” logo (shown below). On June 9th, the image was posted to the /r/movies^[8] subreddit, where it garnered more than 14,700 up votes and 680 comments in the following 15 days. As of June 2013, the Twitter account @SupermanTweets^[5] has received more than 52,500 followers and @JerkSuperman^[6] has accumulated upwards of 36,000 followers.

Related Memes

Lex Luthor YTMNDs

A series of pages featuring animated GIFs of Superman’s arch villain Lex Luthor began trending on the site YTMND in May of 2006 after user stratos-the-bratos uploaded a GIF of Luthor interacting with Sony CEO Kaz Hirai (shown below).

Handsome Face

The Handsome Face exploitable cartoon series features an illustration of Superman taken from the 2010 animated film Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, which is edited to depict a variety of characters.

Lex Luther Took Forty Cakes

Lex Luthor Took Forty Cakes is an exploitable illustration of Luthor running away with a cart filled with 40 cakes (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

Note: This entry is being researched and updated in real time, if anyone can fix the url’s OP will be gratefull.

“”

Overview

Team Siren is the name of a former. “supposedly” first all-women pro League of Legends team, who created a minor controversy and circlejerk among the League of Legends community, creating several minor memes, such as; Losing is not an option, I’m a Siren and Baited and Outsmarted

Team Siren Promo video

Background

The once Team Siren, were a League of Legends “pro” (Silver League) team, that consisted of:

A Little Jenny (Mid)
Christina (AD Carry)
ilysuiteheart (Jungle)
Solvanas (Support)
Yoonie (Top)

Already on the day Team Siren’s promo video was released (30th of May 2013)^[1], it was posted to Reddit’s /r/cringe sub-reddit^[2], and then quickly reposted to the /r/leagueoflegends sub-reddit, the video was frowned upon by a large majority of the Reddit community, mainly for trying to pave their way into competetive play by using their gender, and for scoreing very low on the League of Legends promotion scene. Unfortunately, instead of just being left alone, Redditors spread the message, and Team Siren were quickly known by a huge majority of the League of Legends players, starting a gigantic circlejerk, many huge League of Legends youtubers made Parody videos of them or their Promotion video, and they were even featuerd in some of the Pro players’ vlogs.

On the 19th of June 2013, Team Siren offically disbaned, after dealing with bullying within the team.^[3]

RIP in peace Team Siren.

Notable Developments

“Losing is not an option!”

“Losing is not an option!” or “X is not an option!” is a quote by Yoonie (Top laner) it was quickly put up by the circeljerking /r/leagueoflegends the quote is from the Team Siren promo video

“I’m a siren”

“I’m a Siren” is the core quotes in the Team Siren promo video, after looking up after looking into the ground, each of the Siren’s says “I’m a Siren” the quote was also quickly picked up by circlejerking /r/leagueoflegends, and were used to reference to Team Siren.

“Baited and Outsmarted”

“Baited and Outsmarted” is a quote by Solvanas during the Team Siren promo video, after she says the sentence, a scene appears of her making a move in Chess, it was heavily frowned upon, mainly because it was a silly attempt to make her look smart, fameous streamers use the sentence to indicate that they’ve done really bad or really good by tricking an opponent, the phrase soon after the disbanding of Team Siren, were picked up by fameous streamer PhantomL0rd.^[4]

Note: Work in progess, reseaching

About

“Ur a Faget” is a intentionally misspelled insult that is often used towards another poster’s belief or behavior. The phrase first became popular when it was used in a MS Paint comic featuring the main characters from the video game Devil May Cry, and has since used in exploitable images with the viewer looking disgruntled, in a similar vain as Dick Butt.

Origin

Though it is the phrase’s origins is uncertain, the earliest online posting was on a Blizzhacker^[1] forum thread by user Spearinmyhead on December 7th, 2007, who used the phrase to intently troll users on the thread.

Spread

[reseaching]

Around the same time, an MS Paint comic (shown below) featuring Devil May Cry main character Dante delivering a letter reading “ur a faget” to his bother Vergil began circulating on 4chan as early as December 17th, 2007, when it was featured with the phrase as the GET post for the 9 millionth posting on the /v/^[2] (video game) board. Though the possibly of the comic dating back further, archives of it, and it’s creation date, has since been lost.

Click through for the full comic

Search Interest

External References

Wendy Davis’s Filibuster was a speech against Texas Senate Bill Five, shortened to SB5, given by Texas Senator Wendy Davis. Said bill would have crippled most abortion clinics in Texas, and Rick Perry had announced that if the bill was passed, he would personally sign it for approval.

Origins

On Tuesday the 26th of June, there was a hearing on the passing of Texas Senate Bill Five, otherwise known as SB5. It was created as an act against abortions, by including the banning of abortions on women who are over 20 weeks into gestation, making doctors have to have the rights to practice in nearby hospitals, and turning abortion clinics into ambulatory surgical centers. According to law, if someone speaks against said bill until midnight, the bill will have to be proposed in the next meet, which happens 2 years later. This prompted politician Wendy Davis to hold a filibuster against the bill from 11 AM to 12 PM. Wendy, during the filibuster, took in stories from Twitter about other people’s abortions, and read them aloud to the crowd. The filibuster was broadcasted live on Youtube, and nearing the end of the filibuster, the broadcast reached over 180,000 views. President Barack Obama watched the filibuster, and he said that he supported Wendy’s speech.

Wendy, during the Filibuster.

During the filibuster, fellow senator Leticia Van de Putte, who could not be at the event in the beginning due to the funeral of her father who died in a car crash, delivered the quote, “At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?” This quote has since been constantly retweeted and posted on Tumblr, and as some viewers of the filibuster said it, the quote might become a famous quote in the near future.

10 hours into the filibuster, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst ruled that Wendy had gone off topic, causing an uproar in the crowd watching the filibuster, which can be seen in the video embedded above. The crowd cheered “Let her speak” over and over, prompting Dewhurst to retract the comment and the filibuster to go on. Despite efforts by the Republican side, the filibuster eventually marched beyond midnight, as required to cause the bill to be proposed two years later. Even then, there was an uproar when the senate voted after midnight and said the bill had passed. However, as voting beyond midnight was illegal, David Dewhurst announced that the bill was officially dead.
During the middle of the filibuster, Twitter and Tumblr exploded with posts regarding Wendy’s speech and the bill itself. As the bill was restricted, there was an increase in posts that celebrated the fact that the bill was not passed.

SERIOUSLYGUYS, I need some help here. This is my very first article. Requesting serious editorship. Can anyone help me?

About

Warlizard is a very prolific reddit user with the username Warlizard, whose comments are always replied with someone asking variations of “Are you the guy from the warlizard gaming forum?” by which /u/warlizard will deny it, claiming he have no idea what it is.

Over the months many people have no idea what everybody’s been talking about whenever /u/warlizard’s comment have that sort of replies, and as it happens that /u/warlizard posted plenty of comments on big subreddits, his comments are often exposed to many other users.

Because of the lack of internet searches about this, a kym page like this would save a lot of people’s minutes googling to no avail.

Origin

A paraphrased explanation from /u/atmo explained this well, so one day /u/lupin86 decides to start trolling the other user, warlizard, by asking him randomly in multiple threads whenever he posts some variation of ‘hey! are you from the warlizard forums?’, despite there being no warlizard forums.

Then every once in a while lupin would make/use a throwaway account just to ask warlizard about the forums, truly trying to convince /u/warlizard that there were some kind of warlizard forums.

Because of its totally harmless nature, direct focus on just one random citizen of the internet, and lupin’s dedication to keep the shpiel going for as long as he did, I sincerely believe that this is one of the funniest fucking things I’ve ever seen someone do on the internet. Extra kudos for doing something so hilarious without being in any way malicious, like most half-brained idiots out there who think that being harmful or insulting is necessary for “effective” trolling

External References

^[1]Reddit – The very first post that started all of this

^[2]Reddit – An /r/museumofreddit post about this

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About

“Does This Look Like The Face of Mercy?” is an expression used to indicate a lack of empathy or compassion, which is often used in image macro captions featuring an unimposing or harmless-looking subject. The phrase is commonly associated with The Villager character from the video game Super Smash Bros.

Origin

On November 19th, 2011, an anonymous user submitted an adult comic to the furry image board PawsRU,^[1] featuring a panel depicting a violent sex act in which a cartoon character says “Does this look like the face of mercy?” (shown below).

Spread

On June 24th, 2012, Gifninja^[5] user Anon E. Mouse uploaded an GIF of a scene from the animated television show The Legend of Korra with the caption “Does this look like the face of mercy?!” (shown below).

On September 29th, a Facebook^[3] page titled “Does This Look Like The Face of Mercy?” was created. On May 14th, 2013, FunnyJunk user nooneofinterest uploaded an image macro of an italian greyhound dog with the title “Does this look like the face of mercy” (shown below, left), accumulating more than 15,000 views and 270 up votes in the next two months. On June 11th, Redditor naevorc uploaded an image macro to the /r/gaming^[2] subreddit, which featured the Animal Crossing Villager with the caption "Does this look like / the face of mercy? (shown below, right). Within the first 16 days, the post garnered upwards of 15,200 up votes and 550 comments.

On June 14th, the Smosh Facebook^[4] page posted a status update with the message “Does this look like the face of mercy?”, linking to a compilation of notable Super Smash Bros. Villager memes. On June 20th, YouTuber TailsChannel uploaded a video titled “The Face of Mercy Song,” which slowly zoomed in on a screen capture of the Animal Crossing Villager with eerie music playing in the background (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Justice Porn is an Internet slang term that is used to describe true stories and online media depicting events in which criminals, bullies and other aggressors are thwarted, exposed or punished for their wrongdoings.

Origin

The earliest known use of the term “justice porn” was featured in an article about courtroom reality television published in Reason^[1] in January of 2009.

“Justice porn, it turns out, is a fairly reliable way to achieve that end: Find a sassy real-life jurist with an itch for the big time, throw some penny-ante miscreants at her mercy, and let the premature adjudication begin.”

Spread

On July 28th, 2011, the /r/justiceporn^[2] subreddit was created by Reddit PimpMogul, which gained over 196,000 subscribers within the first two years. On May 21st, 2012, Redditor Jtl4231 submitted a video to /r/justiceporn^[4] of a man in a tiger suit defending himself against an attacker (shown below, left), receiving upwards of 4,500 up votes and 220 comments prior to being archived. On the following day, The Daily Dot^[6] published an article about the subreddit, noting that it has become one of the fastest growing communities on Reddit. On September 4th, LiveLeak user als uploaded a video titled “Justice Porn,” featuring a video of a teacher being kicked in the groin after scolding a little girl (shown below, right). Within the following nine months, the video accumulated more than 338,000 views and 1,100 comments.

On October 11th, Redditor alkalinedevin submitted a video of a male bus driver uppercutting a confrontational female passenger to the /r/justiceporn^[3] subreddit (shown below, left), where it garnered upwards of 10,600 up votes and 2,600 comments prior to being archived. On January 28th, 2013, Redditor MyLaptopIsBurningMe submitted a video of former mall security guard Darien Long using a taser gun on an aggressive mother (shown below, right), which gained over 11,700 up votes and 4,400 comments in the first four months.

On June 2nd, Urban Dictionary^[7] user jet_tripleseven submitted an entry for the term “justice boner,” defining it as a “feeling of excitement” caused by witnessing revenge or justice. On the following day, it was featured as the “Urban Word of the Day.”

Notable Examples

There are hundreds of videos titled “Justice Porn” or tagged under “justice” available on YouTube^[8] and LiveLeak.^[9] In addition, there are numerous YouTube playlists^[10] dedicated to aggregating such content.

Search Interest

External References

About

Vertical Video Syndrome (VVS) is a fictitious disease which satirically claims that those afflicted can only shoot videos in a portrait orientation, as opposed to the more viewer-friendly landscape mode.

Origin

On June 5th, 2012, the gloveandboots YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “Vertical Video Syndrome – A PSA,” which featured several talking puppets complaining about videos that have been shot in a portrait orientation. Within the first year, the video gained over 3.2 million views and 3,100 comments.

Spread

The same day, the video was posted to the /r/videos^[4] subreddit and highlighted on the Internet news sites Laughing Squid^[2] and UpRoxx.^[3] On June 23rd, 2012, YouTuber pogobat uploaded a video titled “Steve Jobs is an Asshole,” criticizing vertical video haters and blamed the company Apple for the rise of portrait orientation footage (shown below).

On June 25th, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Zioma5 submitted an entry for “VVS,” describing it as a “major problem” on the video-sharing site YouTube. On July 18th, Redditor Mungo9000 posted an image to the /r/iphone subreddit, which scolded people for filming videos in portrait mode with their mobile devices (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post received more than 2,100 up votes and 200 comments.

On February 9th, 2013, blogger James Watt published a defense of vertical videos on his person website,^[6] which argued that sometimes portrait orientation is necessary and that sites like YouTube should fix their video embeds to correctly display vertical content.

Vimeo Vertical Embeds

The video-sharing website Vimeo^[5] allows users to upload videos recorded in portrait mode, which are then embedded without extra black space on the sides (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

(W.I.P, feel free to submit editorship)

About

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Origin

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Simplicity and costumization

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Guidelines

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Search Interest