About

Rap Genius^[1] is a lyrics site that crowdsources annotations including interpretations and references. Annotations can be suggested by any registered user as well as a number of verified artists^[2] including 50 Cent, Nas, Mac Miller and Watsky. Since its launch in 2009, the site has expanded to include section for rock lyrics, poetry and news.

History

Rap Genius was developed in the summer of 2009 after founder Mahbod Moghadam was asked to explain the lyrics to the Cam’ron song “Family Ties”^[3] with his former Yale University classmate Ilan Zechory to another Yalie, Tom Lehman. After explaining a line about Jamaican clothing^[5], Lehman was so inspired, he began to build the site.^[6] It launched in October 2009 as Rap Exegesis^[4], with the intent of offering detailed explanations and context for rap lyrics. That December, the site was renamed Rap Genius and within a year, they had attracted approximately 75 contributing editors.

In November 2009, Rap Genius saw its first bit of press after annotating the lyrics to Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ 2009 single “Empire State of Mind.”^[12] That month, the review was featured on the Huffington Post^[9], Newser^[10] and BlackBook.^[11] In January 2010, the Rap Genius Facebook fan page launched^[7], gaining more than 388,000 fans as of July 2013. Around the same time, they launched their Twitter^[8] account, which has accrued more than 100,000 followers within the same time period. As press around the site continued to build in 2011 and 2012 with features on Mashable^[19], the Next Web^[20], Esquire^[21] and BetaBeat^[22], other sections of the site launched including places to annotate rock lyrics and poetry and literature (shown below).

In October 2012, Rap Genius announced^[23] that venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz would be investing $15 million into the site, one of the fastest-growing sites to come out of the startup incubator Y Combinator. News of this investment spread on Wired^[24] and Gawker.^[25] In April 2013, the Rap Genius founders were interviewed on NPR Music^[27], shortly before they announced the launch of News Genius (shown below), a way to annotate current events, on May 1st.^[27]

Features

Rap IQ

Once a person makes an account, they can earn Rap IQ points for their contributions to the site.^[28] Rap IQ can be earned by writing new annotations or suggestions to already existing ones as well as having those submissions upvoted by site editors and moderators. Once 200 IQ is earned, users are granted access to the Rap Genius forums^[29], where people may post about any topic and posts are ranked with a voting system similar to Reddit. Earning 300 allows users to message each other and 600 allows access to annotate songs that have already been published or completed. There is a live leaderboard^[30] that ranks the users with the most IQ points.

The Rap Map

In August 2010, Rap Genius launched the Rap Map^[13], which uses Google Maps to pinpoint notable places and landmarks from rap and hip hop songs in a number of cities including New York City, Houston, New Orleans, Detroit and Miami, linking back to the lyrics in question. That month, the map was linked on Programmable Web^[14], Mashable^[15], Refinery29^[16], Gizmodo^[17] and the Huffington Post.^[18]

Verified Accounts

In March 2012, Rap Genius began offering Verified Accounts to artists who wanted to annotate their own lyrics. The first Verified Account was given to the rapper Nas^[31] (shown below), who has gone on to earn 10,875 Rap IQ from making annotations and suggestions on his own work as well as lyrics by other artists including Salaam Remi, Rick Ross and No I.D. In January 2013, Verified Accounts were expanded to authors, poets and memoirists.^[32]

Traffic

As of July 2013, Rap Genius has a steadily increasing Alexa^[33] global rank of 2,478 and US rank of 793. Quantcast^[34] reports Rap Genius attracting more than 6.8 million unique monthly visitors in the US and 14.4 million globally, resulting in a rank of 172.

Search Interest

External References

About

Keisha Fabo is a fictional character based on a custom-skinned avatar from the strategic life simulation game The Sims 3 and the title of the machinima sketch series created by YouTuber Kyle M. In the video series, Keisha Fabo is portrayed as an African American female stereotype, along with two of her girlfriends Breadquanda and Deltrese.

Origin

On June 16th, 2011, Kyle M uploaded a video titled “Keisha Fabo” (shown below), in which two 3D custom avatars from The Sims gossip about their friend’s sex life. In the first three years, the video gained over 1.35 million views and 2,700 comments.

Spread

On the following day, Kyle M uploaded a sequel titled “Keisha Fabo 2,” in which Fabo sings an insulting song to Deltrese (shown below, left). Within roughly two years, the video received more than 310,000 views and 1,000 comments. On June 18th, a Facebook^[4] page titled “Keisha Fabo” was created. On June 28th, a third video was uploaded introducing the character Bonshaquita’Lafondria (shown below, right), accumulating upwards of 650,000 views and 2,600 comments in the next two years.

On August 21st, YouTuber Miles Jai uploaded a video titled “Like Mah Status,” which includes several references to the Keisha Fabo web series (shown below). In the following two years, the video garnered upwards of 10.5 million views and 34,000 comments.

On December 19th, a profile article for Keisha Fabo was launched on the wiki site Wikia.^[2] On December 21st, The Sims 3 player JMIKE92 uploaded 3D-rendered models of several characters from the series to the game’s exchange database (shown below).^[1] On March 13th, 2012, Urban Dictionary^[3] user keishafabo submitted an entry for the term “Hoe mah gurr,” citing the Keisha Fabo videos as the origin of the expression.

Notable Examples

Deltrese Song Covers

The “Deltrese song” from the second Keisha Fabo video has inspired the creation of several covers on YouTube.

Search Interest

External References

About

Photoshop Request Threads refer to online forum discussions in which members with little experience in digital image-editing ask other members to photoshop an image in a particular way. Depending on the culture of each community, such request may be met by genuine assistance or tongue-in-cheek responses from trolls.

Origin

Requests for hands-on assistance with Adobe’s image-editing software have been seen on the Usenet newsgroup alt.graphics.photoshop^[3] as early as 1999, though perhaps due to the professional nature of the group, many early inquiries were met with animosity and discouraging responses from those who regarded their requests as demanding free labor.^[1] However, by 2000, some requests were being honored^[2] as long as there was some form of payment.

Spread

Beginning in January 2002, photoshop requests became a recurring topic on car enthusiast message boards including VW Vortex^[4], Prelude Online^[5] and DTM Power^[6], where members would ask more skilled peers to digitally enhance or manipulate images of their cars with new logos or different rims. Later that year, a member of the Something Awful forum posted a chat log^[7] of someone making a request in the #photoshop IRC channel. Between 2003 and 2006, photoshop requests continued to take a stronghold on car enthusiast message boards, mostly for customization of body and exteriors, such as changing the paint color^[8][9] (shown below) as well as adding decals^[10] and accessories.^{[10][11][12][13]} Meanwhile, similar photoshop requests outside the motor culture began to thrive on popular forums like Ars Technica^[14], General Mayhem^[15], Pearl Drummers^[16], DVD Talk^[17] and AnandTech.^[18]

In August 2008, a Facepunch forums member submitted a request seeking help with cleaning up a photo of him as a young child with his father. However, the request quickly became derailed by trolls on the site who responded to the thread with irrelevant photoshopped images, such as incorporating Pedobear or swapping the OP’s face with his father’s. Though the thread was never archived, on August 29th, 2008, a screenshot containing a number of the responses was uploaded to Flickr.^[19] In April 2010, another Facepunch forums member attempted to recreate the thread.^[20]

The earliest archived 4chan photoshop request thread was posted to /jp/ (Otaku Culture) on May 13th, 2008^[21], asking other posters to photoshop a picture of a dog jumping through hoops. More serious requests began to appear on Photoshop-specific message boards like PhotoshopGurus^[23] as well as Tumblr with the “photoshop request” tag.^[24] On March 1st, 2011, the subreddit /r/PicRequests^[25] launched, allowing a forum for both free work as well as paid requests. As of July 2013, it has amassed more than 16,000 subscribers. In February 2012, PhotoshopRequest.com^[22] was created offering free work done by a group of college design students who wanted to hone their Photoshop skills.

Can You Please Photoshop The Sun Between My Fingers?

In December 2011, a photo depicting a failed forced perspective with a man holding up his fingers attempting to crush a setting sun much lower than his hand was shared on the /r/Funny subreddit. Following this, a number of request threads titled Can You Please Photoshop The Sun Between My Fingers? appeared on 4chan and Tumblr, resulting in dozens of images photoshopping anything but the sun between the man’s fingers.

In China: Weibo Trolls

On May 21st, 2013, Buzzfeed^[26] reported on a number of Photoshop trolls found on Chinese message boards and the microblogging site Weibo who respond to open requests for image alterations by adjusting them in an unexpected manner. The images were reposted to The Chive^[27] the following day. A week later, Kotaku^[28] found additional examples that had been collected by PSyuan^[29], a Chinese site created in February 2012 to highlight these humorously photoshopped images. In China, these requests are made on sites like Yxdown^[31] and Weibo using "大神PS "^[30] (Photoshop masters please help), which later evolved into “不要求大神PS” (don’t ask the masters for help)

In Korea: We Do Phoshop

On June 26th, 2013 the Facebook page We Do Phoshop^[32] was created, accruing nearly 38,000 likes in two weeks, fulfilling photoshop requests in a similar manner to the Chinese trolls. Highlights from the Facebook page were shared on Korean message board Nemopan^[34] on July 2nd. Additional instances appeared on Instiz^[33] six days later. On July 9th, Japanese news site RocketNews24^[35] featured a number of the photoshopped images, followed by coverage on Kotaku^[36] the next day.

Search Interest

External References

About

Post CP is an acronym in which CP can have a variety of meanings. Initially used as an acronym for 4chan posters to indirectly mention or request the posting of child pornography, in later years the acronym became commonly associated with the posting of other subjects starting with the same letters, most notably cheese pizza, as a form of trolling those hoping for child pornography. Similarly, users can ask for illegal pornographic materials by requesting photos of delicious cake.

Origin

4chan’s anonymous posting style has long been a way for users to request and post socially unacceptable content and tabos without facing many risks. Although 4chan houses content that other areas of the internet wouldn’t post in public, the site still maintains a set of rules which also forbid the posting of “anything that violates local or United States law”.^[1] Regardless of this, users commonly try to post such content with the hope the site moderators won’t spot it, such as in “mods are asleep” threads.

Spread

[Researching]

Notable Examples

<sup>Chocolate Pudding

Communist Party

Captain Picard

Cthulhu Plush

Child Pornography

Captain Planet</sup>

Search Interest

External References

About

#相機食先 (#PhoneEatsFirst, lit. #CameraEatsFirst) is a self-mockery internet slang phrase. It is a hashtag that is widely used in Instagram pictures of food of Hongkongers.

Origin

It has been a while that Asians are notorious for taking pictures of their food before eating it. There is even a single topic blog on Tumblr called “Pictures of Asians Taking Pictures of Food”^[1] started on December 23, 2011. Also, YouTube channel Off The Great Wall also posted a skit about this phenomenon.

External References

^[1]Tumblr – Pictures of Asians Taking Pictures of Food

this entry is still being worked on. should anyone knows how to search chinese hashtags on Instagram, please do not hesitate to join in as an editor

About

Pranking is the act of playing practical jokes or mischievous tricks on other people for amusement. Online, pranking is commonly associated with trolling and prank videos are disseminated on the video-sharing site YouTube.

History

In 1904, dye company employee Soren Sorensen Adams^[4] discovered one of the company’s products caused workers to sneeze, prompting him to make a sneezing powder which began selling in high demand. Adams subsequently launched a business selling a variety of practical joke products including the “joy buzzer,” a hand-held device that administers a sudden shock to the victim’s palm. One of the earliest documented April Fool’s Day pranks was orchestrated by the Capital-Times newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin in 1933, which ran a photograph on the front page showing the Wisconsin State Capitol building collapsing (shown below).

In 1953, American humorist Harry Allen Wolfgang Smith released his book The Complete Practical Joker, detailing how to execute a variety of pranks. On April 1st, 1957, the BBC featured a prank segment about a Swiss family harvesting a spaghetti tree (shown below).

In the late 1970s, prank phone calls recordings began spreading through cassette tapes.^[5] In 1989, the American comedy act The Jerky Boys formed, whose routine consisted of prank calls which were recorded and sold as tapes and compact discs (shown below).

Online Presence

The earliest known streaming prank call on the Internet was broadcast by the webmaster of the site Blackout’s Box^[6] in 1995.^[5] Several other prank calls were subsequently published on the site (shown below).

On July 23rd, 2006, YouTuber ryckmmat uploaded a video titled “Prank Calls,” featuring a man calling various businesses asking for absurd products and services (shown below, left). In the first seven years, the video gained over 11 million views and 33,000 comments. On May 11th, 2007, YouTuber Just For Laughs Gags uploaded a prank video featuring a man hiding in a public toilet (shown below, right), which accumulated upwards of 32.4 million views and 23,000 comments in five years.

On November 10th, 2009, the “PrankvsPrank” YouTube channel was created, with the first uploaded video showing a man scaring his girlfriend in bed with a mannequin head (shown below, left). In the next four years, the channel gained more than 455 million views and 3.1 million subscribers. On December 18th, 2010, the Break YouTube channel uploaded a montage of prank video clips (shown below, right), accumulating upwards of 8.8 million views and 8,000 comments.

On June 3rd, 2011, YouTuber Shideh Naderi uploaded a video featuring a shampoo shower prank (shown below, left), garnering over 18.5 million views and 17,700 comments. On March 26th, 2012, the pranking video channel LAHWF was launched by YouTuber Andrew Hales, with the first video featuring Hales awkwardly approaching women on a college campus (shown below). In roughly one year, the channel garnered upwards of 98 million video views and 806,000 subscribers.

Related Memes

Fire in the Hole

“Fire In The Hole!”:http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fire-in-the-hole is a series of drive-through prank videos wherein the driver approaches the service window, orders a soft drink and then yells “fire in the hole!” before tossing the drink back at the server and driving away.

Scary Maze

In 2003, the Scary Maze Game was created by software engineer Jeremy Winterrowd^[1], which would prank players with a closeup photograph of the actress Linda Blair in The Exorcist accompanied by a loud scream (shown below).

Wooden Spoon Prank

The Wooden Spoon Prank is a practical joke that is disguised as a turn-based endurance game in which two participants duel by striking each other’s head with a wooden spoon in their mouths, though in reality, the targeted victim is smacked in the head at full force by a third person secretly holding a wooden spoon.

Bros Icing Bros

Bros Icing Bros is a popular drinking game prank in real life that occurred first in colleges in the South before spreading online in mid-2010.

Justin Bieber to North Korea

Justin Bieber to North Korea (also known as “Project North Korea is Best Korea”) is an Internet prank orchestrated by users of the imageboard 4chan in early 2010, which aimed to rig an online poll to select North Korea as a destination in Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour.

Rapture Bombing

Rapture Bombing is a flashmob prank that involves arranging clothes and shoes on the ground in public places to stage a fake scene of Rapture, the Christian concept of “being saved” by God before the arrival of the Doomsday. The practical joke became widespread as part of Operation Rapture during the days leading up to May 21st, 2011, which was proclaimed as “The Final Judgment” by American radio evangelist Harold Camping.

Cone-ing

Cone-ing is a prank video fad that involves ordering an ice cream cone at a fast food drive-through and grabbing it by the soft ice cream end instead of the cone as the server hands it over. Along with the drive-through attendant’s shocked or bewildered reaction, the entire process is captured on video camera to be shared online. The prank quickly caught on with teenagers in early June 2011, shortly after the viral breakout of Planking and its spin-off photo fads.

Nathan Fielder’s Twitter Pranks

Canadian comedian Nathan Fielder has orchestrated two crowd-sourced pranks on Twitter, asking followers to accidentally texts their parents “got 2 grams for $40” and “If you think u gave someone an STD is it illegal not to tell them? Asking for a friend”.

Search Interest

External References

About

Cronuts^[1] are a hybrid pastry made of half croissant and half doughnut. Since being introduced by New York City chef Dominique Ansel in May 2013, the $5 pastries have caused a frenzy in New York City and elsewhere in the United States, even leading to a black market on Craigslist where they’re being sold for $30 – $80 dollars each.

History

On March 9th, 2013, Grub Street^[3] and flood blogger Kathy YL Chen^[4] announced the launch of chef Dominique Ansel^[2]’s Cronut, a pastry made of croissant dough, shaped and fried like a doughnut. After two months and 10 different recipes, Ansel had finally found a successful combination that was ready to debut on March 10th at his bakery in the South Village of New York City. On launch day, the bakery had sold out of their first batch of 50 cronuts within 20 minutes.^[5]

Reception

On March 10th, cronuts were featured on Thrillist^[6], Eater^[7], the Village Voice^[8] and Fox News.^[9] The same day, Ansel posted a cronut photo taken by Niko Triantafillou to his bakery’s Tumblr^[10], where it gained nearly 600 notes and was featured on the Food curated tag. Also on the 10th, a different cronut photo was shared on the /r/Pics subreddit^[11] where it hit the front page with 3,071 upvotes, 1,788 points overall and 83 comments. Within a week, the bakery began making up to 200 cronuts per day^[12] as people began waiting on line for the pastry for hours prior to the shop’s opening each morning.

5 minutes after doors opened today #gocronutz#workingonsaturdaypic.twitter.com/9gfZVuv5vy

— Dominique Ansel (@DominiqueAnsel) May 18, 2013

Online Presence

On March 15th, the single serving site Cronut.org^[13] was created, pulling images tagged #cronut from Instagram.^[14]Between their launch and June 13th, cronuts were mentioned on Twitter^[15] more than 16,000 times according to Topsy Analytics.^[16] The cronut tag on Tumblr^[17] also became a place for fans to share photos as well as for people to bemoan their inabilities to access the pastry.

Impact

Black Market

By the end of March, food blog The Bad Deal^[18] reported that cronuts were being sold on Craigslist^[43] for a minimum of $20 each, depending where in New York they were delivered. The cronut “black market” was covered on a number of blogs and news sites that week including Fox News^[19], Betabeat^[20], Business Insider^[21], Refinery29^[22], Time Newsfeed^[27] and Freakonomics.^[23] On June 5th, the Huffington Post^[26] did a special report on the people who had been scalping the pastries. Two days later, a journalist from The New Yorker^[24] purchased four cronuts from Craigslist for $80.

Cronut sales began to take place outside of Craigslist, with sites like Premium Cronut Delivery^[29] charging $100 per cronut. By the end of June the Craigslist ads for cronuts began to escalate, with one person offering cronuts in exchange for oral sex.^[25] However, Ansel himself had become concerned with the amount of scalping taking place, causing him to personally remove people attempting to purchase the pastries for resale from the line.^[28] In early July, Fast Company^[31] compiled a number of photos shared on Twitter of the line for cronuts around the bakery, showing hundreds of people waiting for the pastries.

The #cronut line from above in soho: this must end pic.twitter.com/KzRgjKrwkb

— Andy Campbell (@AndyBCampbell) July 3, 2013

Knockoffs

As cronuts gained traction in New York City, bakers from around North America attempted to recreate the recipe. As early as May 30th, Los Angeles Magazine^[32] reported that local pastry artists were attempting to recreate the recipe. Shops in Texas^[33], Florida^[34] (shown below, left), Vancouver^[35], Washington D.C.^[36] (shown below, right) and Pittsburgh^[37] have since begun to offer similar pastries. However, because Ansel has trademarked the term “cronut,” these other renditions have been referred to as “doissants”^[38] or “doughsants.”^[39]

Additionally, recipes for cronuts have been shared online as early as June 3rd, when winner of 2010’s The Great British Bakeoff Edd Kimber posted his recipe to his personal site.^[40] Throughout june, a number of “hacked” cronut recipes began to circulate online, using canned croissant and biscuit dough^[41] (shown below). On July 12th, chef Beth Hillson shared a gluten-free cronut recipe with the Gothamist.^[42]

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s Note: This entry is currently being researched for additional information. Please request editorship to improve the quality of this article.

About

Sharknado is a 2013 direct-to-TV disaster film about a tornado that lifts sharks out of the ocean and drops them in the city of Los Angeles. Largely due to its bizarre premise and B-movie appeal, the film drew heavy discussions in the social media upon its airing on the SyFy channel in July 2013.

History

In March 2013, film news site DeadCentral reported that American film director Thunder Levin will take on two new projects for The Asylum, a direct-to-video film studio best known for its low-budget mockbusters, AE: Apocalypse Earth and Sharknado_. By April, the cast of the film had been officially announced, with Tara Reid (American Pie_), Ian Ziering (_Beverly Hills 90210) and John Heard, (C.H.U) taking on the lead roles, and in May, several entertainment news sites took note of the film after a promotional poster was revealed at the 2013 Cannes film festival.

On July 10th, The Machinima YouTube channel released an exclusive trailer for the film (shown below), which gained more than 765,000 views within first 48 hours. On July 11th, at 9 pm (ET). Sharknado premiered on the SyFy channel.

Reception

Twitter

External References

About

YUUUP! is a very well known catchphrase from one of the characters from the reality show Storage Wars called Dave Hester. Its known for being the most famous quote from the show, and it got various fanbase and even an official website from it.

History

Storage Wars is an American reality television series on the A&E Network that premiered in December 2010. The show features the auctioneering couple of Dan Dotson and Laura Dotson, as well as buyers Barry Weiss, the usually together but occasionally separated team of Darrell and Brandon Sheets, the team of Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante, and Dave Hester. When rent is not paid on a storage locker for three months in California, the contents can be sold by an auctioneer as a single lot of items. The show follows professional buyers who purchase the contents based only on a five-minute inspection of what they can see from the door when it is open. The goal is to turn a profit on the merchandise.

At the start of the series, Hester owned Newport Consignment Gallery in Costa Mesa, California and the Rags to Riches thrift store, but closed them in June 2011. He now operates his own auction house, Dave Hester Auctions. Hester has had confrontations with the other main buyers, especially Darrell and Brandon Sheets, and is known to raise bids whenever somebody wants to buy the unit. Hester’s son Dave Jr. occasionally appeared on the show with him. Hester’s signature catchword is a loud “YUUUP!” when making a bid. He has this word imprinted on his trucks, t-shirts, and hats. In December 2012, Hester was fired from the show, and sued the show’s producers for wrongful termination; part of his lawsuit was tossed out in March 2013.

Spread

The meme and Hester himself are very popular in some media, having some Facebook and Twitter pages, even loved or hated. The phrase even has an official website called yuuup.com where you can buy clothing and other things related to it.
It also has various YouTube videos using this catchphrase and videos of him saying it many times in the episodes, one of them is about Hester with the very famous Chuck Testa meme, as shown below:

There are also lots of image macros and Advice Dogs from him like this ones:

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

YUUUP! Official Website – As Seen On Storage Wars Posted on 2013

EDITOR’S WARNING
DO NOTUPLOADANYGORE-KINDMATERIALBEFORE AN ADMINSATOR OR MODPERMISSION. ALSO DO NOTFORGETTHATTHISSITE IS NOT A GOREARCHIVE. THANKYOU.

About

Gore (also known as graphic violence) is a term used to refer to any material that contains uncensored depiction of various violent acts, as murder, accidents or suicide. Due to his nature, gore is often used in raids.

Gore Examples

Shock Sites

Shock sites are websides which contains painful, shocking or gore contents to offend user or surfer who have been directed via “bait and switch” trolling.

Guro/Ero Guro

Ero guro nansensu, frequently shortened to ero guro or just guro, (エログロ ero-guro?) was a literary and artistic movement originating circa 1930 in Japan. Ero guro puts its focus on eroticism, sexual corruption and decadence. While ero guro is a specific movement, many of its components can be found throughout Japanese history and culture.^[6]

Guro is generally a sub-genre of hentai featuring blood, gore, disfiguration, torture, and bloody amputees. Most of these manga artworks is featured and popular in 4chan or gurochan.^[7]

Gory Fanfictions / Shockfics / Gorefics

Cupcakes– Cupcakes features two best friends Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony : Friendship Is Magic cartoon. In this fanfic they decided to making cupcakes which ends up with Pinkie Pie’s brutally torturing and killing Rainbow Dash.

Sweet Apple Massacre– Another My Little Pony gory fanfic which has a plot that “Cutie Mark Crusaders” violently being raped and tortured by Big Mac.

Agony In Pink– In this Power Rangers fanfic Pink Power Ranger’s character being raped and tortured.

Dipper Goes To Taco Bell– The story centers around the Gravity Falls character Dipper Pines, who goes to Taco Bell to get food. Upon arriving at the Taco Bell, he orders a taco and takes a bite before suddenly suffering from diarrhea.

h4.Other Gore-Kind Artworks and Grimdark

Grimdark is an artistic movement or artworks that is considered dark, depressive, violent or edgy, particularly in fanfic literature. Even grimdark generally includes the concept of “dark epic” or mentally psycological messages, some of them can be included disgusting or violently material.

Happy Tree Friends

Happy tree friends is a popular web cartoon series relased by “Mondo Studios” on their youtube channel^[8]. This show features cute animated animal characters dying or suffering by accidents or other reasons.

Gore Threads

References

(WIP) This is an incomplete entry, and we all know OP is a faggot.

About

Malicious Advice Mallard is a derivative of Actual Advice Mallard. While Actual Advice Mallard sends out life hacks and great info, Malicious Advice Mallard sends out advice that if it’s used, you later figure out what you should be ashamed of what you did.

Origin

• *On December 2nd, 2012, Reddit TEmpTom submitted an image to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit, Which he named “Malicious Advice Mallard”, A photoshopped version of the Actual Advice Mallard, changing the head color from green to red, captioned on top: “Want to replace a broken game console?” and on the bottom: "Buy another one, put the broken console in the new one’s box, and return it.
  The picture looked like this:
  
  On the same exact day, another picture of this mallard was posted. This one said on top: “Need to dry off your pet?” and on bottom: “Microwave”.
  This is how it looked:
  

Spread

• *
  On December 3rd, 2012, quickmeme’s Malicious Advice Mallard Page had over 240 captions.
  Some of which looked like this:
  

This is as far as I went.

WIP. Feel free to request editorship

About

Excuse Me Sir, Do You Have a Moment to Talk About Jesus Christ? is an expresion, often used in image macro captions featuring animals staring or wierd looking things.

Origin

Spread

Search Interest

Not available

Overview

Fake Asiana Pilot Names refers to four gag names read aloud on a local news broadcast after an NTSB representative reportedly confirmed the names. It was later revealed this representative was a summer intern.

Background

Asiana Airlines Flight 214^[1] crash landed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6th, 2013, resulting in 3 deaths and more than 180 injuries. While reporting on the crash during their noon newscast on July 12th, Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU co-anchor Tori Campbell reported that the names of the pilots on board were “Sum Ting Wong,” “Wi Tu Lo,” “Ho Lee Fuk” and “Bang Ding Ow.” Within three days, videos of the broadcast had been reuploaded to YouTube thousands of times^[8], with the most-viewed version accruing nearly 7.2 million views.

Notable Developments

News Coverage

The day of the news broadcast, a number of internet culture blogs and news sites covered the faux pas including MSNBC^[9], Forbes^[10], Business Insider^[11], The Huffington Post^[12], Buzzfeed^[15], Gawker^[16], Uproxx^[17], Hypervocal^[18], TV Spy^[19] and the Daily Beast.^[20]

Apologies Issued

On the evening of July 12th, the NTSB issued an apology via press release^[4] noting that a summer intern had acted on his own authority by confirming the fake names, and asserted that appropriate action would be taken to assure a similar error would not happen again. The same day, KTVU issued an on-air apology^[5] (shown below), attributing these racist gag names to a joke that had spread online. Though it is unclear where they came from, the single topic Tumblr blog Public Shaming^[2] and racial justice group Changelab^[3] both reported a number of racist tweets that occurred immediately after the crash.

Asiana Airlines Lawsuit

On July 15th, the Associated Press reported^[6] that Asiana Airlines will be suing KTVU for making a racially discriminated report. In a statement, the company asserted that the use of these names “not only disparaged Asians in general through the use of racially charged epithets, but also severely damaged the reputation of Asiana Airlines.”^[7]

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Taylor Swift’s Biggest Fan Contest is an online voting contest by the Boston radio station Kiss 108 FM giving away a chance to meet the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. In July of 2013, the contest became the target of an online raid by users of the imageboard 4chan.

Background

On July 5th, 2013, Kiss 108^[3] radio launched the “Are You Taylor Swift’s Biggest Fan?” contest, in which contestants submitted a 137 character essay describing why they should be considered Swift’s biggest fan. Profiles were subsequently created for each applicant, which could then be voted upon by other Internet users. The contest rules indicated that a winning contestant would receive tickets a Taylor Swift concert where they would be able to meet and take a photo with the pop star. On July 15th, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a thread (shown below, left) urging other users to vote for 39-year-old Charles Z^[1] on the contest voting page (shown below, right).

Notable Developments

On the same day, Redditor LouReddit submitted a screenshot of the original 4chan thread to the /r/4chan^[6] subreddit, receiving over 12,900 up votes and 770 comments in the following 24 hours. On July 16th, Redditor burnafterreading91 submitted a screenshot of the contest voting results showing Charles Z in the lead (shown below) to /r/4chan^[5] subreddit, where it garnered more than 11,900 up votes and 450 comments in the next 10 hours.

Four hours later, Redditor Capwnski resubmitted the screenshot to the /r/funny^[4] subreddit, announcing that 4chan users succeeded in voting Charles Z to the first place position. In the first six hours, the post gained upwards of 24,100 up votes and 1,800 comments. On the same day, the news blogs Gawker,^[2] The Daily Dot^[7] and Baeble Music^[8] published articles about the rigged contest.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Talia Joy was a YouTuber known for her makeup tutorial videos and personal vlogs chronicling her battle with two separate cancers, neuroblastoma and pre-leukemia. She passed away on July 16th, 2013.

Online History

Talia Joy was diagnosed with neuroblastoma^[4], the most common childhood cancer, on February 14th, 2007. On August 17th, 2010, the Facebook fan page Angels for Talia^[3] was created to share photos and updates from her cancer treatment in New York City with friends and family back home in Florida. The page gained more than 1,500 likes within three months and accrued more than 341,000 fans as of July 2013. Talia created her YouTube channel^[1] on July 12th, 2011, uploading her first video (shown below, left) sixteen days later, depicting her participating in a dance-off with a fellow fifth-grader at a school dance. On August 27th, she uploaded her first makeup video (shown below, right), showing her and her friend doing a fantasy eyeliner look.

In September 2011, she launched her personal website^[2] and she steadily continued to gain fans on YouTube and Facebook throughout 2011 and early 2012, gaining more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers by August 2012. On August 7th, 2012, Talia uploaded a vlog (shown below) announcing that she had been diagnosed with a second type of cancer and was facing the choice of whether or not to pursue a bone marrow transplant that was not guaranteed to work. She explained that she decided not to seek the treatment, to which doctors gave her four months to a year to live.

The day after this vlog was posted, a number of news outlets and beauty blogs began to pick up on her story, including Jezebel^[5], Refinery29^[17], Styleite^[6], the Daily Mail^[7], ABC News.^[8] That week, Talia’s videos were also shared on What’s Trending^[9], NY Daily News^[10], MSN Now^[11], Before It’s News^[12], Fox News Latino^[13], CBS News^[14], San Franciso Gate^[15] and NBC Latino.^[16]

Ellen Appearance

On August 10th, 2012, a video (shown below, left) containing a clip from the documentary The Truth 365 was uploaded to Talia’s channel asking fans to help fulfill her dream of meeting talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. On September 13th, 2012, Talia was invited as a guest on DeGeneres’ daytime talk show Ellen, where she was named an honorary Cover Girl by the makeup brand of the same name (shown below, right).^[18] Video from this appearance was shared on the Huffington Post^[19], NBC Latino^[20], MTV Act^[21] and the Daily Mail.^[22]

#TaliasBucketList

On April 24th, Talia was admitted into the hospital^[23] with nausea and pain. After conducting tests, doctors found that her cancer had spread through more of her bones^[24] and by early May, her official Facebook page confirmed^[25] there were no options left. As her health began to deteriorate, family, friends and fans turned to social media with the hashtag #prayfortalia^[26], which was used on Twitter more than 268,000 times between June and July 2013 according to Topsy Analytics.^[27] On July 10th, Talia’s sister Mattia uploaded a photo of Talia’s bucket list (shown below) to her Instagram^[28], asking fans to complete these actions in honor of her sister using the hashtag #TaliasBucketList.

People on Twitter^[29], Tumblr^[30] and Instagram^[31] began submitting photos of themselves completing Talia’s tasks, which were later compiled into a Facebook photo album.^[32] Some of these tasks included using body paint (shown below, left), sending a message in a bottle (shown below, center) and having an “outdoor day” (shown below, right). Within a week, the hashtag had been used on Twitter^[33] more than 5,400 times and Instagram more than 2,100 times. On July 10th, New Media Rockstars^[34] reported on the hashtag.

Death

On July 16th, 2013, the Angels for Talia Facebook page announced^[35] that Talia had passed away that morning. Within 5 hours, the post had received more than 146,000 likes, 42,000 shares and 28,000 comments. The post was linked on the /r/MakeupAddiction subreddit^[38] where it received more than 1,900 upvotes, 1,400 points overall and 120 comments within 5 hours. Her death was reported by a number of news outlets, internet culture blogs and style magazines including the Today Show^[39], New York Daily News^[40], the Huffington Post^[41], Boing Boing^[42], the Inquisitr^[43], New Media Rockstars^[44], People Style Watch^[45] and E! Online.^[46] Additionally, Ellen expressed her grief over the loss via Twitter.^[47]

Notable Videos

Personal Life

Talia Joy Castellano was born on August 18th, 1999 in Florida. Despite her cancer diagnosis, she uploaded 246 videos to her YouTube channel in two years, averaging approximately 62,000 views per day. Outside of YouTube, she maintained personal accounts on Twitter^[35] and Instagram^[36], where she had more than 192,000 followers and 2.3 million followers respectively.

Search Interest

External References

The meme “2 cool 2 care” is highly more than likely the coolest thing to ever grace itself upon the futile world of the figurative area know as internet. It expresses nearly everything that is even known as cool into one simplistic picture of a child riding on a skateboard. There are only two variations as the first artist had wanted it to be, asking for it to be such in her dying breath. The two beautiful pieces are what follows:


I, of course, honored that noble request of keeping the artwork original. It is a glorious enactment of the radical coolness of the one who created it, who will forever be loved, cherished, and will never, ever be forgotten. I am absolutely, positively, undoubtedly pleased to place these pictures here.

About

The Jaeger Designer is an online app created by Warner Brothers to promote the 2013 science fiction film Pacific Rim directed by Guillermo del Toro, in which humans pilot gigantic humanoid mechas called Jaegers to fight against colossal monsters. Following its release and coverage by various websites in May and June of 2013, many fans used it to generate non-serious Jaegers using a variety of humorous phrases and nationality stereotypes.

Origin

Pacific Rim^[3] is a 2013 American science fiction film directed by Guillermo del Toro and released by the American film production company Legendary Pictures. The film is set in the 2020s, when Earth is under attack by colossal monsters called Kaiju. To fight these monsters humanity has created gigantic humanoid mechas called Jaegers. To promote the film, Warner Bros added a Jaeger Designer app^[1] to the official site^[2] on May 11th, 2013, which allowed users to customize their own Jaegers alongside given them a name and a country of origin.

Spread

On May 11th, the same day as the release of the app, it was covered by various websites such as CrunchyRoll,^[5] MovieViral^[9] and Collider.^[10] They were followed in late May and throughout June by other websites such as ComicbookMovie,^[12] Hitfix,^[13] Slashfilm,^[7] ThisIsInfamous^[14] and Mashable^[19] when Warner Bros expanded the features of the designer such as with the addition of a custom game. A page for the designer was also added to the Pacific Rim Wikia^[20] on May 27th. On June 18th, IGN^[6] announced a Jaeger design contest in cooperation with Guillermo del Toro, the director of the film, in which the winner would win a 3D-Printer valued at $2,500 (shown below).

On July 9th, 2013, the 4th String Jaegers^[15]single topic blog was created, which focussed on posting custom made non-serious Jaegers. On July 8th, Tumblr user Kris Straub^[16] made a post showing a collection of 3 Jaegers with vulgar names including “Diarrhea Touchdown” and “Padawan Dickshark”. On July 9th, the 4th String Jaegers blog created a post^[17] using a GIF animation of a dancing Jaeger called “Bust A Move” which was created by Twitter user @CantWearHats.^[18] The same day Tumblr user Fadeintocase also made a post^[8] containing 6 Jaegers using a collection of pun jokes based on country names (shown below). As of July 17th, 2013, the 3 posts gained respectively more than 3,500; 3,000 and 5,800 notes.

On July 12th, 2013, Uproxx created an article^[11] covering the custom Jaegers made by Kris Straub^[16] and expanded on the idea with some of their own creations. Uproxx made additional follow-ups to this article on July 13th^[21] using ideas made by the site’s commenters and on July 17th^[22] using posts made by the 4th String Jaegers^[15] blog. On July 16th, Buzzfeed^[23] and GiantFreakingRobot^[4] also made articles covering the various custom Jaegers made by fans.

Notable Examples

Additional examples can be found through the Tumblr tag “#jaeger-designer”.^[24]

Search Interest

External References

Loki is a fictional character played by Tom Hiddleston, known mainly for being the antagonist in the 2011 film Thor and the 2012 film The Avengers. The Loki from the comics got absolutely no attention until the movie Thor was released, a fandom growing overnight originating from Tumblr. Since then, he has taken over the website with fan fiction, blogs, cosplays, gifs, and much more that I cannot fit on listing in this little definition of Loki. He has also spread along Deviantart, approximately 196,823 results coming up when searching Loki on Deviantart and about 32,800,000 results when searched on Google.

Many memes have been created based off of this character, a well known one being ’Loki’d.’

About

“Cringeworthy” is an eponym of the words “cringe” and “worthy” referring to that which causes feelings of awkwardness or embarrassment, often occurring in public social situations.

Origin

According to Cringeworthy.net,^[9] the word “cringeworthy” was popularized by the introduction of the character Cuthbert Cringeworthy to the British comic strip The Bash Street Kids^[3] in 1972.

Spread

On January 25th, 2004, KillerMovies^[8] Forums member shadowy_blue submitted a thread to discuss the most cringeworthy moments in the fantasy film series The Lord of the Rings. On June 13th, 2005, The Daily Mail^[14] published an article listing ten notable cringeworthy films.On March 28th, 2007, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Apollo Bar submitted an entry for “cringeworthy,” defining it as an action that causes an uncomfortable response. On December 6th, the Internet humor blog Cracked^[13] published an article listing eight cringeworthy moments from comic book films. On February 1st, 2009, the site Cringeworthy.net^[9] was launched, which serves as a database for cringe-inducing material.

On September 10th, Redditor ABsynth808 created the /r/cringe^[4] subreddit, featuring embarrassing and awkward videos. In the following four years, the subreddit gained over 179,000 subscribers. On August 2nd, 2010, an entry titled “Cringe Humor” was created on the trope database website TV Tropes.^[15] On October 14th, 2012, the /r/cringepics^[7] subreddit was launched by Redditor drumcowski, which accumulated more than 220,000 subscribers in the first year. On November 7th, Redditor BathtubZombie submitted a video titled “My Video for Briona” to the /r/cringe^[5] subreddit, featuring a shirtless teenage boy’s monologue addressed to his girlfriend (shown below, left). Prior to being archived, the post garnered upwards of 12,600 up votes and 1,000 comments. On December 13th, Redditor MrGrock submitted a video to /r/cringe^[6] featuring an awkward end to a date from the reality television dating show Blind Date (shown below, right), which received over 11,500 up votes and 900 comments before it was archived.

On February 14th, Redditor illskillz1 submitted a photo gallery on the image-hosting website Imgur to the /r/cringepics subreddit,^[12] highlighting several pictures of the Iraqi student and aspiring male model Ahmed Angel. Within the first five months, the post gained more than 11,500 up votes and 800 comments. On March 16th, the website Cringe Channel^[10] was launched, featuring cringe-inducing media, a gift shop and a web forum. On June 10th, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[11] highlighted several photographs and screenshots in a post titled “22 Cringeworthy Ways to tell the World You’re Pregnant” (shown below).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

(work in progress)

About

Glee is an American musical television series that premiered on Fox in May 2009. The series follows the members of the William McKinley High School glee club^[1] New Directions as they compete in show choir tournaments, while dealing with everyday teen issues.

History

Glee was conceived by Ian Brennan based on his own experiences in a high school glee club. He initially wrote it as a movie script, which did not receive interest until a friend passed it along to Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy, who competed in show choir in college. After enlisting Murphy’s colleague Brad Falchuk, the trio rewrote the script as a television show which was picked up by Fox 15 hours after the pilot script was pitched.^[2] The pilot episode^[3] aired on May 19th, 2009 to 9.619 million viewers. The season consisted of 22 episodes, with five to eight musical performances per episode.^[4]

The show attracted a number of celebrity guest stars that season including Neil Patrick Harris, Kristin Chenoweth, Olivia Newton-John and Josh Groban. The first season was so successful, five albums containing music from the show were released and 12 of the cast members went on a 13-date national tour that sold out every night.^[5] As of July 2013, the show has aired four seasons, and the fifth is set to premiere in the fall of 2013.

The Glee Project

In June 2011, Oxygen launched The Glee Project, a reality show that acted as an audition for a seven-episode arc on Glee. More than 40,000 people auditioned for twelve spots on the first season of the show. The Glee Project aired two seasons, with six competitors actually appearing on the main show.^[6] However, a late renewal for _Glee_’s 5th season led to the cancellation of the competition.

Reception

The first season gained generally positive reviews, achieving a Metacritic^[8] score of 78 from 19 reviews. Both Entertainment Weekly^[9] and TIME^[10] included it as one of the best TV shows of 2009.

Accolades

In its four-year run, Glee has been nominated for more than 150 awards and has won more than 70 of those.^[11] A number of cast and crew members have also been nominated for individual awards, including actress Jane Lynch who has been nominated for 18 awards and won 8 for her portrayal of cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester.^[12]

Online Presence

Impact

Cory Montieth’s Death

Fandom

Search Interest

External References