Overview

Interracial Cheerios Commercial refers to an advertisement for the Cheerios brand breakfast cereal featuring an interracial family. The commercial triggered a backlash of racist comments after it was posted on YouTube and Reddit in May of 2013.

Background

On May 28th, 2013, the Cheerios YouTube channel uploaded a commercial produced by the advertising company Saatchi & Saatchi titled “Just Checking,” in which a mixed-race child asks her white mother if Cheerios are healthy before jumping to a scene of her black father waking up from a nap to find a pile of the cereal on his chest (shown below). In the first two months, the video gained over 4.1 million views.

Notable Developments

Online Reactions

On the following day, Redditor hypertonica submitted the video to the /r/videos^[2] subreddit, where it accumulated more than 8,300 up votes and 1,400 comments in the next seven weeks. In the comments section, Redditors replied with a variety of reactions, some of which praised the brand for its bravery or accused the original poster of working for Cheerios marketing, while others made racist statements concerning interracial families. On May 29th, Twitter user @somecody tweeted to @Cheerios about racist comments on YouTube, to which @Cheerios responded that they had disabled the comments.

codypermenter</a> thanks for the heads up Cody. They’ve since been removed.</p>&mdash; Cheerios (cheerios) May 29, 2013

News Media Coverage

In the next several days, articles about the racist public reaction to the commercial were published on several news sites, including Gawker,^[3] The Huffington Post,^[4] The New York Times^[1] and Slate.

Parodies and Commentaries

On June 3rd, 2013, the CotillionGirlsComedy channel uploaded a parody in which a young white girl dumps Cheerios on her Ku Klux Klan mask-wearing father (shown below, left). On June 10th, YouTuber Kenji America uploaded another parody featuring a same-sex interracial couple (shown below, right). In the next six weeks, the videos garnered more than 1.25 million views and 3,600 comments.

On July 14th, TheFineBros YouTube channel uploaded a video featuring children reacting to the Cheerios commercial and commenting on the controversy surrounding the ad (shown below). Within four days, the video gained over 3.82 million views and 40,100 comments.

Search Interest

External References

“Would you like a jelly baby?” is a phrase commonly said by Tom Baker’s portrayal of the time-traveler known as the Doctor (fourth incarnation), of Doctor Who fame. From June 1974 to March 1981, Tom Baker played the Doctor, and “Would you like a jelly baby?”
was among his catchphrases. He would often use jelly babies as bribes or gifts.

About

The Pixar Theory is a hypothesis which posits that every movie produced by Pixar Animation Studios^[1] exists within the same universe in a linear timeline. The notion was first popularized in July 2013 after blogger Jon Negroni fleshed out his theory on his personal website.

Origin

As early as September 2009, fans from the Pixar Planet^[2] message board theorized about whether or not Pixar’s films existed in the same universe. In nearly 50 discussion posts, fans noted that the films sometimes offered small nods to each other, including a child reading a The Incredibles comic in Finding Nemo (shown below, left) and a postcard with Up characters Carl and Ellie’s home address appearing in the trailer for Toy Story 3 (shown below, right).

Spread

In June 2010, the theory was discussed on the IGN forums^[3], where many members argued against its plausibility due to the premise of the 2006 film _Cars), which is set in a world of self-driving, anthropomorphic vehicles. Then in August, LiveJournal user lynxgriffin^[4] presented a theory involving aspects of the A.I. technology found in Portal and working Cars into the timeline as a sentient race that develops after humans have died out. On September 4th, 2012, Cracked^[5] released an episode of the web debate series After Hours in which one of the hosts argues that every Pixar movie takes place in the same universe and therefore is an omen of an inevitable robot apocalypse. However, his theory failed to incorporate a number of Pixar films including Ratatouille, A Bug’s Life and Brave.

Negroni’s Timeline

On July 11th, 2013, Jon Negroni wrote a blog post^[6] explaining how all fourteen of Pixar’s feature length films from 1995’s _Toy Story through 2013’s Monsters University are interconnected. According to his theory, the timeline begins in the 14th century with Brave, which introduces the idea that both animals and inanimate objects can behave like humans. As the tension between humans and animals evolves throughout the films, the corporation Buy-N-Large begins to thrive, eventually taking over the world by the year 2100, as portrayed in the 2008 film Wall-E (shown below).

Following the exile of the human race from Earth, machines and cars take over. This leads up to the distance future where monsters have become the dominant race, although they need human screams to survive. They invent time traveling doors to travel back to human times, by which a monster named Sully meets a young girl named Boo. After the monsters move on, Boo learns how to use these magical doors to seek out her monster friend and ends up traveling back to the 14th century, where her now-elderly self appears as a witch in Brave.

Reception

The same day, Negroni’s Pixar theory was submitted to /r/FanTheories^[7] and /r/Movies^[8], where it gained more than 1,100 and 2,000 overall points, respectively. Also on July 11th, the theory was discussed on a handful of message boards including MMA Junkie^[9], NeoGAF^[10] and AltTabMe.^[11] The following day, the theory was discussed on nmerous pop culture blogs and news sites including Vulture^[12], BoingBoing^[13], the A.V. Club^[14], the Daily Dot^[15], Mashable^[16], Kotaku^[17] and Buzzfeed.^[18] On July 15th, Negroni posted a simplified version of his theory in a visual timeline.^[19]

Pixar’s Response

On July 18th, Jalopnik^[20] reached out to Cars art coordinator and character manager Jay Ward^[21] about the theory. He said that none of this was probably intentional, as the films were made in a different order by different directors and teams, but “it’s cool that it all worked out that way.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Thug Notes is a YouTube series hosted by man named Sparky Sweets, PhD^[5] who explains and analyzes classic literature using urban slang.

Online History

In early May 2013, the URL thug-notes.com^[1] and Facebook fan page for Thug Notes^[2] were created. The YouTube channel^[3] launched on June 3rd, 2013 with an episode explaining Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 novel Crime and Punishment.^[4] His reinterpretation of the novel recieved more than 75,000 views in a month and a half.

Reception

The day after the series launched, TubeGeeks^[6] lauded the series for its analysis, which he describes as “peepin’ motifs,” and compared the series to Quirk Classic, a publishing company that retells classic novels with zombies^[7], androids^[8] and sea monsters.^[9] Over the next two weeks, Thug Notes videos were featured on WebProNews^[10], Guyism^[11] and MTV Guy Code,^[12] On June 24th, his review of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird (shown below) was submitted to the /r/Videos subreddit^[13] where it generated nearly 11,000 upvotes, more than 3,000 points overall and nearly 350 comments.

The same day, the video was submitted to Buzzfeed^[14] by a community contributor. On June 25th, the Daily Dot^[15] published an article on the show that was shared nearly 330 times. Since June, Thug Notes has been featured on College Humor^[16], Complex^[17], BroBible^[18], the Huffington Post^[19], Tastefully Offensive^[20] and the Inquistr.^[21] As of July 2013, Thug Notes has more than 65,000 subscribers, 801,000 views and receives an average of 17,000 views per day.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

2013 State of Origin Streaker is a nickname given to Wati Holmwood, an Australian man who interrupted the third game of the 2013 State of Origin series^[1] between Queensland and New South Wales rugby teams by streaking through the field. Online, he became the subject of a photoshop meme in which his naked body is placed into various images.

Origin

On July 18th, 2013, the third game in the State of Origin rugby series was interrupted by a drunken man who streaked through the field with three minutes of the game left.^[2] The man, who was later identified as Wati Holmwood, ran approximately 100 meters in nothing but a pair of Nike sneakers before he was tackled to the ground by security. Holmwood, who allegedly covered himself in grease prior to entering the field, is now facing a lifetime ban from Australia’s ANZ Stadium.^[3]

Spread

As the incident was taking place, fans discussed it on Twitter with the hashtag #OriginStreaker.^[4] Soon after, a Facebook fan page^[5] launched, gaining more than 104,000 likes in two days. The same day, two different photos of Holmwood were submitted to the /r/PhotoshopBattles subreddit^[7][8], soliciting photoshopped images of him. Also on Reddit, a parody Nike advertisement featuring the streaker (shown below) was submitted to /r/Funny^[6] where it gained more than 5,000 upvotes and 2,000 points overall. The following day, a number of news sites around Australia and New Zealand reported on these photoshopped images including the Newcastle Herald^[9], the Daily Telegraph^[10] and the Sydney Morning Herald.^[11]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

DirecTV “Don’t” Commercials are a series of advertisements and parodies portraying outlandish hypothetical scenarios that occur if a person’s Cable TV goes out.

Origin

The meme originates from a series of commercials launched in 2012 by the Satellite TV provider DirecTV. The original commercials depicted a what happens when something’s wrong with the cable TV in your house. TThese scenarios typically end in absurd tragedy or misfortune, ending on the note that if the character had simply switched to DirecTV, none of the events would have occurred. The voiceover then says “Don’t let (x happen) – switch to DirecTV.”

Spread

After some time, numerous YouTube videos paying homage to (or outright parodying) the ad campaign sprung up. In addition, Image Macros featuring fictional characters appearing in situations similar to those found in the ad campaign were created, many of which could be found on the Cheezburger Network and Tumblr.

Search Interest

(Work in progress)

About

Oculus Rift is a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD) being developed by Oculus VR. After a protype debuted at 2012’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, the first batch of developer systems were initially funded through a Kickstarter campaign.

History

Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey^[1] had been collecting HMDs for years, seeking one that would fit his needs.^[2] After getting a Virtual Research V8^[3] and learning that its 60 degree field of vision was one of the best on the market, Luckey realized that he would have to develop his own model. As a moderator of the Meant to Be Seen 3D (MTBS3D) forums for stereoscopic gaming enthusiasts, Luckey began working on his own HMD project. He named the organization Oculus and HMD itself “Rift,” based on the idea that a HMD unit creates a breach between actual and virtual realities. On April 15th, 2012, he announced to the MTBS3D forum that he had completed the optics, display panels and interface hardware for the project, with the hopes of launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the first batch of systems on June 1st. As of July 2013, this thread has generated more than 4,200 posts.

E3 Debut

By June 2013, Id Software founder John Carmack (shown below) had signed on to support the project and brought a prototype demo to that year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). This demo showed a Rift with a 90 degree horizonal view and a 110 degree vertical view, offering a wider field of view than anything on the market. The system was playable with a version of Doom 3. Carmack asserted that they could have consumer-friendly versions of the system within a year. The journalists that tested the system had rave reviews^[4], calling it “a level of immersion genuinely unlike anything else [they] have ever encountered.”

Kickstarter Campaign

On August 1st, 2012, the Kickstarter^[5] fundraiser for Oculus Rift launched, looking to raise $250,000 within 30 days. With support from big-name developers including Valve’s Gabe Newell, the project was completely funded within 24 hours.^[6] Just over two weeks in to the campaign, more than 5,000 development kits had been sold^[7], causing Luckey to remind consumers that this version of the Rift was directed at developers and would not be a consumer-ready product. Despite that, the Kickstarter campaign closed on September 1st, 2012 with 9,522 backers pledging a total of $2,437,429, making it the most funded Technology Kickstarter project at the time. As of July 2013, it is now the second-most funded, beaten by the Form 1 3D printer, which raised more than $2.9 million in October 2012.

Reception

Impact

Fandom

Search Interest

External References

About

Madoka Titus (Japanese: まどかタイタス)^[1], occasionally called Mado-Tus (まどタス, Madotasu) for short, is a nickname given to a figure consisting of a collaboration of figma Madoka Kaname from Puella Magi Madoka Magica and HG Gundam AGE-1 Titus^[2] from Gundam AGE, a 2011 TV anime in Gundam series. This “cute & macho” figure gains its own popularity, not as a derivative of Frightened Madoka. Many parody photos and illustrations have been posted to internet communities.

Origin

The idea of Madoka Titus was originated in a large offline meet-up for plastic models and figures held at Akihabara, Tokyo by dozens of Japanese Twitter users on November 23rd, 2011. In this meet-up, it became to a fad among participants to swap figures arms or legs to that of the plastic model for close combat mobile suits Gundam AGE-1 Titus which was mocked its too macho & unstylish design by Gundam fans, and on the shelf in hobby shops in those days (shown below, left). They enjoyed its ridiculous looks, and uploaded many photos of “Titus mode” figures to Twitter (shown below, center & right).^[3]

This idea was soon imported to the /y/ (Alt-Figure) board in Futaba Channel (2chan). Then, Futaba user OrshieRinohanna^[4] posted the picture named “The Perfect Madoka Titus” to his Twitter on December 2nd, 2011, in which Frightened Madoka, figma Madoka Kaname with the frightened faceplate, swapped all her limbs to that of the Titus and struck a muscle pose.

まどかタイタス完全版出来た http://t.co/FLxiZhGC

— オーシー・リノアーナ (@OrshieRinohanna) December 2, 2011

Spread

That very impactful picture of Madoka Titus inspired many people by its unique nature: colors unexpectedly matche but its style is quite far from the image of the magical girl. Madoka Titus gained many followers among lovers of plastic models and figures, and led the special demand for the Titus plastic model on the Japanese hobby market. Even hobby shops posted a flyer of recommending figma Madoka Kaname and HG Gundam AGE-1 Titus for making Madoka Titus (shown below).^[5] Besides, many of Amazon customer reviews for HG Gundam AGE-1 Titus tells they bought it for building Madoka Titus.^[6]

Madoka’s best friend Homura Akemi also is modified into Homura Sparrow (ほむスパロー, Hom-Sparrow), consisting of figma Homura Akemi and HG Gundam AGE-1 Sparrow. Naturally, other magical girls are modified in the same manner.

Parody photos and illustrations for those magical girls have been posted to Futaba and pixiv.^[7]

In addition, it caught an attention on Japanese otaku blogs in January 2013 that Japanese video game news site 4Gamer reported a very famous voice actor Tomokazu Sugita^[8] had Madoka Titus and Homura Sparrow in his figure display cabinet.^[9]

Mr. Suguta’s figure display cabinet

Notable Examples

Photos

Tutorial

In order to fit the Titus legs to figma, it needs a small modification in the waist joint parts. However, no modification needs to change arm parts and leg parts below the knee.

【ニコニコ動画】ゆっくりが作るまどかタイタス

Illustrations

Search Interest

External References

On the 4th of June, 2013, Niall Horan posted a tweet reading:
Came in last night! Jumped on my bed and broke it! So had to sleep on the couch! not the best nights sleep I’ve ever had ! #NoInnuendos

Fans started to reply to his tweet, he then posted another:
Lookin at the replies to bed tweet! U guys are nuts ahaha! not one non- sexual tweet! ##crazymofos

#crazymofos hashtag soon started trending, Niall then posted:
Hahaha the trends ! You lot are mad ! #crazymofos !

@malikyourface_ posted a tweet to Horan, reading:
niall so wants to change the fandom name to #crazymofos

Niall then responded: “let’s do it!”

Crazy mofos started to make it’s way on to tumblr, and directioners (fans of One Direction) started to call theirselves, Crazy Mofos.

Niall then posted an image on Instagram

Niall started wearing these t-shirts at concerts.
People now have started making them, and you can purchase them online.

Forever Alone

About

“We Are Forced!” (Japanese: 強いられているんだ!, Shiirarete Irunda!) is a catchphrase coined in 2011 TV anime in Gundam series Mobile Suit Gudam AGE.^[1] Its cult popularity among internet users not only defined somewhat bad reputation of the anime, but also elicited a humorous reaction from the production.

Origin

Mobile Suit Gundam AGE was aired from October 2011 to September 2012, and its production focused on getting new low-age Gundam fans. So, different from the previous titles, there were many comic-like depictions in its storylines, characters and mobile suits designs. It often became the subject of controversy among existing Gundam fans, and the anime finally didn’t achieve enough commercial success as a Gundam title.

In that context, the remark was uttered by Iwark Bria (イワーク・ブライア) in the 6th episode aired on November 13th, 2011. In the scene, this middle-aged guy with oddly short fat body (shown above) told the protagonists, Flit and Emily, with a detached tone about their hard life forced by pointless ideologies of people on topside in their space colony. Shortly after, he suddenly uttered the remark along with saturated linework.

Transcript

Flit: But this is pointless…!
Iwark: Exactly. There is no point to it at all. Those people topside live their extravagant lives, and at the same time, fight against each others’ pointless ideologies all day long. And because of that, We’re being forced to live this kind of life!

This combination of Iwark’s serious remark, quite eager look and strange body shape, and sudden comic-like saturated linework effect in inappropriate timing gave a strong feeling of strangeness to viewers. Furthermore, his ridiculousness was so much emphasized by his foolhardy attack to battle mobile suits by unstylish work mobile suit “Desperado”.

Spread

Because of this ridiculous storyline and rendition, both Iwark himself and his remark “We Are Forced!” soon became to laughing stocks on internet communities.

It started by Futaba Channel (2chan) user’s huge amount of parody photo collages/gif animations mocking at Iwark’s odd body shape, 2channel users immediately made Shift-JIS arts reproducing the scene, and many parody illustrarions of this scene have been posted to the illustration section in Nico Nico Douga (NND) , Nico Nico Seiga^[2], and Japanese illustrators community pixiv.^[3] Besides, because it was quite easy to insert this phrase in daily conversations, the phrase “X is being forced to…” also became to a buzz word on the Japanese web.

Shift-JIS Art

On NND, a reprinted video of this scene has earned hundreds of thousands of page views.^[4] Iwark has been reused in many parody and MAD videos.^[5] And a NND user developed augmented reality program realizing “We Are Forced!” by automatic facial recognition system (shown below, left). This funny invention was reported by Kotaku JAPAN on January 22nd, 2012.^[6] Besides, Japanese adult video game Maji de Watashi ni Koi Shinasai!^[7] released in January 2012 included a homage to Iwark’s remark and that (shown below, right).

Several photo retouch apps featuring saturated linework were released with the name “We Are Forced! Camera” in both Japanese App Store and Android Market.^[8][9]

However, this online phenomena is hardly confirmed on YouTube because MBS/TBS, broadcasting stations for the TV anime series which are very strict to copyright infringements on video sharing services except for NND and soon delete reproduced videos from there. Their another visual contents, K-ON!, is also being forced to live under the same situation.

Feedback to the Official

As contrasted to an imperfect reputation of the anime itself, Iwark Bria succeeded to give a huge impact to Japanese anime fans. Then, the production joined onto Iwark’s bandwagon and began featuring him in the following Gundam AGE official franchise, even though he was a minor guest character who appeared on that episode only.

At the end of February, 2012, a time-limited event titled “We’re Forced!!” was held in a mobile social game Gundam Royale, he appeared on the campaign banner along with that phrase (shown below, left). Furthermore, a Gundam AGE character song album released in August, 2012 includes Iwark’s song titled “Desperado Blues”. That famous line “We’re being forced to…” repeatedly appears from the beginning of its lyrics (shown below, right).

Finally, the remark “We Are Forced!” became 7th in 2012 Japanese Internet Buzz Word Award.^[10]

Notable Examples

Collages & Gif Animations

Compilation

【ニコニコ動画】【ガンダムAGE】強いられているんだコラ画像まとめ

Illustrations

As Iwark (イワーク) is the Japanese name for Onix, a rock pokemon in Nintendo’s Pokemon series, he has occasionally associated with pokemon.

Videos

【ニコニコ動画】危険な生活を強いられているんだ！【MAD】Dangerous Series【ニコニコ動画】だが強いられているんだ！【ＭＡＤ】
“Mog’s Theme” from Final Fantasy 6【ニコニコ動画】強いられてってってー
Te-Te-Te【ニコニコ動画】【MMD】イワーク怒りの強いられテーマ
Miku Miku Dance

Search Interest

External References

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

(work in progress)

Overview

The Royal Baby is a nickname for the expected child of Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton^[1] and Prince William.^[2] As her due date approached in July 2013, people across social media sites began anticipating the birth with a number of related hashtags and live streaming video of the hospital. At 4:24 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time on July 22nd, Middleton gave birth to a baby boy.

Background

In September 2012, rumors about Middleton’s pregnancy began to appear online after she chose a nonalcoholic drink while at a state banquet dinner in Singapore.^[3] On December 3rd, 2012, the pregnancy was announced^[4] by palace officials after Middleton was admitted to the hospital with severe form of morning sickness known as Hyperemesis Gravidarum.^[5]

Notable Developments

Middleton Goes into Labor

On July 22nd, 2013, London-based photographer Jesel Parshotam tweeted^[6] that Middleton had arrived at the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital^[7] in Paddington, London. He and colleague Darren Sacks were camped out at the back entrance of the wing when a BMW pulled up. They chose not to photograph the duchess’ arrival^[8] out of respect and instead chose to tweet the information. Approximately two hours later, Kensington Palace issued an official confirmation that she had gone into labor.

Kate Middleton has gone into hospital… #royal#worldexclusiveIkonPictures</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23LindoWing&amp;src=hash">#LindoWing</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RoyalBaby&amp;src=hash">#RoyalBaby</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23RoyalBabyWatch&amp;src=hash">#RoyalBabyWatch</a></p>&mdash; Jesal Parshotam (therealjesal) July 22, 2013

Twitter Response

On July 22nd, a number of hashtags relating to Middleton and her baby trended on Twitter including #GreatKateWait^[13] (shown below, left), #RoyalBabyWatch^[14] (shown below, right), #LindoWing^[15] and #RoyalBaby.^[16] A handful of news sites highlighted the Twitter response to the baby’s birth including Fox News Insider^[17], the Huffington Post Canada^[18] and CTV News.^[19] Men’s blog EveryJoe^[20] featured a collection of 19 tweets from people unimpressed by the media blitz surrounding the birth. Additionally, The Huffington Post^[21], USA Today^[22] and Business Insider^[23] among others compiled celebrity reactions to the baby from Twitter including Jersey Shore‘s Nicole Polizzi, Perez Hilton and CNN’s Piers Morgan.

News Media Coverage

After Middleton went into labor, a number of news sites and gossip blogs offered live updates from the hospital including Sky News^[24], Hollywood Life^[25], ABC News^[26], Hello!^[27], the Daily Beast^[28] and fashion blog What Kate Wore.^[29]

Birth

At 4:24 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, Middleton gave birth to a baby boy. According to an official announcement, the baby weight 8 pounds and 7 ounces. The birth was announced by an email press release and is third in line for the British throne, behind his father and grandfather, Prince Charles.^[9] After the birth, the hashtag #itsaboy^[10] trended on Twitter. The Onion shared a handful of satirical “first photos” of the baby^[11][12], depicting him as a horned, winged demon.

Search Interest

External References

About

Zen (Japanese: 膳), not Zen (禅) in Buddhism, is a trade name of a Japanese malt whiskey which had been sold by Japanese major brewery Suntory. Its TV commercial movies (TVCMs) have gained a cult following among a few of MAD video editors in the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) since 2010.

Origin

This whiskey, Zen, aired 21 types of TVCMs in total from 1998 to 2004. All of them featured Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada (真田広之)^[1] and had the same punchline: in serious situations or good atmosphere, he denies or disagrees suggestions/questions with quite cool face by this remark “Zenzen” (全然, lit. “Nope” or “Not at all”). Then, two Zen bottles appeared on the screen with his voice “Zen, Zen”. The most well-known version in this series is “A Singing Man” played first in this video below. It originally began to air in September 2001.

niconico 膳

However, Zen’s TVCM series hadn’t been featured on internet humor sites till 2010s though it was indeed humorous. Suntory discontinued the production of Zen in 2004, and erased its product page^[2] from their official website in the end of 2011.

Spread

The first MAD videos in this series was posted with simple title “Zen” (膳) by user Zero (零～ゼロ～)^[3] on March 22nd, 2010. It featured “Termina Field”, an audiotrack from Nintendo‘s 1998 video game in Zelda series: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask.

Niconico 膳

Meanwhile, the trigger that led increasing of its popularity was not the video itself, but its naming and his thumbnail choice in his subsequent videos. That was because he had continued uploading several Zen MAD videos with the same title and the same thumbnail in 2011.

Around January 2011, other MAD editors who chuckle at this idea began mimicking his style and filling search results by the same “Zen” title and thumbnail just for fun, though each of them was different MAD video edited by themselves. Since then, the manner of Zen is a standard style in NND’s MAD editors community.

Screenshot of NND’s search results for “Zen”

As of July 2013, the amount of video related to this whiskey on NND is more than 450.^[4] And, it is completely impossible to tell one from the other in the search results.

Notable Examples

Manner

• Before starting MADs, Run “A Singing Man” original footage for about 24 seconds from the beginning.
• Upload your video with the same thumbnail and the same title “Zen” (膳).

Niconico 膳Dangerous SeriesNiconico 膳
“Chronos” from BEMANI seriesNiconico 膳
I Wanna Be The Guy! parodyNiconico 膳
“Rainbow Cruise” from Mario 64Niconico 膳
2011 Zen MAD RankingNiconico 膳
Multiauthor Collaboration

Search Interest

[Not Available]

External References

About

The Imagefap Troll is a prank that makes people think their IP has been logged for searching and looking at CP.

Background

Imagefap^[1] is a porn image hosting website that uses this as a deterrent from people searching and uploading inappropriate material. Imagefap does not go after people who search inappropriate keywords but does go after people who upload inappropriate material.

The troll began on 4chan when an anon posted “Go to imagefap.com search Lolita. Fap like crazy” When you do, it directs you to a page that reads “In cooperation with ASACP^[2] we log IP, date / time of visit and search arguments of all users entering this page”. People who thought it was real immediately began looking to erase their Hard drive and expect a knock at the door. They franticly asked other anons “what do I do?” and even thought that they could Delete System32 to keep them safe.

Soon after the meme Advice Dog was used and is still used today as the image used for the troll. Only newfags will fall for the troll and most oldfags will play along.

Notable Examples

External References

About

One Man Acapella is a type of music video in which a singer records multiple vocal tracks that are subsequently pieced together into one song, in a similar vein to Stop Motion Beatbox videos.

Origin

On December 9th, 2006, YouTuber Patrick van Slee uploaded a one man acapella of the 1986 rock song “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi split into 4 screens (shown below). In the description, van Slee claims the video was made in 2002 and originally spread in Chicago prior to being uploaded on the Internet.

Spread

On October 28th, 2008, YouTuber Del Lazaro uploaded an one man acapella version of the song “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz (shown below, left). In the first five years, the video gained over 3.4 million views and 8,000 comments. On August 19th, 2010, YouTuber pbpproductions uploaded a video featuring singer Mike Tompkins performing a one man acapella of the song “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry (shown below, right). In the next three years, the video accumulated upwards of 22.2 million views and 47,000.

On January 4th, 2013, YouTuber Peter Hollens uploaded an acapella version of the song “Misty Mountains” from the 2012 fantasy film The Hobbit, garnering over 2.35 million views and 8,900 comments in the following seven months. On January 13th, YouTuber Smooth McGroove uploaded an acapella of the song “Zelda’s Lullaby” from the video game The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (shown below, right). In the next six months, McGroove uploaded over 35 more one man acapella versions of video game songs.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Slow Loris Win a Victory with UC, known as “Guts-Pose Inmu-Kun Series” (Japanese: ガッツポーズ淫夢くんシリーズ) on the Japanese web, refers to a series of audio dubbing videos utilizing an innocent slow loris video and/or “UC”, an acronym means both the original anime video title in Gundam series Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn^[1] and its main theme song “UNICORN”. The style of this series is widely spreading on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND), due to its quite convenient editing style like Guile’s Theme Goes Everything and a cult following from some NND users addicted to the biggest Japanese gay porn meme A Midsummer Night’s Lewd Dream.

Origin

“UNICORN” is a magnificent orchestral song written by a Japanese composer Hiroyuki Sawano^[2] (shown below, left). It’s included in the 1st soundtrack album for Gundam Unicorn released in February 2010. Meanwhile, the actual origin of this fad was not the song itself, but a video of people playing with a slow loris hanging on a door was posted to YouTube by user Alex Gavrilov in 2007 (shown below, right).

This slow loris video was reprinted to NND on November 28th, 2011^[3] by one of the Inmufags, fanatics of the Japanese gay porn meme A Midsummer Night’s Lewd Dream. Because a slow loris appeared on the title image of their favorite gay porn video, Inmufags consider slow loris as a sort of their mascot. They call slow loris by a nickname “Inmu-kun” (淫夢くん, lit. Lewd Dream Boy) and like to collect slow loris videos to their home ground and fill comments by their favorite silly inside jokes.

Spread

The trigger video of this series, “Inmu-Kun Win a Victory with UC” (完全勝利した淫夢くんUC), was uploaded to NND on February 28th, 2012.^[4] It was an audio-dubbing parody enhancing the climax moment of this slow loris fist raising by “UNICORN”. This video had reached over 1 million page views after 15 months of its upload due to its epic rendition and the cult following from Inmufags.

NND users inspired by this video, mainly Inmufags, soon began mimicking this style and combining various kind of songs with this slow loris to make it more epic. Those videos formed a series of audio-dubbing parody videos named “Guts-Pose Inmu-Kun series” because fist raising like this slow loris is usually called Guts-Pose^[5] in Japanese language.

However, the main theme of this series has changed from the slow loris to the song since around January 2013 because just playing “UNICORN” along with footage is much more convenient way to make things drastically dramatic. One of the earliest hit videos in this style is “Ms Shoko haida Win a Victory over Children with UC”^[6] which featured the devastating drawing skill of Ms Haida, the creator of Devil Spoo. Like this, audio-dubbing videos featuring “UNICORN” are named by the phrasal template“X Win a Victory with UC” (完全勝利した X UC).

As of July 2013, both slow loris parodies and “UNICORN” parodies are tagged under the same “Guts-Pose Inmu-Kun Series” on NND. And, the amount of videos tagged under this is more than one thousand.^[7]
Besides, the popularity of Inmu-Kun also spreads to the Japanese illustrator communities pixiv^[8] and Nico Nico Seiga.^[9] Guts-pose by this slow loris is a popular subject for fanarts and parodies for Inmu-kun on both of them.

Notable Examples

Slow Loris Parodies

Left: Another Gundam Unicorn Song^[10] | Right: METALGEAR SOLID3^[11]

Left: Cooking^[12] | Right: Robot^[13]

“UNICORN” Parodies

Left: TDN from A Midsummer Night’s Lewd Dream^[14] | Right: Walk-Off Homer by Michihiro “Guts” Ogasawara^[15][16]

Left: Sasha Braus a.k.a Poteto Girl from Attack on Titan^[17] | Right: Koyomi Araragi from Bakemonogatari^[18]

Illustrations

Search Interest

It can be confirmed from Google Trends that the word “Inmu-Kun” has spikes on March 2012 and February 2013 by the influence of “X Win a Victory with UC” videos.

External References

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

About

“In The Way” Guy is a nickname given to a man who accidentally photobombed a Redditor’s marriage proposal at Walt Disney World. After the poorly timed photograph was submitted to Reddit in July 2013, the nameless man instantly became a subject of photoshopped mockeries on the site.

Origin

On July 22nd, 2013, Redditor SpnkyHappy submitted an image titled “Tried to get a photo of our proposal…nailed it!” to /r/Pics.^[1] The image revealed a flustered-looking man running across the foreground while the original poster’s boyfriend, who was subsequently identified as Lanipator^[2] of Dragon Ball Z Abridged series, proposed to her in front of Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World. Despite the moderators flagging the post for a clichéd or unoriginal post title, it gained more than 32,700 upvotes, 2,400 points overall and 1,500 comments within 16 hours.

Spread

Within hours of submission, Redditor flipflipflipflipflop provided a template image^[3] of the trespassing man and many others followed suit with photoshopped variations in the thread, as well as on Imgur.^[17] Four hours after its submission, the original photo was cross-posted on /r/PhotoshopBattles^[4], where it gained more than 5,100 upvotes, 2,200 points and 320 comments within 12 hours. The top voted comment, depicting the man running across Alfred Eisenstaedt’s 1945 photograph V-J Day in Times Square^[5] (shown below), was later re-submitted to /r/Funny,^[6] accruing more than 40,000 upvotes, 2,200 points overall and 1,000 comments within eight hours. In the comments of this post, the subreddit /r/InTheWay^[9] was created to keep track of the growing collection, gaining more than 220 subscriptions within hours of launch.

Two hours later, Redditor oscc submitted another collection of photoshopped variations to /r/Funny in a post titled “Introducing…In The Way Guy,”^[7] bringing in more than 16,000 upvotes, 1,500 points overall and 429 comments, as well as 15,000 views on Imgur,^[8] within four hours. That same day, additional compilations of the photoshopped images were shared on Buzzfeed^[10], The Daily Beast’s Storify page^[11], Philly.com^[12], Tastefully Offensive^[13], the Huffington Post^[14], HappyPlace^[15], Heavy^[16] and the Daily Dot.^[18]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

[Not Currently Available]

External References

Overview

Kevin Rose’s Raccoon Toss refers to security camera footage of Digg founder Kevin Rose throwing a wild raccoon down a flight of stairs after he discovered the animal attacking his pet dog Toaster.

Background

On July 20th, 2013, Rose uploaded a video titled “My dog Toaster was attacked by a raccoon” to YouTube, which featured two different camera angles of Rose pulling a raccoon off of his dog and throwing it down a flight of stairs outside of his apartment (shown below). Within the first 72 hours, the video gained over 5.4 million views and 34,000 comments.

Notable Developments

On the same day, Redditor Diuhbeetus submitted the video to the /r/videos^[1] subreddit, where it received more than 28,300 up votes and 3,900 comments in the next 48 hours. Immediately after, Redditor kukamunga submitted a looped GIF of the raccoon toss to the /r/gifs^[2] subreddit (shown below), accumulating upwards of 22,200 up votes and 1,100 comments within the same time frame.

Also on July 20th, Tech Crunch^[3] published an article about the video, which compared it to an animated GIF of apes throwing a raccoon at a zoo. On July 21st, Redditor HumpmeBear suibmitted a screenshot of Kevin Rose’s Wikipedia page to the /r/funny^[11] subreddit, which had been edited to include the description “Feared by racoons [sic] across the United States” (shown below, left). On July 22nd, Rose posted a photo on Instagram^[10] of Toaster with the caption “resting up after the raccoon attacked him” (shown below, right).

In the coming days, articles about the raccoon attack were published on several news sites, including Gawker,^[5] Time,^[6] Business Insider,^[7] The Huffington Post,^[8] The Daily Mail^[4] and CNET.^[9]

Search Interest

External References

This meme was made when me and my friend were on skype and my friend put that as his profile picture

About

Panchira Series (Japanese: パンチラシリーズ) refers to a series of hand-drawn animated videos featuring the song “Panchira of Joy-Toy” by a Japanese rock band Group Tamashii.^[1] It was a popular subject for fanworks among female users in Nico Nico Douga (NND) around 2008-2009.

Origin

“Panchira of Joy-Toy” is a comical rock tune drawing men’s passion to Panchira (パンチラ)^[2], situation of female underwear being glimpsed from skirts or pants. It was included in Group Tamashii’s second major album Araburu Nihon no Tamashii Tachi (荒ぶる日本の魂たち) released on June 23rd, 2004.

The first hand-drawn animated video was posted to NND on June 24th, 2008^[3] by NND user cdm. The characters reproducing the lyrics along with the song in this video come from CAPCOM’s video game series Sengoku BASARA.^[4] Due to its lovely illustrations and comical rendition, the original video on NND had reached over 1 million page views in October 2012.

Spread

Similar to other hand drawn animation fads on NND, this well-made animated video succeeded to earn many followers. They began mimicking the video by tracing it with their favorite characters.^[6] In particular, there are many Yaoi (Boys’ Love) editions of Panchira on the web because it became to a sort of template of fan works among Fujoshi, female otakus deeply addicted to homosexual shipping.^[7] As of July 2013, the amount of those normal/Yaoi videos in this series is more than 250 in total.

Commercial Success

The user, cdm, also triggered several hand drawn animation fads on NND, which include Spitting While Kissing in the same year. This amatuer illustrator earned much of fame on the video sharing service, and then, the fame led him to commercial media.

On August 2010, he started to release a comic book series Chōyaku Hyakunin isshu: Uta Koi^[8] and succeeded to debut as a professional mangaka Kei Sugita.

Notable Examples

Left: Axis Powers Hetalia^[9] | Right: Final Fantasy^[10]

Left: Silent Hill^[11] | Right: Naruto^[12]

Yaoi Edition

Left: Reborn!^[13] | Right: The Prince of Tennis^[14]

Left: Summer Wars^[15] | Right: Inazuma Eleven^[16]

Search Interest

[Not Avilable]

External References

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