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Giuseppe Simone

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Giuseppe Simone is an Italian YouTuber, known in Italy for his raving videos, where he constantly complains about not having a girlfriend.
Giuseppe Simone is a 39-year-old, obese, unemployed man who lives in a country house in Neviano, a small town in the southern Italian region of Apulia. His videos are all low-quality, and in them he shows his various animals, like chickens and cats, and complains about the fact that women don’t like him and insults them with rather offensive terms.
The humour of his videos comes from the fact that Giuseppe talks of himself as being handsome and he says that country girls don’t understand his charm, and that he should emigrate to Northern Italy to find a job and a girlfriend.
In some videos he bursts in rage against some Italian porn actresses he contacted but never answered him, insulting them and assuming they don’t want him because he is poor and has no job.
In other videos he explains some dubious “tuturials” like “Come asciugarsi i coglioni” (“How to wipe your bollocks”), “Come far bagnare una donna” (“How to make a woman wet”) and “Come pulirsi il culo” (“How to clean your ass”).

Origin

In 2010 he uploaded his first videos in YouTube, one of which is an appeal for a job and sees him interviewed by a mysterious female voice; and the other one is an appeal for a girlfriend.
It is hard to define the exact order in which these two videos were uploaded, since the date on the camera is “11-04-2010”, and it could be both 11th April and 4th November. The other video, however, dates 08-14-2010, so it makes sense that it was recorded on 14th August, thus making the job appeal a later video.



This is believed to be the first video made by Giuseppe Simone. It is a recharging by another account as the original video was lost. In this video he claims to be 36 years old, to be searching for a girlfriend between the ages of 26 to 46, and it ends with him saying his cell phone and house phone numbers.




The other “introducing” video. He is interviewed by a mysterious female and he talks about his work life and appeals for a job. He ends by announcing his phone numbers, e-mail address, Skype username and MSN contact.

Spread

Giuseppe Simone became popular because of his own videos and also because he started being featured in Italian YouTube Poops.

Interviewed by Andrea Diprè

Giuseppe Simone reached the apex of his popularity in 2013, when he was interviewed by Italian “art critic” Andrea Diprè, in his column “Diprè per il sociale” (“Diprè for society”). He was interviewed for three times, and in these interviews, while he is supposed to appeal for a job, he pretty much repeats the same concepts as in his videos, like insulting porn actresses and appealing for “vagina” rather than a job.

What follows are the interviews from Diprè’s official YouTube channel.



“Giuseppe Simone and the gift packs for Andrea Diprè”. The first interview dates back to 22nd May 2013. The title refers to some souvenirs Giuseppe gave Andrea during the video to thank him for this opportunity. Among these there is astonishingly some dog food, that Giuseppe claims to be a topping for “friselle”, a snack food typical of his area.



“Giuseppe Simone asks for a kilogram of vagina at ANDREA DIPRE’ FORSOCIETY”. The purpose of job search is almost completely abandoned, and Giuseppe just angrily insults some women that refused him. It is dated 13th June 2013.



“Giuseppe Simone does erotic gymnastics in front of Andrea Diprè”. The last interview to date, dated 17th July 2013. In the first part Giuseppe is topless, but is soon reprehended by the owner of the bar where the interview takes place, that shouts from off-screen “This is still a serious local!”


Mojave Phone Booth

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(WIP)

About

The Mojave Phone Booth was a solitary phone booth located in the Mojave National Preserve in California. After the number for it spread online in the late 1990s, people began to call the booth as well as visit it, camping out with the hope of answering a call. The booth was removed in 2000, but the number was revived in 2013 by a white hat hacker who redirected it to a conference call system.

Origin

In May 1997, a blogger known as Deuce of Clubs received a copy of the independent zine Wig Out![1] at a show for the punk band Girl Trouble. In the Letters to the Editor section, a letter from Californian Mr. N. described a telephone located in the middle of the Mojave desert, 15 miles from the main highway. After going on a trek to find it, he learned the booth was put there after World War II for the people working in a nearby mine that ceased operations in the 1960s. Finding that it was still operational, Mr. N provided the number, (619) 733-9969, for anyone interested in calling.



Deuce of Clubs began calling the number every day for approximately a month before someone answered the phone. Soon after, he launched a website[2] dedicated to the phone booth to share his personal calling experiences as well as draw more attention to the lone booth.

Spread

Deuce of Clubs made several pilgrimages to the booth between August 1997 and July 1999, chronicling each one with photographs on his website. In On September 18th, 1999 The LA Times[3] ran a feature story on the phone booth, noting its popularity online. In November 1999, the fan site Cinder Peak Phone[4] was created, giving the booth a new nickname.

Film

2013 Relaunch

Search Interest



External References

[1]Wig Out – Home

[2]Deuce of Clubs – Welcome to the Original Mojave Phone Booth Site

[3]LA Times – Reaching Way Out

[4]Cinder Peak Phone – Home

911 Emergency Calls

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About

911 Emergency Calls are audio recordings of phone calls made to the 9-1-1 emergency telephone number in United States. Due to their easy accessibility, as they’re recognized as public records in many states, many audio recordings of emergency calls have been leaked online and subsequently gone viral since the advents of online file sharing in the early 2000s.

Origin

In 1967, the President’s Commission of Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice proposed that a nationwide number be created for reporting all emergencies. The following year, the American multinational telecommunications corporation AT&T implemented the 9-1-1 emergency number, with the first call placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Ranking Fite on February 16th, 1968.[1] On April 12th, 2006, YouTuber gabyu uploaded a recording of a 9-1-1 call from inside the World Trade Center during the tower collapse caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks (shown below). Within the next seven years, the video received more than 3.01 million views and 13,200 comments.



Spread

On May 12th, 2007, YouTuber Chase Nunes uploaded a video titled “Police Officer Steals Marijuana,” featuring a local news segment about a 9-1-1 call from a police officer who thought he had overdosed on marijuana (shown below, left). In the first seven years, the video gained over 3.39 million views and 4,900 comments. On May 26th, 2008, YouTuber skidoomxz550x uploaded a prank 9-1-1 call by a man claiming to have been hit by a car and attacked by a dog (shown below, right). In the following six years, the video garnered upwards of 1.31 million views and 1,800 comments.



On May 7th, 2009, YouTuber maverickzyn uploaded a clip from a local news report about a 17-year-old girl who was arrested for blurting the word “fuck” while making a 9-1-1 call regarding her sick father (shown below, left). Within five years, the video accumulated more than 1.08 million views and 11,900 comments. On April 24th, 2010, YouTuber noodl34u posted a 9-1-1 call from a young child asking for help with his math homework (shown below, right), receiving upwards of 2.04 million views and 8,400 comments in the next four years.



On January 5th, 2012, YouTuber Neuroticy2 posted a news report about a mother who asked 9-1-1 for permission prior to shooting an intruder with a shotgun (shown below, left). In the following two years, the video garnered more than 2.09 million views and 19,00 comments. On May 7th, YouTuber AmazingLife247 uploaded a recording of Ohio resident Charles Ramsey’s 9-1-1 call placed after he rescued kidnap victim Amanda Berry (shown below, right), which gained over 1.81 million views and 3,600 comments in the first three months.



Notable Examples



Search Interest

External References

[1]Wikipedia – 9-1-1

Vine Kitten Kicker

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Overview

Vine Kitten Kicker refers to a Vine video uploaded by South Carolina teenager Walter Easley in which he violently kicks a kitten off of his porch, which sparked an online revenge campaign carried out by users of 4chan and Reddit in August of 2013.

Background

On July 28th, 2013, Easley uploaded a Vine video of himself punting a small orange kitten off of a porch into the yard (shown below). The original upload has since been deleted from his Vine account.



Easley’s Vine video largely went unnoticed until August 11th, when Redditor toofrat submitted the Vine to the /r/rage[3] subreddit and yielded over 1,800 up votes and 460 comments in the first 48 hours. In the comment section, many users began posting Easley’s personally identifiable information, eventually prompting a moderator to remove all comments in the post.

Notable Developments

That same day, 4chan users began posting his home address and Google Maps screenshots of his possible residence, to which Easley responded by taunting his detractors via Twitter (shown below).



Also on August 11th, the Internet news site The Daily Dot[1] reported on the developing story, noting that Easley is “only adding fuel to the fire” by openly taunting his detractors and threatening to kick more cats in yet another Vine video, though the latter was subsequently deleted from his account. That evening, a document allegedly containing Easley’s address, phone number and other personal information was released via Pastebin[7], while an online petition titled “Bring Water Easley, the kitten kicker, to justice” was launched on The Petition Site[4], urging the Humane Society of South Carolina to bring him to justice. On August 13th, The Daily Dot[2]published a follow-up article reporting that Easley has made his Twitter[5] feed private and 4chan users has identified the owner of the cat as Twitter user @buck4411.[6]




Search Interest

Not available.

External References

Dinosaur Comics

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About

Dinosaur Comics[1] is a webcomic created by Canadian Ryan North[2] in February 2003. The comic updates every weekday, consisting of the same six panels illustrating a conversation between three dinosaurs, T-Rex, Dromiceiomimus and Utahraptor.

History

Ryan North registered the domain name qwantz.com on November 19th, 2002. In a 2012 Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit, North stated that the name has the “same secret semantics as xkcd,” whose domain name came from Randall Munroe’s attempt at finding a combination of letters that weren’t already being used. The first Dinosaur Comics strip (shown below) was posted on February 1st, 2003 after North created the six panel layout using a clip art program with posable dinosaurs.



In 2004, Dinosaur Comics began to gain traction in the webcomics community with a review on ComixTalk[5] in April and two separate mentions in the commentary of the webcomic Questionable Content[6][7] later that year. On April 1st, 2005, graphic novelist Warren Ellis named Dinosaur Comics as one of his favorite webcomics on his blog.[8] The following month, it was linked on internet culture blog BoingBoing[9] and in June a Wikiquote[10] page for the series was created. That November, a parody site titled NewsRex[12] was created, mashing up Reuters’ RSS feed with the Dinosaur Comics template (shown below). In December 2005, Dinosaur Comics was named the Most Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic on About.com’s Web Cartoonist Choice Awards.[11]



In 2011, a fan composed a timeline[18] of the events in the comic. As of 2013, Dinosaur Comics have been discussed on Comic Vine[25], Think Progress[26], Newgrounds[27] and Comic Book Resources[28], among many others. Additionally, creator Ryan North has participated in several Reddit Ask Me Anything threads[24] and has been interviewed by Smithsonian Magazine[29], the Torontoist[30] and Comic Book Resources.[31] Dinosaur Comics updates are available on Facebook[14], Twitter[15], Tumblr[16] and LiveJournal[17] in addition to the Qwantz.com homepage as of August 2013.

Reception

Parodies

A number of other webcomic artists have emulated the Dinosaur Comics art style for their own blogs as well as guest strips on Qwantz including the artists of Wondermark[19], Sam and Fuzzy[20], Obohemia[21] (shown below, left), xkcd[22] (shown below, right) and Hark! A Vagrant.[23]



Related Projects

Machine of Death

In the December 5th, 2005 Dinosaur Comics strip[32] (shown below), T-Rex tells his friends he is going to write a story about a world where everyone knows how to they’re going to die due to a machine that spits out a vague word associated with the cause of their death. Two years later, North began soliciting stories about this machine from unknown authors via message board.[33] In late 2010, after being unable to find a publisher for their completed anthology, he and co-editors Matthew Bennardo and David Malki ! of Wondermark decided to self-publish the book titled Machine of Death.



The editors encouraged fans to purchase the book on October 26th, 2010 in effort to make it Amazon’s #1 bestseller that day.[34] It was successful[35], despite them not spending any money on marketing materials. In November 2010, the group launched a free podcast[38] featuring audio stories from the book, which continued through September 2012. In February 2013, they launched a Kickstarter[36] to create a party game inspired by the stories in the anthology, which raised $556,596, 2420% of its $23,000 goal. In July 2013, a second Machine of Death anthology[37] was released.

To Be or Not To Be

In November 2012, Ryan North created a Kickstarter campaign[39] to fund a choose-your-own-adventure book based on William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In less than a week, the project raised six times more than its $20,000 goal, finishing at 2900% of that, or $580,905, making it the most-funded publishing campaign of all time.



Traffic

As of August 2013, Qwantz.com has an Alexa[13] rank of 30,354 in the United States and 109,990 globally.

Search Interest



External References

[1]Dinosaur Comics – Home

[2]Twitter – @ryanqnorth

[3]Wizard – North By T-rex / 06/19/2006

[4]Reddit – qwantz’s answer to “What does ‘qwantz’ mean?”

[5]Comix Talk – Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics, reviewed by Justin

[6]Questionable Content – It turns out that Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics is even taller than I am, and a hell of nice guy to boot.

[7]Questionable Content – For those of you still stuck at a 9 to five, why not go read Dinosaur Comics after reading QC?

[8]Warren Ellis – My Favourite Webcomics: Dinosaur Comics

[9]BoingBoing – Web Zen: Comics Zen

[10]Wikiquote – Dinosaur Comics

[11]About.com – Web Cartoonists Choice Awards 2005

[12]NewsRex – Archive from November 24th, 2005

[13]Alexa – Qwantz.com Site Info

[14]Facebook – Dinosaur Comics

[15]Twitter – @dinosaurcomics

[16]Tumblr – qwantzfeed

[17]LiveJournal – Dinosaur Comics (syndicated)Dinosaur Comics Timeline

[19]Dinosaur Comics – guest comic by david malki ! of wondermark!

[20]deviantART – ~samandfuzzy: Dinosaur Comics Guest Strip

[21]Obohemia – ‘Dinosaur Comics’ Tribute

[22]xkcd – Parody Week: Dinosaur Comics

[23]Hark! A Vagrant – Captain My Captain

[24]Reddit – Search Results for “ryan north” in /r/IAmA

[25]Comic Vine – Web Comic Spotlight: 5/30/12: Dinosaur Comics

[26]Think Progress – Dinosaur Comics and Strong Internet Ties

[27]Newgrounds – Dinosaur Comics Thread

[28]Comic Book Resources – The Top 5 Greatest Dinosaur Comics Ever!

[29]Smithsonian Mag – Interview With Ryan North, Creator of Dinosaur Comics

[30]Torontoist – Tall Poppy Interview: Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics

[31]Comic Book Resources – IN-DEPTH: RYANNORTH

[32]Dinosaur Comics – 12/05/05

[33]Truth and Beauty Bombs – THEMACHINE OF DEATH (predicting)

[34]Machine of Death – MOD-day

[35]ABC News – Indie anthology defies literary odds

[36]Kickstarter – Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination

[37]Goodreads – This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death

[38]Machine of Death – Podcast

[39]Kickstarter –

Martin Manley's Death

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Overview

Martin Manley was a sports statistician and former news reporter who committed suicide on his 60th birthday at the Overland Park Police Department in Kansas on August 15th, 2013. Shortly before his death, Manley launched the website MartinManleyLifeAndDeath.com in an attempt to explain his reasons behind taking his own life. In addition to the suicide note, the website listed a pair of GPS coordinates that many believed would lead to a hidden stash of gold coins that Manley had saved up in his lifetime, valued at more than $200,000.

Background

The domain name MartinManleyLifeAndDeath.com[1][2] was registered on May 22nd, 2013, but the website did not go live until August 15th, 2013. In one of the webpages titled “Suicide Preface,”[5] Manley wrote that he was making a conscious choice to die on his terms, not because he was sick, depressed, or in legal or financial trouble, claiming that he had more than $20,000 worth of gold and silver coins. Manley’s suicide note was split into two essays; the first one, dated January 1st, 2012, chronicles his journey to suicide through a discourse[3] between his two online alter egos, Len Tinman the “good guy” and the confrontational Al Marley, about preserving his life’s history on the Internet before death. The page also contains a link to a “how-to” page[4] in which Manley explained the details of his plan leading up to the day of his death, including various methods of suicide that he had considered and instructions for police officers not to contact his family until they contact the station first. He also stated his wish for his organs to be harvested for donation.



In the middle of this section, he included a set of coordinates and a photo (shown below left) of the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens with no explanation.



The second half of the website contained 32 memoir entries about his life, chronicling his life from birth through adulthood. He wrote about his family, wives, hobbies and interests. He also linked to his short fiction, poetry and musical recordings.

Notable Developments

Treasure Hunt

On the morning of August 16th, a link to Manley’s site was posted to the /r/WTF subreddit[7], where it gained more than 16,600 upvotes, 2,500 points overall and 4,100 comments within 12 hours. Within the comments, people began to point out the coordinates in the section about his gold, as a handful of Redditors began to travel to the area to see what was going on. According to I_CAPE_RUNTS[8], police and media began arriving at the scene first after the website was mentioned on local Kansas City radio stations. Other Redditors, including Casparilla[9], confirmed these reports by sharing photos taken at the park (shown below). However, Manley informed his family via letters that were sent via overnight mail that these coordinates were a hoax and he had given his coins away.[10] These notes also instructed them to call the police at a specific time to give them this information.



News Media Coverage

On August 16th, news of Manley’s suicide and the corresponding website hit a number of news blogs and sites including The Kernel[11], Jim Romenesko’s blog[12], the Inquisitr[13], the Kansas City Star[14], The Blemish[15], MetaFilter[16], the Daily Dot[17] and Gawker.[18]

Search Interest

[Not Currently Available]

External References

SwampMusic12

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About

SwampMusic12 is the YouTube handle of Tennessee resident Mark Brown, a self-described “hillbilly” who is known for uploading videos of his pet raccoons Gunshow (deceased) and Rebekah.

History

On July 3rd, 2012, Brown launched the SwampMusic12 YouTube channel, with the first uploaded video featuring Brown spraying himself with a Hannah Montana-branded repellent to stop his raccoon from biting him (shown below, left). Within the next 13 months, the video gained nearly 1.2 million views and 1,100 comments. On July 5th, Redditor CajunSkip submitted the video to the /r/youtubehaiku[1] subreddit, where the post garnered more than 1,200 up votes and 30 comments. On July 8th, Brown uploaded a follow-up video titled “Hannah Montana Coon Repellent Part 2 – Bold Yet Sassy” (shown below, right), in which he explains why he uses the Hannah Montana-branded spray.



On July 15th, Brown uploaded another video of himself dancing on his porch with his pet raccoon (shown below, left), raking in another 1.1 million views and 430 comments within the first year. Over the course of the following year, Brown uploaded several additional videos of his raccoon, though most failed to draw any significant attention. Then on July 20th, 3013, Brown uploaded a video titled “Santa, A Raccoon and Hannah Montana Shampoo,” featuring footage of himself taking a shower with his pet raccoon (shown below, right), gaining upwards of 300,000 views within the first month. The video also brought about a resurgence of interest in the YouTube channel on Reddit.[4][5]



Government Seizure

On August 6th, 2013, Brown uploaded a video revealing that his pet raccoon Rebekah had been seized by the state of Tennessee and that he is petitioning the government for a pardon and permit to have her returned home (shown below). In the video description, Brown urged his viewers to help spread his message via Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s Facebook page and ask him to allow Rebekah to return home to his care. (shown below).



On August 13th, News Channel 5[7] published an article reporting on Brown’s dispute with the state, which quoted a representative from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency who claimed they visited Brown after receiving a complaint from a neighbor. On August 15th, Redditor ymo submitted the video to the /r/videos[2] subreddit, where it received over 2,900 up votes and 350 comments in the first 24 hours. Shortly after Redditor ymo’s video post took off, Governor Haslam’s Facebook page[3] became flooded with pleading messages from Brown’s supporters (shown below). In the coming days, several articles about the government seizure were published on Gawker,[6] The Huffington Post,[8] The Daily Mail,[9]ABC News[10] and The Daily Dot.[11]



Search Interest

Not available.

External References

Colorized History

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About

Colorized History are historical black and white images that have been colorized using image manipulation software.

Origin

Prior to the advent of image manipulation software, black-and-white photographs were colorized using hand-coloring[1] techniques with watercolors, oils, crayons, pastels or other paints applied to the original image surface. Computerized colorization came with the proliferation of digital image processing with cheaper computers in the 1970s.[2] On July 25th, 2002, the earliest known photo colorization tutorial was posted on the photo manipulation blog Worth 1000.[10]

Spread

On November 1st, 2003, the BlackMagic[3] photo coloring software was released for computers running the Microsoft Window operating system. On October 22nd, 2010, Redditor chadathin posted his colorized photograph of a man and his wife from 1939 (shown below, left) to the /r/pics[6] subreddit. Before it was archived, the post gained over 1,300 up votes and 200 comments. On April 17th, 2011, Redditor Moishaha submitted a colorized portrait of former United States President Abraham Lincoln (shown below, right) to /r/pics,[4] where it garnered more than 3,900 up votes and 410 comments prior to being archived.



On December 27th, the /r/colorization[7] subreddit was launched by Redditor Hulde, which is dedicated to black-and-white photo colorization. On December 2nd, 2012, Redditor zuzahin created the /r/ColorizedHistory[8] subreddit, which features user-submitted colorized historical photos. On May 23rd, 2013, Redditor mygrapefruit posted a colorized version of an auto wreck photograph from 1921 (shown below) to the /r/pics[5] subreddit, receiving upwards of 54,000 up votes and 1,600 comments in the first three months. On June 7th, Redditor mygrapefruit submitted a colorized photograph of a street in Saratoga Springs, New York from 1915 to the /r/HistoryPorn.[9] Within two months, the post accumulated over 7,200 up votes and 260 comments.



Notable Examples



Search Interest

Not available.

External References


Cookie Clicker

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About

The Cookie Clicker, or Cookie Game, as it is sometimes known, is an experimental online game where the player’s goal is to create as many cookies as possible. You start out with only a large cookie on the site, and obtain cookies by clicking it. The player can buy upgrades, such as Grandmas and more pointers, to make even more cookies.

Origin

The Cookie Clicker was made by game-maker Orteil in August of 2013. The game quickly became very popular, especially with users on Tumblr.

Spread

Due to the game’s exponential progress, screenshots of game progress and cookie counts became popular on Tumblr and Reddit, as well as many other forums. A Cookie Clicker Wiki has been created by fans, as well as fanart. The littlecookieclickerthings single-topic blog has been created and focuses on the Cookie Clicker fandom. A color palette blog for the game is also up and running.

Examples

EDITORSWANTED. WORK IN PROGRESS. IMAGE/VIDEOSUBMISSIONSWELCOME

I don't have anything to give you, so I'll sing you X

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About

I don’t have anything to give you, so I’ll sing you X (japanese: 何もあげられるもの無いから○○を歌うよ) is a series of MAD videos on the video-sharing website Nico Nico Douga. The videos consist of typically parodying a short footage from the anime Kiniro Mosaic (きんいろモザイク).

Origin

The fourth episode of the anime Kiniro Mosaic, which was produced by Studio Gokumi, was originally aired in Japan on July 27, 2013. In the used footage, which can be found after the intro, the characters Aya Komichi and Yoko Inokuma remembered Shinobu Omiya’s birthday and gave her gifts. Alice Cartelet realized she couldn’t give her an object as a gift, so she sang the song Happy Birthday in Japanese. At the end, Shinobu is asking desperately to Alice why she didn’t sing the song normally in English.


Spread

On August 1, 2013, NND user “カッス部長 / 13963218” created and uploaded a MAD video titled アリス「わたし、何もあげられるもの無いからFLOWERを歌うよ」 (Alice “I don’t have anything to give you, so I’ll sing you FLOWER), featuring the BEMANI song FLOWER created by Yoshitaka Nishimura under the alias DJ YOSHITAKA (left).

Four days later, NND user “こたつ型扇風機 / 18514113” made a video response to the MAD video titling it アリス「わたし、何もあげられるもの無いからEvansを歌うよ」 (Alice “I don’t have anything to give you, so I’ll sing you Evans”) using the song Evans. which was produced by the same artist and. The user was the first, who figured out the exploitability. (right)

【ニコニコ動画】アリス「わたし、何もあげられるもの無いからFLOWERを歌うよ」【ニコニコ動画】アリス「わたし、何もあげられるもの無いからEvansを歌うよ」

After then, the tag “何もあげられるもの無いから○○を歌うよ” has been added to every video featuring the adorable footage filled with Moe and cuteness. As of August 18, 2013, the amount of videos under the tag has risen over 150 search results on NND. The fad of this series is to run the footage for 30 seconds before remixing it for humorous effect, which is similar to the Whisky Zen fad and the YouTube Poop fad No Man.

Notable Examples

(will be added soon)

Richard P. H. J. Benson

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About

Richard Benson is a British-Italian singer and guitarist. He is known for his shouts and lies he tells about himself and his career.

Background and origins

His early life is difficult to know for certain, since he enjoys telling lies and building up a character around himself.

According to what he says, his full name is Richard Philip Henry John Benson, he was born in Woking, Surrey, in 1955 and he moved to Rome when he was ten. He usually remarks having a Roman grandmother, who taught him everything about the Italian lifestyle.

It is also a popular opinion among his detractors that he was actually born in Rome, he is not English at all, and his real name would be Riccardo Bensoni or Benzoni. This hypothesis is enforced by Richard’s accent, that sounds totally Roman and not English at all. He has always discouraged this hypotesis, and he referred to a supposed scan of his British passport.


He started career as a guitarist in 1970, when he entered the progressive rock band “Buon Vecchio Charlie”, with which he published an album. The band broke up in 1972. A legend says that Benson was driven crazy by the fact that a finger infection prevented him from playing his beloved guitar.

Between the 80s and 90s he appeared as a presenter in many local TV and radio shows, where he talked about music (mainly rock and metal) and made cameo appearances in some movies.

Career twist and spread of the meme

In 2001 he had a severe accident, falling from Ponte Sisto footbridge in Rome. After this, he started showing up more rarely until 2004, when he started his own TV program with the local network “Televita”, where he simply talks about music and answers phone calls.

In this period he started to perform live in some roman local, where his exhibition became a trash icon. His repertoire, aside from songs, was completed by weird and ludicrous scenes where he shows half-naked women, comments on the items the raging crowd threw on the stage, and tells dubious anecdotes. It’s around this period that some people started recording his crazes and uploaded them on YouTube, making him known all around Italy. One of his most famous quotes is the extremely loud shout “Un pollo!” (“A chicken!”) that he made when a member of the audience threw a rubber chicken.


One of the first Richard Benson videos uploaded on YouTube. The infamous quote “Un pollo!” is at 0:51

Since then, he started becoming famous among the Italian YouTube users and appeared in a lot of YouTube Poops.

Hoaxes

Richard Benson is also well known for the hoaxes and lies he makes up about himself. Some examples of this are his encounter with a younger Marilyn Manson (that he pronounces “Marlin Manson”) after an unproven Benson’s concert in Vancouver and his presence during the death of English musician Brian Jones. Another hoax is his economical contribution to the pop singer Lady Gaga. Benson claims that the song “Heavy metal lover” is dedicated to him, and that he himself appears three times with a blonde wig during the “Judas” music video. The most famous hoax is probably Benson’s “infernal cane”, a cane that hides a blade within, that Benson claims was built under his specific recommendation by some American artisans, but is actually a cheap product of Chinese manufacture, that can easily be bought in a lot of roman tobacconists.


Richard Benson shows the world his “infernal cane”. The woman he talks to during the video is his long-time girlfriend Ester Esposito, whom he married in 2013.

Richard Benson vs. Francesco Boccia

One of the few appearances of Richard Benson on national Italian television was in 2006, at the program “Stile Libero Max”, when he was teased by the presenter, the Italian comedic artist Max Giusti, who made him listen live to a rejected competitor from Italian music festival “Sanremo”. The musician is Francesco Boccia, who provoked Benson by singing his cheesy song “Cucciolo”.


Richard Benson’s first encounter with Francesco Boccia.

Benson was then forced to listen to Boccia in the next three episodes of “Stile Libero Max”. In the first one, he interrupted Boccia shouting that they were making fun of him; in the second one, Boccia came disguised as a metal singer called Francis Boch, making Richard’s disappointment when he heard “Cucciolo” again much greater. At his last encounter with Boccia, he was disguised as a funky brazilian singer named Francisco Bocinho. Benson reaction is comical an contributed to his fame in Italy.

Denzel Mah Nigga

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About

Mah Nigga is a reaction image used to express agreement with someone.

Origin

The image and phrase originates from the 2001 film, Training Day. The film is about two LAPD narcotics detectives who enforce the law in the ganglands of Los Angeles. At one point in the film, Denzel Washington’s character and Ethan Hawke’s character are in a car, and are having a conversation about something. During the conversation, Washington’s character says to Hawke’s character, “Mah Nigga,” and puts what appears to be a marijuana joint in his mouth.

Spread

It is unknown where the meme first began to take off, however, according to Google Insights, the meme first surfaced around February 2012.

Lifehackable

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((Work In Progress))

About

LifeHackable is a single-topic blog notorious for giving bad or impractical advice and “life hacks” alongside legitimate advice.

Spread

((researching and observing))

Criticism

Parody blogs

Tacospin.com

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Tacospin.com was an idea hatched in Victoria BC Canada, between 5 friends over beers. The site was created and passed around to friends via facebook, twitter and text messaging. The site was then posted to reddit.com where it grew in popularity and was noticed by influential personalities who in turn tweeted about it, including Pee Wee Herman and Kate Von D.

The Arab Spring

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Work in progress.



About

The Arab Spring (sometimes also called the “Arab Spring and Winter”, “Arab Awakening” or “Arab Uprisings”) refers to a series of revolutions beginning in Tunisia in late 2010 following the self-immolation of Tunisian street merchant Mohamed Bouazizi in protest of his mistreatment by the authoritarian government’s officials. Around the same time, the website Wikileaks had, as part of a large trove of documents, released evidence of widespread corruption in a number of Middle-Eastern governments, Tunisia included. This, along with widespread anger over the many examples of authoritarian abuse (including the 2009/10 Iranian election protests) lead to an outbreak of protests across the Middle East, and the resulting removal of several longtime dictators, including those in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.[1]

External Links

[1]Wikipedia – Arab Spring


Quadcopter Aerial Photography

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About

Quadcopter Aerial Photography refers to the practice of piloting a remote-controlled, camera-equipped multirotor aircraft to capture images and record videos from the bird’s-eye point of view.

History

The earliest known quadcopter was designed by French engineer Etienne Oehmichen in 1920. Dubbed Oehmichen No.2, the prototype carried out more than 1,000 test flights during the mid-1920s. In 1956, the Convertawind quadcopter was developed (shown below) with several improvements from Oehmichen’s model. In 1979, the aerospace product companies Bell Helicopter and Boeing began the joint development of Bell Boeing Quad TiltRotor quadcopter for the U.S. Army.



Until the mid-2000s, quadcopters largely remained a military technology and didn’t become commercially available. By 2007, Germany, Belgium, England and Norway had begun operating Microdrones quadcopters[1] for aerial imagery. In 2009, the company DraganFlyer[11] began selling quadcopters equipped with surveillance cameras (shown below).



On December 2nd, 2012, Amazon[6] began selling the DJI Phantom Aerial UAV Drone quadcopter with an attached GoPro camera.

Legal Status

On March 4th, 2013, NBC News[3] reported that aerial photographer Mark Bateson had been forbidden by the FAA to use a quadcopter aerial photographs for commercial purposes.

Online Presence

On March 2nd, 2005, the website FutureHobbies[7] was created to provide product information and recommendations for those who are interested in quadcopter aerial photography and remote-controlled aviation. On September 18th, 2007, the website for the professional aerial photography company SkyCamUSA[8] was launched. In February that year, the open source multicopter UAV platform ArduCopter[2] was released. On December 29th, 2009, DIY Drones Forums[9] member Doug Connell started a thread about quadcopter photographers. In the following years, online discussions of quadcopter photography continued to thrive in RC hobby communities as it became more commercially accessible, including on the RC Groups Forum[5] on January 21st, 2013.In February, the open source multicopter UAV platform ArduCopter[2] was released.

Notable Examples

On May 20th, 2008, Vimeo user Old Man Mike uploaded footage taken with a high-definition video camera mounted on a quadcopter (shown below). On September 7th, 2011, Vimeo user Robert McIntosh uploaded a video featuring quadcopter footage taken in San Francisco, California (shown below, left).



On July 19th, 2013, YouTuber Claytonias F. uploaded footage recorded with a GoPro-equipped quadcopter around Hollywood and L.A. (shown below, left), which was submitted by Redditor Diccfish to the /r/videos[4] subreddit the same day. Within the first month, the video gained over 1.28 million views and the Reddit post received more than 14,900 up votes. On August 4th, YouTuber WeddingMan123 uploaded footage of a quadcopter hitting a bride and groom in the head (shown below, right). In the following two weeks, the video accumulated more than 660,000 views and 500 comments. On August 16th, Redditor QSector submitted the video to the /r/videos[10] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 1,600 up votes and 150 comments in the next 72 hours.



Search Interest

External References

Two Best Friends Play

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About:

Two Best Friends Play is a popular group of YouTube of video-gamers hosted on Machinima and on their own channel, ‘TheSw1tcher’. The group consists of the ‘two best friends’ Matt and Pat along with their associates Woolie and Liam.



Origin:

Back in college, Pat first met Woolie, and then Matt shortly thereafter, spending their time together playing Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Prior to that, Matt met Woolie in the classroom they commandeered to play video games, while loading up Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. After college, Matt called Woolie first to do the Kirby’s Epic Yarn video, since the two have already been doing videos together. Woolie was watching a Street Fighter 4 stream at the time and wanted details (though he really wasn’t paying attention) as Matt was saying that they’d just play Kirby, instead of scripting something. Woolie didn’t take Matt up on the idea, which led to Matt calling up “Angry Pat”, and the two got to know each other better through making the video.

The Kirby’s Epic Yarn video became popular due to the comedy and contrast between the two players, with Matt taking the game seriously and Pat not caring about the game. As an homage to their beginnings, the opening theme to the main series of TBFP videos is the ‘Green Greens’ song from the Kirby games.



Players:

-Matt is laid back and constantly attempts to outwit Pat in order to make him angry. He appears very patriotic for America despite the fact that he is Canadian. He edits all of the videos while Pat plays through the games whenever they are together most of the time.
-Pat is often angry. He is known in the group for his button-mashing skills and the fact that he is a Brony. Whenever Matt complains about something, he always says, “It’s fine” in a dismissing manner.
-Woolie joins many playthroughs including the ones Pat does not appear in. He is joked about often by Matt and Pat when he’s not around. Woolie enjoys a lot of fighting games, as evidenced in the series Scrublords and Fighterpedia. He is infamous for appearing in a video outside of thesw1tcher where he admits he passed up having sex with two bisexual girls to purchase Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
-Liam is the newest member of the group and is popular due to his adoration of anime. He has been known for accomplishing where Matt and Woolie have failed in playthroughs, as shown in the Old School Playthrough of Metroid Fusion and the gym minigames in No More Heroes 2.

Spread:

After seeing the Epic Yarn video, Machinima decided to hire Matt and Pat to do more playthroughs, giving them even more popularity and views. This new popularity inspired fan art across multiple sites in the form of animations, drawings, and more. Also created by fans was a wiki devoted to the people on the show, the sets of episodes, and running gags.[1]

TBFP also has its own line of merchandise, including t-shirts, stickers, and posters.[2]

The parody fighting game, Divekick, had a Kickstarter campaign to fund a PC release (with a $30,000 goal within a 30 day deadline). One of the pledge levels was that two pledgers would be able to add their own characters for the game. Two Best Friends Play were one of the two pledgers and used their character The Baz. The campaign was cancelled after the news emerged that Divekick’s creator, Adam ‘Keits’ Heart, the Editor-in-chief of Shoryuken.com, had successfully made a deal with his employer, Dave Lang’s Iron Galaxy Studios for the game’s release. Heart, however, still honored the pledges of Two Best Friends Play along with the other pledger, and thus, The Baz was now a playable character.


Episodes:

Throughout the series, each episode usually covered a game that was recently released at the time, though Matt and Pat would sometimes play an older game including Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage (as part of their episode briefly playing various Spider-Man games.) Each episode consists of jumpcuts to highlights of the gameplay or specific moments worth talking about. Sometimes, cutaways will occur to help enhance a joke or to make clear of a reference. Notable episodes include the (so far) four-part series of Xbox Live Indie Games, Lollipop Chainsaw, and Injustice: Gods Among Us, which started the “When’s Mahvel?” running gag within the fan community.




Other Series:

In addition to Two Best Friends Play, the Two Best Friends crew have uploaded additional series, such as Super Best Friends Brawl, where Matt and Pat would play against Woolie in free for all sessions in games such as Super Smash Bros., WWF No Mercy, Perfect Dark, and more. A running joke early on in the series was how Pat could never win a Brawl until the Anarchy Reigns Brawl, where he single-handedly defeated Matt and Woolie in a sweep.


Most of the content on thesw1tcher YouTube channel are LPs (or “Let’s Plays”) done by both Matt and Pat, or Matt and Woolie. These LPs include Silent Hill Downpour (which spawned the fireaxe gag with Matt throwing a fireaxe into a chasm), The Walking Dead, Heavy Rain, and Deadly Premonition, with each of these LPs featuring Matt and Pat bickering on what to do next and making fun of things within the games they play. On occasion, they have done “Super Best Friends Watch”, where Woolie joins them to watch the cutscenes of a video game story while they riff on it in the style of MST3K.




In Scrublords, Matt and Woolie face each other in various fighting games notorious for their mediocrity, outlandishness, or its status in video game history, such as Shaq-Fu, Deadliest Warrior Legends, and Sonic the Fighters as part of the Scrublords tournament. Each episode starts with the two fighters in Street Fighter II’s opening edited to look like Matt and Woolie, and ends with the loser beaten up (as a reference to most fighting games that do that) and the winner giving a quote related to the game just played.


As well as Scrublords, Matt and Woolie produced a short-lived fighting game series called “Fighterpedia”, where the two would comically discuss various things in the fighting game genre, whether it was specific games, ideas, or something random. The first episode, Rejected Street Fighter Designs, was the video where Two Best Friends’ unofficial mascot, The Baz, began his development. The Baz is a design based off one of the rejections who had the word “Zubaz” on his shirt, The Baz also exhibiting electricity as one of his powers, and his origins (“born under a blood-red moon”) is a reference to the game Weaponlord. The final episode of Fighterpedia was humorously showing Woolie’s “quest” to EVO 2012, with the knowledge that he would be facing world-famous Street Fighter player Daigo “The Beast” Umehara. The video included highlights from the match with the result of Woolie losing “like a boss”.


Matt and Woolie have collaborated on Old School Playthroughs (since they had a childhood and Pat didn’t) along with a co-operative playthrough of Bionic Commando: Rearmed and a playthrough of Predator: Concrete Jungle. The Old School Playthrough of Metroid Fusion introduced Liam to the Two Best Friends fanbase. Liam’s exposure along with helping further the playthrough gave “Rising Superstar Liam” a following of his own within the community. After this video, Liam would begin to appear more often, even earning a main spot in the No More Heroes 2 playthrough.


On October 2012, Matt and Pat began a month-long series called “Matt and Pat’s Shitstorm of Scariness”, where each day, Matt and Pat would play a video game associated with horror in some fashion. They played some notable games, like System Shock 2, Dead Space, and Manhunt, while also some obscure/bad ones such as SAW II, The Thing, and Amy. The last video for “Shitstorm of Scariness” was the beginning of the Eternal Darkness playthrough.


At the beginning of August 2013, the month-long “Rustlemania” series began, with Matt, Pat, and Woolie all playing video games in the professional wrestling genre. Along with WWE and WCW video games, other professional wrestling games like Rumble Roses XX, TNA iMPACT, and Ultimate Muscle Kinnikuman Legacy have been showcased. At the end of each video, the trio would state whether their jimmies were rustled or not. Each video begins and ends with the theme song of a notable professional wrestler, with Matt, Pat, and Woolie’s heads replaced with the Gorilla Munch Gorilla’s.


Animations:

The animator for the opening sequences of each Two Best Friends Play video, 2snacks, has uploaded videos called “Two Best Sisters Play”, which features Princess Celestia and Princess Luna from the animated series “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” in the roles of Pat and Matt, respectively. The audio remains unchanged while everything else is animated around the audio to make it seem like both Luna and Celestia are in the game themselves, as well as playing it.


Alongside “Two Best Sisters Play”, 2snacks has also animated a few episodes in the side series “Two Best Friends Fun Time Adventures”, where Matt and Pat travel into various video game worlds, although the first episode was simply about Matt and Pat discussing the topic of escort missions in the apartment, and the second episode talking about video game box art, though the second episode helped set up the more adventurous part of the series.


YouTube user PlagueOfGripes has also uploaded videos of animations about Two Best Friends Play, in a similar vein of “Two Best Sisters Play” where the animation is built around the audio, except the animations feature Matt and Pat themselves, along with visual gags thrown in based on the dialogue. The first Two Best Friends Play animation by PlagueOfGripes was uploaded on November 16th, 2012, where Matt and Pat talk about the townspeople in “Silent Hill Downpour” knowing about Pyramid Head and one of the citizens having dated his sister “Triangle Girl”.


Running Gags:

There have been many running gags and inside jokes that have resulted from Two Best Friends Play videos. Notable gags include:

-Matt being obsessed with “American” things, such as Captain America, Tina Armstrong, and more.
-Matt’s obsession with Emma Stone and the Japanese porn star Hitomi J-Cup
-Woolie’s constant asking of when the group will play Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (thus coining the phrase ’When’s Mahvel?‘)
-Matt and Pat’s references to ‘The Woolie Hole’
-Matt’s tendency to call all cars PT Cruisers
-The ‘Shame Car’, a car in which people Matt and Pat deem shameful should live in
-Woolie and Matt’s obsession with Ice Cream Bars

External References:

[1]Two Best Friends Play Wiki – Two Best Friends Play Wiki Posted on 8-19-2013

[2]SharkRobot – Two Best Friends Play Posted on 8-19-2013

Facebook -Two Best Friends Play Facebook Page Posted on 8-20-2013

#SlaneGirl

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[Note: this entry is currently being researched; request editorship]

Background

On August 17th, 2013, approximately 80,000 concertgoers attended Eminem’s concert performance in the small village of Slane, Ireland. During the course of the show, two photographs of a teenage girl giving oral sex in public were taken by an anonymous bystander and uploaded online.

Notable Developments

In the following 48 hours, the graphic photographs were reportedly shared hundreds of times across various social networking sites as well as news communities like Reddit and 4chan, ultimately resulting in the full disclosure of the teenager’s full name and age in the process.



Meanwhile, #slanegirl became a trending topic on Twitter and spread across Facebook and Tumblr, though many of them were subsequently taken down, including the infamous slut-shaming Facebook page Sickipedia.



Inevitably, online mockeries and shaming of the girl depicted in the image soon prompted outraged responses, culminating in a heated debate on sexual cyberbullying and gender bias.



News Media Coverage

The story was reported on by numerous Irish news outlets, including the Irish Examiner[10], Independent[4] and The Sun[11], as well as the internet news sites The Daily Dot[6], Digital Spy[7] and Motherboard.[5]

Police Investigation

By August 19th, the Irish Garda police announced that a major investigation has been launched into the case[4], though officials refused to release any more details for privacy reasons.

Search Interest



External References

Amazon

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(Work In Progress)

About

Amazon[1] is an online retailer headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Though it began as an online bookseller, it has since expanded to carry millions of different types of items ranging from electronics and video games to apparel, food and toys. As of August 2013, Amazon has 11 localized websites for different countries throughout the world.

History

In 1994, Jeff Bezos[6] quit his job at a New York City hedge fund and drove cross-country to Washington state to start a retail website, taking advantage of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Quill Corp. v. North Dakota[7] that declared online retailers did not have to collect sales tax in states where they did not have a physical presence. On his way, he received $300,000 from his parents in Texas and wrote up a business plan for his new venture.[8] Once he arrived in Bellevue, WA, he began selling books online out of his garage. He initially invited 300 friends and acquaintances to test out the system and the first book (shown below) was sold in July 1995.[9]



Cloud Hosting

In 2006, Amazon launched a number of web services[5] including an elastic compute cloud and a file storage service. As of August 2013, a multitude of sites utilize Amazon’s cloud hosting services including Reddit, Netflix and Instagram, In April 2012, Amazon revealed that their cloud hosting powers 1% of the entire internet.[4] In August 2013, cloud computing research company Gartner estimated the Amazon cloud to be five times larger than their closest competitors.[10]

Instant Videos

On September 7th, 2006, Amazon launched a streaming video service[17] in the United States, initially called Unbox. By February 2011, more than 5,000 television shows and movies were made available for members of Amazon Prime. As of March 2013, Digital Trends[18] found that Amazon offers the cheapest service amongst other streaming providers Hulu and Netflix.

Kindle

On November 19th, 2007, Amazon released its first edition of the Kindle[11] e-book reader (shown below, left) for $399, boasting 250 MB of memory and the ability to hold approximately 200 non-illustrated books. The entire first run of the product sold out in 5.5 hours[12] and did not come back in stock until April 2008.[13] The following year, a second generation of the reader (shown below, center) was released with enough memory for an estimated 1,500 non-illustrated books. Coinciding with its release, author Stephen King made his novella UR (shown below, right) available exclusively through the Kindle Store[14] and it was downloaded more than 10,000 times within its first month.[15]



The second generation Kindle had two more models, as well as two international versions, before the third generation was released on July 28th, 2010. By late January 2011, the Kindle library had grown to more than 810,000 and Amazon announced they had been selling 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperbacks.[16] The fourth generation launched in September 2011, along with an Android-based color screen tablet known as the Kindle Fire. A fifth generation of the standard Kindle was announced on September 2012 before the launch of the Paperwhite in October 2012, with 2GB of storage and 28 hours of battery life.

Kindle Worlds

Kindle Worlds is a self-service publishing platform launched in June 2013 that enables its users to submit original works of fanfiction from a selection of licensed works and franchises, including Gossip Girl, The Vampire Diaries and Pretty Little Liars. In early August 2013, they expanded to add in works inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s novels.[19] As of August 2013, 160 stories are available for sale in the Kindle Worlds store[20], including 60 works in The Vampire Diaries world alone.

Fine Art

In August 2013, Amazon launched a fine art marketplace, partnering with more than 150 art galleries in the United States to sell original works. At launch, the portal boasted more than 40,000 works from 4,500 artists[21], but was initially criticized[22] by some bloggers who deemed the art overpriced. However, many commenters flocked to the listings, leaving humorous comments[23] on pieces including a 1868 piece by Claude Monet[24] and a 1941 Norman Rockwell piece[25] (shown below).



Highlights

[researching]

Traffic

As of August 2013, Amazon is ranked 6th in the United States on Quantcast[2], averating 77.2 million unique users per month. On Alexa[3], Amazon is ranked 5th in the United States and 6th worldwide.

Search Interest



External References

Dr. Evil Air Quotes

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About

Dr. Evil Air Quotes is a reaction image based on a still image of Mike Myers portraying the fictional character Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers film series doing an air quotation with his fingers. The various still images of Dr. Evil from the films are used in a multiple of ways, most commonly in the form of a 2-panel comic to point out ironic statements and facts. Other ways are in the form of an advice animal-style image macro or a rage face.

Origin

In the Austin Powers series,[1] a character trait of the antagonist character Dr. Evil is to constantly use air quotes when referencing to specific key parts of his evil plans. This became a more notable trait during the second installment in the film series, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, where Dr. Evil constantly uses air quotes throughout the film to reference to a giant laser he build on the moon.



Spread

[Researching]

Notable Examples



Search Interest


External References

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