About

NASA Mohawk Guy is the nickname given to Bobak Ferdowsi, a NASA engineer and flight director of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission, who was seen sporting a stylish mohawk at the mission control center during the live coverage of the Mars landing of the Curiosity in August 2012.

Origin

At around 1:30 a.m. (ET) on August 6th, 2012, NASA’s first nuclear-powered Mars rover The Curiosity successfully made its landing on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater after more than nine months of journey since its launch in November 2011. Described as the most technologically advanced mission to Mars yet, the landing event was broadcast in real-time via television and livestream, garnering much attention from the news media as well as online communities and the tech news blogosphere.

While the tension remained high in NASA’s Mission Control center during the last minutes leading up to the safe landing of the Curiosity, one youthful staffer sporting a star-decorated mohawk cut captivated the attention of viewers at home.

Spread

The man wearing the mohawk was soon dubbed the “NASA Mohawk Guy” by the viewers, quickly leading to the creation of an image macro series on Memegenerator^[10], various chatters about the man on Twitter^[11] and a dedicated single topic blog on Tumblr called NASA Needs More Mohawks.^[5] The man was later identified as Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Bobak Ferdowsi, whose Twitter follower count^[9] skyrocketed from 200 followers prior to the landing to nearly 20,000 followers in less than 12 hours after the broadcast. Meanwhile, Redditor submitted an image post of Ferdowsi’s screen capture from the livestream to the /r/ladyboner subreddit, where it gained more than 1,600 upvotes in less than 24 hours.

Notable Examples

Ferdowsi’s Response

Ferdowsi became aware of his memetic status soon after it was gained, and has since released several statements online about himself and his Mohawk.

About

Scumbag Fat Girl (also known as “Fat Girl”) is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a blonde woman wearing the scumbag hat with a purple and blue color wheel background. The captions typically portray the character as the smug and judgemental female counterpart to the Butthurt Dweller advice animal series.

Origin

According to Google cached results, a page titled “Fat Girl” was created on the image macro website Meme Generator^[1] as early as February 24th, 2010, with the first instance containing the caption “She told me I was fat / so I ate her” (shown below, left). The original image macro template featured a photo of a blonde woman with a purple and blue color wheel without the Scumbag Hat exploitable added on. On March 31st, 2011, FunnyJunk^[3] user shadythomas uploaded a compilation of notable examples in a post titled “Scumbag fatgirl”, which included a new version of the template with the superimposed scumbag hat (shown below, right).

Spread

On January 3rd, 2012, 9gag^[2] user r31m0 published an image macro titled “Scumbag Fat Girl”, which featured the caption “Made you a sandwich / ate it” (shown below, left). On January 31st, the “Scumbag Fat Girl” Quickmeme^[8] page was created. On May 3rd, Redditor Black_Unicorn submitted an example with the caption “Goes to the grocery story / takes the last handicap scooter” (shown below, right) to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[4] subreddit, which received over 3,500 up votes and 340 comments within three months.

On August 5th, Redditor jlo47 submitted an image macro with the caption “’Don’t judge me for who I am on the outisde’ / ‘OMFG I hate those skinny bitches’”^[6] (shown below, left). On the same day, Redditor unhOLINess submitted a post titled “Reddit, this ‘scumbag fat girl’ fest seems a little one sided. I present: scumbag fat guy”^[7], which included a male version of the meme with the caption “Wants a girl who sees him for his personality / if she’s hot” (shown below, right). Within 24 hours, the post received over 19,000 up votes and 1000 comments.

On August 6th, Body Building Forums^[10] member RichStrong posted a compilation of image macros from the series in a post titled “Misc, this scumbag fat girl meme is too ****iing hilarious.” As of August 6th, 2012, the “Fat Girl” Meme Generator page has received over 13,000 submissions and the “Scumbag Fat Girl” Quickmeme page has accumulated over 700 submissions.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

(This is my first entry, so feel free to help me out and edit it as much as you want. :D)

That post gave me cancer is a common image macro response/reaction face to nonsensical, ridiculous posts created by the OP or other users in a thread.

Origin

On an episode of the 1967 Spider-Man TV series called “To Cage a Spider”, Spider-Man is tracking down two thieves who had robbed a bank. They escape in their car, as one of them throws a vibrator at Spider-Man as he tries to swing down and catch them. Unfortunately for him, he gets hit by it, and plummets to the ground. A mob quickly crowds around him while unconscious. One of the spectators there, Captain Stacy, takes him to a hospital to heal. Part of this scene shows a moment where Spider-Man regains consciousness and is holding his chest in pain and confusion.

(Look around 7:14-7:15.)

See more on 60’s Spider-Man here.

Spread

(Work in progress)

Notable Examples

(Work in progress)

Search Interest

(Work in progress; Help wanted) Work is in alpha stage..

About

When They Cry is a series of highly acclaimed murder mystery/horror sound novels written by Ryuukishi 07. The series is in four installments: Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai, Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni Chiru.

Story

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (When the Cicadas Cry)

Higurashi is about cycles of madness and death that occur in June 1983 in a villiage called Hinimizawa (based on a real villiage called Shirakawa). It is divided into question arcs and answer arcs (Kai).

Onikakushi-hen (Spirited Away by the Demon Chapter): Keiichi moves into Hinimizawa and suspects Rena and Mion of the murders. Asks the questions about who or what is responsible for the chain of murders called Oyashiro’s Curse and what is the true nature of Oyashiro.

Watanagashi-hen (Cotton Drifting Chapter): Introduces Shion Sonozaki. Raises the possibility of demonic possession being involved and asks the question of what is going on with Takano’s body.

Tatarigoroshi-hen (Curse Killing Chapter): Satako’s abusive uncle causes trouble. A grisly discovery is found in the Furude Shrine.

Himatsubushi-hen (Time Wasting Chapter): Akasaka investigates events five years ago. Reveals the possibility of a time loop being involved and the idea that a “Villain Prime” is involved in the murder of Rika. Presents the theory that the Sonozakis are behind the chain of murders. Who is Villain Prime?

Meakashi-hen (Eye Opening Chapter): Solution to Cotton Drifiting Chapter. Goes into detail regarding Shion’s past and the events of 1982. Asks the question of what caused Satoshi to disappear. Infamous for being one of the darkest, nastiest arcs in When They Cry. It is a polite act to warn new fans about this arc.

Tsumihoroboshi-hen (Atonement Chapter): Solution to Spiritied Away by the Demon chapter. Reveals multiple theories about the events. Rena becomes more and more paranoid, starting with events that threaten her father. This is the first arc that indicates that the cycles of death and madness are defeatable. It is possible to figure out who Villain Prime is and the cause of the 5 years murders is at this point.

Minagoroshi-hen (Massacre Chapter): Solution to Curse Killing Chapter. Reveals who Villain Prime is.

Matsuribayashi-hen (Festival Music Chapter): Explains the dark and tragic past of Villain Prime, explains what is the true cause of the 5 year murders, and reveals the true nature of Oyashiro.

Umineko No Naku Koro Ni (When the Seagulls Cry)

Umineko is about a mass murder that occurs on an island called Rokinjima. The murders are suspected to be caused by a witch, but it is Battler’s mission to disprove such a thing. Known for being much more violent/gruesome than Higurashi. Nick named “Sea Cats”.

Legend of the Golden Witch: An introduction to the legends of Rokkenjima and to the Ushiromiya family. Functions like the Spiritied Away by the Demon chapter above. The first twilight is but a mere warning as to the horrors contained in this series.

Banquet of the Golden Witch: The family is revealed to have a dark history relating to black magic. Focuses on the cousins and their interactions with various characters. Introduces the Red Truth.

Turn of the Golden Witch: Focuses on Eva and some of the past regarding Beatrice. introduces Eva-Beatrice, a psychotic witch symbolic of the outside world (in universe) believing that Eva was the culprit.

Alliance of the Golden Witch: Focuses on Ange, with much of the arc being 12 years after the mass murders. Introduces the Blue Truth. Bernkastel starts showing her true colors, thus beginning “Trollkastel”

End of the Golden Witch: Focuses on Natsui and introduces Erika Furudo. Lambadelta is the new game master.

Dawn of the Golden Witch: Introduces The Gold Truth. Focuses on Shannon and Kanon.

Requiem of the Golden Witch: Features solutions to many of the scenarios in the previous games. Intentionally worded to have multiple meanings.

Twilight of the Golden Witch: The final chapter that attempts to show Ange the truth.

In Popular culture

The series is very well known in Japan and has a decent following among western audiences (considerably less so with Umineko as of this time). Both series have anime and manga adaptations. As of 7/30/2012, Nis America announced that the anime for Umineko would be localized (not dubbed) for an American release in 12/2012. On a side note, there is a considerable movement to localize the visual novel, which interestingly enough, has its origins in the Nippon Ichi fandom.

The popularity of Higurashi caused a sizable surge in tourism to Shirakawa, the village that Hinimizawa is a near perfect replica of. The shrine there had to replace their shrine wall after the previous one was loaded to the brim with Higurashi related things.

Sub-memes

Uso da.

See the entry on this site. The phrase (translates to “That’s a lie” or “Liar” is a phrase of doom as it means that the world is about to go to hell as Hinimizawa syndrome takes effect.

Best Mom Ever.

Reference to Rosa’s parenting of Maria. This abuse comes to a head in Alliance of the Golden Witch in one of Umineko’s most memorable scenes. Also used sarcastically to describe abusive parents.

Small Bombs

Reference to an absurd solution Battler had for the 1st twilight of Banquet of the Golden Witch.

Nipah!

Verbal tic for Rika Furude. See entry.

OH DESIRE/ Kinzo Shop.

See entry for more details.

Umineko Screen Generator

See entry for more details.

Characters (canon)

• Rena Ryugu (Nick named Cleaver Girl for her trademark weapon, actually a bill hook. Origin of Uso Da and I’m taking it home with me.)
• Shion Sonozaki (Twin sister of Mion. Nick named That Psycho Yandere Chick Who Tortured Everyone to Death for her infamous/horrific actions in Watanagashi and Meakashi hen)
• Bernkastel (Witch of Miracles. Cruelest Witch in The World. Nick named “Trollkastel” for being one of the most infamous, malicious trolls in all of fiction. Only Terumi Yuuki from Blaz Blue is comparable to her in this regard. Is actually a splinter persona of Rika Furude, symbolic of all the bitterness and rage of the Rikas that did not survive. released from Rika’s subconscience after breaking free of the June 1983 cycle. )
• Rosa Ushiromiya (“Best Mom Ever” due to her very abusive treatment of her daughter Maria. Strong evidence in favor of her having Split Personality Disorder. There is a popular alternate theory going round that she is the culprit of the mass murders.
• Rika Furude (Main character of Higurashi in the last two arcs. Is the origin of the Nipah meme. Voted most moe character in 2007.)
• Kinzo Ushiromiya (Origins of the OH Desire/ Kinzo Shop meme. Is already dead.)

Other phrases

• Trolls Trolling Trolls Trolling Trolls. (Nic name for Umineko due to the LARGE number of trolls in the cast i.e. virtually all the witches, whose trolling varies wildly in terms of maliciousness. Best explemlified by “Trollkastel”.)
• Repeat it in red. insert phrase in red text (A request to confirm that something is true by writing the response in red. Red statements are a language of truth in Umineko.)
• Multi-colored text debates. (Spawned as the result of the addition of “blue truth” and eventually “Gold Truth”
• DEEEEEENNNNNNN! (Based on Studio DEEN’s reputation for bad adaptations. Especially holds true for Umineko, which was voted “Worst Anime of 2009” by 2 chan.)
• Umineko ruined Christmas (Phrase that refers to the December 24 release of the final episode of the Umineko anime.
• I’m taking it home with me (Catch phrase of Rena whenever she sees something “cute”. She seems to gain super strength upon this trigger and is known to kidnap people if they’re the target as Hanyuu found out. In the Atonement chapter, this quirk is revealed to have dark origins i.e. essentially “marking her territory” which developed after a betrayal of her trust by her mother.)

Relations to other works./fandoms.

Nippon Ichi:

The When They Cry and Nippon Ichi fandoms tend to get along very well, with much intersect (there are a reasonably decent amount of Nippon Ichi fans that are also fans of When They Cry). One of the influencing factors in the localization of the Umineko anime state side was a movement within the Nippon Ichi fandom.

Puella Madoka Magi Magica.

Due to the work being very dark and copious amounts of tears being shed by the cast, the show is jokingly given the nick name “Shouen Magica No Naku Koro Ni”. Due to the many common circumstances between Homura Akemi and Rika Furude, Homura is given the nick name, “Homurika” as a joke.

School Days.

The same events that triggered “Nice Boat” also affected Higurashi, resulting in episodes of the Higurashi Kai anime to be temporarially pulled. There is speculation that the Nice Boat incident may of actually been out of fear towards Higurashi, since the murder weapon in question is very similar to Rena’s weapon of choice.

The “You didn’t fact check that” meme was created as a response to the right wing propaganda images on that litter facebook and the web.

Its inception was created by the unwillingness of the political right to simply fact check “You didn’t build that” meme and catchphrase were by they would have realized that the statement was taken completely out of context and if they watched or “FACT CHECKED” the whole clip they would have not have to embarrassed themselves.

This is where the where the Obama "YOU DIDN’T FACT CHECK THAT meme was created to combat these images, to fight for truth, justice and the logical way. To be the Bane of all them stupid images on facebook and across the world wide web.

All you need is a picture of Obama, looking angry or cool you’re choice add: “you didn’t fact check that” and hey presto you got yourself a meme or ammunition against misuse of information for political gains. There are also examples of the Doctor or Picard being used aswell.

The meme is still in its infancy but has started to appear on Facebook, and on comment sections across multiple websites.

Overview
Rejected UPCAT Essay Questions (hashtag: #RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions) are questions that were supposedly rejected to be included in the 2012 University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT). The fictitious exam questions are comical references to popular Filipino culture.

Background
The University of the Philippines College Admission Test (commonly known as UPCAT) is part of the admission requirements of the University of the Philippines (UP), administered once yearly to incoming graduates of Philippine and foreign high schools. UPCAT questions can be in English or Filipino (Philippines’ national language), and is usually held on a Saturday and Sunday in early August with two batches of examinations per day in the morning and in the afternoon. With UP being the country’s premier state university, UPCAT yields the most number of examinees for a college entrance exam in the country; close to 70,000 applicants take the UPCAT every year with only 10,000 of them qualifying.

The 2012 UPCAT, held last August 4 and 5, had an estimated 75,000 applicants, which is expected to be a record high. Usually, the five hour exam covers language proficiency, reading comprehension, mathematics, and science. But for the first time, the exam that year featured a 15-minute essay part. Examples of the questions to be answered in the essay part were: “Narrate the conversation when you encounter an alien”, “If your crush says that he/she loves you, will you say you love him/her, too?”, “What is your favorite study tool?”, and “Tell a lie about yourself and prove it,” according to some students who took the exam. A local news network reported that “the essay questions were included to show the applicant’s leadership competency, an important part of the UP system’s original mission for its graduates.” There was mixed reactions among examinees regarding the essay part, ranging from hilarious to dissapointed.

Immediately after the first batch of examinees finished, the essay part of the UPCAT already became a popular topic of discussion in social networking sites, mainly Facebook and Twitter, among students and alumni of the university. Many of them created their own version of funny essay questions (mostly in Filipino, but there are also English) and tweeted it under the hashtag #RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions, which implies that the said questions were supposedly ‘a pool of rejected questions’ for the 2012 UPCAT. By morning of August 5 (even before the last batch of the 2012 UPCAT has took place), #RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions was already one of the trending topics in Twitter.

Notable Examples
Have you read the terms and conditions?

Why are the birds angry? Explain your answer briefly.

Why will Rick Astley never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down?

What is Victoria’s Secret? Enumerate.

Why does it melt in your mouth and not in your hand?

Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?

Ano ang mas malaki bagpack ni Dora? O bulsa ni Doraemon? Justify your answer. (Which is bigger, Dora’s backpack or Doraemon’s pocket? Justify your answer.)

Twitter
http://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions
https://twitter.com/upsystem/status/231833729159544832/photo/1

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_Philippines_College_Admission_Test
http://upcat.up.edu.ph/htmls/aboutupcat.html
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/268387/news/specialreports/weird-essay-questions-surprise-upcat-takers

[Researching]

About

“Aww Yiss” is an expression that comes from a series of comics by the Hark a Vagrant! webcomic artist Kate Beaton.

Origin

The original Beaton comic was uploaded to her website Hark a Vagrant!^[1]

Spread

[Researching]

External References

Editor’s Note: This entry is to chronicle online reception to Mars Exploration from 2000 on.

About

Mars Exploration is a scientific research mission undertaken by various national space exploration programs to learn more about the environment and possible life on planet Mars, as well as to prepare for any possible human mission in the future. The ongoing efforts led by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration has been chronicled online since the inception of the Mars Exploration Rover program^[1] on July 28th, 2000.

History

Pre-Rover Mission: Pathfinder

The Mars Pathfinder was an exploration probe launched on December 4th, 1996. On July 4th, 1997, the probe landed on the planet’s Chryse Planitia region to conduct experiments on the surface. MSNBC^[61] published an article titled “Internet Users Follow Mars Missions”, which reported that NASA was struggling to cope with Internet traffic after the Pathfinder reached the surface of Mars on July 4th. The NASA Pathfinder website received several awards^[60], including 1998 Best of the Net, Los Angeles Times 1997 Pick, Cool Site of the Day and Family Site of the Day. On July 14th, the Los Angeles Times^[62] published an article titled “Millions Visit Mars -- on the Internet”, which reported that the network of mirror sites hosting information about the probe average about 40 to 45 million hits a day.

Spirit and Opportunity

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration’s (NASA)^[2] Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced the Mars Exploration Rover mission on July 28th, 2000 after losing two Mars probes in 1999.^[3] On June 8th, 2003, the two rovers were given the names Spirit^[8] and Opportunity^[9] by 9-year-old Sofi Collis in an essay contest.^[4]Spirit was launched two days later on the 10th from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Just short of a month later, on July 7th, Opportunity went on its way. The rovers did not land until January 2004

The rovers made significant discoveries while on Mars; within the first month of its landing, Opportunity found mineral spheres dubbed “blueberries”^[5] that alluded to water possibly existing on the planet. In May 2007, Spirit uncovered a patch of soil composed of 90% silica^[6], which scientists concluded was concentrated by a water source. Though the two rovers only had a 90 Sol (Martian Days, 92.5 Earth days) mission, Opportunity continues its research as of August 2012. Spirit was active until March 20th, 2010, after it had been stuck on flat ground for 10 months.

Curiosity

A third rover, Curiosity^[10], was launched on November 26, 2011, landing on the planet on August 6th, 2012. Its name was chosen on May 27th, 2009 by sixth grader Clara Ma^[16] who won a Twitter-launched NASA essay contest.^[29] During its landing, the rover live-tweeted the event from its official Twitter account.^[44]

I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) August 6, 2012

Online Presence

The Mars Science Laboratory maintains an active mission page^[14], highlighting news from Curiosity and a vast image gallery^[59] with thousands of photos from the rovers. There is also an Image of the Day^[56] feature, highlighting one of those photos with a blurb about its context.. NASA created a Facebook^[7] page for the Mars Exploration Rovers in January 2008, transitioning it from a personal profile to a fan page on May 8th, 2009. As of August 2012, this page has 24,103 likes. _Curiosity_’s Facebook fan page^[15] was created on July 6th, 2010, and has 260,000 likes as of August 2012. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory joined YouTube^[17] on January 17th, 2007 and began posting videos from its rovers that day. However, the channel only receives 4705 views a day. They also maintain a Ustream account^[18] for streaming events.

On Twitter, NASA’s main account^[11] has nearly 2.7 million followers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory^[12] has more than 335,000 followers, Spirit and Opportunity^[19] have 161,000 followers and Curiosity^[13] has nearly 821,000 followers.

Reception

Spirit & Opportunity (2004)

[Please request editorship to contribute additional information about the online reception of Spirit & Opportunity landings]

Phoenix (2008)

[Please request editorship to contribute additional information about the online reception of Phoenix landing]

Curiosity (2012)

After _Curiosity_’s landing on Monday, August 6th, 2012, the hashtags #MSL^[25] (short for Mars Science Laboratory), #Mars^[28] and #Curiosity^[26] each began to trend, with #MSL^[27] trending on Google+. The offical Oreo Twitter account tweeted^[57] a photo of an open Oreo cookie with red cream with rover tracks going across it as part of their Daily Twist^[58] news commentary series to commemorate the event. Additionally, the rover was given a part in that day’s Google Doodle, which was mainly focused on the 2012 Olympics.

NASA live streamed the landing, which involved a sequence never attempted previously, with a sky crane and an automated program which would cause the rover to land itself. Streaming was covered by Mediaite^[45], Mashable^[46], Wired^[47] and the Huffington Post.^[48] While British newspaper the Telegraph^[49] did not host the live stream, they provided a play by play of the landing as it was happening.

Outside of official NASA feeds, other feeds and watch parties for the Curiosity landing were provided by PBS Newshour^[50], nonprofit organization Explore Mars^[51], the YouTube channel Universe Today^[52] and San Francisco Museum the Exploratorium.^[53] On Tumblr, viewers and fans began posting images of _Curiosity_’s landing as well as images the rover has taken on Mars with the hashtags #curiosity^[54] and #mars.^[55]

Impact

Curiosity: Bobak Ferdowski

Bobak Ferdowski, a NASA engineer and flight director of the Curiosity mission, was given the nickname NASA Mohawk Guy during the live coverage of the rover’s landing. His mohawk haircut with stars shaved into the side of his head drew the attention of Twitter^[36], Reddit^[34] and Tumblr^[35] users, who began sharing his photo and making fan art and image macros featuring the engineer. Ferdowski’s unexpected popularity was reported by Cnet^[38], the Daily Dot^[39], the Huffington Post^[40], the Atlantic^[41], Buzzfeed^[42] and Jezebel.^[43]

Curiosity: Parody Twitter Accounts

Within 72 hours of the rover’s landing, Curiosity inspired four parody Twitter accounts. While three of them, @MarsRoverSwag^[24], @MarsCuroisity^[20] and @SarcasticRover^[23] focused on a sardonic approach to _Curiosity_’s normal tweets, @BiCuriousRover^[22]‘s humor focuses on gay culture. These accounts were featured on the Huffington Post^[29], George Takei’s Facebook^[30], the New Zealand Listener^[31], WebProNews^[32] and the Daily Dot.^[33]

HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. I AM ON MARS.

— Curoisity Rover (MarsCuroisity) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarsCuroisity/status/232366626543116289">August 6, 2012</a></blockquote> <br> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p>Just analyzed a rock… it was hard. Can I come home now?</p>&mdash; SarcasticRover (SarcasticRover) August 6, 2012

Search Interest

External References

• if you still want to participate I’ll open this bad boy open to another round http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/xb7cf/so_my_friends_have_been_doing_th… *

A few weeks ago (as of today August 2012) a friend of mine from Ohio posted a hilarious picture of himself posing next to a monitor with a picture of some un named girl. Before I even had a chance to “like” it he has already taken it down citing “Mal is pissed.”

Much to my delight 10 minutes later there was a picture of his roommate and co-worker posing with a monitor with the original picture. I thought this was so funny that I had to get in the act from all the way in Washington DC. A few more of his co-workers, and a few more of mine later, and we had tapped out our co-worker resources.
We posted this awesome image thread to facebook, and after tapping out our friend resources on facebook, we knew where we had to go with this epic troll. Reddit. A place filled with fun loving people that were equally willing to procrastinate on a lazy friday after lunch.

Less than 24 hours later, we had 55 pictures in the series and 1.8 million imgur views.
We brought this series back to Mal, and her original reaction changed to thinking it was worth it for the laughs, and finished out the series with her last post.

Here’s the final album:
imgur.com/a/nZVQ3

To thank everybody that helped us out on this epic troll, I made the video. A special thanks to my buddy @hodgesmr for being hilarious and thinking up the original idea, Mal for putting up with the ridiculousness, my friends for helping me out with the original batch of pictures, Stephen and Ed for staying after work to help me manage the ridiculous amount of comments and pictures all flying at my Reddit account all at once, and Reddit for the lols.

A lesson on social media? Maybe. A fun time with friends. No Doubt.

music by Girl talk

About

McKayla is Not Impressed is an emerging photoshop meme featuring a photograph of United States gymnast McKayla Maroney wearing a scowling expression during the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Origin

On August 5th, 2012, Maroney performed a nearly flawless vault during the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England, leading many to believe she would win the gold medal for the competition. During her second vault, Maroney failed to reach enough height to land on her feet and subsequently fell on her backside.

After receiving a total score of 15.083, Maroney ended up taking the silver medal for the competition. While on the winner’s podium, Bryan Snyder of the international news agency Reuters took a photograph of Maroney making a scowling expression.

Precursor

In July of 2011, designer Sean Bonner created the single topic blog Spock is Not Impressed, which featured photoshopped images using a cut-out of the Star Trek character Spock posing in a cross-armed stance.

Spread

On August 6th, BuzzFeed^[11] compiled a series of AP and Reuters photographs from the Women’s Vault Final event into an article titled “McKayla Maroney Falls, Lets Out Her Inner ‘Mean Girl’.” The post gained more than 170,000 views within the first 48 hours. On August 7th, the Tumblr^[8] blog “McKayla is Not Impressed” was launched to showcase photoshopped images of Maroney’s glare set against historical or spectacular scenes in the background. The same day, a Quickmeme^[9] page titled “McKayla Not Impressed” was created, which featured an image macro with the caption “Hydrox cookies? / I thought you said Oreos” (shown below, left) that was subsequently submitted by Redditor prbentz to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[7] subreddit.

Also on August 7th, compilations of notable examples from the series were reblogged on the Internet news sites Mashable^[1] and What’s Trending^[6], followed by an article in The Examiner^[3] titled “McKayla Maroney’s Vault Fall Goes Viral: Memes of Olympic Moment Spread Fast.” On the following day, additional notable examples were highlighted on the Internet news site UpRoxx^[5] and the sports news blog SB Nation.^[10] Also on August 8th, The Wall Street Journal^[2] published a post titled “McKayla is Not Impressed by This Meme”, which lauded the series as “the Olympics first breakout meme.”

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, or Seltzerberg, are a pair of writers/directors that collaborate with each other on all of their projects. They make low-budget parody movies.

The pair’s first project was Spy Hard in 1996, and they were part of the writing team for the first Scary Movie, but they did not gang notoriety until Date Movie in 2006, and there later films, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, and Vampires Suck were even more hated, causing an internet hatedom.

They have a new movie coming up called The Starving Games, that will parody The Hunger Games.

About

Fusking (sometimes known as Fuskering) is a method of extracting photos from private galleries on free image hosting services.

Origin

The word “fusking” stems from a Danish word^[12] used to describe a person who was secretly doing work outside of their established trade. The first code written using this name was created by CarthagTuek, the handle of a Danish man named Mikkel Eriksen, early as 2002. He announced the third version of a script site known as Fusker on his blog Sensible Erection^[2] on March 5th, 2002. The site, which is only now available as an archive^[13], utilized a Perl CGI script that was coded similarly to a UNIX/Linux cURL tool to find a library of similarly named files on any image hosting website.

Spread

On March 20th, 2002, CarthagTuek posted a LiveJournal entry^[14] claiming his site had received 250 megabytes of traffic in one day and was the third top referrer to a lesbian pornography site. When another user asked if he was going to take down Fusker, CarthageTuek stated that he was waiting for a cease and desist.

By September 2006, fusking started to appear on the photo sharing site Photobucket^[16], popular with MySpace users. Even if a user marked their album as private, fuskers could bypass Photobucket’s settings by guessing exact URLs for the images based on common file names, for example IMG, DSCF or PICT. The earliest mention of the tech forum Rohitab^[15] on September 27th, 2008, where a user proved the exploit with screenshots of a locked album.

Five days after the forum post, FuskerFind^[9] was launched, where users could tag previously fusked links to make them searchable. Months later, in May 2007, a thread about fusking was posted on the BodyBuilding forums.^[17] A year later, in March 2008, a Photobucket-specific fusker site, PhotoFusker^[11] was launched. That year, the act was discussed on the paintball enthusiast forum PBNation^[18], hackers.org^[21] and the Nav.Net forum^[19], who also launched a Fusking program^[8] that year. 2008 also marked the first year fusking was discussed in the mainstream news media, when Fox 11 in Los Angeles covered the Photobucket exploit, but did not use the term “fusking” when describing the incident

Over the next three years, threads about fusking were posted on the Black Hat World forum^[22] and eBaum’s World^[5], with an Urban Dictionary^[20] definition added in May 2009. On October 6th, 2011, a subreddit titled Photobucket Plunders^[6] was established as a place for fuskers to post their findings. Buzzfeed^[4] and Gawker^[3] subsequently drew attention to this community, and its companion /r/RequestA Plunder^[7] in August 2012, revealing the simple method to retrieve private photos and Photobucket’s relative ignorance of the exploit.

Search Interest

External References

Origin

An image was posted on 9gag with the title “My friend, call it Motivational Mike” and received over 23,000 likes in less than a day.
It is still too early to write anymore as there are no derivatives at the time, however it is clear this meme will become popular

About

The picture in question features a shirtless man, who is assumed to be Mike, sitting on a chair outside at night. It appears as if Mike has some sort of disease affecting his eyes as despite it being nighttime, he’s still wearing sunglasses. Mike is seen pointing at the camera, as if he’s actually telling the person viewing the picture the hilarious motivational text accompanying the picture.

Examples

More to come

About

Otherkin is a term used to refer to people who believe that their physical bodies do not reflect their percieved “actual” non-human spiritual forms. This perceived entity may range from mythical species like demons, dragons, elves and faeries to wild animals and domesticated pets.

History

The phenomenon of identifying oneself as a non-human dates back to the 1970s when a group of self-idenitifying faeries known as “The Elf Queen’s Daughters” was formed. However, the term “otherkin” was coined decades later in April 1990 with the appearance of the word “otherkind” on the Elfinkind Digest^[2], a mailing list for elves started by R’ykandar Korra’ti in March 1990. The term was used to describe the non-elf non-humans that were subscribed to the list.^[5] Three months later, on July 9th, 1990, a poster known as Torin^[6] became the first to use the term “Otherkin” out of convenience instead of typing out “elf/dragon/orc/etc.-kin.”^[5]

Outside of Usenet, the first definitive FAQ about Otherkin was posted to personal website Astraeasweb.net^[25] in January 2000. That June, Otherkin.net^[10] was established for people to not only find information about the subculture, but also to connect with others who felt similarly. By November, the site put up an Awakening essay^[24] to welcome newcomers who think they may be Otherkin. A year later on March 4th, 2001, a LiveJournal community^[26]was created for users of that site to communicate with like-minded people.

Reception

As of August 2012, there are 297 LiveJournal communities^[27] associated with Otherkin. Tumblr has also seen a flurry of Otherkin activity, both positive and negative, that is collected on the Otherkin tag.^[12] There are two wiki-style reference sites^[11][16] that catalog Otherkin related materials. An Otherkin-identified person known as Orion Sandstorm^[28] has compiled a a book list^[8] of published Otherkin writings, a directory^[9] of other related works and a consistently updated timeline^[5] of the history of the subculture, from the 1970s to present. On Facebook^[7], Otherkin has 1718 likes. In 2009, LiveJournal community Otherkin News^[29] was established to share both online and offline updates about Otherkin and Therianthropes.

Criticism

Otherkin frequently receive heavy criticism from non-participants due to the seemingly eccentric beliefs and behaviors engendered by the subculture. Several message boards have had threads discussing Otherkin in a negative manner, including Straight Dope^[17], Forumopolis^[18] and Gaia Online.^[19] In 2008, the Examiner^[23] published an article expressing skepticism towards non-human identities, labeling them “weird” and suggesting their writings satirize themselves. In 2009, Otherkin was included on Oddee’s^[21] list of 8 Bizarre Subcultures. In 2011, humor site Zug^[20] published an article in which the author attempted to break into the online communities as a troll, pretending to get in touch with his “inner elf.”

Impact

FYIAD (Fuck You, I’m A Dragon!)

On October 17th, 2003, Matthew Finnegan, known as Starblade Riven Darksquall, posted a diatribe about his Otherkin beliefs to the LiveJournal community debate.^[30] Throughout the more than 500 comments, Starblade asserted that he was a dragon and did not take any sass from trolling commenters, brought to the community by LJ Drama.^[31]LJD users interpreted his argument as Fuck you I’m a dragon!.

The argument lead to Starblade being documented on Encyclopedia Dramatica^[32] and Wikifur.^[33] However, in 2010, Finnegan was stabbed to death by his friend.^[34] It was discussed on the LiveJournal community Unfunny Fandom^[35], where the original poster noted that Starblade had been convinced someone was planning his murder.

Search Interest

External Referebces

Work in progress. Feel free to request editorship

About

Hi, I’m X and this is Jackass is a catchphrase from the MTV show Jackass.

Origin

This catchphrase come from the reality series Jackass, featuring people performing various dangerous, crude, ridiculous, self-injuring stunts and pranks. The phrase originally heard in the Jackass opening, by Johnny Knoxville

Hi, I’m Johnny Knoxville and welcome to Jackass

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Notable examples

Search Insights

External Links

About

The Result of X is a series of videos made in Garry’s Mod which typically feature a person/character riding on an object or animal in a seemingly endless ocean. Since the release of the original video, there have been many derivatives. There are currently 44 video responses to the original.

Origin

On February 21, 2010, YouTube user PrawnBoy101 uploaded a video titled “The Result of Boredom”. The 24-second video clip features The Heavy from Team Fortress 2 riding a Wailord through the ocean, with Avast Your Ass playing in the background. In the video’s description, he dared the viewers to make a video response, and he supplied two music tracks he recommended they use (which are “Gang Plank Galleon” from Donkey Kong Country and “Sewer Surfin’” from TMNT: Turtles in Time, respectively).

Within the first 24 hours after it was uploaded, the video generated over 6,000 views. The first video response for The Result of Boredom was “the result of needing a new cheap car” by YouTube user wadloperz, which features the Heavy driving a green car on the ocean before crashing into a boat.

Notable Examples

The Result of Me Getting Both Bioshock Games Soon After February Vacation and Finding Both of Them Super Awesome

The Result of too Much AVP

The result of playing too much Half-Life

Gerard Approves is a meme that originated from Youtube and is normally used as a photoshop meme. The words “Gerard Approves” was first used in October 2011 by Youtube user, Jacksfilms. The meme was part of a 4 part video featuring a freeflexor parody (or Wiggledix), HEEEYYYYYY MAAAAAANNN, Bobby The Racist Apple and OOOOO!

The Meme takes form of a person named Gerard, who is supposedly a former pro-athelete, who announces “Gerard Approves” to anything and everything. The first “Gerard Approves” was of was a former marine called Jerrod, who employs “The Flippy-Floppy” on the Wiggledix. The meme continues throughout the video to approve of a tanktop which was bought brand new by Graham (a personal trainer). At the end of the parody section of the video, the voice-over questioned to himself “I sure hope Gerard approves…”., But is cut off before he could finish by the voice over stating that “GERARD ALWAYS APPROVES!”.

After the video was launched, 10 minutes later, the first comm

About

Doomba refers a custom modified version of the autonomous vacuum cleaner Roomba with a weapon or an accessory attached to the top. The name is an amalgamation of the words “doom” and “Roomba”, which is meant to illustrate the machine’s weaponized and deadly nature.

Origin

On March 6th, 2012, Redditor buswork submitted a photo to the /r/pics^[1] subreddit of a Roomba with a kitchen knife taped to the top in a post titled “Home Security.” Within five months, the post received over 23,000 up votes and 550 comments.

Precursor

On February 10th, 2009, the satirical news television series The Daily Show aired a segment titled “Future Shock – Roombas of Doom”, featuring an interview with an engineer who created weaponized Roombas known as “Packbots” for the United States military. During the segment, correspondent Samantha Bee describes the robots as “Roombas of doom. Doombas.”

Also, the popular web comic Questionable Content posted a comic in 2006 in which a Roomba shows the same characteristic as a Doomba, this is possibly the earliest known example of a Doomba

Spread

On March 9th, 2012, the Cheezburger site FAILBlog^[9] highlighted the knife-wielding Roomba photo in a post titled “There I Fixed It: The Doomba.” On April 26th, YouTuber petetweets uploaded a video titled “Killer Roomba”, featuring another Roomba with a knife and a digital camera strapped to the top of its case.

On August 12th, Redditor Dkcub23 reposted the “Home Security” Roomba photo to the /r/funny^[2] subreddit, which reached the front page and received over 9,000 up votes and 225 comments within 24 hours. In the comments, Redditor PhiladelphiaIrish linked an edited photo of the Roomba in a scene from the robot fighting television show Battlebots (shown below, left). The same day, Redditor Skankosaurus submitted a post titled “Doomba 2.0”^[3], which featured a photograph of a Roomba with a handgun attached to the top (shown below, right).

Within the next 24 hours, over 200 Doomba-related Reddit posts were submitted, many of which reached the front page including “Doomba 3.0”^[6] (shown below, left), “Doomba 4.0” (shown below, middle) and “Doomba 5.0” (shown below, right). Also on August 12th, Urban Dictionary^[4] users samwaffleman and The Lord of the Dance submitted definitions for the word “Doomba.” In addition, animated GIFs of Doombas have spread to Tumblr^[5] under the tag “#doomba.”

Notable Examples

Non-Roomba Versions

Several Redditors submitted photos of traditional sweepers and vacuum cleaners with weapons attached.^[11][12]
These variations of the Doomba are typically referred to as a “Poor Man’s Doomba”

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Dub the Dew was an online contest to name a new green apple-infused Mtn Dew drink on the website DubTheDew.com. The contest was raided by 4chan users who flooded the poll with joke names and subsequently hacked the website’s front page.

Background

On August 13th, 2012, an anonymous 4chan^[1] user submitted a post calling for others to vote the names “Hitler did nothing wrong” and “Gushing Granny” to the top of the Dub the Dew^[10] contest page. Prior to being archived, the thread received over 550 replies. The same day, the contest page was submitted in a post to the /r/funny^[2] subreddit titled “4chan Names the new Mountain Dew”, which reached the front page accumulating over 11,250 up votes and 1,750 comments within 24 hours.

Notable Developments

Hacks

Shortly after the raid began on August 13th, the name “Hitler did nothing wrong” was voted to the #1 spot and the site was hacked with a scrolling marquee that read “Mtn Dew salutes the Israeli Mossad for demolishing 3 towers on 9/11!”, a video “RickRoll” and a pop up box that read “le 9gag are legion”.

Bronies Join the Raid

Also on August 13th, the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic news blog Equestria Daily^[4] published a post titled “Mountain Dew Naming Contest”, which urged readers to vote the name “Applejack” on the contest page. The instructions were reposted to MLP Forums^[5], which soon led to AppleJack reaching the #2 spot in the poll. The same day, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[16] published a post titled “Bronies’ Dew Dreams Dashed”, which reported that 4chan users managed to push Applejack off the top 10 leaderboard prior to the suspension of the contest.

News Media Coverage

The day of the raid on August 13th, the Internet news blog HyperVocal^[17] published an article titled “4chan Trolls Take Over Mountain Dew ‘Dub the Dew’ Campaign”, which compared the raid to other 4chan operations such as the Race Guy Hot Topic online smear campaign.. The same day, Gawker^[7] writer Neetzan Zimmerman wrote an article titled “Mountain Dew Asks Internet to Name Its New Drink, 4chan Happily Obliges”, reporting that Mountain Dew took down the contest page after discovering it had been hacked. Also on August 13th, the story was reblogged by The Huffington Post^[11], Geekosystem^[12] and Mashable.^[13] On the following day, the advertising news blog Ad Week^[14] published a post titled “Mountain Dew’s Soda-Naming Contest Crashed by Pranksters”, comparing the raid to Something Awful’s successful prank involving Walmart Energy Sheets promotion with the rapper Pitbull.

Mountain Dew’s Response

On August 14th, 2012, Mountain Dew responded to a tweet by @AntDeRosa about the contest, admitting it had “lost to The Internet” and the contest was only a local customer program.

@antderosa Dub the Dew definitely lost to The Internet. It was a local customer program, not a Dew one, & we’re helping them clean up

— Mountain Dew® (@mtn_dew) August 14, 2012

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

The Mystery of the Druids is a single player adventure game released in September 2001. The game itself received very poor reviews. The ridiculous box art, however, gained attention on 4chan, the earliest recorded thread appearing in August of 2007.
(NSFW) http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=37885903&x=the+mystery+of+the+druids#37887103

Much of the appeal comes from the fact that the face does not accurately display any human emotion, despite the intensity of the glare.

Since the initial threads, interest will occasionally spark new photoshop threads, both on 4chan and off:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3291841&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

The hype has largely died down, but the results of it can still sometimes be seen as reaction faces or in You Laugh You Lose threads.

Google insights: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=mystery%20of%20the%20druids%2Cthe%20mystery%20of%20the%20druids&cmpt=q

http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Mystery_of_the_Druids