About

Nice Guys™ (also referred to as the Nice Guy Syndrome) is a pejorative term referring to a social stereotype commonly associated with young adult males who view themselves as prototypical “nice guys,” while in reality their claims are hypocrite and their only motivation for acting nice is expecting a relationship or sexual favors in return. On the internet, Nice Guys™ are common targets of mock and are often characterized as past victims of the friend zone. The term is intentionally written with a trademark symbol to distinguish them from regular nice people.

Origin

In early 2002, the website Heartless Bitches International published several pieces on the concept of the Nice Guy.^[1] The sections delved into the common character traits of Nice Guys, what makes them undesirable to women, and tips on how they can make themselves more desirable. The sections were particularly critical towards self-professed Nice Guys whose “nice” behavior they saw as hypocrisy, emphasizing on stating that the Nice Guys themselves are the problem.

Nice Guy Phenomenon

Various studies^[15] have shown that women associate different qualities with the “nice guy” and “jerk” labels, showing that women at times have a more positive look towards the “jerk” label than “nice guys” and may prefer the prior option for a relationship. Similarly, many dating advice columns and pickup artists argue that being too meek or “nice” is a common reason for why guys get in the friend zone.

Spread

Definitions and explanations for Nice Guys™ can be found on various websites and feminist blogs. The Geek Feminism Wikia covers a large list about Nice Guys™,^[2] explaining their personality and criticising their way of thinking. An article about Nice Guys™ also reaches the top post position on the feminist Wordpress Matingselfishness.^[4] On TvTropes, Nice Guys™ are explained through an article titled “Entitled To Have You.”^[7] On Urban Dictionary, over 80 definitions exist for “nice guy”,^[5] with the earliest definition,^[3] defining it as “always finishes last,”^[18] dating back to August 3rd, 2003. Most of these definitions are written from the perspective of a Nice Guy™, using common excuses by Nice Guys™ for not getting a girlfriend in the definition, such as the claim that “women always go for jerks.”

The whole ‘nice guy’ phenomenon really supports the idea that people primarily care about physical appearances and that shrewdness, selfishness and narcissism will always triumph over compassion, rapport and “inner beauty.”^[6]

On May 31st, 2011, Youtube celebrity Nigahiga released a music video titled “Nice Guys”, based on the commonly used cynical phrase “nice guys finish last.”^[18] The video features two males who decide to act rude and antisocial towards females on advice in an attempt to get closer to them, only to eventually discover it’s better to show affectionate behavior to avoid being hated. As of January 2014, the video has gained over 51 million views and upwards of 476,000 likes.

On October 2nd, 2011, the Facebook page TheKillerTruth^[16] posted an image (shown below) showing a text message towards women from a self-professed “Good Guy” stating that women are oblivious towards the good guys in their close surroundings and instead date others. As of January 2014, the post received over 38,000 likes and upwards of 8,500 shares. The image was criticised by the feminist blog Feministing^[17] a week later, stating it matches the image of a fake nice guy and not a genuine nice guy.

On December 16th, 2012, the “‘Nice Guys’ of OKCupid” Tumblr^[8] was launched, exposing the hypocrisy behind some of the self-professed “nice guys” of the free dating website OKCupid by juxtaposing their profile photos with contradictory and sometimes even misogynistic statements found in their self-descriptions (shown below). From December 19th to December 21st of the same year, the blog was featured on the women’s interest blog Jezebel,^[9] feminist blogs Feministing^[10] and NY Mag,^[11] The Huff Post For Women subsection of The Huffington Post,^[14] internet humor site BuzzFeed^[12] and relationship website The Frisky.^[13]

Related Term: White Knight

White Knight (also known as Internet White Knight) is a pejorative term used to describe men who defend women on the internet with the assumption that they are looking for a romantic reward in return. The term is derived from the knight-errant stock character, a medieval figure in romance literature that would perform various acts to prove his chivalry. They are often criticised in similar ways as Nice Guys™.

Search Interest

External References

About

Kantai Collection (Japanese: 艦隊これくしょん Kantai Korekushon) abbreviated as KanColle (艦これ KanKore) is a Japanese Free-to-play social online card game created by Kadokawa Games for DMM.com. It was launched on April 23, 2013. The game was widely accepted and became popular, creating a large fanbase.

Development

Kantai Collection launched at April 23, 2013 by Kadokawa Games for DMM.com. Prior to the launch of Kantai Collection, DMM.com were R-18+ adult games site. Trying to attract wider audience, DMM.com starts a partnership with Kadokawa Games to create a niche game catering mostly to the military otaku population with a modest budget and minimal advertisement, its popularity experienced an extreme surge after the players spread the word on Twitter and/or Pixiv.

Gameplay

Reception

The game is extremely popular in Japan. With 1.5 Million users as of January 2014. The common theory why the game is popular is because the player is not forced to spend money to play like other Japanese Social Online Games; the free-to-play nature of Kantai Collection makes in-game purchases optional, and not a necessity.
On 12 December 2013, Twitter officially released the top hashtags of 2013; #艦これ was the most used hashtag among Japanese Twitter users. The game was also the eighth most searched term within Japan on Google in 2013. On 30 December 2013, GameSpark named Kantai Collection as the online game category title for its game of the year awards of 2013, ahead of runners-up League of Legends, World of Tanks and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
Speaking at a symposium held by Kadokawa ASCII Research Institute on 27 September 2013, the chairman of the board of directors of Kadokawa Group Holdings, Yoshihiko Kadokawa, stated that despite the game’s popularity, Kantai Collection is nearly unprofitable for the company, in part due to the game being funded by various company partnerships. Kadokawa’s stock price rose by 1000 yen within June 2013, following the initial rise of the game. It is expected that Kadokawa will need to rely on sales of intellectual property media works such as books and manga in order to raise profits. Kadokawa Games president Yoshimi Yasuda affirms that the free-to-play business model of the game will not change despite reports of a lack of revenue gain.
The Anime adaptation is confirmed to air in 2014, the anime is produced by Diomedea.

Impact
Interest in Kantai Collection has significantly risen over the months following its release, to the point where it has often been compared with the fandom of Touhou Project as an emerging viral fandom. There has been a large increase in online activity and fan-created material relating to the game, such as fan-made artworks, doujinshi and other derivative content. As of September 2013, there are over 30,000 artworks on Pixiv tagged with “KanColle”, and by October 2013, KanColle-related videos on Niconico were watched 36 million times. During Comiket 85, there were 1,136 dōjin circles producing works for Kantai Collection, placing third behind Touhou Project (2,272 circles) and Kuroko’s Basketball (1,462 circles), and ahead of The Idolmaster and Vocaloid; this is a significant increase over the previous Comiket 84 event, which only had just over 100 circles with Kantai Collection works.

About

Tyler Oakley is a popular vlogger on Youtube and a LGBT activist. He was also a member of the Youtube channel Five Awesome Gays^[1] that ran from 2008 to 2011.

Youtube Channel

Oakley created his Youtube channel^[2] on September 18th, 2007. He became a Youtube partner in 2008.^[12] As of January 2014 his channel has over 3,400,000 subscibers. He runs several mini series on his channel such as his “how to” series and “challenge” series. His videos range from the traditional vlogging stlye of speaking directly to the camera for the duration of the video to video reporting on events like annual Youtube conference Vidcon. He’s had many popular Youtubers such as Shane Dawson^[3], Troye Sivan^[4], and Mamrie Hart^[5] guest in his videos. His most popular video, “Twin Twinks Learn Gay Slang,” was uploaded on September 21st, 2012 and has received over 5,100,000 views. His video titled “HOW TO: Be A Bad Bitch” is his most well known video outside Youtube and has received over 2,200,000 views. Featuring Oakley lip syncing to Nicki Minaj’s"Itty Biggy Piggy" the video is popular in its original form and GIF form on Tumblr.

Beyond his own channel he has co-hosted Top That, a Youtube show covering pop culture on Popsugar^[14] since March 29th, 2013.

Career

Social Media

As of January 2014 Oakley has over 1,800,000 followers on Twitter^[6] , over 1,300,000 followers on Instagram^[8] and over 860,000 likes on his Facebook page.^[7] Oakley is credited with starting the Chocolate Bird meme when he posted a photo set of a bird walking into a chocolate fountain on his Tumblr blog.^[12]

LGBT Activism

Oakley is a vocal supporter of The Trevor Project^[9], an organization that works to prevent LGBT youth from committing suicide, where he worked as an intern. For his 24th birthday in March 2013 he asked his friends, family, and fans to donate money to the organization instead of buying him birthday presents.^[10] He raised over $28,000.^[11] Oakley also hosted a livestream from the red carpet during the 2011 Trevor Live benefit.^[13]

Personal Life

Oakley was born on March 22nd, 1989. He graduated from Michigan State University in 2011.

Search Interest

External References

About

Dankey Kang refers to a two-pane image that consists of a Jeopardy! question describing Sonic the Hedgehog and a screenshot of a contestant erroneously answering “Dankey Kang,” a misspelling of Nintendo’s iconic gorilla character Donkey Kong. Though it was subsequently debunked as a photoshopped hoax, the image went viral on Twitter anyway, wrongly labeled as an example of FAIL humor.

Origin

On May 31st, 2010, YouTuber geminitech uploaded a video clip of the Final Jeopardy round on the television game show Jeopardy!, in which the contestant Jen McFann answers “Who is Berkeley?” in response to a clue about the only United States city to share a name with an element from the periodic table (shown below).

On January 8th, 2014, cartoonist Mike Rosenthal tweeted a photoshopped screenshot of the Jeopardy! clip with the answer “Who is Dankey Kang?” written as a response to a clue about the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog. Within the first week, the tweet gained over 1,300 retweets and 1,000 favorites. According to the Jeopardy! Archive,^[4] the Sonic the Hedgehog clue has never been used on the game show.

For Final Jeopardy: This Video Game character is blue, collects rings, and goes fast! pic.twitter.com/Dtk539MGeC

— Mike Rosenthal (@VectorBelly) January 9, 2014

Immediately after, Rosenthal tweeted another screenshot of a Jeopardy! contestant whose answer had been photoshopped to read “Who is Princess Zorldo,” a misspelling of Princess Zelda from the Nintendo action-adventure game series Legend of Zelda.

Spread

Also on January 8th, 2014, Redditor lividd3ad submitted a link to Rosenthal’s tweet to the /r/gamegrumps^[1] subreddit, where it garnered more than 150 up votes and 20 comments in the following week. On January 9th, Rosenthal tweeted a screenshot of his Twitter interface displaying the hashtag “#DankeyKang” as a trending topic in the United States.

whaaaat #DankeyKang is trendign pic.twitter.com/z8Bjn7u8h7

— Mike Rosenthal (@VectorBelly) January 9, 2014

On January 11th, the image was reposted to the /r/funny^[8] subreddit, gathering upwards of 26,000 views and 900 comments. On the same day, DeviantArtist^[2] Kevin Bolk uploaded several illustrations of a blue gorilla named “Dankey Kang,” who bears many similarities to the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog (shown below, left).

Also on January 11th, the Jeopardy! image was reposted by blogger Tyler Oakley on his Tumblr blog.^[7] On January 12th, NeoGAF Forums^[5] member Vanillalite posted the Dankey Kang screen capture in a thread titled “Who is Dankey Kang?" On January 14th, an eBay^[3] listing was created for a shirt with the phrase “Who is Dankey Kang?” screen printed on the front (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

Booben is a misspelling of Vauban, a warframe. Warframes are characters usable in the game Warframe by Digital Extremes. The official site for the game contains forums under the “community” section, where the name Booben was formed.

About

Winamp is a media player application developed and released as freeware by Nullsoft in April 1997. It is widely known as one of the first widely adopted MP3 players.

History

On April 21st, 1997, Nullsoft founders Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev released the first version of Winamp, a portmanteau of “windows” and “amp,” as a freeware Windows media player for MP3 music files. On June 7th, an updated version was released which featured a spectrum analyzer and switched the license from freeware to shareware, urging users to pay $10 after two weeks of use. On March 31st, 1998, version 1.90 was released with support for plugins, different styles of music visualization and the Wesley Willis-inspired audio file of a man saying “Winamp, it really whips the llama’s ass” (shown below).

On September 8th, Winamp 2.0 was released with several new usability improvements, giving users the ability to add custom skins and an improved equalizer. In June 1999, AOL purchased Nullsoft for $80 million in stock.^[1] On August 9th, 2002, Winamp 3 was released with a new application framework. In December 2003, Winamp 5 was released, which skipped Winamp 4 as Nullsoft joked “Nobody wants to see a Winamp 4 skin” with “4 skin” as a pun for foreskin.^[5] The new interface was a combination of elements from Winamp 2 and Winamp 3.

Compatibility

As of October 2011, Winamp became compatible with all major operating systems, Microsoft Windows, OS X and Google. On October 14th, 2013, Nullsoft released the Winamp application for the Google^[4] Android mobile operating system (shown below).

Radionomy Acquisition

On November 20th, 2013, AOL posted an announcement that Winamp would no longer be available for download past December 20th, 2013 (shown below).

The same day, the SaveWinamp^[8] website was launched and a “Save Winamp” Change.org^[7] petition titled was created, accumulating over 48,000 signatures in the first two months. On November 25th, the tech news blog Ars Technica^[10] reported on the “Save Winamp” campaign, which urged AOL to make the Winamp software open source.

By December 20th, Winamp was still available for download on the official website.^[9] On January 14th, 2014, Winamp was sold to the Belgian online radio company Radionomy^[3] for an undisclosed sum in cash and stock, estimated between $5 million and $10 million, with AOL taking a 12% stake of Radionomy’s company as part of the deal.

Reception

Upon its release, Winamp 2.0 was widely adopted as an MP3 player due to its ease of use and customization and became one of the most downloaded Windows applications according to the tech news blog CNET.^[2]. When Winamp 3 was released in 2002, many users complained that the new application framework was unstable and did not provide compatibility with plugins and skins from previous versions of Winamp.

Search Interest

External References

About

William Hung was a civil engineering major from the University of California, Berkeley, who auditioned on the third season of American Idol. His atrocious singing, contrasting his gung-ho attitude, caused his performance to go viral, eventually landing him a record deal and various commercial appearances.

Origin

Hung’s audition was the last aired of the San Francisco auditions on the January 15, 2004 episode of American Idol. After telling the judges, “I want to make music my living,” Hung started a poor rendition of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs.” Judge Simon Cowell soon stopped Hung. With his trademark condescension, Cowell asked Hung, “You can’t sing, you can’t dance, so what do you want me to say?” Hung’s response, “I already gave my best, and I have no regrets at all,” impressed the other two judges, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul. Nevertheless, Hung was eliminated from the competition.

About

The Protomen are an American Hard Rock/Nintendocore band that make Rock Operas based on the Mega Man franchise. The band is known for its live shows that involve the band members dressing up in costumes, utilizing numerous props, and integrating the story with audience participation, and has attained a cult following.

Origin

The band was originally formed in 2003 and initially was largely composed of Middle Tennessee State University students who wanted to major in music-based career fields.^[1] While the band was nascently forming, a former band member called Heath Who Hath No Name wrote a song called Due Vendetta that featured the names of Robot Masters from the first three Mega Man games, as well as supporting characters. From this song, the idea of a Mega Man rock opera began to develop.^[2]

In spite of their enthusiasm as to creating a Mega Man project, the band members were considerably worried that their work would not be well-recieved. However, they would find success within their community at a local bar called “The Boro”, where they would deliver their first four performances (one of which is shown below).^[3]

The Protomenby turbojump

The first album (a self-titled debut, sometimes referred to as Act I: Hope Rides Alone or Act I: The Sons Of Fate) revolves around a dystopian society following Protoman’s failure to save the city, and concerns his Mega Man’s attempt to finish what his fallen brother started. The second album, Act II: The Father Of Death, is a prequel that shows how Doctor Light and Doctor Wily created the city, and how it fell apart. The as-of-yet unreleased and untitled Act III serves as the last chronological album in the story.

Spread

The band became increasingly popular after gaining exposure from gaming-related news sources, including 1 UP, Nintendo Power, and Escapist Magazine.^[4][5][6] The coverage gave the band greater publicity, allowing for the fanbase to grow significantly. As of January 2014, the band has gained over 26,000 “Likes” on Facebook^[7] and 10,000 Followers on Twitter^[8]. In addition, the band has a Subreddit dedicated to it^[9], a TV Tropes article^[10], a fan-run Tumblr blog^[11], and a DeviantArt group^[12].

Eventually, the band began to play out-of-state and at conventions such as PAX and DragonCon. The band also launched a Kickstarter page for a documentary^[13], which was funded within five hours^[14]. The band is involved with a number of upcoming projects in addition to the final installment of the story, including a cover album, a music video for Light Up The Night, and vinyl releases of previous albums.^[15]

Search Interest

External References

About

Arby ‘n’ The Chief is a Live-Action Machinima Hybrid series created by Jon Graham, credited as Jon CJG or formerly Digitalph33r. About the lives of figurine versions of the Master Chief and the Arbiter. It is mainly based around the two playing Halo: Reach and Halo 3, and doing things related to Halo, but also will occasionally focus on the duo spending the remainder of their time pulling off various shenanigans.

History

Arbiter and Chief are two Halo 2-era Action Figures who talk using Microsoft voices. They both live in their owner’s(Jon) house. The figures stay put and do not move. As one would expect of a typical figurine, but whenever Jon leaves, they start moving around, playing games, and doing whatever they please, similar to the Disney/Pixar movie Toy Story. The only four people who have seen them physically is the delivery man from “Pilot”, Scott and Agent Smirnoff in “Endgame”, and Claire in “Arby ‘n’ the Chief in L.A.”. Though, Arbiter has convinced Scott that they are hallucinations from his massive substance abuse, and the “In L.A.” series is counted as non-canon.

Reception

It’s notable that this series was in the heyday of Machinima. So many of the viewers were young and grew up on the haphazard group. The show did take a dark turn later on and fans were mixed with the sudden change. From a carefree comedy to an adventure style sitcom(much like Family Guy). The finale was a big shock to many. It was discussed countless times and some even said “it didn’t end the series right.” Jon gave a rebuttal saying.

“After season six, ending it on a very high note, I felt like I had another story to tell. One that actually had something to say about confrontation with death and anonymity’s effect on the human condition, and its heavy integration with society by the digital age -- but I told myself that if I was going to do one more season, I wanted it to be different in order to explore additional terrain in terms of my writing ability, and I wanted it to hit hard enough that it would be remembered. So instead of building to another happy-go-lucky ending, I decided to go the other way.”

Thous making the story end with a bang

Spin offs

Arby ‘n’ The Chief in LA

Hypermail

Search Interest

Not available at this time

About

Grace Helbig is a YouTube vlogger and actress best known as the former host of the daily video blog Daily Grace and current host of her independently-run channel It’s Grace.

Online History

Helbig began creating online videos for the My Damn Channel Network in 2008.^[1] She uploaded her first video to her YouTube Channel Daily Grace ^[2] on October 10th, 2010. She continued to post a video on her channel every week day until December 31st, 2013.

Each day of the week had a dedicated theme--Miscellaneous Monday, Comment Tuesday, Review Wednesdays, How-To Thursdays and Sexy Friday. Grace’s most viewed video on Daily Grace was uploaded on January 10th, 2013. Titled “The Cup Song,” it features Helbig demonstrating how to perform “The Cup Song” featured in the 2012 American musical comedy Pitch Perfect. As of January 2014 the video has over 3,200,000 views.

Departure From My Damn Channel

In January 2014, Helbig left the My Damn Channel network, and as a result of her departure, lost access to her primary YouTube channel Daily Grace. Though Helbig herself kept quiet on the matter, a number of popular vloggers spoke up in her defense upon learning that she would not be able to keep her YouTube channel or rights to the content she has been creating for the channel for the past five years.^[3] On January 6th, 2014, Helbig reintroduced her secondary channel, It’s Grace,^[4] as her primary channel. Originally created as her personal outlet on October 6th, 2006, the channel has garnered more than 750,000 subscribers as of January 2014.

Reception

As of January 2014 Helbig’s Twitter^[5] account has over 44,000 followers and her Facebook page^[6] has over 17,000 likes. She won two Streamy Awards, which celebrate achievement in online video creation, in 2013, for Audience Choice Personality of the Year and Best First-Person Series.^[10]

Popular Videos

Personal Life

Grace Helbig was born in New Jersey on September 27th, 1985.^[7] She graduated from Ramapo College with a BA in contemporary Arts. Outside her Youtube channel she has worked as an actress in web series such as Ladies of Rap^[9] and My Music.{8] She also stars in the upcoming film Camp Takota, staring fellow Youtubers Hannah Hart and Mamrie Hart.

External References

About

Riccing is a photo fad in which the subject is photographed while squeezed into a confined space, such as inside of a cupboard, oven or refrigerator. The pose is named after American actress Christina Ricci who began sharing pictures of herself fitted inside of home appliances for her photo series “I Can Fit in That.”

Origin

On November 24th, 2013, actress Christina Ricci tweeted a photograph of herself squeezing into a dryer, proclaiming the image as part of her new photo series “I Can Fit in That!”

Being small does have its benefits however. Look out for my new photo series, 'I Can Fit In That!'. pic.twitter.com/sM6HWY6ueD

— christina ricci (@ChristinaRicci) November 25, 2013

On November 26th, Ricci tweeted a photograph of herself inside of a refrigerator, gaining over 275 retweets and 680 favorites in the first two months.

Yes, pants would have been more appropriate fitting-into-fridge attire. But, hey, I saw my opportunity and took it. pic.twitter.com/s3lhRg9Bg3

— christina ricci (@ChristinaRicci) November 27, 2013

Spread

The photographs did not become widely imitated until January 13th, 2014, when morning talk show host Kelly Ripa uploaded a photograph of herself crawled underneath a desk with the hashtag #Riccing via Live! with Kelly and Michael’s Instagram^[2] account (shown below). Within the first 72 hours, the post garnered upwards of 6,300 likes.

On the following day, E! Online^[1] reported that Riccing was a “new trend” and compared the photo fad to the Lawrencing trend involving makeshift imitations of actress Jennifer Lawrence’s dress from the 2014 Golden Globe Awards. According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy,^[10] mentions of the keyword “riccing” peaked on January 14th with just over 320 mentions.

In the coming days, several other news sites and celebrity gossip blogs reported on the photo fad, including The Daily Dot,^[3] The Daily Mail,^[4] US Weekly,^[5]USA Today,^[6] NY Daily News,^[7] Perez Hilton^[8] and Business Insider.^[9]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

Work in Progress

About

An Original Character Tournament is an online artistic competition where an artist portrays their original characters fighting against an original character created another artist, with a group of judges ultimately deciding the superior submission. Submissions can be anything from narrative writing, to animation, the most common format being digital comics.

History

On June 7th, 2007 Deviant Art user and webcomic artist Endling[x] created a journal entry[x] outlining an early form of the Original Character Tournament format. The proposal for the first OCT: Endzone was met with a very positive response, with 610 Artists submitted Original character audition pieces for the tournament. Out of the pool of entrants, 32 artists were chosen to compete.

Reception

After the success of Endlings Original Character Tournament, a slew of other OCTs began accepting entrants to compete in their own creative universes. The online OCT registry OCT Followers [x] has registered over 200 Original character tournaments, and Websites such as Entervoid [x] were for artists to pit their original characters against other those of other artists. Although the format differs for each individual tournament, most require a unique Character Reference sheet in order to introduce their character.
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs31/f/2008/212/8/7/Karl_reference_sheet_by_Unknown_person.jpg

Notable Examples

Several popular characters have emerged from the OCT format, including Unknown Person’s[x] character: Climber[x], and Zeurel [x]’s character: Spoiler [x]

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs21/f/2007/306/3/2/Final_Climber_by_Unknown_person.jpg
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/073/1/3/Blue_prints_MKI_by_Zeurel.jpg
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs38/f/2008/364/0/f/Mr__Inverted_Reference_by_Mr_Tea_and_Crumpets.png

Notable Artists

External References

About

A GIF with sound occurs when a user pairs a GIF that seems to move in perfect time with an audio clip uploaded above or beneath the GIF.

Origin

Spread

Buzzfeed first compiled a list of GIFs with sound on January 18th, 2013^[1], then another on March 5th, and a 3rd on April 25th.^[3]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/sludgepunkslimeharpy/23-perfectly-paired-songs-and-gifs-82dk

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/15-mesmerizing-gif-and-song-pairings

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kevintang/10-perfectly-paired-songs-gifs

About

Miss Officer and Mr Truffles is a fan created cartoon duo consisting of a female police officer and her bear cub sidekick created by Tumblr artist Lemonteaflower. The comic is based on a photo featuring a police officer and a bear cub that circulated widely on Tumblr.

Origin

The original photograph of the bear standing upright next to a police officer was featured in the print edition of St. John’s daily newspaper The Telegram^[7] on June 9th, 2011. According to the report, the photograph was taken at the Terra Nova National Park earlier that month when a bear cub suddenly appeared before the police officer, Const. Suzanne Bourque of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), as she was interviewing witnesses regarding the bear’s reported encounters with the public. After being captured by the wildlife enforcement officers, the bear was subsequently euthanized.

In November 2012, Tumblr user teamcocket^[1] posted the photograph (shown above, right) with the caption reading “officer, come quick, there’s been a robbery.” On January 6th, 2014, Tumblr user Typette^[2] reblogged the photo saying it would be a great concept for a cartoon about a police officer and a bear cub going around solving crimes. On January 11th, Tumblr user Lemonteaflower^[3] responded to Typette’s idea by reblogging the original post along with a concept image for the proposed cartoon (shown below, right), naming the duo “Miss Officer and Mr Truffles.” As of January 17th, the total post has gained over 170,000 notes.

Spread

On January 13th, 2014, Lemonteaflower expanded on her initial concept of Miss Officer and Mr Truffles,^[5] posting 3 more images (shown below) of the pair. As of January 17th the post has gained nearly 200,000 notes.

On January 14th, 2014, YouTuber Flikkof^[8] uploaded a animated short based on one of Lemonteaflower’s illustrations depicting Miss Officer and Mr. Bear listening to Spice Girl’s “Wannabe.” The video has received over 32,000 views as of January 17th.

On January 16th Suzanne Bourque, the officer in the original photo, created a Tumblr blog on which she reblogged several of Lemonteaflower’s posts on the same day, alongside a post^[4] in which she thanked Lemonteaflower and showed her gratitude for the sudden attention her picture had received,

“So I must say I’m really honoured that my photo got out and fell into the hands of someone as talented as lemonteaflower. I was told about this from our RCMP media relations and had no idea that this photo would still be as popular today as it was two and a half years ago. It was a wicked experience to be around the little cub and no less get this awesome picture taken of me with him by my partner at the time.
These comics really made my day! I hope you continue your awesome art! I know we’re enjoying it up here in Canada… ;)”

Notable Examples

More examples can be found under the Tumblr tag “miss officer and mister truffles.”^[6]

External References

About

Music Videos Without Music, also known as Musicless Music Videos, are edited versions of music videos with the background musical tracks removed, leaving only the audio from the video itself.

Origin

On September 29th, 2010, the Internet humor site Cracked^[1] highlighted a video by the comedy duo Fatawesome, in which the music and vocals had been removed from the music video “Beat It” by Michael Jackson (shown below). The video featured added commentary by Fatawesome, which mocked the odd fight scenes in the film.

Spread

On November 3rd, 2010, the “Beat It” video was reposted on CollegeHumor.^[2] On September 27th, 2012, YouTuber Moto2h uploaded the “Gangnam Style” music video without music, garnering more than 21.4 million views and 11,000 comments in the following two years (shown below, left). On April 15th, 2013, CollegeHumor uploaded the music video for “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis with the musical track removed (shown below, right). In the first 9 months, the video gained over 1.6 million views and 3,500 comments.

On September 20th, CollegeHumor uploaded another music video without music, this time using the video for “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus (shown below, left). Within four months, the video accumulated upwards of 1.18 million views and 4,400 comments. On January 6th, 2014, YouTuber Mario Wienerroither submitted the music video for the 1996 hit single “Firestarter” by The Prodigy with the music removed (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available

External References

About

Russell Brand is an English stand-up comedian and actor known for hosting various British radio and TV programs and his roles in major films, most notably as the character of a reckless rockstar named Aldous Snow in the 2008 romantic comedy film Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the 2010 comedy film Get Him to the Greek.

History

Career

Brand made his stand-up comedy debut at the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year competition in 2000. The same year, Brand began working as a video journalist covering the nightlife beat in Britain and Ibiza for the MTV show Dancefloor Chart and hosted the video request show Select. In 2002, Brand hosted the British documentary and comedy program RE:Brand, which challenged various cultural taboos (shown below, left). Starting in 2004, Brand hosted the the Big Brother fan discussion show Big Brother’s Big Mouth (shown below, right).

Also in 2004, Brand performed a one-man confessional show titled Better Now at the Edinburg Festival, during which he openly discussed his history of heroin and alcohol addictions. In 2008, Brand achieved international notoriety with the release of the romantic comedy film Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which he portrayed a reckless rockstar named Aldous Snow. In 2010, Brand portrayed the Snow character again in the 2010 comedy film Get Him to the Greek.

Interviews

On December 1st, 2012, YouTuber Righteous Hammer uploaded a clip of Brand speaking on the Australian talk show program Today, in which the comedian urges viewers to align themselves with the “micro quantum world” rather than determining self worth from other people’s point of view (shown below). On December 26th, Reddiot mscarce submitted the video to the /r/videos^[1] subreddit, where it gained over 4,600 up votes and 580 comments prior to being archived.

On December 1st, 2012, YouTuber Righteous Hammer uploaded a clip of Brand on the Australian talk show program Today, in which he urges viewers to align themselves with the “micro quantum world” (shown below). On December 26th, Reddiot mscarce submitted the video to the /r/videos^[1] subreddit, where it gained over 4,600 up votes and 580 comments prior to being archived.

On June 17th, 2013, the OvergrowDaGovernment YouTube channel uploaded a video clip of Brand being interviewed on MSNBC, in which he criticizes and mocks the mainstream media for manipulating viewers (shown below). On the same day, Redditor depros submitted the video to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 24,800 up votes and 3,200 comments prior to being archived.

BBC Newsnight Interview

On October 23rd, 2013, the television program BBC Newsnight broadcast an interview with Brand, who urged viewers to abstain from voting and discussed his ideas for a socialist revolution (shown below). On the following day, Redditor ecoshia submitted the video to the /r/videos^[5] subreddit, where it accumulated over 920 up votes and 230 comments in the next two months.

On October 24th, Redditor GeneticorpIndustries posted an “ask me anything” request for Russell Brand to the /r/IAmA^[4] subreddit, asking Brand to explain more specifics about his call for revolution. In the following two months, the request received more than 8,800 up votes and 970 comments. On October 30th, comedian Robert Webb published an open letter to Brand on the New Statesman,^[2] which challenged Brand’s position on voting as a means of political participation. On January 16th, 2014, The Cambridge Union Society YouTube channel uploaded a video in which Brand reiterated many of the points discussed in the BBC Newsnight interview (shown below).

Reputation

Brand has won several awards for stand-up comedy, including the “Best Stand-Up” award from Time Out, Loaded Laftas and the British Comedy Awards in 2006, the British Comedy Awards “Best Live Stand-Up” award in 2008 and the British Comedy Awards “Outstanding Contribution to Comedy” award in 2011. As of January 2014, Brand has more than 7.4 million Twitter^[7] followers and 2.1 million Facebook^[6] likes.

Personal Life

Brand was born on June 4th, 1975 in Grays, Essex, England. At the age of 16, Brand began experimenting with illegal drugs and later checked into a drug rehabilitation program as an adult. Since 2003, Brand has purportedly abstained from all drug use. According to The Observer,^[8] Brand has been arrested a total of 11 times. In the September 2009, Brand began dating pop star Katy Perry and the two married on October 23rd, 2010. The pair were divorced 14 months later on December 30th, 2011. Brand has described his personal fashion aesthetic as an “S&M Willy Wonka.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Squid Girl (Known in Japan as Shinryaku! Ika Musume) is a Manga series by Author Masahiro Anbe, and later adapted into an anime on October 4, 2010. Since it’s original creation, the series has garnered a significant online fanbase, spawning a number of memes and fanart.

History

The original manga, written by Masahiro Anbe, first began serialization in the manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Champion in July 2007, and is still ongoing. The manga follows the story of Squid Girl, a girl from the ocean who possesses squid-like tentacles, who comes to the surface in order to take revenge on mankind for polluting the ocean. However, after accidentally breaking a wall in a local beach house while trying to take it over, she is forced to work there in order to pay off her debt. Due to the success of the manga, a 12-episode anime adaptation was produced, and aired between October 4, 2010 and December 20, 2010, followed later by a second season which aired between September 26, 2011 and December 26, 2011.

Online Relevance.

Since the series’ original creation, Squid Girl has garnered a significant online following, on sites such as Tumblr^[1], Reddit^[2], 4chan’s /a/ Anime and Manga board^[3] and /c/ Anime/cute board^[4], DeviantART^[5][6], Fanpop^[7] and My Anime List^[8]. In addition, there are a number of sites holding information about the series, such as the Squid Girl wiki^[9], TV Tropes^[10] and Anime News Network.^[11]

Notable Sub-Memes

Shinryaku no Susume☆/Squid Girl Opening Parodies

Squid Girl Opening Parodies Refers to a series of Opening Parody MADs based around the opening song to the first season of the Squid Girl anime, titled Shinryaku no Susume☆. The videos garnered popularity on among fans on sites such as Nico Nico Douga and Youtube, spawning a number of derivatives.

De Geso

De Geso is a phrase spoken by Squid Girl throughout the series, almost always using the phrase to end her sentences. The phrase grew popularity online, and became the weapon of a number of 4chan spam attacks, in a similar style to Desu. Due to the similarities between the two phrases, a number of arguments have been sparked about which of the two is better.

Chibi Squid Girl/Mini Ika

Chibi Squid Girl/Mini Ika is a meme revolving around a chibi version of Squid Girl, first featured in episode 5 of the original anime series. The character spawned a large online following, spawning a number of fanart.

Search Interest

External References

About

Beauty retouching, or the use of Photoshop in advertisements and magazine covers has been widely criticized on the web in the form of anit-Photoshop campaigns and viral videos.

Viral Videos

Global Democracy

On May 22nd, 2012, GlobalDemocracy^[9], a nonprofit committed to finding solutions to social issues through social media, uploaded a video to YouTube depicting the extreme changes a model’s face and body can undergo during Photoshop. The video ended with a statement about their call to action requiring all advertisers to indicate when they had used Photoshop to Manipulate and image. As of January 2014 the video has over 9,200,000.

Dove Photoshop Hack

Photoshopped GIFs

Websites and blogs have found creating an animated GIF out of a Photoshopped photo and the original can simply and powerfully illustrate the dramatic changes Photoshop can make and the unrealistic expectations men and women can put on their bodies based on the retouched images they are often exposed to.

Several websites have collected and curated these GIFs in lists including Smosh^[1], Buzzfeed^[2], and Heavy.^[3]

Photoshop Controversy and Backlash

Lena Dunham’s 2014 Vogue Cover

On January 16th, 2014, after Vogue released photos of actress and comedian Lena Dunham appearing in their February issue, Jezebel published an article titled, “We’re Offering $10,000 for Unretouched Images of Lena Dunham in Vogue.”^[5] The feminist website explained in the article,

"Lena Dunham is a woman who trumpets body positivity, who’s unabashedly feminist, who has said that her naked body is “a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive” and “if you are not into me, that’s your problem.” Her body is real. She is real. And for as lovely as the Vogue pictures are, they’re probably not terribly real. So Jezebel is offering $10,000 for pre-Photoshop images from Lena’s Vogue shoot."

This call for the originals drew criticism, with TV critic Emily Nussbaum tweeting,

“If Dunham wanted to release her own retouched photos, that might be interesting. Asking for a bounty on them? GROSS.”

and screenwriter Diablo Cody adding,

“This is total mean-girl shit masquerading as feminism. I’m disgusted.”

Jezebel reported receiving the alleged untouched images two hours after their call, and published them in the form of before and after GIFs in an article posted on January 17th.^[8]

Aerie’s Unretouched Ads

In January 2014 Aerie, a lingerie company aimed a teenage girls, released images from a Spring 2014 ad campaign that promised their models’ photos had not been retouched.^[4] The photos featured in the campaign include the hashtag “#aerieREAL” and the tagline, “The real you is sexy.”

External References

About

Curtis Lepore is a Vine video creator who was accused of raping fellow Viner and former girlfriend Jessi Smiles in January of 2014.

Online History

In March of 2013, Lepore launched his Vine^[1] video channel, with the first uploaded video featuring his Boston terrier dog Buster Beans (shown below).

On July 8th, Lepore created his official Facebook^[2] page. On July 20th, a compilation of “smack cam” videos was uploaded to Lepore’s YouTube channel, in which he fails to slap several victims with a handful of shaving cream (shown below, left). On September 30th, Lepore submitted a compilation of notable videos from his Vine account (shown below, right).

Popular Videos

Personal Life

During the summer of 2013, Lepore became friends with fellow Viner Jessi Smiles. The two met in person in New York City in August and subsequently began dating (shown below).

Rape Accusation

On January 16th, 2014, the celebrity news blog TMZ reported that Lepore was facing rape charges for allegedly sexually assaulting his former girlfriend Jessi Smiles. According to the article, the pair broke up in August of 2013 after Smiles flew out to visit Lepore in L.A. When Smiles suffered a concussion during a Vine video shoot the following month, Lepore came over to help her and allegedly sexually assualted her while she slept. On October 24th, Smiles posted two cryptic tweets indicating that she was distraught.

People are so crazy in this world. Please be safe.

— Jessi Smiles (@jessismiles__) October 24, 2013

I don't feel like living on this planet today. Goodbye.

— Jessi Smiles (@jessismiles__) October 24, 2013

Lepore was subsequently arrested on rape charges and was released on $100,000 bail. After the TMZ article was published on January 16th, 2014, Lepore posted a video on Vine informing viewers that he will speak out about the incident when “the time is right”:

In the coming days, several news sites published article about the rape accusation, including Heavy,^[6] Hollywood Life,^[7] The Daily Dot,^[10] LAist^[8] and Gawker.^[9]

Reputation

As of January 2014, Lepore has received upwards of 3.4 million Vine^[1] followers, 521,000 Instagram^[5] followers, 166,000 Twitter^[3] followers and 9,800 Facebook^[2] likes.

Search Interest

External References

About

You ain’t got the answers Sway! or You ain’t got the answers! was a popular phrase that people would blurt out when somebody made an assumption to something. It was short lived but was thought to be 2013’s year for the Kanye Interrupts/Imma Let You Finish.

Origin

Kanye was subsequent in coming up with another crazy meme this year. It was only a matter of time before he lost it and on Sway in the Morning he did just that.
Due to his clothing line dropping him. He was enraged and ready to burst. Making the recognizable quote come about.
It was later that fans and anti-fans alike ridiculed his behavior calling him “immature” or that “he’s overreacting.”
Along with the meme he was viewed as presumptuous and misguided. Saying every time-line and famous company that came to mind.

Spread

As expected. The internet created captioned pics and remix to go with it. Trying to keep the meme as alive as they could.

Kanye’s Response

At 20:11 Kanye touches on many subjects. Thanking fans, saying he’s been too crazy, his responsibilities he has, and..of course…Sway not having the answers.