About

Chest Hair Bikini is a photo fad in which men shave their chest hair to reveal a patch of hair that resembles the shape of a women’s bikini top. Originally introduced via Twitter in September 2013, the trend went viral almost a year later on Instagram in August 2014, following the emergence of numerous gender-swapped fashion fads like Flower Beards and Makeup Transformations.

Origin

On September 6th, 2013, Twitter user BenFindlay83^[4] tweeted out a picture of himself with his chest hair shaved in the shape of a bikini with the hashtag #ChestHairBikini.

Spread

On November 18th, 2013, Whoa Flow^[5] featured a photo of a man sporting a chest hair bikini as the “Pic of the Day.”

On June 29th, 2014, Neatorama^[6] published a roundup titled “The Hot Summer Look For Really Hairy Guys.” On July 7th, 2014, People^[2] published a post titled “Introducing the Mankini: Chest Hair Gag or Hot Summer Trend?” The trend was covered by several sites on August 11th, including Buzzfeed^[1], TIME^[3] and The Huffington Post.^[7]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Mashable is a news website founded by Scottish blogger and entrepreneur Pete Cashmore in 2005. While most well-known for its focus on technology-related and social media news content, the site has also expanded its scope of coverage to
current events, entertainment, Internet laws, startup industry, as well as web and mobile development.

History

Pete Cashmore^[13] founded Mashable as a blog on technology from his home in Scotland in 2005. Cashmore took the name from mashups^[15], or the melding of two technologies. In 2009 Cashmore moved the company’s office to New York City. On October 30th, 2013, Mashable announced^[16] Jim Roberts, formerly of the New York Times, would begin as their executive editor and chief content officer.

Features

Mashable features six channels or main topics: social media, tech, business, entertainment, US and World and Watercooler (viral web content and memes).

Social Good Summit

On September 20th, 2010, Mashable held its first Social Good Summit.^[4] The event was held in New York City during UN week and featured speakers such as Geena Davis and Soledad O’Brien. Topics of the panels included “Activating Millennials for Social Good” and “Digital Youth and the Social Good: Opportunities and Challenges.” On September 21st and 22nd, 2014, they will hold their 4th annual Summit^[2], featuring guests such as Connie Britton, Michael Dell and Yael Maguire.

Open Web Awards

Mashable held their first Open Web Awards^[17] in January of 2008, though in 2010 the name of the ceremony was changed to Mashable Awards. The first ceremony was held in San Francisco and attended by around 500 people. Awards were given in web based categories such as best meme and best app. In 2013 Mashable launched the Mashies,^[18] which focuses on the use of technology in marketing. Categories included:

• Best Use of Facebook

• Best Use of Vine

• Best Use of Twitter

• Best Social Media Campaign

• Best Use of Instagram, Presented by Olapic

• Best Viral Video

• Best Video Series, Presented by Social Vibe

• Best Use of GIFs

• Best PSA

• Best Branded App

• Best Branded Content Series, Presented by Social Vibe

• Best New Brand

• Best Use of Pinterest

• Best Use of Google+

• Best Use of Real-Time Marketing, Presented by M Booth

• Best Branded YouTube Channel

• Best in Show

• Best Digital Agency

• Rising Star

• Digital Marketing Innovator of the Year

The 2014 Mashies^[19] will be held on November 4th in New York City.

MashableReads

On August 8th, 2013, Mashable announced its online book club MashableReads.^[12] The book club involves inviting the author of the month’s selected book to the Mashable office in New York City to discuss the book with Mashable employees, while also taking questions about the book through Twitter.The first book selected for the group was The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman. Other books featured include The Vacationers by Emma Straub^[11] and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris.

YouTube Channel

On July 30th, 2006, Mashable’s YouTube Channel was created.^[14] The channel features several different kinds of videos including informative such as the Mashable Explains series (top, left) and Mashable News (top, right) as well as entertaining videos such as the Too Long, Didn’t Watch series (bottom, left) and LOL Mashable (bottom, right).

As of August 2014, the channel has gained over 120,000 subscribers.

Social Media Presence

As of August 2014, Mashable’s main Twitter account^[5] has gained over 4.2 million followers. The site also manages Twitter accounts for each of their verticals including Watercooler^[6], Tech^[7] and Business.^[8] Its Facebook account^[9] has gained over 2.7 millions likes, and its Instagram account^[10] has gained over 80,000 followers.

Traffic

As of August 2014, Mashable^[4] is the 98th most popular website in the United States, with over 36% of the traffic coming from the United States and over 12% coming from India.

Search Interest

External Links

Overview

Five Nights at Freddy’s is a unique horror video game by an IndieDB user known as animdude.
The goal of the game is to survive five nights at Freddy Frazbear’s Pizza (a pizzeria and children center) from animatronic animal characters Freddy and his friends.
The gameplay is unique since you have to keep watching the animatronic animals using the security cameras and close the doors to prevent them from getting you

Background

The game was first released on July 24, 2014 at IndieDB as a demo by user animdude, then later released at Desura available for purchase at five dollars. The game is yet to be released on Steam as it is on greenlight.

Development

The game picked up fame when Let’s Player yamimash and Markiplier posted videos of themselves playing the game. Many other youtubers started posting “reaction” videos to the game. The game is also widely discussed on 4chan’s /v/ board as users loved the game

Notable deriatives

Here are some examples of people playing the game

About

Downton Abbey is a British period drama set in the early 20th century in an estate, Downton Abbey, located in Yorkshire, England. The show follows the family who owns the estate, the Crawley family, as well as the people they employ.

History

Downton Abbey premiered on September 26th, 2010, on the UK station ITV and on PBS on the United States. As of August 2014, the series has aired four seasons and 34 episodes. A fifth season is scheduled to premiere in the UK in late 2014 and on PBS in early 2015.

Online Presence

As of August 2014, Downton Abbey’s Facebook page^[2] has gained over 1.9 million likes, and its Twitter account^[3] has gained over 360,000 followers. Its Instagram account^[4] has gained over 110,000 followers. Its first three seasons are available to stream to Netflix subscribers. Fans might also find character sketches and episode guides on the shows Wikia.^[10]

Fandom

The show has several fan run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the show inlcuding you-had-me-at-downton^[6], downtonobsession^[7] and dawntonabbey.^[8] Fans also gather to discuss the show on the /r/DowntonAbbey^[9] subreddit, which has gained over 9,000 subscribers as of August 2014. As of August 2014, there are over 2,000 pieces of fan art tagged Downton Abbey on DeviantArt.^[5]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Funny News Headlines are unintentionally humorous titles of news stories in print, broadcast or on the web, which are often shared on online humor communities.

Origin

On November 12th, 2000, the website HeadlineHumor.com^[3] was launched, which highlights notable examples of funny newspaper headlines, classified ads and signs.

Spread

On February 1st, 2001, the website for the Forum for English Language Teachers in Ireland^[2] posted a page titled “Funny Newspaper Headlines,” featuring examples of unintentionally humorous news headlines. On October 28th, 2003, the humor website Fun With Words^[1] posted a compilation of notable ambiguous headlines gathered from various newspapers. On September 24th, 2007, Redditor liberal_one submitted an image of an article with a placeholder headline to /r/reddit.com,^[6] where it gathered more than 930 votes (75% upvoted) prior to being archived (shown below).

On July 14th, 2009, Redditor theprizefight posted a photo of a television news report featuring a squirrel with a yogurt container on its head with the headline “One squirrel , one cup” (shown below, left). Prior to being archived, the post received upwards of 2,500 votes (90% upvoted) on the /r/funny^[5] subreddit. On June 23rd, 2010, Redditor krodnoc submitted a photograph of a newspaper headline about a woman who attacked her ex-girlfriend while wearing a sumo wrestler suit to the /r/pics^[4] subreddit, where it gained over 800 votes (94% upvoted) before it was archived (shown below, right).

On December 22nd, 2011, BuzzFeed^[7] highlighted 50 funny headlines from the past year. On May 24th, 2012, The Huffington Post^[9] published a compilation of poorly written headlines containing obvious statements. On April 22nd, 2013, the Internet humor blog Pleated Jeans^[8] highlighted 23 funny headline examples.

Search Interest

External References

About

Unturned is an free to play indie sandbox survival horror game developed by seventeen year old Nelson Sexton. It was greenlit on Steam and subsequently the amount of concurrent users surpassed that of Team Fortress 2 and Garry’s Mod. The game has been compared to Minecraft due to it’s sandbox elements and art style and DayZ due to it’s zombie survival element.

History

Unturned started out as a prototype on the sandbox MMO Roblox, the prototype had no survival elements or zombies and was similar to Pay Day 2. Roblox players suggested that the games developer, Nelson, added zombies and a survival aspect, Nelson listened to these suggestions and created Deadzone.

Deadzone was inspired by games such as DayZ and WarZ as well as Apocalypse Rising, another popular zombie survival game on Roblox. When Apocalypse Rising went offline, Deadzone was suddenly flooded with players and became one of the most played games on Roblox with over five million people plays. A sequel to the game; Deadzone 2 was in development and had features very similar to the finish product of Unturned.

While Deadzone 2 was in development, the original Deadzone was hacked and the game released to the public. Many users re-released Deadzone claiming that it was there own. Roblox attempted to delete these copies and in doing so also deleted the original Deadzone. The combination of Deadzone being deleted and the limitations of the Roblox engine led to Deadzone 2 being cancelled and Nelson moving on to create Unturned using the Unity game engine.

The Unturned that was released on Steam was actually the sequel to the original Unturned which started out as a downloadable game and was then remade into a browser game. Due to limitations with the structure of the original Unturned and the costs of hosting the Unturned downloads, he decided to create a sequel to Unturned which would be put on Steam Greenlight.

Spread

As soon as Unturned 2 was greenlit, it grew in popularity due to being one of the only free sandbox survival horror games on Steam. Soon, Pewdiepie played Unturned along with Cryaotic and CinnamonToastKen, the video received five million views and soon, many more people began uploading themselves playing Unturned 2.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External Links

About

The phrase, “I’m gonna blow”, is a shock phrase in the videogame Rust used to indicate one is about to violently murder another player in order to incite surprise in the victim. It usually starts with a whisper, like “I’m gonna…” and then eventually ends up in the player yelling shocking loud while screaming “Blow!” before shooting the other player. It is more of a humorous way of killing a player that is often performed on players that would be unable to defend themselves since most players familiar with the phrase would be able to foresee the attack. The meme as a whole is a parody of the interactions between players on Rust, depicting that a “proper greeting” would only be a violent one resulting in the deaths of a neighbor, illustrated by how the creator of the guide advises that the viewer “takes notes” on how the players interact.

Origin

The shock phrase originates from a joke guide for the videogame (shown below), that deceptively acts as a helpful page to teach players the “proper” way to greet and respond to an approach by another player. However, once the reader is directed to the main video, the reader is presented with an unseen neighbor knocking on the recorder’s door while the recorder softly whispers the phrase, “I’m gonna… I’m gonna blow!” in a progressively louder voice before opening the door and shooting the knocking player in the face with a sawed-off shotgun.

The video (seen below), rapidly grew in popularity due to many positive and hearty responses from readers who had laughed from the deceptively helpful guide. In mere days, the guide skyrocket in popularity and remained the most popular Steam Guide on Rust for weeks before eventually being replaced by legitimate guides.

Spread

The video itself spawned many reactions from the audience as well as it’s own animation made by the animator, Zortov, (Seen below), which helped the gaming meme’s growth but not as much as the posts on sits like the Rust subreddit, where within about 30 minutes a post of the video titled “How I Greet my Neighbor When he Knocks on my Door” received over 60 upvotes and remained one of the most popular posts on the subreddit for about a week. The post on the subreddit had been deleted for unknown reasons, however.

About

BatteryIncluded refers to the American colostomy bag and troll likely originated from Mexico. It is said that he has many friends within Wikipedia, the WMF and the Internet. Like Dennis Brown, BatteryIncluded has gravitated into positions of higher authority on Wikipedia and the Internet and using highly misleading statements to re-write histories of people and manipulate everyone to their fates, namely an increase in their medication for the “good mental health”, which eventually results in their deaths, in which he, as well as Stanistani, an administrator of Wikipediocracy using the name Zoloft, defines it as “well”.

Online History

He joined Wikipedia in 2007, and since then, he has made many exceptionally good contributions on Wikipedia, and like most functional and disease-free editors, incited the wrath of an aspie, which is how he came to have an article on this site. BatteryIncluded edits mostly fascinating articles about space and shit, with an edit count well into the thousands ^[1]. BatteryIncluded made himself an enemy or two, and told them to “write a book”, which is Wikipedian for “climb a tower of dicks and eat your way down”. He then refused to even acknowledge calls for civility on his part. BatteryIncluded notified the involved editors of the Life article about Stevertigo’s editing restrictions, however, he raped his shit and threatened with retaliatory shit. Worse still, BatteryIncluded was raped once for his incivility by William M. Connolley. He also asked that all Martian spiders be moved to the Dark Dune Spots, which seems to be a sensible precaution against Martian spider invasions.

He got involved in an edit war over Astrobiology with Viriditas, whom he accused of using IP socks to delete his shit.

Between late January and early April 2012, an editor (who is a sockpuppet of Bryan Seecrets) was using anonymous IPs to add unnecessary statements to the Phobos-Grunt article, one of the articles he largely contributes. Responding to this, he reverted and deleted most of his shit, and the article was semi-protected was protected as he was persistent in adding it. Initially, Starkiller88 seemed to be insistent on adding claims that the Fobos-Grunt mission would not be repeated, based on speculation that Russia was about to join the European ExoMars program as its partner. As this came to pass, he took the opposite direction, that the mission would be cleared for a repeat, based on the opinion of a single scientist. His efforts to fag up the article’s talk page were fruitless. Eventually, BatteryIncluded made a series of outrageous posts in an attempt to get him to stop speaking the truth about the planned repeat mission to Phobos. However, this had no effect, as it simply caused Starkiller to start claiming at every possible opportunity, and with much emphasis as possible, that no other mission could take its place in the future. This was finally resolved according to policy.

Starkiller also claimed the scientists and engineers behind the Phobos-Grunt mission were accused of treason, particularly Alexander Zakharov, who he also claimed would die in 2015 or be “disappeared”, cited by a single user-generated content on Pastebin, he attempted to add a page about an operation by Anonymous called “Operation Phobos-Gone”, a “campaign” to redress the injustice of a Russian rocketry club being closed following a programming error left a $163 million dollar space probe stuck in low earth orbit, a firable offense in most office settings. This campaign was evidenced by only a twitter account and a shit LiveJournal knockoff journal, but that didn’t stop Starkiller88 from writing an article up to cover the whole affair. When asked to account for his creation of a pointless non-article about a twitter feed, Starkiller admitted in broken, near unreadable prose that he himself had started the twitter feed and the journal the article was based upon, appearing to be inciting criminal and vigilante activities against the parties involved in order to make the claims he was adding to these articles genuine. He said he was forced to do so because BatteryIncluded stated the fact that no further Phobos probes were planned. Making this point to him had been the cause of his insistence that there would never be another mission to Phobos.

After having his shit article raped as pure vandalism and smelling the burnt flesh stench of banhammer in the air, Starkiller88 went running like a child to BatteryIncluded in a desperate attempt to avoid being shit-canned, starting a harassment campaign on him. His messages range from his pleads to a supposed “redemption”, to a claimed compulsion to vandalize Wikipedia, and lately, to blaming BatteryIncluded for infecting his computer with malware, while he told him not to do so.

Shortly after this conversation, Starkiller88 went on to user page vandalism with pain series attacks against BatteryIncluded in retaliation for his anger. Despite many contributions to pages such as Anonymous, Malaysian National Space Agency, Future spaceflights, various Malaysian Railways, and Series of Unfortunate Events pages, the editor known as Starkiller88 was permabanned for this, with no administrator willing to challenge this ban who doesn’t want to take their full brunt of his wrath. He informed one administrator, Boing! said Zebedee to enact this ban by using fabricated statements, becoming abusive in the process in making unilateral weighted decisions, and a month later, he awarded the administrator with a indirect personal attack. This would later be followed by ArbCom and BASC, including AGK; that’s the reasons why most appeals to the latter were denied without any further reason.

This events have sent a clear signal that Wikipedia’s united community do not let his interaction with the project to continue with personal attacks and outing, having an ever-lasting ripple effect throughout the Internet, causing every website and their communities to take a more robust and vile approach to any actions taken therein against Wikipedia and its members involved. The individual behind “Starkiller88” was banned from Wikipediocracy, Bleeping Computer and Above Top Secret; and still continues his anti-Wikipedianistic activities elsewhere.

Not being a banned loser himself, BatteryIncluded continues to edit without any opposition from others. That is, until August when he made a partial reversion of another editor’s edits and engaged in asserting that it introduced scrolling lists and violated common sense. Using his previous incivility against Starkiller88, he once again told Piotrus to stay away from an article to place what he called as his flashy tricks and “Hello Kittys” somewhere. He got a warning, but he deleted several posts to cover up, thereby ignoring it.
His ignorance became apparent when he ran into FitJock87 over the inclusion of VIGO System in the Curiosity rover article. Although this resulted in the information about VIGO is being retained with his corrections that they are just a sub-system vendor rather than its designers, he was intent on watching him. This caused FitJock87 to call him “not only stupid, but also pathetic,” similar to the comments from Starkiller88’s earlier vandalism of his userpage as being disruptive to make a point responding to BatteryIncluded’s incivility.
2013

After his reversion warring on the 2013 Russian meteor event, BatteryIncluded began wanting another editor, Medeis, to bitch and fight another person who attacked him and take “his meds”, killing himself. Then, an unimaginable happened – the outing of Russavia by Cla68 and the subsequent events resulting in the resignation of ArbCom member Hersfold. His resignation is attributed to the recent outings of editors, of which BatteryIncluded has did in the past.

BatteryIncluded and his people supported Russavia’s indefinite block in June 2013.

Reputation

BatteryIncluded has gained friends, expanding the alliance. After the Phobos-Grunt campaign of 2012, Dennis Brown, AGK, and Boing! said Zebedee has joined him, then followed by Zoloft, Beyond My Ken, and others.

Personal Life

Nothing much is known about his personal life.

Search Interest

As of 2014, the search interest of BatteryIncluded has yet to be shown.

External References

^[1]BatteryIncluded’s user page

About

John Oliver is an English actor and comedian best known for his time as a correspondent on the comedic news show The Daily Show and host of the HBO weekly comedic news show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Acting Career

Oliver made his acting debut on the mini-series Masterpiece Theatre: Bleak House in 1985. He gained a few more TV roles in the early 2000s, making his feature film debut in the 2008 film The Love Guru.

The Daily Show

John Oliver first appeared on The Daily Show on July 31st, 2006. He remained a recurring correspondent until leaving the show for his own HBO show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on December 19th, 2013. He acted as the show’s host for 32 episodes from June 10th, 2013, through August 15th, 2013.

Accolades

Oliver shared six Emmy nominations for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Series with the writers of The Daily Show winning three in 2009, 2011 and 2012. He was also shared six Writers Guild Awards nominations for Comedy/Variety Series winning one in 2010.

Search Interest

External References

About

Gnome Child is a type of non-player character featured in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game Runescape that has gained notoriety for its tendencies to respond with bizarre and philosophical quotes when approached by the player.

Origin

On December 12th, 2002, Runescape was updated with several new features, maps and non-player characters (NPCs), most notably a group of youthful gnomes who could be found in the Tree Gnome Stronghold.

Spread

On June 6th, 2008, an entry for “Gnome Child” was created on the Runescape Wiki.^[1] The character did not gain a significant following online until July 2014, when discussions of the character began surfacing on the /r/2007scape subreddit. On July 21st, 2014, Redditor helofrand posted a screenshot of a Gnome Child’s portrait titled “I love gnomes” to /r/2007scape^[3] (shown below, left). On July 25th, Redditor Cheesydude submitted a photoshopped image of a Runescape avatar wearing a Gnome Child mask and hat to /r/2007scape,^[2] where it gained over 450 votes (90% upvoted) in the first month (shown below, right).

Also on July 25th, Redditors began posting images of quotes attributed to Gnome Child to /r/2007scape and /r/runescape (shown below).^[7][8][9]

Meanwhile, YouTuber Flopske uploaded a video titled “Gnome Child,” featuring Runescape gameplay footage in which Gnome Child discusses the existence of God before being attacked and killed (shown below). On July 26th, Runescape Forums^[5] member Kirtinaa submitted a thread hailing Gnome Child as the “new overlord.”

Notable Examples

Slayer

In August, an audio clip of the kill streak announcer from the Halo video game series saying the phrase “slayer” accompanied by a thumbnail of a Gnome Child began circulating on Tumblr according to user shrekyourself.^[6]

That month, additional audio clips of the Halo announcer with various photoshopped Gnome Child thumbnails began circulating on the microblogging and social networking site under the tag “#slayer”^[7] (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Louisville Purge Hoax refers to a practical joke orchestrated by a Louisville, Kentucky teenager who disseminated a false rumor via Twitter announcing the observance of a free-for-all, violent purge across the city for 10 hours and 30 minutes on the Friday night of August 15th, 2014. The “purge” scare was subsequently debunked as a hoax inspired by the plot of the 2013 horror film The Purge.

Background

On August 10th, 2014, an unnamed teenager posted a tweet asking who would assist him in starting a “Louisville Purge” (shown below).

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

On August 15th, 2014, Twitter^[1] user Jeremy Daugherty tweeted a photoshopped promotional poster for the film The Purge advertising the hoax event, claiming that the placards had been hung up around Louisville (shown below).

The same day, Redditor mbritt74 submitted a post titled “Louisville Purge megathread” to the /r/Louisville^[5] subreddit for discussions and updates related to the purge. A page was subsequently created on the hoax database website Snopes,^[6] labeling the rumor as “false.”

Interview

Also on August 15th, the manualredeye SoundCloud feed posted an audio interview with the student responsible for starting the rumor, who claimed that is was supposed to be “just a joke” and that he had been kicked off the football team for the hoax (shown below).

News Media Coverage

Later that night, Thought Catalog^[2] published a live blog of the evening, including reports of increased police scanner activity, explosions and shots being fired. The following day, Gawker^[3] published an article about the hoax, referring to the Thought Catalog piece as a “fictional account.” In the coming days, additional news sites reported on the incident, including NY Daily News,^[7]BBC News,^[8] Time,^[9] People,^[10] E! Online^[11] and UpRoxx.^[12] According to the Cincinanati, Ohio news station WLWT,^[4] rumors of other hoaxes subsequently spread to Detroit, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Miami and Cleave.

Search Interest

External References

About

“That’s the Show” refers to a series of subtitled GIFs or multi-pane still images found on Tumblr that humorously capture the essence of the plot of various TV shows, in a similar vein to other TL;DR-oriented memes like Abridged Series and In a Nutshell.

Origin

On March 4th, 2013, Tumblr user miikasaas^[1] posted a set of GIFs from the anime Angel Beats! with the tags #that’s it #that’s the show, suggesting the two GIFs effectively summarize the show. As of August 2014, the post has gained over 6,000 notes.

Spread

On March 11th, 2013, Tumblr user daeneryus^[2] published a that’s the show post about Game of Thrones. As of August 2014, the post has gained over 95,000 notes. On April 16th, Tumblr user parrillalana^[3] published a that’s the show post about Once Upon a Time. As of August 2014, the post has gained over 17,000 notes.

On March 30th, 2014, Tumblr user perhapsthemidnightsun^[4] published a that’s the show post about Once Upon a Time. As of August 2014, the post has gained over 5,000 notes. On April 7th, Tumblr user officialkylemaclachlan^[5] published a that’s the show post about The X-Files. As of August 2014, the post has gained over 6,000 notes.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Zoe Quinn’s Kotaku Staff Cheating Scandal refers to a controversy surrounding indie game developer Zoe Quinn’s alleged sexual affairs with video game journalists while she was with former boyfriend Eron Gjorni, who chronicled the scandal in a Wordpress blog created in August 2014. The scandal sparked many online conversations regarding ethics in video game journalism and whether Quinn used sex in exchange for favorable promotions of her game.

Background

On December 4th, 2013, Quinn submitted her game Depression Quest to Steam Greenlight^[1] to be selected for release on the software distribution service. On December 12th, Quinn posted several tweets complaining about harassment she had received for placing the game on Greenlight.^[2] On August 11th, 2014 the game was released on Steam.^[3] On August 16th, Quinn’s ex boyfriend Eron Gjorni launched a Wordpress^[4] blog titled “The Zoe Post,” featuring screenshots and pictures providing evidence that Quinn cheated on him with five different men, including her boss Joshua Boggs and video game journalist Nathan Grayson, who writes for Kotaku and Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Notable Developments

Online Reaction

On August 17th, Redditor MannoSlimmins submitted a series of screenshots to provide evidence that Quinn faked being harassed by WizardChan users to garner support for her game to the /r/TumblrInAction^[6] subreddit. The same day, Tumblr^[7] user KC-Vidya-Rants published a blog post denouncing Quinn for using Robin Williams’ suicide to promote her game and faking harassment for sympathy. In the first 48 hours, the post gained over 940 notes. Meanwhile, Escapist Magazine Forums^[5] member Rebant submitted a thread about the scandal, which criticized Quinn’s behavior and video game blogs for ignoring the story.

Phil Fish Twitter Rant

Also on August 17th, indie game developer Phil Fish defended Quinn on Twitter, calling those who were attacking her “cowards” and claimed he was “canceling projects” in retaliation (shown below).

On YouTube

On August 18th, YouTuber Internet Aristocrat uploaded a video titled “Quinnspiracy Theory: The Five Guys Saga,” which criticized Quinn for allegedly using sex to influence journalists and for portraying herself as a victim to receive donations and support (shown below). The following day, the video was submitted to the /r/videos^[14] subreddit, where it gained over 2,200 votes (87% upvoted) and 460 comments.

Hack and Dox Claim

On August 19th, Quinn claimed that her Tumblr and Twitter page were both hacked and that she had been doxxed by users from 4chan’s /v/ (video games) board. The post was subsequently deleted. That day, Tumblr^[12] user The Spectacular Spider-Girl pointed out several inconsistencies in the story as evidence that Quinn fabricated the hacking.

Games Nosh Article

On August 19th, the video game news blog Games Nosh^[10] published an article accusing Quinn of “exploiting games press for coverage.” Hours later, the @GamesNosh Twitter feed announced that their host had asked them to remove the article (shown below). That day, the page was removed and redirected a HostGator 404 page. The article subsequently mirrored on Pastebin.^[13]

Total Biscuit’s Response

Also on August 19th, YouTuber Total Biscuit published a blog post which denounced Quinn for abusing the DMCA to take down criticism of her product and lamented the nepotism present in the gaming journalism industry. The post was subsequently submitted to /r/gaming,^[9] where comments were mass-deleted by a subreddit moderator. A screenshot of a Twitter conversation between /r/gaming senior moderator @ElChupacupcake and Quinn began circulating, with many speculating about his involvement in the deletions (shown below).

Zoe Quinn’s Response

On August 19th, Quinn published a post on her Tumblr^[11] blog about the scandal, claiming it was about her private life, complaining that members of 4chan had doxxed her and thanking moderators for removing posts about her across the web.

This has nothing to do with games and is not a matter of legitimate public interest, but is simply a personal matter. I would hope and request that the games press be respectful of what IS a personal matter, and not news, and not about games. This is explicitly about my private life, which has been regrettably forced into the public and framed by people who pose a threat to my safety and well being as well as that of the people I love. I would hope that the effort people have gone through to dress it up as anything more would not be enough to have those who see it for what it is take the bait.

Search Interest

External References

About

Kid President is the online persona of Robby Novak, a child YouTube star who creates videos for the Soul Pancake YouTube channel run by comedian Rainn Wilson. Kid President’s videos are often encouraging and inspirational.

Online History

Robby Novak and his brother-in-law Bradley Montague^[6] began tweeting through the Twitter account I Am Kid President^[4] in July of 2012.^[9] On October 4th, 2012, YouTube channel Soul Pancake^[6] run by actor Rainn Wilson, published a video titled “Meet Kid President” which introduced Novak’s character who has catchphrases such as “If it doesn’t make the world a better place, don’t do it” and “I’m not in a party. I am a party." As of August 2014, the video has gained over 500,000 views.

On January 24th, 2013, Soul Pancake published a video titled “A Pep Talk from Kid President to You” which featured Novak giving upbeat advice ending the video by suggesting viewers “create something that makes the world more awesome.” The video was featured on the Ted Talk website^[8] the following month, where it gained over 680,000 views as of August 2014. The original video gained over 33.3 million views as of August 2014, and is the channel’s most popular video.

On April 4th, 2013, Soul Pancake published a video titled “Kid President meets the President of the United States of America” which showed Novak visiting the White House and meeting with President Obama. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 6 million views.

Television Show

On June 21st, 2014, Kid President’s television series, Kid President: Declaration of Awesome premiered on the Hub Network. On June 6th, Soul Pancake uploaded a promotional video for the show, within two months it gained over 40,000 views. As of August 19th, eight episodes of the series have aired.

Social Media Presence

As of August 2014, Kid President’s Facebook page^[3] has gained over 170,000 likes and his Twitter account^[4] has gained over 210,000 followers. His Instagram account^[5] has gained over 110,000 followers.

Highlights

Search Interest

External References

About

How to flip the bird is a meme featuring various MMD characters showing the middle finger to a character in front of them, expressing three different reactions of discontent. The last reaction, expressive in its own right as it shows the character bowing with his eyes wide open while hammering down his middle finger with his elbow proved to be entertaining enough to inspire reaction pictures and gifs as a retort that can be summed up as “f*** you!”.

Origin

On June 8th 2013, Nico Nico Douga user 如月 銃駆 (Juke Kisaragi) uploaded a video titled 人を怒らせるMMD (How to Flip The Bird MMD). The video is divided into two parts. In the first one, two Vocaloid characters are talking to each other in Japanese, one seemingly trying to interrupt the other as she tries to speak to her. The other half of the video consists of a three-steps instructional bit featuring Miku Hastune giving the middle finger in three different ways, from the dullest to the most expressive.

Niconico How to Flip The Bird MMD

Spread

While the Nico Nico Douga video amounted to more than 20 000 views only, Youtube user Zellgadissiv uploaded his own take on the scene to Youtube on June 25th. As of today, it has gathered more than 1 million views.

!!

In the description, Zellgadissiv said that the motion capture for that bit has been shared by its creator, Juke Kisaragi. The Nico Nico Douga video states that it was on the site BowlRoll^[1].

As many Youtubers discovers the segment on Youtube, they joined in the craze to create their own MMD-inspired videos featuring various characters “flipping the bird”.

As a Reaction Face

[WIP]

External Reference

^[1]BowlRoll 人を怒らせるMMDモーション

About

2014 Ferguson Riots refers to a series of civil disturbances and violent demonstrations which occurred in Ferguson, Missouri in late August 2014. These riots were the result of the shooting of unarmed African American Michael Brown teenager by Ferguson police, and escalated when an autopsy for Brown was released.

Background

On August 9th, 2014, Michael Brown,^[1] an eighteen-year-old African American, was fatally shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown was unarmed at the time of the shooting. On August 10th, Jon Belmar, the police chief for St. Louis County, gave a statement explaining Brown had been shot after he assaulted a police officer and attempted to gain control of officer’s gun. On August 10th, crowd members participating in a day of vigils reportedly began looting businesses, vandalizing vehicles and antagonizing police officers. 150 riot officers were dispatched to the scene, using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. On August 12th, protesters congregated in Clayton, Missouri demanding the criminal prosecution of the officer who shot Brown. Police used tear gas on the crowd, claiming bottles had been thrown at officers. On August 13th, journalists Ryan J. Reilly of The Huffington Post and Wesley Lowery of Washington Post were arrested while charging their phones at a McDonald’s restaurant. Later, Reilly claimed officers slammed his head into the glass and Lowery tweeted that he had been pushed into a soda machine.^[3]

That evening, the @OccupyOakland Twitter feed posted a screenshot of tweets sent from Palestinian citizens provided tips on handling tear gas.

On August 14th, Redditor kevan submitted a photograph of police officers in Ferguson purportedly tear gassing press and dismantling their equipment to the /r/pics^[2] subreddit (shown below). In the first six hours, the post garnered upwards of 5,500 votes (95% upvoted).

Development

After a few days of relative calm and peace following the appointment of Missouri highway patrol Captain Ron Johnson to head police efforts in Ferguson,^[11] violence escalated on August 17th, 2014, in the evening, with the police reporting the next morning that violent protestors had thrown rocks at the police.

The escalation of violence was seen as result of the release of a private autopsy on Brown that day which revealed he had been shot six times, including twice in the head.

The Ferguson public school year,^[10] originally scheduled to start the week of the 11th, was also cancelled on August 18th, following the riots and raids. On August 18th, the governor of Missouri Jay Nixon ordered the National guard to Ferguson to temper any further violence.

Water Canon Vine

On August 19th, Vine user Joseph Solis^[5] uploaded a clip of CNN’s coverage of the riots which features anchor Rosemary Church^[6] suggesting the police use water canons on the protestors, while her co-anchor Errol Barnett gives her an incredulous look. This suggestion came off as offensive seeing as the police actions in Ferguson have increased racial tension and water canons were famously historically used during desegregation protests in the 1960s. The Vine was posted to Reddit’s r/videos subreddit^[7] the same day. The clip was also covered by several websites the same day including UpRoxx and Buzzfeed.^[8]

External References

About

Panorama FAILs are a sequence of photographs that have been poorly stitched together with panorama creation software, often resulting in a bizarre, artistic or humorous image.

Origin

The earliest known failed panorama was uploaded to the photo-sharing website Flickr^[9] by user rothkopf on August 7th 2010, featuring several photos of a living room piece together in a jumbled fashion (shown below).

Spread

On September 19th, 2012, Apple released the iOS 6 operating system for mobile devices, which included an updated camera app with a “panorama mode” allowing users to piece multiple photos together into one shot (shown below).

On December 31st, Redditor Subaru92 submitted a panorama photo in which several horses appear to only have two legs to the /r/iPhone^[11] subreddit (shown below). On April 28th, 2013, the /r/panoramicsgonewrong^[10] subreddit was launched for submissions of notable failed panorama photos.

On November 30th, Distractify^[2] published a compilation of panorama fails. On January 22nd, 2014, the @PanoramaFails^[6] Twitter feed was launched, with its first tweet featuring a failed panorama photo of a dog in a backyard (shown below).

On February 4th, Cheezburger^[8] posted a slideshow of panorama fail images. On April 10th, BuzzFeed^[1] highlighted 29 bizarre panorama photographs. On the following day, The Huffington Post^[3] published an article about failed panoramic photos that resemble “surrealist art.” Also on April 11th, the Panorama Fail Tumblr^[4] blog was created. On June 5th, CollegeHumor^[5] posted 20 Panorama glitch photos, describing it as “your iPhone on an acid trip.” On August 4th, 2014, a failed panoramic of a beach was submitted to the /r/pics^[7] subreddit, where it gained over 5,800 votes (98% upvoted) in the next two weeks (shown below).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Sesame Street is an American educational children’s program with a cast of actors and Jim’s Henson’s puppets aired on public television. The show is famous for being the first educational American children’s shows and for their history of famous guest stars from the entertainment industry as well as other public figures.

Premise

On Sesame Street, a fictional city street, a collections of monsters, grouches, as well as other various puppet creatures such as Big Bird and the Count live together with human neighbors, both adults and children. Episodes cover basic pre-school lessons such as numbers, letters and colors as well as social topics such as healthy eating and handling a loss. Episodes often also feature famous guest stars including musicians who might sing a song with a muppet or politicians and activists who might teach a life lesson.

History

Sesame Street premiered on November 10th, 1969, on public television. As of August 2014, the show has run for 44 seasons and over 4,000 episodes. The show has created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, and utilizes the muppets of Jim Henson.

Accolades

The show has been nominated for 11 Primetime Emmys in Outstanding Achievement in Children’s Programming, winning six. They have also been nominated for two Grammy Awards, winning one for Best Recording for Children in 1971, and two Peabody Awards in 1970 and 1990.

Online Presence

As of August 2014, Sesame Street’s Facebook page^[2] has gained over 840,000 likes and its Twitter account^[3] has gained over 860,000 followers. Its Instagram account^[7] has gained over 20,000 followers, and its YouTube channel^[10] has gained over 1 million subscribers.

Fandom

There are several of fan run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the show as of August 2014, fuckyeahsesamestreet^[5]and fuckyeahclassicsesamest^[6]. Fans also gather to discuss the show on its Fanpop page^[8] and the subreddit /r/sesamestreet/.^[9]DeviantArt^[4] has over 12,000 pieces of fan art tagged Sesame Street.

Related Memes

Bert is Evil

Bert is Evil is a photoshopping trend that involves superimposing an image of Sesame Street character Bert into scenes of disasters like JFK’s assassination and Oklahoma City bombings in similar vein to Disaster Girl. The “Bert is Evil” phenomenon reached its peak in October 2001, when Reuters news agency published a photograph of a pro-bin Laden protester rallying in Bangladesh with a large image poster of Osama bin Laden and Bert posing next to each other.

Jack Black’s Octagon

Jack Black’s Octagon refers to a clip taken from a 2008 episode of Sesame Street^[1] in which Elmo teams up with American singer and actor Jack Black^[2] to define the word “octagon.” Black’s strange demeanor throughout the skit has led it to become common source material in YouTube Poop Music Videos as well as MAD video remixes.

Ernie and Bert’s Drum Play Parodies

Ernie and Bert’s Drum Play Parodies, better known as “Susami Street” (Japanese: 荒みストリート) in Japan, refers to a series of parody videos on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) which are inspired by a remix video of a drum play by Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street.

Fired Big Bird

Fired Big Bird refers to a series of online satires surrounding a budget cut proposal on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which runs the children’s television series Sesame Street, introduced by Mitt Romney during the U.S. presidential debate against President Obama in early October 2012. On the Internet, the quote was quickly taken out of the original context and turned into a joke that Mitt Romney Hates Big Bird, the protagonist of Sesame Street.

Pop Culture Parodies

Sesame Street often creates short parody videos based on popular television shows or films. Often the original media is very inappropriate for small children, and the parody will have an educational theme replacing the more adult themes. On August 5th, 2013, Sesame Street’s YouTube channel posted a video titled “Sons of Poetry,” a parody of the television show Sons of Anarchy. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 900,000 views. On October 3rd, the channel posted a video titled “Cookies of the Caribbean,” a parody of the film series Pirates of the Caribbean. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 1 million views.

On March 7th, 2014, the channel posted a video titled “Les Mousserables,” a parody of the film Les Miserables. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 840,000 views. On May 7th, the channel posted a video titled “Cookie of Oz,” a parody of the film The Wizard of Oz. As of August 2014, the video gained over 340,000 views.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Aphex Twin is the stage name of British electronic musician and composer Richard David James, who is best known for innovating a unique style of ambient techno music in the 1990s and often cited by fans and music critics as one of the early pioneers of “intelligent dance music” (IDM).

History

Career

In 1991, James released his first EP album titled Analogue Bubblebath under the stage name Aphex Twin. On February 12th, 1992, James released his first full-length album Selected Ambient Works 85–92. That same year, James released several additional EP albums using various psedonyms, including “AFX”, “Polygon Window” and “Power-Pill.” In 1994, Aphex Twin’s second full-length studio album Selected Ambient Works Volume II was released. In 1995, James released his third full-length album …I Care Because You Do. In 1996, Aphex Twin released his fourth studio album titled Richard D. James Album, which was met by critical acclaim on music review sites like Pitchfork Media and NME. In 1997, James began to draw mainstream attention with the release of his EP Come to Daddy, a concept album that was designed as a parody of the death metal rock sub-genre, followed by the release of “Windowlicker” as a single in 1999, which peaked at #16 on the UK Singles Chart and still remains the artist’s highest-charting song to date.

Music Videos

In 1997, the music video for Aphex Twin’s track “Come to Daddy” was released, which was directed by video artist Chris Cunningham (shown below, left). In 1999, Cunningham directed a second Aphex Twin music video for the track “Windowlicker” (shown below, right).

In 2000, Cunningham produced a music video titled “FLEX,” using a soundtrack made by Aphex Twin.^[1] The film features a naked man and woman floating in darkness who furiously attack one another. In 2001, Cunningham created another video titled “Monkey Drummer,” featuring the song “Mt Saint Michel + Saint Michael’s Mount” by Aphex Twin (shown below, left). On June 20th, 2005, Cunninham’s short film "Rubber Johnny was released, featuring the song “afx237 v7” byAphex Twin. The film stars a deformed, wheelchair-bound teenager who is kept locked in a dark basement with his pet chihuahua (shown right).

Online Presence

On November 3rd, 2007, a Facebook^[4] page titled “Aphex Twin” was launched, which gained over 677,000 likes in the next seven years. In August 2010, the @AphexTwin^[3] Twitter feed was created, gathering upwards of 49,000 followers in the next four years. On May 19th, 2011, the /r/aphextwin^[2] subreddit was launched for discussions related to the electronic artist.

Caustic Window Kickstarter

In April 2014, a Kickstarter^[5] campaign was launched for the unreleased Aphex Twin album Caustic Window, with backers receiving a digital copy of the tracks in a lossless format. By May 10th, the campaign reached more than 4,100 backers receiving a total of $67,424. The original LP was subsequently played for auction on eBay and purchased by Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson.

Syro

On August 16th, 2014, a green blimp with the Aphex Twin symbol and the date “2014” was seen flying over London.

On August 18th, 2014, @AphexTwin tweeted a link to a website that could only be accessed through the Deep Web anonymous web browser Tor, which provided a list of tracks for an upcoming album titled Syro.

Personal Life

James was born in Limerick, Ireland on August 18th, 1971. He grew up in Lanner, Cornwall, United Kingdom. In 1990, he received a National Diploma in engineering at Cornwall College.

Search Interest

External References

About

Tetris is a video game created by Alexey Pajitnov, a scientist in the USSR, in the 1980s. The game involves guiding differently shaped collections of colored titles into corresponding gaps in the bricks.

History

Tetris was first created in Moscow, Russia in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov.^[1] The original version of the game was played on a Electronika 60 terminal computer. The game first came to computer systems in America in 1986. By the late ’80s the game was officially owned by Atari Games and Nintendo (for arcade play and home play, respectively). In 1988 the game was officially included with the new handheld Game Boy system. In 2014 the game was licensed to XBox One and Playstation 4.

Gameplay

To play Tetris, users must move a slowly falling group of bricks, which can take the form of a rectangle, square, or zig zag shape, into corresponding gaps in the group of bricks at the bottom. When a row is completely filled in, it dissolves. A player completes the game when all rows are complete.

Online Presence

On June 25th, 2009, redditor omfgninja created the subreddit /r/Tetris/^[3]. As of August 2014, the subreddit has gained over 1,000 readers. Many sites created articles about Tetris on June 6th, 2014, for its 30th birthday including The Daily Dot^[4] and Polygon.^[8]

Fandom

As of August 2014, DeviantArt^[5] has over 16,000 pieces of fan art tagged Tetris. There are also several fan run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the game including tetris-problems^[6] and tetris-syndrome.^[7]

Viral Videos

On December 6th, 2007, YouTuber NOTsoNOISY Guillaume Reymond^[10] uploaded a video titled “The Original Human TETRIS Performance by Guillaume Reymond” which featured groups of people in corresponding colored shirts arranged as bricks playing a game of live Tetris. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 14.2 million views. On January 13th, 2010, YouTube channel College Humor uploaded a video titled “The Tetris God” which depicted a poweful God dictating what Tetris bricks would appear. As of August 2014, the video has gained over 6.1 million views.

On September 2nd, 2013, YouTuber Smooth McGroove^[11] uploaded a video titled “Tetris – Theme ‘A’ Acapella.” As of August 2014, the video has gained over 2.8 million views. On June 17th, 2014, YouTuber marc kerger^[12] uploaded a video titled “Play tetris on a Tshirt,” within two months the video gained over 250,000 views.

Search Interest

External References