About

Untoons are 3D artworks of cartoon / video game characters depicted in photorealistic details while retaining their cartoon-like proportions. The “untooning” process typically involves compositing images of facial features over a 3D rendering of the subject. Untoons also demonstrate the art form of Hyperrealism.

Origin

While the broader concept of Alternate Universe can be recognized as a sub-genre of fan fiction/art, the term “Untoon” was coined by a graphic designer known as pixeloo in early 2008. The first example, “Super Real Mario World” was posted via pixeloo’s blog on March 15, 2008. Some of pixeloo’s follow-up artwork include Homer Simpson, Jessica Rabbit, Stewie Griffin, and Nico Bellic.

Spread

People seemed to enjoy these, as many blogs and internet culture sites had featured them. Shortly thereafter, many other artists picked up the trend. In April of 2008, a blogger by the name of Mataleone created a large set of Untoons. Since then, the trend of untooning has continued to be practiced by other graphic artists on the internet. Groups and artists dedicated to untoons have sprung up on many websites, such as on Flickr and Deviantart.

• Flickr results for Untoon

• DeviantART results for Untoon

Notable Examples

Homer Simpson	Charlie Brown	Peter Griffin	Shaggy
Stewie	Bart Simpson	Buzz Lightyear	Naruto Uzumaki
Gabe (Penny Arcade)	Tycho (Penny Arcade)	Beavis	Butthead
Mudkip (*)	Bulbasaur	Epic FAIL Guy (*)	FSJAL (*)

How To Untoon Using Photoshop

In April 2008, pixeloo uploaded an instructional video on how to create your own untoon using Jessica Rabbit as an example:

Google Trends

About

Cheeseburger Josh is a video posted on Youtube of Joshua “Ace” Moll who gets loud an obnoxious in a Whataburger restaurant in Texas before being wrestled to the ground by Joe Guichebarou.

The video below is not the original. It was uploaded on March 27th, 2010 but there are responses from the 26th.

On February 25th, 2010, the following video was posted by boyuisthebad, however this does not seem to be the original either, since many other reuploads do not include the blatant advertising.

Spread

March 26th, 2010

• Blogged on liesangeles.

March 27th, 2010

• The video is blogged on Dangerousminds.net.
• Reuploaded to Livelink.

March 28th, 2010

• An article about the video is created on Encyclopedia Dramatica.
• The video is submitted to Buzzfeed.
• Ashton Kutcher (AplusK) tweets about the video.

March 30th, 2010

• The video is reuploaded to CollegeHumor.
• Covered on Brazilian blog Hypercetera.

Popularity

As of March 30th, 2010, there are 14 relevant search results for “whataburger fight” that are reuploads of roughly the same video; with a cumulative total viewcount of approximately 180,000.

There are 18 videos tagged with “Cheeseburger Josh” with a total of around 190,000 views.

Many of these are the same videos.

Interviews

Response Videos

Past fights at Whataburger

In searching for the earliest instance of the Whataburger Fight, it has become obvious that the Whataburger has served as a the setting for a number of physical confrontations.

On June 12th, 2007, two Whataburger employees fought with broomsticks.

June 1st, 2008, customers in a parking lot of a Whataburger:

On November 22nd, 2009:

It’s almost as if it was only a matter of time before a fight would happen at a Whataburger involving someone’s pants falling down.

Google Insights

Searches for “Cheeseburger Josh” began on March 28th, peaked on March 31st, and dropped off sharply by April 1st.

About

“KHAN!” is a YTMND fad that uses a memorable scene from the blockbuster 1982 feature film Star Trek II: The wrath of Khan.

Kirk: Khan, you bloodsucker. You’re gonna have to do your own dirty work now, do you hear me? DO YOU?

Khan: Kirk… Kirk, you’re still alive, my old friend.

Kirk: Still, old, friend. You’ve managed to kill just about everyone else, but, like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target.

Khan: Perhaps I no longer need to try, Admiral.

Kirk: Khan… Khan, you’ve got Genesis, but you don’t have me. You were going to kill me, Khan. You’re gonna have to come down here. You’re gonna HAVE TO COME DOWN HERE.

Khan: I’ve done far worse than kill you, Admiral. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her: marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet, buried alive. Buried alive.

Kirk: KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!!! (echo) KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!!!

From the YTMND fad, the “Khan!” scream would then be mixed with videos while William Shatner’s angry expression would be photoshopped into various pictures.

Origins : the Y.T.M.N.D fad itself

According to the YTMND wiki! article about it, the original “KHAN!” site first appeared between 2001 and 2004 :

The original site pre-dates YTMND; it was found on the :/contrib page of the original yourethemannowdog.com. However, its popularity carried over, and the scream became a staple of early-era YTMND.

Moreover, it’s considered as being the first major YTMND fad existing on the website :

Khan! was the first major fad on YTMND, sparking hundreds upon hundreds of imitators, and setting the precedent for fad or spin-off sites of notable YTMNDs.

Date-ranged searchs on YTMND are able to go back as far as May 2004 only. But, using that search tool, about 200 sites using the Khan keyword can be found between 2004 and 2005.

The fad isn’t strictly limited to the aforementioned scene but can also use various other scenes from the movie featuring Khan.
The most popular sites, sorted by views, include :

• Khan finds Waldo (more than 248 000 views)
• WHAT’S NEW KHAN (more than 241 000 views)
• The Wrath of Khan ’s Spoiler (more than 127 000 views)
• KHAN KHAN (more than 83 000 views)
• Metal Gear Wrath Of Khan (more than 74 000 views)

KHANTMND

Inside the fad, a sub-fad started emerging on September 27th 2006 with the following YTMND site : KHANTMND: Lol, Khan. Named KHANTMND, it was inspired by a previous YTMND site made on September the 2nd.

According to the YTMND wiki article about that specific fad, it was made following the You forgot Poland fad.

KHANTMND was a forum fad begun by DarthWang after the Forgot Poland Army realized with disdain that “Poland” was becoming mainstream on YTMND, and evolving into the same thing they were trying to parody. KHANTMND served and continues to serve as a fun and healthy spinoff to You Forgot Poland.

It also describes the fad as the following :

Unlike Poland sites, KHANTMND will often embed itself into other fad sites with poorly edited in Captain Kirk’s and Khan’s faces and will contain Kirk’s amplified “KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!” as well as Khan’s “This is Ceti Alpha Five!” sound clips. KHANTMND is not only a YTMND alternate universe, but is intended at the same time to ridicule the presence of an infinite number of other alternate universe fads. It is also intended to mock unfunny and effortless fad sites in general.

KHANTMND can then be seen as one of the numerous Alternate YTMND Universes existing within YTMND.
More than 460 sites using that watermark have been made to date.

Among the most popular sites, sorted by views, are :

• KHANTMND: Pale blue Khan, a Khantheist&#… (more than 17 000 views)
• KHANTMND: Khan joins your party! (more than 12 000 views)
• KHANTMND: I KHAN’T pronounce KAHN (more than 11 900 views)
• KHANTMND: Welcome To Jurassic Park (more than 11 700 views)
• KHANTMND: Khan: ualuealuealeuale (more than 10 000 views)

Youtube videos

KHHHAAANNN!!!!!

Star Trek: The Wrath of Chaka Khan

Crazy Kahn

The Joker KHAAAN!!!

The KHAAAN! Song

Khaaaannnnnnnn! Family Guy

About

Blue Ball Machine is a series of YTMND sites illustrating user-generated models of the Rube Goldberg machine, an over-engineered structure designed to perform a very simple task in a very complex fashion, often involving chain reactions.

Origin

In 2005, the Something Awful forums hosted a contest in which a blue ball machine was to be created. While no specific instructions were provided for creating the instances, hundreds of SomethingAwful forum goons posted small GIF animations in which blue balls ran through a small portion of a virtual Rube Goldberg machine. These were eventually compiled together into a large collage of GIFs (as shown below) and spawned dozens of derivatives on YTMND, some of which went on to become the most viewed pages of all time within the community.

YTMND Instances

In later 2005, YTMND user EarthBounder created the site Blue Ball Machine. It quickly gathered a large number of views. The site became the most-viewed YTMND of all time in 2005, and stayed in that position for over a year. On December 21st of 2006, the site How to Prank a Telemarketer (frequently referred to as HTPAT) gained the notoriety as the top-viewed YTMND of all time, where it is today. However, the Blue Ball Machine is currently 2nd most viewed with more than seven million views.
Earthbounder continues to believe that Cosby Bebop is the best site on YTMND, though many users believe that the BBM is the best. Earthbounder has also challenged voters, saying that if the site’s rating dropped below a 4-star rating, the site would be deleted as soon as possible. The music used for the YTMND is Breakfast Machine from the Pee-wee Herman movie Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

The site has had more than one million stumbles on StumbleUpon, reviewed by Jay Is Games, as well as more than 1,000 Diggs. Max Goldberg, the creator of YTMND himself, has said in an interview with WIRED magazine that the Blue Ball Machine YTMND is awesome.

Spread

As the site had millions of views, it spawned many YTMNDs relating to it. Some sites are just parodies, but in others, there is an entirely new patchwork of blue ball gifs. In these, either the user made it themselves or it is taken from another SomethingAwful Blue Ball Machine contest (there have been multiple since the original). Some of these sites have hundreds of thousands of views. Some of the most popular sites include YTMND for the blind, which has more than 100,000 views and was created in February of 2006. Another is Tragedy at the blue ball factory, with 300,000+ views.

Derivatives

• Blue Ball Machine Tiger Handheld (from this point on, Blue Ball Machine or Blue Ball will be referred to as BBM or BB respectively)

• BBM Lazy Version

• BBM v1.337

• Another BB Factory

• BBM under the microscope

• Indiana Jones can’t stop the BBM (see Can’t Stop The Rock)

• Approaching BBM

• I love blue balls! (See I love bell peppers)

• Where the BBM leads

• BBM 2

• Early BBM prototype

• BB doesn’t change facial expressions

• BBM reversed

About

Christian the Lion is a phenomenally popular video clip from the 1971 Australian documentary Christian, The Lion at World’s End featuring a domesticated lion recognizing his owners a year after being successfully integrated into the wild. The video is usually accompanied by a happy-sad song and is most notorious in chain-mails.

Origin

Christian was born in captivity in an Ilfracombe zoo, who gave the cub to a department store. Christian was soon purchased by John Rendall and Anthony Bourke, who took pity on the cub and raised it to the best of their abilities. They were allowed to exercise the cub at a local graveyard, but Christian soon grew much too large to be kept around. John and Anthony made the decision to integrate Christian into the wild at the Kora National Reserve, where, after a rocky start, Christian became the head of a pride just outside of Kora.

The life of Christian became the subject of an Australian documentary called Christian, The Lion at World’s End, which detailed the introduction of Christian to the wild and a subsequent reunion a year later. In 2002, a fansite (No clue what it was called… anyone know?) uploaded a clip of Christian’s reunion with his former owners.

Internet Fame

When the introduction of Youtube combined with the sheer concentration of D’AWW present in the short clip, this meme took off. It has since garnered countless re-edits and re-uploads and an extremely large amount of accumulated views. Unfortunately, the fact that the video content remains essentially the same in each upload makes this meme extremely repetitive.

MSNBC looks at the video’s newfound fame.

Videos

An interview with John and Ace following the video’s viral fame.

Original audio.

On The View.

On Today (host cries).

Different soundtrack and more info included.

Christian the Lion spoof.

Alternate ending re-edit.

About

Birthday Dog (aka “Stoner Dog”) is the nickname given to Riley, a bichon frise/poodle mix owned by Maureen Ravelo from San Jose, CA. The dog’s image went viral primarily through Reddit in late February and became the subject of a number of photoshopped images mostly through Buzzfeed in March 2010.

Spread

On February 23rd, 2010 Reddit user neoneo185 uploaded the picture with the title Epic Dog, where it received over 3000 up-votes and over 700 comments. Many comments pointed out something unique about not only the dog’s smile, but his eyes.

ajprax: Looks really baked.
Shaper_pmp: I suspect his paws are huuuuuuuuge.
Majupra: “Duuude. This cake is so… … …duuude.”
AnnArchist: he got high as fuck
skizmo: How high is that ?
texpundit: Exactly one fuck high.

The picture was posted on the Huffington Post blog the same day.
Soon after, multiple iterations of Birthday Dog were submitted to Buzzfeed.

• Stoner Dog Celebrates Birthday
• Obama and Birthday Dog

One of the most influential posts on Buzzfeed came from Top 20 Buzzfeed user Jack Shepard, who posted a link to an exploitable version.

• Birthday Dog is Stoked

On March 4th, 2010, Heavy.com compiled their own “Top 10 Stoned Birthday Dog Photoshops.”

On March 25th, the original photo was reblogged onto Moronail.net and it it People magazine’s People Pets blog on March 31st.

By April 8th, The Today Show brought both Riley and his owner on to see the dog, squashing the rumor that the dog was high. Their visit to NYC was covered by their local NBC station.

Transcription from Today Show interview:

I posted it first on my Facebook, thinking it would give my friends a good laugh. And my friend, his name is John Lipari is the one who saw the picture on my Facebook – he said that he was actually in a night class when he saw it – and he laughed out loud in his lecture hall, and he posted it on Reddit.com, and that’s when it started to go viral.

Search Trend

There have been other searches for “birthday dog” in the past, typically reflected searches for birthday cards and birthday cakes for dogs. But beginning in February of 2010, searches for “birthday dog” spiked, rising sharply through March and April.

About

Shut Up Grandma, Drink Your Prune Juice! is a series of remix videos based on a scene from the 2007 live-action film Transformers.

Origin

In the 2007 Michael Bay’s comics-based blockbuster Transformers, American actor/comedian Anthony Anderson plays the role of expert hacker Glen Whitmann, delivering many one-liners over the course of the movie.

In one scene, Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor) visits Glen. Glen’s grandmother shouts from another room to see who has stopped by, to which he responds “SHUT UP GRANDMA!” then “Grandmama drink your prune juice!”

The scene has become a popular source material used in a number of YouTube Poops and Garry’s Mod videos.

Spread

On May 6th, 2009, a thread on the YouChewPoop forums entitled Silliest Reasons You’ve Gotten Banned For was posted by GottyKoby.
Excerpt:

Talking about yaoi and telling a mod to drink his prune juice.

Greatest reason to get banned ever.

On September 9th, 2009, Facepunch forums user Aton created a thread promoting his video “Ash finally gets his prune juice.”

Video derivatives

Glenn loves Grandma September 2008, 25,000+ views

Garry’s Mod Sparta Remix January 2009, 7000+ views

Protect Your Prune Juice May 2009, 6000+ views

Team Fortress 2 July 2009, 3000+ views

Garry’s Mod/Link remix August 2009, 34,000+ views

Garry’s Mod remix August 2009, 21,000+ views

Ash Gets His Prune Juice August 2009, 7000+ views

Lego people August 2009, 2000+ views

Sparta Remix October 2009, 17,000+ views

Over 9000 Remix

About

Omoide wa Okusenman! (思い出は億千万, literally “110 million memories!”), or usually shortened as Okkusenman (おっくせんまん), is a Japanese song inspired by the soundtrack of arcade video game Mega Man 2, specifically from the Dr Wily’s Castle stage. Since its release on February 6th, 2007, the song has become very popular on Japanese online communities, especially on the video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga (NND) with a large number of remixes and covers.

Origin

Based on the Dr. Wily’s Castle stage theme and rearranged by “Blue Fang” (蒼い牙 Aoi Kiba), the song describes the singer reminiscing about his childhood and friends while realizing his life and theirs is nothing like what it used to be.

Published in 1988 by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mega Man 2 is the second installment in the Mega Man series. Both a critical and commercial success, one of the most highly praised features of the game was its high quality soundtrack, with one of the most recognizable tracks being the backgroundmusic accompanying the storming of the evil Dr. Wily’s Fortress. As evidence of its popularity, the song was ranked in the second place on ScrewAttack’s list of the 10 greatest video game themes.^[1]

Lyrics

In early 2007, a group of anonymous users from Nico Nico Douga and other online communities collaborated on a set of lyrics based on the musical arrangement. These lyrics were eventually uploaded via YouTube by user PiggKingg^[2] on February 6th, 2007 and the full length song was uploaded a week later on the 14th^[3].

Titled “Omoide wa Okkusenman!,” the lyrics describe the singer’s memories of his youth and his friends, and on how much his life has changed over the years. One of the most significant lines describes his memories of pretending to be the heroes from the Japanese tokusatsu TV series Ultraman (Ultra Seven) with his friends by holding spoons over his eyes.

Spread

On February 19th, 2007, the first vocal cover of the song was posted by YouTuber Gomu, featuring a distinctive vocal delivery that became hugely popular with over 3,000,000 views on YouTube alone (shown left). The first vocal version of the song posted on Nico Nico Douga was sung by NND user CHROMES^[5] (shown right) which gathered over 5,700,000 views as of 4th August 2011.

Another popular version of the song is a flash animated music video by NNDuser Douro of DNA, which was uploaded to the site on 27th May 2007. This video depicts the life of the singer and his memories of youth, compared to the original video which merely consisted of footage from the video game. The video has over 1,300,000 views on Nico Nico Douga and over 2,700,000 views on YouTube.

In Nico Nico Douga Medleys

The song has been frequently featured in the Kumikyoku Nico Nico Douga Medleys along with other memetic songs like Marisa Stole the Precious Thing, Air Man ga Taosenai and Hare Hare Yukai. The song can be heard in this particular medley track at 5:44:

In 2009, Japanese rock band JAM Project, a supergroup made up of renowned vocalists for anime theme tunes, recorded a cover of the song as a bonus track for the album “Nico Nico Douga Selection: Sainō no Mudazukai” (A Waste of Talent).

Notable Examples

Most derivative renditions of the song consist of NND users singing along with the lyrics (Utattemita videos, literally “tried to sing”) or instrumental performances (Ensoushitemita videos, literally “tired to perform”) by guitarists, violinists and pianists among others.

Search Interest

External References

Disclaimer: video clips in this entry may be deemed offensive due to graphic footage depicting the events of September 11 attacks; viewer discretion is advised.

About

Torres Gemelas (“Twin Towers” in English) is a viral video starring Ecuadorian singer Delfin Quishpe, who wrote and performed the song as a lament for his girlfriend and thousands of victims that lost their lives to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Despite the tragic nature and sincere tone of the song’s lyrics, the music video became a hit mostly because of its ill-suited techno music and kitschy green-screen aesthetics.

Origin

“Torres Gemelas” M/V was uploaded to YouTube on December 18th, 2006. The video begins with Delfin flipping on the television as he sits down on a couch and the news footage of the terrorist attacks in New York appears on screen. Gemelas rises to his feet crying “no puede ser…” (“This cannot be, noo…”) and segues into song.

Lyrics

Spread

Even though Delfin mourns over the loss of his old lover and deaths of innocent people, his noble lament was largely overshadowed by the shocking news montage depicting downtown New York engulfed in flames and smokes. Throughout 2007, Delfin’s song quickly gained notoriety amongst Ecuadorians who found it both intriguing and disturbing. As one can image, some viewers responded with anger, which propelled the spread of the video even more. Here’s the original video without subtitles:

In April 2007, Spanish literary magazine Letras Libres’ blog covered the video, calling it a guilty pleasure. Popmatters.com talked about it in August 2007, and the implications of a South American singer “making it big on the internet.” In March 2009, cable network mun2 named it one of the most controversial Latino videos.

Notable Examples

Michael Jackson’s “Black and White” mashup December 2006, 274,000+ views

Remix December 2006, 250,000+ views

“Torres Gemales” animated December 2006, 138,000+ views

Disco remix December 2006, 126,000+ views

MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” mashup January 2007, 571,000+ views

Delfin singing on a motorcycle January 2007, 83,000+ views

Numa Numa/gay pride mashup January 2007, 44,000+ views

Beach party remix January 2007, 35,000+ views

“Torres Gemelas” as played by an orchestra January 2007, 27,000+ views

the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” mashup February 2007, 202,000+ views

Reggaeton remix 2 February 2007, 75,000+ views

Reggaeton remix February 2007, 43,000+ views

“Torres Gemales” in stop motion February 2007, 11,000+ views

Delfin as Darth Vader March 2007, 36,000+ views

Black Metal remix August 2007, 58,000+ views

Tributes and Covers

December 2006, 93,000+ views

February 2007, 4000+ views

April 2007, 18,000+ views

August 2009, 5000+ views

About

“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” comes from the cult classic film The Room, written and directed by Tommy Wiseau. It is considered one of the worst movies of all time, and has risen to cult status with it’s Rocky Horror style midnight screenings. This quote is one of the more famous lines that illustrates the movie’s cheesy dialogue.

Midnight Screenings

The film premiered at the Laemmle Theatre in Los Angeles in 2003, and began showing midnight screenings that developed a large fan base over time. There are now midnight screenings in NYC at the Village East Cinema. Audience members participate by yelling out the lines of their favorite scenes, dressing up as their favorite characters, and by throwing plastic spoons at the screen.

Flash Game

Newground’s Tom Fulp created an 8-bit flash game tribute on 9/3/2010.

Search

Scenes From The Room

The theatrical trailer:

“Hi, Mark”

“I’m fed up with this world”

Derivatives

About

Kate’s Birthday was an open Facebook event organized by Kate Miller, who wished to invite some of her close friends and celebrate her birthday on May 1st, 2010. Although it was meant to be a small, intimate get-together, the number of invites quickly got out of hand after it became widely publicized by others, amassing over 60,000 attendees before getting shut down.

Origin

In late April 2010, an open Facebook invitation to Kate’s birthday party in Australia began spreading around the internet, with the event page reading it is only going to be a small gathering of friends. However, Kate Miller made two fatal mistakes: making it completely open event and advertising free booze.

Spread

On April 21st, David Thorne, owner of 27bslash6.com, tweeted “Yay. Kate’s having a party in her apartment. Hit attending & give the host an aneurysm.” (http://www.geekosystem.com/kates-party-facebook-meme/) The Facebook event was added to Digg on the 22nd and Reddit on the 25th, garnering over 30,000 attending guests in a matter of days. Soon after, the original event text was changed to:

“WTF?? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
WHY ARE THERE 10000 PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN INVITED??
THIS IS A PRIVATE PARTY AT OUR APARTMENT."

After reaching approximately 60,000 attendees, the event was shut down by Facebook.

Prank Revealed

On April 27th, the Sydney Morning Herald posted an article in which they spoke with David Thorne, who tweeted the link to the event to his then-27,000 followers. He revealed Kate’s party – and Kate Miller herself – was just a prank to “entertain a few people over the weekend.”

Last updated on May 6th, www.katesparty.com states that the entire prank was developed by Sticky Media, an Australian “multimedia studio.” They deemed the event campaign “hugely successful” and are now using katesparty.com to advertise their services.

Derivatives

After people started attending the party, hundreds of offshoot groups and pages appeared such as Kate’s party better not be BYO, Sorry Miley, the party isn’t in the USA, it’s at Kate’s apartment, Ted Mosbey met your mother at Kate’s Party, Who needs a ride to Kate’s party? and Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits for Kate’s Party just to name a few.

It also spawned the following YouTube videos:

Leave Kate Alone! (a nod to Chris Crocker’s “Leave Britney Alone”)

News sites even picked up on the party event and, thinking it was a real person’s invitation, San Francisco News posted an article on April 25, 2010 to showcase the lack of privacy control on Facebook, noting that since Facebook is so easy to use, anyone can make a mistake like this.

About

Paper Children are paper cut-out models of anime characters that are staged in such a way that they appear to be interacting with the surrounding real-life objects. One of the most common forms this takes is a real life hand holding a drawing up as if they were being lifted by their shirt.

Origin

The exact beginnings of “Paper Children” art cannot be told for certain, considering the fact that the meme is very closely tied to paper dolls, a similar concept which dates back for more than a thousand years. The first paper dolls known to archeologists are kimonos cut and folded from ancient paper in Japan, c. 800 AD^[6] and the first manufactured paper dolls were produced by S&J Fuller in London, 1810^[5]. Modern paper dolls are often found as cutouts inside various paper products ranging from children’s books to happy meal containers from McDonalds^[7].

The act of photographing paper cut-out models and sharing them online most likely began on the Japanese web through origami hobbyist groups and imageboards and subsequently spread overseas, particularly on the Korean web in the early 2000s. The earliest known instance of Paper Child to circulate on the English-speaking web can be found in a DeviantART page^[11] posted on December 16th, 2006.

Spread

The DeviantART group “Paper Children” was formed on January 25th, 2008 and a notable series of Paper Child artworks were uploaded by DeviantART user Pimmy on April 27th, 2008. Throughout the year, the origami phenomenon quickly spread via English imageboards including 4chan, spawning hundreds of photographs depicting paper cutout models alongside real life objects. The meme was covered by Moe fan blog MoeSide on July 27th, 2008.

In June 2009, a website showcasing examples of these paper dolls called Paper Child^[4] was started. Multiple Deviantart groups have been set devoted to them^[1][2], the most popular of which, Paper Children^[3], has just under 1000 watchers.

Notable Derivatives

Search Interest

As we can see from the Google Insights charts, search interest into this meme has been fairly high for a long time now, being searched a considerable amount even before the Insight’s beginning year of 2004. This unfortunately makes it a lot harder to determine the time of origin, although it does demonstrate the longevity of the meme, with only a minimal decline in interest over the years,

External References

About

Wise Confucius (also known as “Confucius Says”) is an advice animal image macro series which features what at first glance appears to be sage piece of advice, with the second half of the image revealing it to merely be the set-up for a pun. The meme can often involve some kind of stereotypical Engrish speech pattern as well.

Origin

The series is named after the famous Chinese philosopher best known for his body of work Analects of Confucius and parodies his prolific writings of axioms and wise sayings like “Do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.” Written during the Spring and Autumn Period through the Warring States Period (ca. 475 BCE – 221 BCE), the Analects is the representative work of Confucianism and continues to have a tremendous influence on Chinese and East Asian thought and values today.

Parody jokes about Confucius’ idioms have been seen on several internet humor sites like JokeCenter^[1] and Unwind^[2] as early as in February 2001. The earliest known instance of “Confucius says…” image macro was posted on 4chan’s /v/ board^[3] on April 29th, 2010. The picture used for the macro is one of the first results provided by Google Image search.

Spread

A list of Confucius-related jokes was posted via Reddit^[4] on May 9th, 2008 and a serial comment thread was posted via Flickr^[5] on September 3rd, 2008. Confucius’ quotes have appeared in “famous quotes” threads as early as in 2008. The image macros have been since featured on communities like Tumblr^[6] and Reddit^[4], as well as caption-generating websites such as Memegenerator^[7] and Quickmeme.^[8]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Google Insights shows that the search term “Wise Confucius” experienced its first spike in early 2010 and resurgence in July 2011:

External References

About

The Most Interesting Man In The World is a catchphrase and image macro series originating from a Dos Equis beer ad campaign. The macro template is currently ranked at Legendary Tier on Memegenerator.

Origin

The Most Interesting Man campaign was created by Euro RSCG Worldwide. The ads were developed as a way to get people talking about the brand and to open up its customer base. Though they began airing in 2006, the ads did not go national until 2009.

The ads star Jonathan Goldsmith as the man who can do it all with Frontline narrator Will Lyman narrating his epic exploits. The first ad was uploaded to YouTube in April 2007. However, it did not reach 1,000,000+ views until March 2010.

His catchphrases appear at the end of the video: “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis,” and “Stay thirsty, my friends.” The persona and his exploits continue to be featured in ads, most of which were chronicled in June 2009 at Eat Me Daily.

Spread

In April 2007, StayThirstyMyFriends.com was launched. In November 2007, a blog called Advertising 305 was one of the first sites to cover the campaign. Later that year, the ads were ranked #8 on Time Magazine’s Top 10 TV ads of 2007 list.

Along with two nationwide tours of The Most Interesting Show In The World in 2008 and 2009, the campaign began to pick up steam. Over those two years, academic journals such as Brandweek, Beverage World, and Marketing News all covered the inventive campaign. In May 2009, Slate magazine spoke about the commercials’ “charming eccentricity.” People Magazine interviewed Jonathan Goldman in July 2009 to see how much like his character he is.

There is a fansite The Most Interesting Man In The World.org, registered in May 2010, and several fake Twitter accounts.

Derivatives

The main derivative is the image macro, made using the formula “I don’t always x, but when I do, I y.” There have also been parody videos of the commercials posted on YouTube.

The Least Interesting Man in the World (November 2007) 52,000+ views

The Most Interesting Warcraft Player in the World (July 2008) 293,000+ views

The Least Interesting Man in the World Part 2 (July 2008) 10,000+ views

The Most Intoxicated Man in the World (NSFW) (August 2008) 13,000+ views

The Most Obnoxious Man in the World (June 2009) 38,000+ views

Saddam Hussein mashup (February 2010) 17,000+ views

Steve Nash as the Most Ridiculous Man in the World

In February 2010, Vitamin Water began its own campaign called “The Most Ridiculous Man in the World” featuring Canadian basketball player Steve Nash. Several spots were made with Nash commenting on a topic, concluding with “Stay vitaminized, my friends.” They are viewable on Vitamin Water’s YouTube channel.

About

Nya Nya Dance is a series of dance videos featuring various cartoon and furry characters bending over from one side to another while following the rhythm of trance music in the background. Occasionally, flashing lights and colors are used to give the videos a nightclub-like effect.

Origin

The original “Nya Nya Dance” video was uploaded by YouTuber Webkinzlid^[1] on July 24th, 2009. A self-described “girl furry,” Webkinzlid also had a DeviantART^[2] profile where she hosted her artworks before it was permanently banned from the site.

The video shows a character dancing side to side, set to DJ Diskant’s remix version^[3] of “New Day” by Wazari^[4]. The name “Nya Nya dance” comes from the girly vocal track constantly singing “nya” in the background:

Spread

Initially, a small part of the YouTube community responded to the video with their own versions, such as the very first response video soberly titled “Re: Nya Nya Dance.”

While Webkinzlid’s video gained a moderate figure of 70,000 views since its YouTube debut in 2009, it has led to the creation of more than 1,300 derivative videos^[5] and earned several honors as one of the most responded videos in the Film & Animation category:

u can make ur own as long as u post it as a vid responce. HOLY SHIZ HONERS!

59. - Most Responded (Today) – Film & Animation
60. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
61. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
62. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
63. - Most Responded (Today) – Film & Animation
64. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
65. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
66. - Most Responded (This Week) – Film & Animation
67. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
68. - Most Responded (Today) – Film & Animation
69. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
70. - Most Responded (This Week) – Film & Animation
71. - Most Responded (This Week) – Film & Animation
72. - Most Responded (This Week) – Film & Animation
73. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
74. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
75. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
76. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
77. - Most Responded (This Month) – Film & Animation
78. - Most Responded (Today) – Film & Animation
79. - Most Responded (This Week) – Film & Animation
80. - Most Responded (Today) – Film & Animation
81. - Most Responded (This Week) – Film & Animation
82. - Most Responded (Today) – Film & Animation

The most famous version of “Nya Nya Dance” is the response video uploaded by YouTuber SPottedfire25^[6] on July 7th, 2009 (embedding for this video has been disabled).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] YouTube – User Profile for webkinzlid

^[2] DeviantART – User Profile for Webkinzlid

^[3] YouTube – DJ Diskant – New Day

^[4] YouTube – Wazari – New Day

^[5] YouTube – Search Results for Nya Nya Dance

^[6] YouTube – Nya Nya Dance

About

Cheetahmen II is an unreleased Nintendo Entertainment System game developed in 1992 by Active Enterprises. This game is literaly “unfinished”, parts of the graphic objects are missing and uncolored or just plain invisible. It’s widely known as being virtually unplayable because of bad programming, and its music has been the subject of many remixes and MADs on Youtube and Nico Nico Douga.

History

In 1991, Active Enterprises released Action 52, an unlicensed multicart containing 52 games. It became notorious for its high price (US$ 199,00) and for the poor quality of the games included. There was also a featured game in the pack called Cheetahmen, an action game where three half-cheetah/half-human creatures, named Aries, Apollo and Hercules, would battle against mad scientist Dr. Morbis.

Cheetahmen was intended to be a very popular franchise designed to compete with Battletoads and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There were plans for a line of merchandise, from T-shirts and comics to a television cartoon. However, because of negative reviews, high debts, and failure to properly license their content, Active Enterprises left the videogame industry in 1993.

A sequel for Cheetahmen was planned and partially-developed in 1992, but was never released.

Unsubstantiated rumors tell a tale of 1500 copies of the game found in a warehouse in 1997 which were then sold or otherwise distributed.

Meme origin

In 2007, videos showing gameplay of Cheetahmen 2 were posted on Nico Nico Douga. The background music proved to be popular, as more videos were uploaded as MADs and remixes.

At Comic Market 73, December 31 2007, Dangerous Mezashi Cat released the album Cheetah in the Dark, containing 6 tracks with Cheetahmen remixes.

Remixes

MADs

Fake remakes

About

Dog Fort comics are generally multipanes that include a recon team of dog lobsters, led by team leader Red Lobster, checking in with a communications officer named Dog Fort for further instructions.

There is an entire subreddit, /r/dogfort, dedicated to the various derivatives.

Origin

The first appearance of Dog Fort was a photoshopped image created by Bishopwhitet for a contest on Cracked on June 4, 2009.

The corgi wearing the lobster outfit was a viral image itself before becoming part of the Dog Fort series. The photo of the corgi dressed up for Halloween was taken on October 24, 2008 in Griffith, Los Angeles, CA, US, using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi and posted to Flickr. There is a BuzzFeed post with many dogs wearing lobster costumes.

The first appearance of the Dog Fort Comic on 4chan is unknown. On November 5th, 2010, Dog Fort was submitted to the /r/pics subreddit and hit the front page. On December 9th, 2010, Dog Fort was once again reposted to /r/pics, but this post happened to trigger a sequel.

After the sequel was created, /r/pics began to flood with new Dog Fort comics, thus /r/dogfort was created on December 10th, 2010 at 3pm in order to have a collective area for redditors to view the new meme and create their own Dog Fort comics.

The official domain for the Dog Fort blog is located at Dog-Fort.com and was created December 16, 2010.

Characters

Name: Dog Fort
Gender: Male
First Known Appearance: November 5, 2010
Leadership Position: Leader of the Dog army

Background: Little is known about the history of the dog at the helm of Dog Fort. He has no identity outside the organization. The organization itself has existed as long as there have been canines. Dogs, like their wolf ancestors, run in packs. They act as a unit. Dog Fort provides a way for all dogs to act in one massive pack for the good of dogkind. One dog, the alpha, is chosen to head the organization, losing his own identity and instead becoming the voice of the pack. There is, for all intents and purposes, no difference between this dog and the organization itself. He becomes Dog Fort. The memories and secrets of the entire history of Dog Fort are contained within him. All of the previous Dog Fort dogs live on through him. It is a tremendously mysterious, almost mystical process. Dog Fort can never die.

Name: Red Lobster aka Red Lobster 9
Gender: Male
First Known Appearance: November 5, 2010
Leadership Position: Dog Fort’s right-paw dog.

Background: According to The Night Watch, before serving Dog Fort, Red Lobster had met his true love Butterbean (Red Lobster called her Lil’ Red). After being together for three summers, they had four puppies together. However, Red Lobster knew he had to serve in the war and follow Dog Fort’s orders.

About

Forced Perspective is a photography technique used to create an optical illusion, wherein each subject or object is strategically placed to appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is.

Origin

Using perspective to add an additional level of perception to art is an approach that dates back to the Renaissance. Perspectival anamorphosis, or something created that requires a specific vantage point to view, can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci and his eye, sketched circa 1485.

German painter Hans Holbein the Younger was notable for his 1533 painting “The Ambassadors,” and the hidden skull, viewable only from certain vantage points.

When viewed from a certain angle, the skull becomes clear.

Photographic History

Personal photography became accessible and mainstream in the mid to late 1920s. Eastman Kodak advertised a “Pocket” camera between 1926 and 1929 with prices that ranged from affordable to luxurious.

In the 1930s, Harold Edgerton changed the way people looked at photography, melding art and science as he pioneered strobe flash photography. His most famous photograph is a bullet bursting through an apple.

In October 2006, Flickr user John Robinson uploaded a vintage photograph from the 1930s of his uncle “jumping” over a house.

“My uncles loved playing with cameras and even had a darkroom in the basement of the house in the picture.

One of the most pervasive examples of this is the trend of tourists photographing themselves interacting with the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Flickr has over 300 tagged results. This was documented on Mighty Optical Illusions in August 2006. At 1:20, the following video shows people posing for these pictures in the park that surrounds the tower.

In May 2005, Michael Hughes began taking a series of photographs in which he replaced landmarks with souvenirs. They are all chronicled on his Flickr.

In 2007, Hughes uploaded another perspective related set, this time with postcards or photographs taking the place of scenery while traveling. Several of these are chronicled at Mighty Optical Illusions

In Street Art

Artists use forced perspective in street art to create alternate landscapes or impossible scenes.
Kurt Wenner began the movement in the mid-1980s, after selling all of his belongings and moving to Rome to study art. His work was the focus of the 1987 National Geographic documentary, “Masterpieces in Chalk.” Julian Beever is another well-known perspective artist, who began chalking in the mid-1990s. In the following video, there are photos of both Wenner and Beever’s work, taken from several perspectives.

In 2009, German artist Edgar Mueller posted a time-lapsed video from the 2008 Festival of World Culture showing how he creates his art as well as the ways people interacted with it.

Spread

In the early 2000s, collections of these images were sent around via email so often, Snopes made an entry about the artists in 2005.

In 2007, WebUrbanist and MetaFilter both brought attention to the technique. People also continued to distribute the photos via email and personal websites and blogs

In 2009, The Daily Mail covered Muller’s work. Instructables.com also posted a how-to guide that year.

About

Stoner Dog is an image macro series featuring a picture of a dog that looks as if he is smiling. The background is typically adorned with marijuana leafs, and has smoke surrounding the dog’s face. The overlaid text generally makes some type of statement that could be associated with someone under the influence of marijuana.

Origin

The original photo is of two dogs, one of which looks as if he is smiling. This photo can be found as early as 2006, primarily on Russian websites and forums.^[1]

Spread

The first image macros can be found on ICHC has early as June of 2008, but they did did not associate the dog with marijuana consumption.^[2]

A marijuana reference was first posted to Funny Junk on December 14th, 2009, and was titled “totally man”.^[3] The first post on Reddit was titled “Stoner dog makes me laugh every time” in the /trees subreddit on October 18, 2010.^[4]

There is currently an active Facebook fan page^[5], and it is quite popular on Tumblr.^[6]

Search

Search queries saw a sharp rise in March of 2010, but this may have been associated with Birthday Dog, who is often referred to as a “stoner dog”, and there are several posts around that time about his birthday celebration.

Notable Examples

External Links

^[1] 33B – All the funny pictures that ….) / 7/16/2006

^[2] ICHC – Fido here just saved a bunch of money / 6/12/2008

^[3] Funny Junk – totally man / 12/14/2009

^[4] Reddit – Stoner dog makes me laugh every time / 10/18/2010

^[5] Facebook – Stoner Dog

^[6] Tumblr – #stoner dog

About

Adventure Time is an animated series created by Pendleton Ward. Originally a short produced by Frederator Studios for the “Random! Cartoons” project on Nickelodeon, the show was picked up by Cartoon Network after Pendleton presented it to the executives on 2008 ^[1]. Since then, the show has gotten 3 seasons due to its success, both critically and commercially among the channel’s demographics. Both the short and the series have received a lot of attention online on different websites such as YouTube, DeviantArt and Tumblr.

Original Short

The short was originally meant to premiere in Fall of 2007, but it was leaked to the Internet in 2006. The short featured a human boy named Pen (named after its creator), and a magic dog named Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio, known for his role as Bender on Futurama). Internet audiences were drawn to the surreal nature, stylized animation, and clever humor of the short.

The short was nominated for an Annie award for Best Animated Short Subject in 2006 ^[2].

The Show

Adventure Time premiered on Cartoon Network on April 5th of 2010 and had a rating of 2.50 million viewers ^[3]. The show remained constant with the short with some minor changes in the plot and voice actors. Pen’s name was changed to Finn and now he’s voiced by Jeremy Shada (younger brother of his original voice actor) ^[4]. Now the writers had more freedom to develop a bigger universe with even more characters and storylines.

Due to the show’s popularity on its first season, there have been many famous guest stars including Lou Ferrigno, Mark Hamill, Andy Samberg, and Neil Patrick Harris among others. The show has also been nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Short-format Animated Program twice ^[5].

Spread

The most outstanding things about both the short and the series are its cast of characters, the random nature of the show and the writing (mainly its catchphrases). These things were mostly responsible of the shorts popularity on the web. The impact of the short online was of the factors that made Cartoon Network greenlight the show in the first place.

Fanart and Cosplays

A DeviantART search for “Adventure Time” brings in lots of pieces of art. For example:

There have been cosplayers dressed as the cast of characters at Anime and Comic Cons even before Cartoon Network announced they were going to pick the show ^[6].

The popularity of Finn’s hat was so big that people started making their own hats. Even the Frederator blog along with DIY expert Rob Czar made an instructional video of how to make your own hat prior the premiere of the series ^[7].

Finally on December 15th of 2010, Hot Topic released on sale Finn’s hats as official merchandise ^[8].

There’s actually an official Fan Art Blog on Tumblr managed by the Adventure Time crew.

YTMNDs

There have been several YTMNDs made, with the oldest one made in January 12th of 2007. Most of them are related to the short, but there are some based on the show as well.

• Ninjas Stole My Diamonds!
• Rhombus!
• Your mind has been transported
• Elemental!
• lol, adventure time
• SNOW GOLEM!
• Adventure Time!
• what time is it…?
• Pen Sees Something Algebraic
• QQcorn
• What Time Is It?
• Jigglybrush
• Aw yeah. Hug me.
• It’s Fine
• Finn Dance Time!!
• scrumdiddlyumptious
• You’re shakin it all wrong…
• Party Dog!!!
• Jake and Bug
• Cant mess with finn
• Jake Laughing at his own joke

Tumblr

It’s not uncommon finding Adventure Time pictures on Tumblr since, as mentioned before, one of the things that made the show popular was its catchphrases. Most reblogged pictures with an “Adventure Time” tag are both still pictures and animated Gifs with the quote of the scene in question. For example:

There have also been created various accounts where the users rperesent some character of the series and answer other users questions as the character. Sometimes they even post an illustration as their answer. This is part of a popular activity on Tumblr, “Ask X”.

These are the most active “Ask X” accounts:

• Ask the Vampire Queen
• Ask Finn the Adventurer
• Ask Princess Bubblegum
• Ask Lumpy Space Princess
• Ask Tree Trunks
• Ask Shelby the Worm
• Ask the Poo Brained Horse
• Ask Prince Gumball
• Marshall Lee the Vampire King

Interactivity with the Creator and Crew

Adventure Time is also well known for the attitude of its creative crew with the fans. The official Adventure Time blog has shared lots of official artwork, early drafts, storyboards and animatics before the premiere of new episodes. They also share fanart, as mentioned before. And some of the writers and animators are open to fan questions about the show, its development and even its universe; in fact, most of the information about the Adventure Time universe that isn’t confirmed by the show, it’s confirmed through answers made by the writers and Pendleton Ward as well. These are their Formspring accounts:

• Pendleton Ward
• Adam Muto
• Natasha Allegri
• Andy Ristaino

Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake

On 2010, just months after the premiere of Adventure Time on Cartoon Network, character designer Natasha Allegri designed gender-swapped versions of Finn and Jake called Fiona (now renamed Fionna) and Cake, a cat.

These versions of the protagonist resulted quite popular that many fans wanted more and made fanart that proved that:

On December 29th of 2010 Natasha Allegri confirmed on her Tumblr that an episode of Adventure Time starring Fionna and Cake was on the works ^[9] and now its scheduled to premiere on its third season.

This is one outstanding case of Rule 63 .

External References

[1] Frederator Studios Blog – “The Enchiridion” Storyboards / 4-22-2010

[2] The Annie Awards – 34th Annual Annie Awards

[3] TV by the Numbers – Monday Cable: Pawning & Picking Good for History / 4-6-2010

[4] IMDb – Jeremy Shada

[5] Wikipedia – Adventure Time

[6] Toonzone News – “Adventure Time”: You Can Believe the Hype, Sort Of / 4-5-2010

[7] Frederator Studios Blog – Finn’s Hat is AWESOMEEEEE! / 4-22-2010

[8] Frederator Studios Blog – Finn Hats, Jake Hats on Sale Now / 4-22-2010

[9] Pancake Pancake Pancake – Pen announced it (kind of) on Twitter / 12-29-2010