Quantcast
Channel: Know Your Meme Entries - Confirmed
Viewing all 1410 articles
Browse latest View live

Shoulder Cookie

0
0

About

Shoulder Cookie is just that — putting a cookie on one’s shoulder and trying to eat it. It is inspired by the above picture, which has been circling the internet since 2007.


Origin

The first instance of the photo was posted on a Russian message board on December 19, 2007. That same day, it was also posted on a thread at Otvali.ru.

On December 25, 2007, it was posted to the Russian blog “Sex Fun Warez” for the first time in a funny photo thread. This time, the picture appeared with a watermark for SwTeam.info, another Russian site.

The picture appeared on Funnyjunk.com for the first time on April 11th, 2008.

It was posted on English speaking lol wow! on June 2nd, 2008.

It is still unknown who the girl in the photograph is or why there is a cookie on her shoulder. Despite its popularity on Russian blogs, the American flag in the background most likely makes the location in the United States. Her shirt looks like it could say Harnett, which could possibly narrow down the location further to Harnett County, North Carolina.

Spread

On April 27th, 2009, the picture was posted on the blogShouldercookie.com with the following post:

Shoulder Cookie! C’mere!
Hey girl… need help with your cookie? Are you all happy you have one? Are you all sad you can’t get to it? Don’t worry girl… you have another one on the other shoulder.

The site encouraged users to take pictures of themselves with cookies on their shoulders as well to submit to the blog.

Two days later on April 29th, 2009, a Facebook page for Shoulder Cookie was created. A few hours later, the owner posted a link to a Digg page for the main blog, which only got 14 Diggs.

The original post on Tumblr only had 4 reblogs and 3 likes. Despite this, the blog caught on. In June 2009, the blog was linked on BuzzFeed. On August 31, 2009, the blog was named Tumblr of the Day at Eat Me Daily.

Derivatives


Duck Face

0
0

About

Duck Face is the term used to describe the facial expression made by pressing one’s lips together and outward, resulting in a duck-bill like appearance. It is usually accompanied with raised eyebrows, and often with copious amounts of mascara. As described by antiduckface.com:

you know that face you make when you’re about to take that perfect picture of yourself for the internet?

you know, the pose where you push your mouth out in that sort of pout / kiss face to make it look like you’ve got big pouty lips, a super-defined jawline, and model-quality cheekbones?

it’s called “duckface”

Origin

The origin of the Duck Face may have been Derek Zoolander, as his trademark look, Magnum, has a similar appearance. The pose seems to have risen in popularity with the rise of the social networking site MySpace.

Collections and information here.

Meaning

In March of 2010, Redditor Theditor attempted to describe what he believed was it’s meaning and purpose.
“It’s kind of a mock sexy, from what I understand. A lot of females today feel so insecure about themselves, that the look is kinda a joke in itself. It’s a way to try saying “Hey I’m so secure that I make this silly face and can laugh about it with my friends, but its only because I’m really insecure and hope that this can hopefully get you attracted to me via false confidence.”
I could be wrong tho."

His suggestions were later corroborated by several redditors claiming to be female.

Google trends: Duck face & OMG cat

Google Insights: Duck face & OMG Cat

Interestingly, Wikipedia also has mentioned the “duck face”, but in an article named Gurn. While “gurning” might be another act entirely, it is worth mentioning that being a good “gurner” could earn you some ducets in the UK.



Reaction Faces

0
0

About

Reaction Faces are images or animated gifs of faces that are meant to portray a specific emotion in response to something that has been said. They are commonly used in discussion threads in a similar fashion to emoticons.

Origin

Reaction faces have their roots in the pictorial representation of facial expressions known as “emoticons”, with the first recorded instance produced by Scott Fahlman on September 19th, 1982. The exact origin of reaction faces is difficult to trace, but it early examples have appeared on Futaba Channel and 4chan. One of the earliest known reaction faces is the facepalm, which was first recorded on Urban Dictionary[10] on February 10th, 2004.

Facial Expressions

Facial expressions can be used as a means of nonverbal communication to express a specific emotion to other people.[1] Reaction faces are often used without accompanying text, as the image itself expresses what the poster is attempting to convey.

Spread

Reaction faces became a part of several forum games on 4chan like the my face when game that involves posting an appropriate reaction face in response to a prompted event or situation. 4chanarchive[4][5][6] has several archived threads showing reaction faces being used in various contexts.



The MyFaceWhen.com[7] reaction face database was created on March 10th, 2010. The Tumblr page “Fuck Yeah Reaction Face” was created on October 10th, 2010. The MyFaceWhen.net[8] reaction face database was registered 1 year later on March 14th, 2011. A reaction face related Facebook[9] fan page has 68,903 likes as of October 4th, 2011.

Notable Examples

James Van Der Memes

With the popularity of the crying dawson GIF, Funny or Die collaborated with James Van Der Beek to create jamesvandermemes.com[3] on January 3, 2011. The site featured additional Van Der Beek reaction faces displaying happiness, eye rolls and awkwardness.


The original GIF was made from a clip from Season 3 episode 23 of Dawson’s Creek. The scene takes place after Dawson’s parents are remarried, and Joey Potter (Katie Holmes) meets and rejects him in favor of Pacey Whitter (Joshua Jackson).

Computer Reaction Faces

Computer reaction faces are a specific type of reaction image that are meant to express what the poster is feeling while looking at their computer screen, and are often drawn comics rather than actual photos.



Massimo d’Alema

The Massimo d’Alema reaction face is a photo featuring the Italian politician looking shocked and appaled. One of the first archived threads[8] showing the reaction image was posted on June 21th, 2007. (See also long Long Neck Reaction Guy)



Rage Comics

Rage comic faces are used to convey specific emotions in comic form, and are often drawn in black and white. The comics are typically used in storytelling to share humorous experiences and can be easily made using various rage comic web applications.



Search Interest

Search queries for “reaction face” picked up in October of 2008 in the United States, several months after the first threads began popping up on 4chan.

External Links

[1] Wikipedia – Facial expression

[2] ReactionFace.com – Reaction Face Database

[3] JamesVanDerMemes.com – James Van Der Memes

[4] 4chanarchive – The wonderful faces of Rule 34

[5] 4chanarchive – Famous author reaction images

[6] 4chanarchive – Best Movie/tv/ Reactions

[7] My Face When – Like using emoticons, on steroids!

[8] My Face When – Reaction Faces Database

[8] 4chanarchive – Is it get yet?

[9] Facebook – The reaction on peoples faces when they find out how old you are

[10] Urban Dictionary – facepalm

Deal With It

0
0

About



Deal With It is an image macro series and catchphrase used as a retort when someone disapproves something. The image macro structure consists of a picture of someone looking smug with sunglasses. If sunglasses are not present they have a tendency to fall into place.

Origin & Search Trends

“Deal With It” in its own is a rather common colloquialism. Though Google Insights’ search queries reveal a noticeable spike in mid-2007, this can be largely attributed to the High School Musical singer Corbin Bleu’s song “Deal With It,” which was released in May 2007.

The dog in the image originates from the SomethingAwful forums, as an emoticon :smugdog:. The catchphrase itself also has a SAclopedia entry dated May, 31, 2009:

A catchphrase attributed to atheists that is much much more commonly used to make fun of atheists.

Example: “There is no god. Deal with it”

On SomethingAwful, the catchphrase has seen excessive use on the Let’s Play and YOSPOS forums but because of the commonality of the phrase, it is very difficult to pinpoint a date and may very well be coincidental.

In mid-late 2005, Matt Furie, creator of Boy’s Club and the creator of Feels Good Man, posted a webcomic on MySpace using the phrase:


Spread

Image site dump.fm is currently taking claim for popularizing the image macro series in 2010. They created a page and contest in late June 2010 providing the sunglasses template, along with examples, so you may make your own

The dog image itself does predate dump.fm, but the date it was posted is still unknown. Ryder Ripps, dump.fm site producer, cited the dog image in an interview with Know Your Meme:

That Something Awful duck hunt dog had been around for a while and myself and jertronic and some others started making our down versions of it to be funny, and then it just sort of took off. I put the photoshop template I made online and people were making them with that I think.

Ryder credits a Urlesque article recognizing dump.fm as being the turning point for recognition of Deal With It. The image macros were spread prior to the article but Urlesque was one of the first to actually cite dump.fm as a source.

One of the earliest Tumblr instances appeared in early June 2010, posted by jertronic, a dump.fm admin. It was then amplified by reblogs by Greg Rutter and Brad O’Farrell.

Other Works

Derivatives

Photographer Chris Clanton posted a photoset on August 3, 2010 of real life Deal With It gifs, complete with falling sunglasses.

Fukkireta (吹っ切れた)

0
0

About

Fukkireta (吹っ切れた) is a series of dance videos featuring animated characters with their hands on their hips and shaking side to side with cute background music. “Fukkireta” is the past simple & present perfect simple tense of “Fukkiru”. The literal translation is to blow out or break through but is figuratively interpreted as a colloquial expression equivalent to “getting rid of a thorn in the eye” or to simply “blow off one’s worries” in Japanese. The original videos were posted on Nico Nico Douga and quickly spread across YouTube in May of 2010.

Origin

This original video was produced by Lamaze-P (ラマーズP), a well-known NND user also behind the making of Get Down / Geddan (ゲッダン) and PoPiPo videos, and posted on May 10, 2010. In this video, 8toushin, who also appeared in Geddan, is dancing through deep concentration beyond all sense of shame. (The original video on NND is here. [Registration Required])

The BGM in these videos is “おちゃめ機能 (Ochame Kinou / lit. Mischievous function)” and was released by Gojimaji-P (ゴジマジP) in April of 2010. However, Gojimaji-P is another pseudonym used by Lamaze-P himself. This video features the character Kasane Teto. The character originates from Vocaloid fandom and the freeware program UTAU and is a character associated with a vocalized synthesizer preset that can be programmed to generate a vocal track for music. (The original video on NND is here. [Registration Required])

A few days later another video was uploaded by Lamaze-P, a head shot of Teto with her head moving side to side and 8toushin dancing in the corner. (The original video on NND is here. [Registration Required])

The monochrome version is the Lamaze-P original version. Below is a color version with English subtitles.

The song itself is in a style known as Denpa Song where the harmony and rhyming of the lyrics are primary to the song having any intelligibility. Even in the native Japanese the song is rather incoherent, but this particular song is more or less about one-sided love.

Spread

Lamaze-P’s popularity is rather widespread on NND as an established meme creator. In addition to Geddan and PoPiPo he has also released his own music CD and has collaborated with other musicians as well. His influence over the NND community and already established fan base allowed Fukkireta to spread quicker than most memes. For example, many MikuMikuDance (MMD) version were uploaded to NND in the same day when the original video was posted.

Kasane Teto

Chiruno & Daiyousei from Touhou project (東方プロジェクト)

Boromir from LoTR mashed up with Tunak Tunak Tun

Animation

When the second video was uploaded, Lamaze-P also released the source animation data of his two original videos. Many followers began to make videos featuring other popular characters by tracing over the Kasane Teto template.

Himeko from K-ON!!

Yui from K-ON!!

Sakuya from Touhou project (東方プロジェクト)

Reimu from Touhou project (東方プロジェクト)

There were over 2,000 videos tagged “Fukkireta” uploaded to NND in the first month with numbers still increasing.

Utatte Mita

One of the many fads on NND is called Utatte Mita (歌ってみた) or “I tried singing it” where users take popular songs or memes and attempt to sing it themselves. NND user Lon [Registration Required] is one of the more popular Utatte Mita singers on NND who’s uploads surpass 100,000 views on a regular basis. She uploaded her version of the song on May 20th 2010. (The original video on NND is here. [Registration Required])

Lon’s version is so popular that it has now surpassed both the original Lamaze-P versions in views combined.

Utatte Mita versions are still being made by NND users, some in combination with the remixing of the animation template.

Izaya from Durarara!!

Lolita Vocal Style

Naoi from Angel Beats!

Fumino from Mayoi Neko Overrun!

Odotte Mita

Naturally, a Japanese dance meme is not complete without real life recreations and variations of the dance. Similar to Utatte Mita, this fad is called Odotte Mita (踊ってみた) or “I tried dancing it”. A group of NND users [Registration Required] uploaded a video on May 30, 2010 with their interpretation of an extended dance for Fukkireta. (The original video on NND is here. [Registration Required])

This appears to be the routine most Odotte Mita videos for Fukkireta follow. Another video was uploaded on the account with a larger cast a month later.

Other NND users also gave the routine a try.

Other NND Videos

Werther’s Original Fukkireta

Idolm@ster/Vocaloid/Touhou Fukkireta

Konata from Lucky Star

Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid

Tenshi from Angel Beats!

Appeal Outside of Japan

Fukkireta has also spread out to other online communities outside of Japan, possibly because of the simple nature of the dance, where it has been remixed further.

Coach from Left 4 Dead 2

Klingon

Dr. Robotnik

Demoman from Team Fortress 2

Sources

English Sources

  • YouTube Videos under 吹 っ 切 れ た : Click here

Japanese Sources

I Came

0
0

About

I Came is an image macro series that typically takes screen grabs of moments where the subject is making a happy or orgasmic face, with a caption that reads “I came”. Alternative versions associate the text with water or other liquids, or large explosions and destructive events.

Origin

Encyclopedia Dramatica claims:
The meme comes from the final scene in the 1998 movie Happiness, written by Todd Solondz, where the 11 year old son of a serial child rapist masturbates to his first ejaculation, has the jizz licked up by his dog, then the dog runs up to the boy’s mother and licks her face. The boy comes in after the dog and simply says “I came”.

One of the first image macros may have originated on 4chan’s /b/ boards with this picture of Lazytown’s Stephanie:

Search

“I came” is too broad of a search term on it’s own, but adding “meme” to the keywords shows a significant increase in search since May 2010.

Time Traveling Hipster

0
0


About

The Time Traveling Hipster refers to a mysterious man photographed in 1940 wearing what seems to be modern-day clothing and carrying a camera. Similar to the Pink Shirt Guy, the man in the photograph gained much notoriety for his surprisingly modern fashion style.

Origin

While the identities of photographer and subjects depicted in the image are unknown, the location and year was noted on the back of the photograph: “Reopening of the South Fork Bridge after flood in Nov. 1940. 1941 (?)”[1] The image belongs to the virtual collection of the Bralorne Pioneer Museum[2] in British Columbia, Canada.


The photograph was made available for public viewing to museum visitors in 2004 and presented as part of the exhibit Bralorne-Pioneer: Their Past Lives Here.[3] The exhibit was digitized for public consumption in February 2010.

Spread

The image was posted to Fark[4] and AboveTop Secret[5] on March 22nd, 2010, but did not gain much attention until it was posted on Forgetomori[1] on April 15th, 2010. The article argued against the widespread assumption that the photograph was fake and supported its authenticity with artifacts originating from the same era, such as a pair of sunglasses worn in the 1944 film Double Indemnity. It has also been speculated that the logo on his shirt is a collegiate-style letter “M” – the logo of the Montreal Maroons hockey team, active in the NHL from 1924-1938.[11]

On April 16th, 2010 the image was posted to BoingBoing[6] and was posted on Gizmodo[7] the next day. On May 5th, 2010, news of the “time traveling hipster” reached FreeWilliamsburg[10], Brooklyn’s hipster-centric culture guide.

Alternate Angle Shot

On April 20th, 2010, Forgetomori posted an update[8] with another picture found in the John Wihksne Collection[9] with the note “Opening of the new bridge at South Fork (1940).” Taken from a different angle, the young man still remains visible in the photograph.



Authenticity Proven

In December 2010, Evgeni Balamutenko and his colleague from NTV in Russia located the original photograph and with the help of a museum staff member, it was determined that the photograph was real.



External References

And Not a Single Fuck Was Given That Day

0
0

About

“And Not a Single Fuck Was Given That Day” is a modified version of the colloquial phrase “I don’t give a fuck” which is usually applied to images wherein the subject generally appears relaxed or carefree. Similar to Come at me bro, the catchphrase can be paired with various images and portraits, as long as they fit the theme.

Origin

The image and phrase began to gain popularity starting around March of 2010; however, examples of the phrase “and not a single fuck was given that day” appear online as early as 2009. Usage of this phrase and image macros has been steadily growing on 4chan since March 2010, and has become a popular macro on Reddit.

“Not a Single Fuck Was Given That Day” also has a Facebook group with over 4000 members.




Keep Calm and Carry On

0
0

About

Keep Calm and Carry On is an image macro based on a long forgotten British World War II poster. It can appear as “Keep Calm and x” or simply “(Do action x) and (Do action y).”

Origin

The Keep Calm and Carry on poster was commissioned as part of a series during World War II by England’s temporary Ministry of Information. They were meant to spark cheer and confidence for the public in the event of an attack. The first three commissioned posters were “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution, Will Bring Us Victory,” “Freedom is in Peril Defend it with all your Might,” and “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

The first two were actually circulated during the War; since the third was only intended to be used if Germany invaded Britain, it lay dormant for years.

Created in 1939, the posters were meant to be seen as a direct message from the King, to motivate the British people to stay confident during the War. Her Majesty’s Stationary Office (HMSO) was charged with printing the posters, costing approximately £20,600 for printing and storage of 5,000,000 copies, with an additional fee of £225 for the artists who designed them.

In late August 1939 when the posters were finally printed, Keep Calm and Carry On accounted for 65% of the 5 million ordered posters. These were kept in storage in case of a dire attack on the country, while the other two designs were circulated that September. Highly criticized, the campaign was seen as a failure (Lewis, 2004). Since there was not a large-scale attack or occupation, the design was never used. Most of the “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters were destroyed or lost in time, with the exception of 7: 6 found in 2009 that are in storage at the Imperial War Museum, and 1 that resides in a British book shop.

Rediscovery

The poster was rediscovered in 2000, Stuart Manley, owner of Barter Books in Alnwick, England. Manley and his wife found the poster folded at the bottom of a box of old books they purchased at an auction. They framed it, putting it up in their shop where it became popular with their customers. In 2001, they began printing and selling facsimiles of the original poster. According to Mary Manley, by March 2009, they had sold over 40,000 copies.

Spread

In 1997, Dr. Rebecca Lewis published the first part of her research on WWII posters, including this series. Her undergraduate dissertation from that year is available online here. Her PhD thesis was completed in 2004. She has been keeping a blog tracking “Keep Calm and Carry On” mentions since April 2009.

Keep Calm and Carry On.com was registered in February 2007, selling the slogan on everything from T-shirts and bags to deck chairs and chocolate bars.

Resurgence of the poster’s popularity occurred in early 2009 to bring some confidence to Britons during an economic crisis. The Guardian and the Independent both published articles about the popularity of the poster.

In July 2009, the New York Times Magazine published an article on the commodity factor of the poster, focusing on the popularity of derivatives of the original slogan as well.

Derivatives

T-shirt company Threadless published a spoof design in November 2008 with an upside-down crown and the slogan Now Panic and Freak Out.

In April 2009, the Keep Calm-o-matic image generator was created, allowing users to make their own posters as well as hosting a gallery of images made with the site.

The Welsh band Stereophonics released their seventh album Keep Calm and Carry On, named after the poster, in Novermber 2009.

French site Geekiz posted 85 variations of the poster in May 2010.

In June 2010, British loyalty card Nectar launched the ad campaign Keep Calm and Carry One, to get people to sign up to their service.

Stan Lee Asking for Coffee

0
0

About

Stan Lee Asking for Coffee is an exploitable series based on a stillshot from the TV anime series Heroman, featuring the American comic book writer Stan Lee holding a mug up with his hand to ask for more coffee.

Origin

In spring of 2010, a new animated TV series called “Heroman”[1] premiered on April 1st. The plot was created by Stan Lee and the show was produced by the animation studio Bones for TV broadcast.



In the first episode, we see the main character Joey Jones working at a café. Sitting at the counter is Stan Lee, who makes a cameo appearance[3] as a regular at the café. As Joey leaves the screen pans to Stan Lee as he asks “Hey Joey fill me up.” Stan Lee is also seen in the background of later episodes:



Spread

A few hours after the episode aired, a user on 4chan’s /a/ (anime) board[2] posted a template of Stan Lee at the counter that could be shopped in to other images:



As the day went on over 50 shops where made, spawning thread after thread of edits. When /a/ stopped talking about the show the coffee shops still remained in the few threads up still talking about the show.

Combo Breaker



A few days / weeks after the first shop the combo breaker image of Mugi from K-on! Pouring tea from a tea pot came up. The goal of the combo is to have the first image be the hand pouring the tea, the second be Mugi’s face / arm and the third being Stan Lee holding out the cup.

Other combos with things being poured have shown up, but they all end with Stan Lee holding out a cup.

Notable Images



Stan Lee



Stan Lee is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, producer, publisher, TV personality, and the former president and chairman of Marvel Comics. He is best known for co-creating Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and many other fictional character.

Template



External Links

[1] Anime News Network – Heroman

[2] Easymodo Archive – /a/ – Anime & Manga

[3] Wikipedia – Stan Lee’s Film & TV appearances

Bros Icing Bros

0
0

About

Bros Icing Bros is a popular drinking game prank in real life that occurred first in colleges in the South before spreading online in mid-2010. The game is based on the following rules:



Origin

On April 5th, 2010, the single topic blog Brosicingbros.com launched as a hub for all media related to the drinking game of the same name with the aforementioned rules. The game is supposedly the brainchild of a group of South Carolina college students to which the game started to spread statewide. All that is known about the founder is that he is a 22-year-old recent college grad who goes by “Joe”. He does not respond to email communication. The site allowed users to submit pictures or videos of people getting iced of which the best content would be uploaded to the blog.

As word spread about the game it would be reported on and publicized by publications such as the Huffington Post and Village Voice.

Celebrities who have been iced include rapper Coolio, actor Dustin Diamond aka Screech, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin who rejected the ice.

Diageo, the company that makes Smirnoff Ice, prior to the start of Bros Icing Bros was reporting sluggish sales of their malt beverage. Many stories on this topic accused Diageo of starting the blog as a viral marketing campaign. Diageo released an official statement on the matter:

Icing is consumer-generated and some people think it is fun. We never want underage “icing” and we always want responsible drinking.

The inherent dangers of icing are the same with any other binge consumption drinking game, but as part of the surprise aspect of the game icing in public venues is also a danger, and illegal in many parts of the world.

Spread

Brosicingbros.com launched April 5th, 2010.

Bros Icing Bros: Your Latest Internet Meme on The Village Voice blog on May 17th, 2010

Bros Icing Bros on the College Humor Staff Blog on May 20th, 2010

Bros Icing Bros on Urlesque on May 21st, 2010

Bros Icing Bros: The Drinking Trend That May be an Advertising Conspiracy on Gawker on May 21st, 2010

Guest Op Ed: Why Bros Get Iced, Bro on The Awl on May 21st, 2010

Bros Icing Bros on Buzzfeed on May 22nd, 2010

Bros Icing Bros on Wall Street on Asylum on May 24th, 2010

Don’t ice me, Bro! on CNNMoney.com on May 26th, 2010

Bros Icing Bros: the Movie on IFC.com May 26th, 2010

Bros Icing Bros on The Sly Oyster on May 26th, 2010

Bros Icing Bros: A How-To Documentary on Vimeo May 25th, 2010

Iceashton.com

Insight

By examining the Google Insights trend, it would seem that searches for “bros icing bros” came only after much of the press attention.

Death and Possible Rebirth?

On June 16th, 2010, brosicingbros.com went offline, displaying only a message that reads “We had a good run bros.”

The Village Voice got in contact with the folks from Brobible.com, who claim that the people behind brosicingbros.com wanted to sell them the domain, but have actually sold it to someone else. Who that someone else is remains uncertain at this moment.
Link: Village Voice article.

Excerpt:


The BrosIcingBros guys approached us a couple days ago, inquiring if we were interested in purchasing their site. The move made sense — they were getting a ton of traffic and media attention over the past couple weeks, and they sported 20,000 Facebook fans. Their asking price, however, didn’t make any sense. They wanted a minimum of five figures (five figures!), and gave us and other likeminded sites until “Friday” to make our best bid. Considering we were thinking of offering about five cases of grape, pineapple, and passion fruit Ices for the site, we weren’t too chagrined to see that someone snatched it up with apparently an offer they couldn’t refuse. We’re guessing the site will relaunch or redirect within the next day or two, and there may or may not be plenty of more Icing photos to post (they get about 100 submissions a day and only post five or six).

LOL

0
0

Definition

LOL is an abbreviation for “laughing out loud”, “laugh out loud”, or sometimes “lots of laughs”. Depending on one’s opinion and manners of usage, its longhand interpretation may slightly vary from one to another. However, “Laughing out Loud” is the most common definition of the term.

Usage

LOL is one of the few existing internet acronyms to be massively and continuously used online by every kind of people, from seasoned older users to the newbies and youngsters. It is transmitted through everything from text messaging to chatrooms and video games, included in pictures, and is even used verbally sometimes in a neologic verb form with its own conjugation.



Pre-Internet Origin

The acronym was not created on Internet, and had a completely different meaning offline.
According to Wikipedia, the The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, states that LOL was already historically used in letter-writing:

Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly historical “lots of luck” or “lots of love” used in letter-writing.

Moreover, LOL carries its own meaning in some foreign languages, mainly Dutch and Welsh, also defined by Wikipedia:
Lol is a Dutch word (not an acronym) which, coincidentally, means “fun” (“lollig” means “funny”).

In Welsh, lol means “nonsense” – e.g., if a person wanted to say “utter nonsense” in Welsh, they would say “rwtsh lol”.

History of Online Usage

Concerning the “LOL” expression as an acronym explicitly meaning “Laughing Out Loud”, many articles about internet slang terms in general, like Opinion: FWIW — The origins of ’Net shorthand from November 2008, point to this 2006 link entitled The origin of LOL, in which the writer Wayne Pearson asserts that:

LOL was first coined on a BBS called Viewline in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in the early-to-mid-80s. A friend of mine who went by Sprout (and I believe he still does) had said something so funny in the teleconference room that I found myself truly laughing out loud, echoing off the walls of my kitchen. That’s when “LOL” was first used.

Crediting himself and one of his friends on a Canadian BBS chatroom called Viewline to be the true creator of “LOL,” he also adds:

The use of the phrase LOL spread quickly around Viewline, but it wasn’t until a bunch of us got free GEnie accounts that it really became popular.

GEnie, was one of the big online services at the time, similar to Compuserve and Prodigy. It had hundreds of chatrooms, including trivia rooms (run by script bots — quite fancy at the time!) A bunch of us Viewliners found these rooms and, of course, our jargon mixed with the regulars of GEnie. (One thing that I took from there, and still use today, is “my” smiley — *:^) )

Unfortunately, he states at the end of his article that there is no backup copy of that initial chat log in order to provide proof of his claim :

If I had any idea that such a thing would spread, I would have saved the original conversation that led to the acronym’s inception. Alas, I don’t even recall what was so funny! While I can picture in my mind where I was when it happened, I can’t narrow the time down any further.

I don’t expect you to believe this, really, as so many others don’t. Still, it ought to be written out so there’s at least a record of it somewhere on the Internet.

On the other hand, there is, also covered in Opinion: FWIW — The origins of ‘Net shorthand, a fixed date, the 8th of May 1989, dealing with the issue of a FidoNews Newsletter (if it redirects to a blank page, the entire newsletter can be found in the webpage’s source code) in which, at page 10 and entitled MO_ICONS_PLEASE, it offers respective definitions concerning various internet acronyms and emoticons. Among them can be seen “LOL – Laughing Out Loud”. It is believed to be one of the first known instances of the “LOL” acronym on the web.

Evolution & Impact

- While it remains unclear if the birth of other types of laughing acronyms, like ROFL or LMAO, were directly the result of LOL’s increasing popularity on Usenets and other kinds of BBS, those simple 3 letters had an impact in their widespread respective translations to the foreign non-English world. As documented on Wikipedia:

Most of these variants are usually found in lowercase.

* mdr (and its own derivatives) : French version, from the initials of “mort de rire” which roughly translated means “dying of laughter”, although many French people now use LOL instead as it is the most widely used on the internet.

* חחח‎/ההה : Hebrew version of LOL. The letter ח is pronounced ‘kh’ and ה is pronounced ‘h’. Putting them together (usually three or more in a row) makes the word khakhakha or hahaha (since vowels in Hebrew are generally not written), which is in many languages regarded as the sound of laughter. The word LOL is sometimes transliterated (לול), but its usage is not very common.

* 555 : The Thai variation of LOL. “5” in Thai is pronounced “ha”, three of them being “hahaha”.

* asg : Swedish abbreviation of the term Asgarv, meaning intense laughter.

* g: Danish abbreviation of the word griner, which means “laughing” in Danish.

* rs: in Brazil “rs” (being an abbreviation of “risos”, the plural of “laugh”) is often used in text based communications in situations where in English lol would be used, repeating it (“rsrsrsrsrs”) is often done to express longer laughter or laughing harder. Also popular is “kkk” (which can also be repeated indefinitely), due to the pronunciation of the letter k in Portuguese sounding similar to the ca in card, and therefore representing the laugh “cacacacaca” (also similar to the Hebrew version above).

* mkm: in Afghanistan “mkm” (being an abbreviation of the phrase “ma khanda mikonom”). This is a Dari phrase that means “I am laughing”.

* In Chinese, although 大笑 (da xiao; “big laugh”) is used, a more widespread usage is “哈哈哈” (ha ha ha) on internet forums.

* هاها: The Arabic هـــا makes the sound “ha,” and is strung together to create the sound “haha”.

* In some languages with a non-Latin script, the abbreviation “LOL” itself is also often transliterated. See for example Arabic لــول and Russian лол.

* In Japanese, traditionally the kanji for laugh in parenthesis was used in the same way as lol; (笑). It can be read as wara and so just w has taken over as the abbreviation.

Usage as a Verb

- In a manner similar to the Fap slang, “LOL” has been transformed into a verb, with its own set of temporal conjugations :
Lol as an infinitive, LOLed or also Lolled (often reduced in lol’d => Macrochan’s own set of pictures) for preterite and past participle, and Lolling as a present participle.



In addition to its neologic verb form, several other instances of modified versions started appearing as well. Wikipedia offers the folowing list :

  • LEL: An abbreviation for both “Laughing Extremely Loud” and “Laughing Eccentrically Loud.”
  • lulz : Often used to denote laughter at someone who is the victim of a prank, or a reason for performing an action. Can be used as a noun — e.g. “do it for the lulz.” This variation is often used on Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan image boards. According to a New York Times article about Internet trolling, “lulz means the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium.” (Theoretically appearing with the creation of imageboard 4chan circa 2003, made popular by the 2007 Fox News report)
  • lolwut : lol + wut, used to indicate bemused laughter, or confusion. (see also Lolwut)
  • Lawl or Lal: Pseudo-pronunciation of LOL. Saying “lawl” is sometimes meant in mockery of those who use the term LOL, and usually not meant as serious usage.
  • lqtm: Laughing quietly to myself.

LOL as a Catch-all Expression

The use of the term LOL may have contributed to the birth of many related memes on the Internet, for it seems to be an easy term to be placed anywhere in a sentence to change its initial meaning, and provoke a token effect/reaction from the public. Here is a list of many of them.

Manly Tears

0
0

About

“Manly Tears” or “Manly Tears Were Shed” is an expression typically used by male users in forums to reveal one’s feeling of great sadness or joy (depending on the context) without compromising his masculinity in the eyes of fellow males.

Origin

The phrase “manly tears” became popularized through 4chan’s imageboards[1] in early 2008, according to Google search results and Insights data. Though circumstantial, it was likely influenced by the recurring BAW threads (sad media or touching story threads) as well as general prevalence of martial arts mangas like “Fist of the North Star” on 4chan.



The dramatization of masculine tears has been also used as a trope in popular films and television shows, particularly in Japanese animes or mangas and Chinese kung-fu movies in which alpha-male characters quietly shed streams of tear while sustaining the poker face.

Usage

As a reaction face, “manly tears” may be used to describe a wide range of emotions, such as exhilaration, sadness, disappointment and others.



In discussion forums, “manly tears” has been alo used as the title of threads where users can share sad/touching stories or experiences:



Spread



According to LurkMore Wiki[2], “Manly Tears” was also used as a pseudonym by a notorious troll on 4chan’s /v/ in 2008, who has been also credited with creating Ralph Pootawn on the virtual reality platform Second Life.

He is well known for scamming people on /v/ on a regular basis and trolling, he also likes to post pictures of himself to use as (troll bait) which works successfully every time, most of /v/ hate Manly tears for his constant trolling and apparently takes the spot of most hated tripfag from Lanced jack (The new lanced jack) Mostly seen in /v/ but ventures to other boards to troll at random.


The first Urban Dictionary[3] entry was submitted on April 21st, 2008:

What men shed as a quiet, dignified showing of being deeply moved. Whereas merely bawling your eyes out will open you up to accusations of being emo or a sissy, a manly tear shows you’re mature enough to show your emotions without whoring for attention.


The TVTropes Wiki[4] entry was created on August 8th, 2010:

There comes a time when a man’s emotions do get the better of him, and they pour forth – prerequisite impassioned speech may or may not be present – by cascading down his cheeks. These are what we like to call Manly Tears.


External References

[1] 4chan Archives – /a/

[2] LurkMore Wiki – Tripfags – Manly Tears

[3] Urban Dictionary – Manly Tears

[4] TV Tropes – Manly Tears

Like A Boss

0
0

Like A Boss

About

Like A Boss is a catchphrase often used in image macros or GIFs that feature a person completing an action with authority and finesse. Similar to Haters Gonna Hate, the characters in the macros have an air of superiority and do not care how others perceive them.

Origin



The phrase stems from The Lonely Island‘s single “Like A Boss,” a parody of the Slim Thug song of the same name.[1] Featuring Andy Samberg and Seth Rogen, the video premiered on Saturday Night Live as a digital short on April 4th, 2009. In the video, the Boss (Samberg) is asked to go over his daily activities during a performance review by Rogen’s character. While it starts out with daily office tasks, the lyrics evolve into impossible activities.

Sample lyrics from The Lonely Island’s Like a Boss [2]

Crash my car (like a boss)
Chop my balls off (like a boss)
Turn into a jet (like a boss)
Bomb the Russians (like a boss)
Crash into the sun (like a boss)
Now I’m dead (like a boss)


Spread

The day after the video aired on SNL, it was shared by the Huffington Post[3], Laughing Squid[4], Funny or Die[5] and Digg, where it received 3645 upvotes.[6] On June 5th, 2009 the site InstantBoss.org[8] was created, which gave users a button that would play a single “Like a Boss” line.

On Memebase[10] and Very Demovational[11], image macros have been more popular, with people adding the phrase to images of people completing actions easily or with expertise. As of September 2011, the song has been scrobbled on last.fm[7] over 966,000 times by over 150,000 unique users.

On Twitter

“Like A Boss” as a catchphrase has been popular on Twitter and Tumblr[9], as a hashtag for posts about successful actions or things they are proud of doing:



Notable Examples



Derivative



Search Interest

Though “like a boss” was being searched for previous to the Lonely Island video, there is a clear spike that coincides with it in April 2009:


<

External References

Feels Bad Man / Sad Frog

0
0

About

Sad Frog is a drawing of a depressed looking frog, often accompanied by the text “Feels Bad Man” or “You Will Never X”. It is used to denote feelings of failure or disappointment, either by posting the image or using the phrase “feelsbadman.jpg.” Sad Frog may seen as the antithesis of Feels Good Man.

Origin

The original Sad Frog artwork is based on Matt Furie’s drawing of Pepe the frog. The earliest archived 4chan thread[1] was posted on January 22nd, 2009, in which an altered version of Furie’s original image with the mouth flipped, saying “Feels Bad Man." On August 17th, 2009, a user on the Body Building Forums posted the Sad Frog image with the caption “not good man.”



Pairing the frog with the phrase “You Will Never X” also began some time in 2009. Though the original thread was not archived, it was reuploaded to Polish image hosting service Kyon[3] on June 11th, 2009, noting 4chan’s anime board, /a/, as its original source.



Spread

Throughout 2010, “feelsbadman.jpg” became a popular way of conveying feelings in Greentext style stories throughout 4chan boards, including /mu/[5] (music), /r9k/[6] (Robot9000) and /sp/[7] (sports). The first Sad Frog image compilation was posted to FunnyJunk[8] on June 1st, 2010. The phrase “feels bad, man” was first defined on Urban Dictionary[4] on November 30th, 2010.



A Facebook group called Feels Bad Man[9] was created in December 2009. As of February 2012, it has a little over 1500 likes. In December 2010, Feelsbadman.com[10] was created, with nothing but a picture of the sad frog. There are also two separate Quickmeme pages[11][12] with the picture and an active Tumblr tag.[13]

Notable Examples




Search Interest

Search for “feels bad man” began in August 2009, while search for “sad frog” did not begin to pick up until February 2010. Both terms have a similar pattern of spikes, but since “feels bad man” is a more general phrase, it is more popular.



External References

[1] Chanarchive – feelsbadman.jpg

[2] Body Building Forums – not good man

[3] Kyon – You will never…

[4] Urban Dictionary – feels bad, man

[5] Chanarchive – Concert stories, /mu/

[6] Chanarchive – School Greentext

[7] Chanarchive – Lions vs Bye Week

[8] FunnyJunk – Sad Frog

[9] Facebook – Feels Bad Man

[10] Feelsbadman.com – Home

[11] Quickmeme – Sad Frog

[12] Quickmeme – FEELS BAD MAN

[13] Tumblr – Posts tagged “sad frog”


X, X Everywhere

0
0

About

X, X Everywhere is a phrasal template typically used for a wide range of cultural references, from quotable lines heard in popular films and TV shows to more obscure things found in viral videos and games.

Origin

“X EVERYWHERE” had its beginning on 420chan imageboard in 2007, when Kirtaner, one of the site administrators, implemented a wordfilter that would automatically fill in any text-less image posts with the phrase “DICKS EVERYWHERE.” Although it was designed to curb some of the users from spamming the board with porn, other users soon began posting variations of X Everywhere, replacing “Dicks” with a word more relevant to the image attachment.

Spread

Since many of 420chan visitors also frequent 4chan the motherboard of all imageboards, the popular catchphrase eventually caught on with 4chan demographics in 2010, further boosting its notability. Here is the original image macro version, featuring a still from Disney’s Toy Story.



Blank Exploitable

The Last Page of the Internet

0
0

About

The Last Page of the Internet refers to various websites purported as the final page of the Internet. Similar to many other single serving sites, such websites often carry minimalist design, accompanied by almost no graphics and instructional displays like “Now turn off your computer” and “Go outside.”



In similar vein to You Win the Internet! and “The Final Boss of the Internet,” The Last Page of the Internet can be seen as an absurdist parody of our own understanding that online experiences never quite “end” at any certain point.

Origin

Various personal accounts and Google search results reveal that jokes about “the last page of the Internet” have been around since the late 90s, hosted on various personal / business / academic websites, discussion boards and e-mail. Tracing it through Google search shows that this phenomenon was firmly established by early 1998, making a 1997 origin plausible, although it is not certain.

Early Instances

  • The first webpage from December 19th, 1998, is a personal political site, containing a link to “http://www.internetlastpage.com/”.
  • The second, dated January 1st, 1998, is the oldest. It’s another personal political site and the root of the site is still updated as a blog. It links to “http://www.wackycreations.com/lastpage.html”, which is now defunct. Unfortunately, the site cannot be viewed with The Wayback Machine because the owner has blocked crawlers. A Google search for the site reveals that the same link has been making rounds on the Internet at least since 2000 up until 2004.
  • The third, dated September 22nd, 1999 is the most recent, and belongs to the British Broadcasting Corporation. This page is clearly amateurish, and is called a “Personal Space” as part of the British Broadcasting Corporation‘s online encyclopedia The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The link to the meme cannot be found.
  • The fourth, dated May 12th, 1998, is German. It died with its host, Yahoo! Geocities. The cache reveals that the webpage belonged to a radio enthusiast. “The Last Page of the Internet” linked to a now defunct webpage at “http://de.geocities.com/dl6mda/lastpage.html” which can be viewed with the Wayback Machine .

Search for the Origin

By the early 2000s, many early versions of this meme ceased to exist, but “The Last Page of the Internet” continued getting picked up and re-registered in other domain names.

On April 9th, 2001, Dennis G. Jerz1 of Seton Hill University posted a research article titled Last Page of the Internet with (now-defunct) links to several example pages dating back to early 2000. This post was "featured in a the “Operator No. 9” column of Interactive Week Magazine, June 4, 2001 (Vol.8 No.22 )", according to the author.

However, in his post, Dennis G. Jerz notes that T. R. Halvorson2, author, lawyer, programmer, and president of Pastel Programming Corporation, had taken notice of this phenomenon earlier on a forum called Law-Lib on February 16th, 2000. Dennis G. Jerz provides a link to the Law-Lib archive 3. The Law-Lib archive contains discussions going back to as early as January 1992.

The February 2000 threads contains this discussion called ‘the last page of the internet ;)’ between T. R. Halvorson and Rita Bronnenkant and this reply called ‘RE:the last page of the internet ;)’ by Sean Smith.

In a reply to the discussion called ‘RE:the last page of the internet ;)’, Sean Smith, of Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd., a law firm that deals with intellectual property, says that he first received a link to a webpage concerning the meme on October 7th, 1998. The link is “http://www.opaldata.net/the_end/index.html”, which is now defunct. However, www.OpalData.net is still active as a provider of technology to Rhode Island municipalities, and has been at least since 2004, according to the Wayback Machine.

In ‘the last page of the internet ;)’ discussion on February 16th, 2000, T. R. Halvorson shows Rita Bronnenkant several links to variations of this meme, of which, all but one are now defunct, asking her which is the original source as part of his “never-ending quest for the authenticity of documents and information found on the Internet”. With her legal expertise, Rita Bronnenkant replies that several of these sites hold a copyright from Darrin Maule4, though it cannot be said whether he is the creator of this meme.



Spread

www.wwwdotcom.com

“www.wwwdotcom.com” is a popular host of this meme. As of July 4th, 2010, a Google search for the query “The Last Page of the Internet” returns “www.wwwdotcom.com” as the second item . The name of the website is a pun on the “www” and “.com” portions of the URL.

According to Alexa, “www.wwwdotcom.com” has been online since August 29th, 1995. The search engine preview on DomainTools shows that at some point in time, there was text on the website which said:

Attention:

You have reached the very last page of the Internet.

We hope you have enjoyed your browsing.

Now turn off your computer and go outside.

The Wayback Machine archives the site to August 11th, 1997. It initially appeared as an e-commerce site called Rendezvous. By May 2nd, 2000, it changed to another e-commerce site called Hutchins & Associates. The name likely refers to the registrant, Arthur Hutchins. By December 13th, 2000, the website simply redirected to “www.Hutchins.com”, which is currently blank. The Wayback Machine shows that “www.Hutchins.com” had been in service since June 24th, 1997 as a website for Hutchins and Associates. By September 28th, 2002, “www.wwwdotcom.com” took on the appearance that it currently has.

http://home.att.net/~cecw/lastpage.htm

Though now defunct, Dennis G. Jerz noted that on April 9, 2001, the “http://home.att.net/” host ranked second on Google Search results for the query “The Last Page of the Internet”. “http://att.net/” belongs to at&t and Yahoo! as a web services and news aggregation site, after being converted from a web portal in 2008. At one point during its history, a “Personal Web Page” service similar to Geocities was offered.
Neither Alexa or DomainTools has any useful information about this site.

http://home.att.net/~cecw/lastpage.htm was established at least by Feb 29, 2000 and lasted until February 26th, 2008. The webpage had a white background, displaying the following text:

Attention, please

You have reached the very last page of the Internet.

We hope you have enjoyed your browsing.

Enjoy the rest of your life.

Bombscare and IRC Chat

A popular quotation from Internet Relay Chat, archived by Bash.org, is somewhat similar to this meme. Around 2002, a user named “Bombscare” had said this,

BombScare: i beat the internet

BombScare: the end guy is hard

These remarks also bear a resemblance to “The Final Boss of the Internet” meme.

References in Google Reader

Google Reader features this meme. If one clicks “Next” until no items are present, Google Reader displays this message,

Congratulations, you’ve reached the end of this internet. Look for another?

“Look for another” links to the Wikipedia article for ‘Interplanetary Internet’.

An earlier version of Google Reader displayed this text instead,

Congratulations, you have reached the End of the Internet.

“End of the Internet” linked to a now defunct site. The website’s abandonment may have served as a reason for changing the text. The defunct link mentioned on the left once displayed this message on the right.



Derivatives

Other variations of this meme include “The Second to Last Page of the Internet”, “The First Page of the Internet”, and 404 error parodies. However, most variations are merely aesthetic.

Current Status

Unlike other internet memes rooted in Web 1.0, the minimalism of the “The Last Page of the Internet” has proven itself a constant, universal appeal from its initial founding to the newest generation of single-serving sites. “The Last Page of the Internet” also bears a resemblance to newer memes that parody the concept of the Internet, such as You Win The Internet!, Internets, “Final Boss of the Internet”, and Series of Tubes.

“The Last Page of the Internet” still enjoys popularity from reblogs on social networking sites like Reddit and sarcastic replies from commentators in forums, resulting in sporadic bursts of interest. Production of this meme has ceased in the early 2000s, though some existing websites dedicated to this meme have been maintained for over a decade.

Notes

1 Dennis G. Jerz’s website was created in 1998 and continues to be frequently updated. The older, Web 1.0, portions of his website are stereotypical of academic websites of the time and in stark contrast with the newer, Web 2.0 portions. On June 7th, 2010, Dennis G. Jerz discussed this KnowYourMeme article on his blog.

2 T.R. Halvorson is a self-described “Lawyer, Programmer, Researcher, and Consultant” and president of the Pastel Programming Corporation. He is an author of a book called Law of the Super Searchers: the Online Secrets of Top Legal Researchers, edited by Reva Basch and published in 1998. He also wrote How to Avoid Liability: The Information Professional’s Guide to Negligence and Warranty Risks, and Legal Liability Problems in Cyberspace: Craters in the Information Highway. He maintains a presence on Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook.

3 The Law-Lib Archive is an archive of discussion threads maintained by the UC Davis School of Law, and contains discussions dating from January, 1992. Subjects of talk ranges from serious legal matters to stray miscellaneous threads to mass forwarded e-mails. An FAQ was compiled for Law-Lib, hosted by the University of Mississippi. The list of threads in February, 2000 is here, while the specific discussion between T.R. Halvorson and Rita Bronnenkant is here, and Sean Smith’s reply is here.

4 Darrin Maule of Gaithersburg, MD who may work for wabsworks and Who Built That Site? maintains Facebook, Digg, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. He often uses the pseudonym “Dmaule” online.

P-P-P-Powerbook!

0
0

About


P-P-P-Powerbook is a well-known online prank carried out and documented by Ebay user Jeff, who was approached by an Ebay scammer offering to buy his Mac Powerbook for a shipping fee with a fraudulent escrow account. Upon discovering the bidder’s true intent, Jeff took on a vigilant mission by playing along with the scheme and shipping him a handmade cheap replica of the laptop. Jeff’s hilarious exploits eventually made its round across the blogosophere and popular discussion forums and the story was heralded by many as an epic win. For great justice.

Origin

In Spring 2004, SomethingAwful user MyNameIsJeff was given a G4 Powerbook to sell on Ebay. A few days later, he received the following email from an interested party:

Hello, I’m very very interested for this item and I’m ready to pay you the best price $2100+ overnight or 2 days shipping charges (UPS DHL FEDEX OR FEDEX OR PARCEL FORCE) if we will use an escrow service to handle this transaction.As for the escrow service , I am already registered with www.set-ltd.net and my uzername is the same with my email address.I will pay the express shipping and also , the escrow fee . The escrow service will release you the money as soon as I will let them know that the item passed the inspection and is 100% ok.

The escrow fee is on my charge , don’t worry. Please let me know if my offer is good enough for you. If it does , I will initiate the transaction with the escrow service as soon as I will have your confirmation.If is ok please register in order to make the deal and start the payment procedures.Hope that everything will be ok and close the deal in the best conditions.
Kind regards !

Its spelling and grammar errors, combined with the links to an escrow service, led Jeff to believe that this was a scam. He then started a thread on the SomethingAwful forums to figure out how he should go about scamming the scammer back.

The Scam

After the thread was posted, several users pointed out that the URL to the VeriSign part of the escrow site was simply a Javascript pop up made to look legitimate. After this confirmation, Jeff decided this would be an opportune time to scam the scammer. He sends the scammer an email saying he had signed up for the escrow site and inquired about their security:

“Before we continue, I wanted to ask; do you know if this site had a strong digital defense. I read that escrow services who do not utilize a strong digital defense can often be attacked, and the buyer and or seller can lose money or their item. I really don’t want this to happen! I’m sure you don’t either!”

The scammer replied with a transaction number and instructions on how to send the computer to him. Soon after, Jeff received a “Confirmation” email from the faux Verisign site. At the same time, the scammer told him the shipping address in London.

After posting the address to the SomethingAwful thread, users posted images of the area and ideas of how to enact revenge. Jeff’s plan of action involved mailing him something that weighs the same as a G4:

“1. I don’t really have any laptop to smash up. So I will construct one. Crayons – 3 ring binder – glitter – failed cd burns which I will label as various programs – I will glue keys from broken keyboard. (or should I just draw them?)”


P-P-P-Powerbook

On April 27, 2004, Jeff posted the following pictures of the binder he dubbed “P-P-P-Powerbook!” to the thread.


The Location and Delivery

On April 28, 2004, SA user Pipski went to the location and scoped it out for everyone. He learned that it was a combination barber shop and internet cafe and posted pictures of the shop.
After posting the package’s FedEx tracking number to the thread, many users followed it and waited for it to be delivered. The morning of the delivery, an SA user with the handle “Starbucks” went to the location, grabbed a computer, and staked out the delivery. He went through all the computers looking through the histories and for keyloggers. When the package arrived, SA users were waiting to observe the scammer accept it, but since the phone number provided was fake, FedEx could not deliver the package.
After spending several days in FedEx limbo, the scammer went to his local FedEx location, paying the duty taxes and releasing the package for delivery in four days.

The Aftermath

Once the package arrived, Jeff emailed the scammer saying that he was having connection problems with the escrow site, happy that the package arrived because he “thought [he] had lost [his] powerbook for good in some kind of scam.” He also wrote,

I realized I never gave my address or any bank account information for payment. If I were to give that to you, would you be able to get it to them so they can send the payment? That would be great.

The scammer responded to this by sending him a W32.Beagle virus, a worm that mass-emails itself to people in the affected’s address book. He also carried out a Denial-of-service attack on the site Jeff had made to advertise the prank, P-p-p-powerbook.com. Webarchive still hosts a version of the original site.

Spread

In May 2004, news of the scam hit places like MetaFilter, Slashdot, Engadget, and BoingBoing

Sources

The Powerbook Prank @ zug.com
The original thread from the SomethingAwful forums

Idiot Nerd Girl

0
0

About

Idiot Nerd Girl is an advice animal image macro series featuring a teenage girl wearing thick rimmed glasses with the word “NERD” written on the palm of her left hand. The upper text contains references to what would be representative of “geek culture” while the bottom statement clearly demonstrates a lack of knowledge or expertise in the subject. This series is similar to Technologically Impaired Duck and Musically Oblivious 8th Grader.

Origin

While the definitive source of the image is unknown, an unedited version of the photo can be found the Photobucket of user SunShineSorrows[1] titled “Scene Nerd” and was submitted in a comment on the website Fark[12] by user BHShaman on June 26th, 2010. The macro is rumored to have originated on 4chan but the earliest known instance comes from the single topic “Idiot Nerd Girl” Tumblr[2] with the caption “Self-proclaimed title of ‘Nerd’ / What is World of Warcraft?” posted on September 12th, 2010.[2]



Spread

Derivatives of Idiot Nerd Girl have been shared on FunnyJunk[3], with the earliest added on January 21st, 2011. On June 22nd, 2011, the Canvas Blog[4] posted the top ten Idiot Nerd Girl images from their thread started earlier that month.[5] A post titled “The Best of the Idiot Nerd Girl Meme” was posted on BuzzFeed on July 6th.[6] The web culture blog UpRoxx[11] posted an article about the series on November 11th and compared the series to a supercut of “Hot Women Pandering to Nerds”:

As of February 2012, search queries for “Idiot Nerd Girl” on Reddit[7] yield 190 results, a Facebook page[8] has 268 likes, the Memegenerator[9] page has 354 items and the QuickMeme[10] page has 2,369 submissions.

Notable Examples







Template


Search Interest

Search queries began rising in volume in September 2010 when the Tumblr was created. It has been steadily increasing since the Spring of 2011 when it posted on Buzzfeed and Canvas.

External Links

Guile's Theme Goes with Everything

0
0

About

Guile’s Theme Goes With Everything is a series of YTP videos that involves pairing up any choice of footage with the theme song for Guile, a video game character featured in the popular fighting game Street Fighter. Most instances are typically set to the version of the song from the Hyper Street Fighter II Soundtrack.

Origin

On April 24, 2010 a YouTube user named guilethemefitsall posted a video called Guile Theme goes with everything (Super Mario Bros. Movie).

This YouTube video contained a scene from the 1993 movie Super Mario Bros., in which Mario falls into another dimension while spinning out of control, and Hyper Street Fighter II Music – CPS2 – Guile Stage begins to play.

Super Mario Bros. Movie:

The video obtained over 40,000 views in the first 3 months after being uploaded.

The guilethemefitsall channel on YouTube consists exclusively of Guile’s Theme videos and reached a collective view count of over 750,000 views 3 months after creation.

Spread

The earliest forum post found linking to a video by guilethemefitsall comes from the ScoreHero forums on May 7th, 2010 posted by user benlikesthesalsa. The post links to the Lion King variant of the video which is the most viewed variation on the guilethemefitsall channel at over 170,000 views 3 months after upload.

On May 21st, 2010 Gamesradar.com published Guile’s theme goes with everything. VIDEO: Could Guile be the next Keyboard Cat? The article mentions only guilethemefitsall as the sole account responsible for creating each of the videos.

The following day, May 22nd, 2010, Destructoid.com posted Guile Theme Works With Everything.
Exerpt:


So apparently, Guile’s theme fits in just about any situation. There’s a YouTube channel dedicated to mashing up the epic theme song with scenes from movies, games and TV shows. For the most part, yeah, it actually does fit.

Thus, a meme is born.

On June 11th, there was a resurgence in popularity after a Reddit user 4erlik created the thread Guile theme goes with everything.

That same day, “Guile’s theme goes with everything” was added to the MemeDB.

On June 12th, “You are NOT the father” was submitted to Buzzfeed, where it entered the Top 50.

By June 14th, a “Guiles Theme goes with everything” video was added to eBaum’s World, with the tagline “The new meme that’s sweeping the nation!

Search data

Despite the popularity of the Street Fighter franchise, “Guile’s Theme” is not a generally sought after term. The term showed small peaks in interest during February and September of 2009, but searches for Guile’s Theme are currently growing higher than ever before beginning in May of 2010, continuing into June.

Derivatives

Many YouTube users have began to post more videos with Guile’s Theme in it in efforts to prove that it indeed goes with everything:

Maury:

Microsoft’s 2010 E3 Press Conference:

Metal Gear Solid:

Cats fighting:

Walker Texas Ranger:

Viewing all 1410 articles
Browse latest View live




Latest Images