WikiLeaks is an online publication most well-known for its disclosure of confidential and classified documents issued by public or private organizations and submitted by anonymous news sources, including the United States diplomatic cables leak in November 2010.
History
The website was launched in December 2006 as a non-profit project of The Sunshine Press and the directorship of Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and hacker. The site claims to have been “founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.” Within the first year of launch, the site claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents.
Organization
According to the site, WikiLeaks team consists of four staff employees and hundreds of volunteer supporters from around the world. Its only revenue stream is donations provided by the supporters and media organizations such as the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and the National Newspaper Publishers Association. The Sunshine Press, it’s parent company, is an Iceland-based company operated by the Board of Directors which consists of Julian Assange as the chairman, Kristinn Hrafnsson, Ingi Ragnar Ingason and Gavin Hall Macfadyen as the directors.
Funding
WikiLeaks is a non-profit organization and largely supported by volunteers and dependent on public donations. In a January 2010 interview with Stefan May, Julian Assange stated that the annual budget of WikiLeaks may range from a conservative estimate of £200,000 and up to £600,000 a year including the wages of full-time employees. Since the suspension of WikiLeaks’ accounts with Visam MasterCard and PayPal in December 2010, the whistleblower organization has been reportedly struggling with financial burdens and often resorting to the reserve. In June 2011, WikiLeaks began accepting donations in Bitcoin, a type of electronic currency that can be used for transactions without the centralized payment processors. In September 2011, WikiLeaks began to sell items on the online auction site eBay as part of its fundraising campaign.
Publishing Operations Suspended
On October 24th, 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an hour-long press conference that the financial blockade imposed by major American e-commerce companies has made it impossible for the organization to continue operating on donations provided by its supporters. Streamed in real-time via UStream, Assange also revealed during the conference that WikiLeaks has been running on cash reserves for the last 11 months due to the increasing problems with means to receive donations.
“The blockade has cost the organization tens of millions of dollars of lost donations at a time of unprecedented costs resulting from publishing alliances in over 50 countries with over 90 media and human rights organizations.”
Features
WikiLeaks publishes publicly unavailable information or media submitted through anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. The publication offers a high security anonymous drop box fortified by cutting-edge cryptographic information technologies, providing maximum protection to our sources.
Once information has been submitted and secured in the database, it undergoes a detailed examination procedure to determine its authenticity, including forensic analysis of document as well as traditional practices of fact-checking.
WikiLeaks does not generally censor its published materials, but it has adopted a policy of removing or significantly delaying the publication of some identifying details from original documents to protect life of innocent people.
Due to its banned status in a number of countries, WikiLeaks maintains its content on more than twenty servers around the world and offers numerous cover domains and mirror sites for internet users unable to access the information from their locations.
Reception
Wikileaks has been met by both praises and criticisms from journalists and public officials across the world. While its unique mission to “bring important news and information to the public” with original source material has been praised as a milestone in investigative journalism, its practice of disclosing largely unfiltered classified information has raised concerns of compromising national security and international diplomacy.
Praises
Since its launch in 2006, Wikileaks has received numerous awards and accolades for its achievements, including The economist’s New Media Award at the Index on Censorship Awards in 2008, Amnesty International’s UK Media Award in 2009 and the Readers’ Choice for TIME’s Person of the Year in 2010. Some of the most vocal supporters of Wikileaks include:
A number of high-profile government officials and representatives in Brazil, Ecuador, Russia, Venezuela have expressed their solidarity with Julian Assange and Wikileaks following the group’s release of U.S. diplomatic cables in 2010.
Daniel Ellsberg, the journalist who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has frequently defended the organization’s activities, including its November 2010 release of U.S. diplomatic cables.
The advisory board of the Walkley Foundation, which includes editors of major Australian newspapers and news directors of TV networks, has signed a letter to Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, in support of Wikileaks.
Republican congressman Ron Paul has spoken out in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, stating that “in a free society we’re supposed to know the truth.”
Editor-in-chief of Wired.com Evan Hughes has expressed his support of Wikileaks in an online editorial titled “Why WikiLeaks is Good for America,” describing its purpose as “to improve our democracy, not weaken it.”
Criticisms
Several human rights organisations including Amnesty International have requested with respect to earlier document releases that WikiLeaks redact the names of civilians working with international forces, in order to prevent repercussions. Wikileaks has been condemned by many governments and organizations whose files have been leaked by the whislteblower group, including the United States, Australia, France, Iran, Libya and the Philippines among others.
Traffic
The site traffic of WikiLeaks experienced its highest peak with the leak of U.S. Diplomatic Cables in November 2010.
Highlights
Somali Assassination Order
In December 2006 ,WikiLeaks posted its first secret document apparently signed by the Somali rebel leader for the Islamic Courts Union Hassan Dahir Aweys, who called for the execution of Somali government officials by hiring criminals as hit men. Due to the remaining uncertainty of the document’s authenticity, WikiLeaks published the information with a lengthy commentary asking the readers: “Is it a bold manifesto by a flamboyant Islamic militant with links to Bin Laden? Or is it a clever smear by US intelligence, designed to discredit the Union, fracture Somali alliances and manipulate China?”
U.S. Military Procedure in Guantanamo
On November 7th, 2007, WikiLeaks released a copy of Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Titled “gitmo-sop.pdf”, the 238-page document revealed some of the restrictions placed over detainees at the camp, including the designation of some prisoners as off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Camp Delta document (.pdf) includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what “comfort items” such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes.
Scientology Documents
In March 2008, WikiLeaks published what they referred to as “the collected secret ‘bibles’ of Scientology,” including the entire set of the Church’s “Operating Thetan Level” documents and several other papers related to the Office of Special Affairs.
Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account
In September 2008, a Yahoo! e-mail account associated with the then Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was hacked by members of Anonymous and its contents were published via WikiLeaks. Even though WikiLeaks was able to withhold the identity of the tipster, the hacker was eventually revealed as David Kernell, a college student and the son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell. According to the testimonial, Kernell obtained access to Pailn’s account by looking up her biographical details and using them for account recovery passwords. Kernell then posted several pages of Palin’s email as well as her changed account information on 4chan’s /b/ board, where it quickly spread to other forums.
Department of Defense Report on WikiLeaks
In March 2010, WikiLeaks released a 32-page report entitled the U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report. The document described a number of prominent reports leaked through the website which related to U.S. security interests and furthermore, potential methods of marginalizing the organization like termination of employment and criminal prosecution of any existing or former WikiLeaks affiliates.
U.S. Military Attack on Civilians
On April 5th, 2010, WikiLeaks released classified U.S. military footage from a series of attacks on 12 July 2007 in Baghdad by a U.S. helicopter that killed 12-18 people, including two Reuters news staff, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, on a website called “Collateral Murder.”
The Afghan War Documents
In July 2010, WikiLeaks disclosed and published a large collection of internal U.S. military logs that were originally compiled between January 2004 and December 2009. The log consisted of 91,731 documents many of which were classified Secret and as a result, only 75,000 of the collection has been released to the public on accounts of protecting the safety of innocent individuals.
Iraq War Documents
In October 2010, it was reported that WikiLeaks was planning to release up to 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War. Also known as the Iraq War Logs, the U.S. Army field reports filed from 2004 to 2009 contained a wide range of information regarding the military operations in the region, such as the record of 66,081 civilian deaths out of 109,000 recorded deaths. The leak of estimated casualties ultimately resulted in the launch of the Iraq Body Count Project. It is the biggest leak in the military history of the United States, surpassing the Afghan War documents leak in volume.
U.S. Diplomatic Cables
Between November 28th and December 5th in 2010, excerpts from the U.S. diplomatic cables were published through a number of renowned news publications including El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and The New York Times. The released information consisted of 251,287 documents issued by the US State Department’s 300 diplomatic missions around the world, dated between 1966 and 2010. In the week following the release, “WikiLeaks” remained the top search term in United States as measured by Google Insights.
Stratfor E-Mails
On February 27th, 2012, Wikileaks began publishing more than 5 million e-mails from the U.S.-based global security think tank group Strategic Forecasting Inc. (commonly known as Stratfor), which were apparently obtained by Antisec-affiliated hackers back in December 2011. Prior to the release of information by Wikileaks, Anonymous has announced in early 2012 that they had obtained e-mail correspondence of the firm’s employees with intent to publish the materials some day.
Cebu Dancing Inmates Videos are a series of dance performances by a group of prisoners held at the maximum security Cebu Provinicial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC)[1] in Cebu Province, Philippines. Produced and uploaded by the institute’s security advisor Byron F. Garcia, the inmates’ dance videos garnered worldwide attention in July 2007 after their performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” went viral on YouTube.
Origin
Byron Garcia first introduced choreography in March 2005 as an alternative to morning exercises and a form of inmate rehabilitation at the CPDRC.[6] Garcia uploaded the first CPDRC video to YouTube on October 1st, 2006, featuring inmates doing the Algorithm March[3] (shown below, left), a Japanese dance fad based on the educational children’s television program PythagoraSwitch.[4] He uploaded several more videos to his channel[5] but they all went relatively unwatched until July 17th, 2007, when he uploaded the inmates’ choreographed version of Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit “Thriller” (shown below, right). As of August 2012, the Thriller video has 51.1 million views.
Spread
The Thriller video was first shared on Gawker[7] on July 20th, 2007, three days after it was uploaded. A week later, BBC News[8] and NBC News[9] both shared the video, which led to the prisoners earning a World Record title[10] for the most inmates simultaneously dancing. Over the next seven months, the video was shared on Fox News[11], ABC News[12], GigaOm[13], CNN[14] and the New York Times.[15] The inmates were invited to perform at several occasions outside of the jail including a show at the Cebu Capitol.[16] By April 2008, an overhead platform was built around the exercise ground where tourists could watch the monthly performances.[17]
Notable Examples
Appearance in This Is It
Following Michael Jackson’s death on June 25th, 2009, CPDRC inmates worked with Travis Payne, associate director of the documentary This Is It, on a dance specifically choreographed for the group’s tribute to Jackson’s 1996 song “They Don’t Care About Us.” After two days of training and practice in January 2010, CPDRC prisoners, along with Payne and two other dancers from the cancelled This Is It tour, performed the dance and January 19th. The choreography was later featured in the This Is ItDVD and the footage was uploaded onto YouTube on January 22nd.
Program Suspension
In February 2010, the program was put on hold and Garcia’s contract was not renewed, a decision that was met by a public outcry demanding the resumption of the dancing program for the inmates. In response, Cebu Capitol consultant Rory Jon Sepulveda explained that the dancing program will remain an option for exercise, but the public viewing will be discontinued. According to Cebu Daily News, nearly 50 of the prisoners said that they would not take part since the suspension of public performances. During the run of Garcia’s program, it was reported that violent crimes within the prison lessent and inmates overall health had improved.[15]
Musical
In April 2010, an interactive web musical titled Prison Dancer was announced, combining a 12 episode webseries with a stage musical. Their official Facebook page[18] launched that month, with their YouTube channel[19] going up two months later. Written by Romeo Candido and Carmen de Jesus, the show focuses on the lives of six fictional inmates at CPDRC who are coping with their videos becoming viral sensations. The first episode of the web series[20] was uploaded on March 6th, 2012, featuring choice points making the show into an interactive game.
On July 20th 2012, the first of six live Prison Dancer performances was held as part of the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival.[21] The live performances won three awards[22] as part of the festival, including Excellence in Choreography, Outstanding Ensemble Performance and Oustanding Individual Performance for actor Jeigh Madjus[23], who played the prisoners’ choreographer, a crossdresser named Ruperto “Lola” Poblador.
Download More RAM is a phrase associated with the technologically impaired, as RAM is computer hardware and cannot be downloaded. The phrase is often used on tech or gaming forums to troll other posters, similar to the usage of Delete System32 and Gold Membership schemes.
.
Origin
On January 20th, 2004, Apple Insider user SpcMs[2] started a thread[1] asking where he could download RAM for his computer. He claimed his computer was low on memory and he wanted to illegally acquire more. Within three minutes, another user responded saying that it cannot be downloaded as RAM is a physical thing, providing two links to retail websites to purchase additional RAM.
Spread
The phrase was not used online again until July 10th, 2005 when a user named lucasp started a similar thread[3] to the original on the Overclockers community. Fifteen days later, a thread directly copied from Overclockers was posted on the eBaum’s World Forum.[4] Over the next two years, dubious questions about how or where to download RAM continued to surface on a wide range of computer and gaming-related forums including Tech Support Forum[5], Tom’s Hardware[6] and GameSpot.[7] By July 2007, the domain DownloadMoreRam.com[8] was registered, which claims that users can download memory from their site. The download pages do not actually contain files.
The first Yahoo! Answers question[9] on the possibility of downloading additional RAM was asked on December 26th, 2007. Since then, more than 4800 similar questions have been asked.[10] Other forums that have had threads where users discuss the possibility of downloading RAM include PC World New Zealand[11], Tech Power Up! Forums[12], PC Help Forum[13] and the EVGA Forums.[14]
Notable Videos
A handful of video “tutorials” have appeared on YouTube[15] instructing people how to download additional RAM.
The Nike ID Sweatshop E-mail Controversy refers to a series of culture jamming[19] correspondence that took place in 2001 between Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti[1] and Nike customer service over a pair of shoes he had ordered with the word “sweatshop” embroidered on them.
Background
In 1999, Nike launched the Nike ID[2] shop, an online footwear shop that allowed consumers to customize their footwear in details, from choosing the colors to picking out its fabric composition. In 2001, Jonah Peretti, then a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, ordered a pair of the customized shoes with the word “sweatshop” embroidered on them. Upon receiving Peretti’s order, Nike cancelled his order, which resulted in a series of six emails back and forth between Peretti and an unknown Nike representative who stated that the company reserves the right to cancel any order they deem as containing “material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products.”
Nike’s Sweatshop Labor Controversy
Footwear brand Nike has been accused of using sweatshop labor to produce their merchandise since as early as the 1970s.[3] In 1998, consumer activist Marc Kasky filed a lawsuit[4] against Nike asserting that the company’s distribution of products with the statement that it does not use sweatshop labor contained false advertising and misinformation. As of 2010, Nike is still accused of using sweatshop labor in their overseas factory, according to the court testimonies[5] of two female workers from Honduras representing 1700 workers who were laid off in 2009 without notice or severance pay.
Notable Developments
The emails were originally intended to be published in Harpers magazine, but they chose not to run them at the last minute. Peretti then forwarded the email to ten people, including Timothy Shey, who hosted them on his personal website[6] on January 17th, 2001. Peretti’s correspondence continued to spread via emails and within 24 hours, it reached the inbox of one of the engineers at Customatix, a now defunct mail-to-order footwear shop, who sent Peretti an email informing him there is a seven character limit on their embroidery designs.
News Media Coverage
On January 24th, 2001, now-defunct tech blog Lot 49[8] reported on the viral e-mail correspondence, receiving its first recognition outside of Peretti’s circle of friends. Several days later, the San Jose Mercury News became the first traditional media outlet to share the emails. In the following months, Peretti’s exchange with Nike was covered by a diverse range of news media outlets, from well-known publications like TIME, The Village Voice[12], Guardian[14] and The Independent[15] to online news communities and blogs including Metafilter[9], Slashdot, Salon[10] and Adbusters.[18] The news coverage eventually led Nike to issue a ban against several words from being embroidered onto their products, including Sweatshop, Sweat Shop, Child Labor, ChildLabor, Exploit and Swetshop.
TV Appearance
On February 28th, 2001, Peretti made an appearance on NBC’s Today Show, facing Nike’s spokeperson and Director of Global Issues Management Vada Manager[21] in a debate moderated by Katie Couric. The debate was also covered by Sports Business Daily[22] and the Ludwig von Mises Institute blog.[23] Following the broadcast of the debate, Manager released a statement reporting that custom shoe sales on the Nike iD site reached their third-highest in a single day on Wednesday.
Statistical Analysis
In March 2001, Peretti wrote about his experience in an op-ed piece for the Nation[20] as well as in an online essay titled “Culture Jamming, Memes, Social Networks, and the Emerging Media Ecology.”[24] He also released a statistical report graphing the 3655 emails he received between January 15th and April 5th, 2001 (below, left) and the influx of traffic to Shey’s archive page (below, right) breaking down the amount of attention the emails were getting during that time period. According to Peretti, he received more than 500 emails a day at the peak of circulation.
Justin Bieber to North Korea (also known as “Project North Korea is Best Korea”) is an Internet prank orchestrated by users of the imageboard 4chan in early 2010, which aimed to rig an online poll to select North Korea as a destination in Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour.
Background
On May 3rd, 2010, a fan voting page was launched on the website Faxo[6], which allowed users to select a country for Justin Bieber to visit and perform during his “My World” tour.
The My World Tour is an upcoming concert tour by Justin Bieber. It is his first official headlining tour, and is promoted by AEG Live, and Live Nation. The tour is anticipated to have multiple legs, and the supporting acts for the first will be Sean Kingston and Jessica Jarrell. Pop girl group The Stunners will also serve as an opening act for the first twenty dates. The tour is set to support his first release, My World, and its follow-up, My World 2.0. Who wants Justin the most? Decide now…
Notable Developments
Discussions on 4chan
On June 29th, threads began appearing on the /b/ (random) board on 4chan, calling for users to spam the page with votes for North Korea, the southeast Asian country that was ruled by the now deceased dictator Kim Jong-il.
Media Coverage
On June 30th, 2012, the Internet news blog Urlesque[8] published an article by writer Cole Stryker titled “4chan Tries to Send Justin Bieber to North Korea”, which reported that North Korea had already received over 100,000 votes on the Faxo poll page. The same day, the Urlesque article was submitted in a post on the /r/wtf[14] subreddit, receiving over 3,000 up votes and 460 comments prior to being archived. On July 1st, the viral content site BuzzFeed[7] published a post titled “Justin Bieber: Project North Korea is Best Korea”, which included an infographic on how to participate in the online prank (shown below).
On the same day, Gawker[9] published a post titled “The Plot to Send Justin Bieber to North Korea”, reporting that North Korea had reached second place in the online poll tailing behind Israel. On July 2nd, The Independent[15] published an article about the prank, which noted that it would not be possible for Bieber to perform in North Korea due to the country’s ban on western music. On July 5th, the BBC[2] published an article titled “Prank leaves Justin Bieber facing tour of North Korea”, which reported that the voting site had not been officially endorsed by Beiber’s record label. The same day, the Internet news blog BoingBoing[13] published a post titled “4chan prank means Justin Bieber must tour North Korea”, which mocked the BBC news coverage of the prank.
On July 6th, MSNBC[4] published an article by writer Helen A.S. Popkin titled “Web prank sends Justin Bieber to North Korea”, which compared the voting scheme to other online pranks including the “Shaved Bieber” Firefox extension created by the Free Art and Technology Lab[10] member Greg Leuch. The same day, the tech news publication Wired[11] posted an article titled “4chan Has Nearly Voted Justin Bieber to North Korea.”
Aftermath
On July 7th, 2010, the voting contest officially came to an end with North Korea topping the poll with 659,488 votes. The results were immediately posted in a screenshot to 4chan’s /b/[12] (random) board (shown below), which received over 180 replies. The same day, MTV News[3] published an article titled “Justin Bieber is Not Going to North Korea, Rep Confirms”, which quoted a Bieber spokesperson who revealed that the voting page was “not a legitimate contest.”
On YouTube
Several YouTubers uploaded videos providing commentary on the prank, many of whom celebrated the operation’s apparent success.
Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (born September 8th, 1941) is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representative from 1991 to 2007 and currently serves as the junior United States Senator since being elected to the office in 2007. After over two decades of public service as an independent legislator for the state of Vermont, Sanders rose to national prominence with the launch of his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2016 presidential election on May 26th, 2015.[1] During his campaign, Sanders firmly established himself as a dark horse for the Democratic Party with primary and caucus victories in 22 states. In July 2016, Sanders officially endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate after she secured the number of delegates required for the party’s nomination.
History
Political Career
Bernie Sanders was motivated to enter politics at an early age because his father’s family was killed during the Holocaust.[42] Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. A self-described democratic socialist, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. Sanders served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to succeed the retiring Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords in the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected by a large margin, capturing almost 71% of the popular vote.[1]
2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign
Sanders announced his intentions to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for President on April 30th, 2015. Unlike other presidential candidates, Sanders did not pursue funding through a Super PAC, instead focusing on small individual donations.[1] He would be the first non-millionaire president since Harry Truman from 1945.[39] Notably, much of his support comes from online, where so far he has received $15,000,000 in donations in his first quarter as a candidate as of July 2nd, 2015.[8] On September 30th, 2015, Bernie Sanders stated his goal of 1,000,000 individual online contributions had been met and later that day it was revealed he had raised an additional $24,000,000 in donations in this third quarter as candidate, well surpassing Obama’s pace at this time in 2008.[28][29] The individual online contributions have doubled to 2,000,000 with 800,000 of the donors donating a second or third time as of December 17th, 2015.[37] This amount increased to 3,000,000 individual online contributions as of January 30th, 2016.[41]
Endorsement of Hillary Clinton
On July 11th, 2016, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns announced that the pair would be joining each other at a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the following day. On July 12th, Sanders and Clinton appeared together at the Portsmouth High School, where Sanders officially conceded the presidential race to Clinton and endorsed her for the next President of the United States (shown below).
That day, several threads about the event reached the front page of the /r/politics,[74] /r/The_Donald,[75] /r/SandersForPresident[76] and /r/PoliticalDiscussion[77] subreddits. Meanwhile, Donald Trump posted a series of tweets condemning the endorsement and urging Sanders supporters to join his campaign (shown below).[78]
Also on July 12th, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein released a statement about the endorsement, where she condemned Clinton’s voting record and urged Sanders supporters to throw their support behind the Green Party.[79]
“I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton’s campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy.”
On Twitter, critics of the endorsement expressed their disapproval in tweets using the hashtags #SelloutSanders,[80] claiming that Sanders had compromised his integrity by supporting his former rival (shown below).
Bernie Campaign Election Response
Following the election of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders’ campaign was asked for comment. A tweet by @freddoso[81] claimed that per a CNN source, the Sanders campaign said “We have nothing polite to say right now.”
The tweet caused speculation that Bernie may have been referring to the results of the Democratic Primary, during which he consistently polled far better than Hillary Clinton in head-to-head matchups with Trump. The idea was a major topic of conversation on Twitter[83] the next day, and The Independent[82] published an article claiming Bernie would have won the election had he been the nominee.
Online Presence
The Sanders campaign maintains an official website, berniesanders.com, where supporters can contribute, learn about campaign events, and “join the revolution.”[4] As of February 1st, 2016 the campaign’s Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,540,000 likes, the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,950,000 likes, the SenSanders account on Twitter has 1,305,000 followers, the BernieSanders account on Twitter has 1,264,000 followers, and the berniesanders profile on Instagram has 656,000 followers.[5][6][7][20][21] The Bernie Sanders channel on Youtube has had notable success, gaining 91,000 subscribers and his five most popular videos all having over 250,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.
On March 12th, 2014, Bernie Sanders posted a video on his youtube channel titled “Health Care: U.S. vs. Canada,” in which he and others debated the health care systems of the United States and Canada (shown below). This video garnered 1,383,000 views with 5,900 likes and 181 dislikes as of February 1st, 2016. It is the 9th most viewed result under the youtube search ‘Bernie Sanders’ as of February 1st, 2016.
On August 17th, 2015, the All In with Chris Hayes account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders: “Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you”" in which Bernie Sanders states (paraphrased) no matter who is elected, due to the power of Wall Street, corporations, and campaign donors, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing working families within the United States (shown below). As of August 19th, 2015, the video has 5,000,000 views with 62,000 likes and 91,000 shares.
Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you"
On October 13th, 2015, the Occupy Democrats account on Facebook posted a video titled “Bernie Sanders Explains Why He Should Be President” in which Bernie Sanders delivers his introduction in the first debate of the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary in the Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas (shown below). The video quickly vent viral and has 10.8 million views with 160,000 likes and 234,000 shares as of October 15th, 2015.
WATCH: Bernie Sanders' epic intro at the Democratic debate where he explains why he should be President.Video by Occupy Democrats, LIKE our page for more!
Even though Bernie Sanders early in the election had not been covered as strongly in the news as other candidates like Hilary Clinton, the popular online site Reddit was continuously showing a large amount of commentary and support for him. As of February 1st, 2016, the top 420 results for ‘Bernie Sanders’ on Reddit all have 2,000 upvotes, the top 25 results have 6,000 upvotes, and the top result has 12,000 upvotes.[2] Notably, all the top 420 results for Bernie Sanders on Reddit are overwhelmingly supportive of him and his policies. The top 2 most commented results for the search ‘Bernie Sanders’ both have 20,000 comments and the top 5 each have 10,000 comments as of December 18th, 2015. In addition, the Bernie Sanders subreddit, /r/sandersforpresident, has 164,000 readers as of February 1st, 2015. Reddit was reported to have raised $750,000 for Bernie Sanders’s Campaign as of January 10th, 2016.[38] That amount has since increased to $1,000,000 as of January 26th, 2016.[40]
On May 19th, 2015, Bernie Sanders participated in an AMA on Reddit on the subreddit /r/IAmA under the account name bernie-sanders. Bernie Sanders had overwhelmingly positive reception, receiving 54,000 upvotes on his IAmA comments alone. There were 7,300 upvotes and 13,000 comments on his IAmA link as of February 1st, 2016.[3]
On September 14th, the official Bernie Sanders Reddit account bernie-sanders posted to /r/SandersForPresident “Let’s talk about one issue that won’t get a lot of discussion in the media: income and wealth inequality. Reddit, I would very much appreciate your help in getting this video out to your friends and family, especially the Republican ones. -B,” which linked to a video posted by the Bernie Sanders Facebook account titled “Bernie Sanders: In-Depth Explanation of Income Inequality” (shown below). The Reddit post has garnered 5,300 upvotes and the video has garnered 6,080,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.
Let me tell you something about our country that the billionaire class doesn’t want you to know…
Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group page devoted to creating and distributing memes, generally image macros and exploitables in support of Bernie Sanders during his campaign for the nomination during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The group is well-known for producing memes about Sanders at a high rate of mutation.
Facebook Groups Removal Controversy
On April 25th, 2016, several Bernie Sanders-related Facebook groups were purportedly removed from Facebook after being flooded with sexually explicit content, including Bernie Sanders For President 2016,[65] Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome,[66] Bernie Sanders Activists,[67] Bernie Believers[68] and Bernie Sanders is my Hero.[69] That day, Redditor jbher315 submitted a post about the removals to the /r/SandersForPresident[70] subreddit, where it received upwards of 9,300 votes (75% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in 48 hours. In the comments section, Redditor BernieTron2000 speculated that the pages were removed due to “Hillary trolls mass-reporting” to take down the pages temporarily. Meanwhile, Facebook user Bee Jay submitted several screenshots to the Bernie Sanders for President 2016 Facebook group,[71] which appeared to show a Facebook user bragging about reporting the Bernie Sanders Activists group for “containing a credible threat of violence” (shown below).
Also on April 25th, the Internet news site Heavy[72] published an article about the controversy, which reported that members of the Facebook group Bros4Hillary were behind attacks aimed at inundating Bernie Sanders Facebook pages with false complaints and explicit content. Additionally, the article included a statement by Bros4Hillary Political Director Alex Mohajer, who disavowed any connection to the Facebook page raids. Additionally, Mohajer claimed the Facebook user connected to the harassment had been removed from the Bros4Hillary group.
“Bros4Hillary was created as a way to provide a positive and supportive community for supporters of Hillary Clinton to gather, and as a direct response to the hateful and divisive rhetoric used by other campaigns during this election cycle,” he said. “We have not and do not approve of or condone harmful or offensive rhetoric or harassing behavior targeting supporters of any other candidate in the race…”
By the end of the day, all the Facebook groups had been reinstated. The following day, the Sanders campaign Social Media Manager Aiden King responded to concerns about the closing, claiming that the pages may have been temporarily shut down due to a Facebook bug. Also on April 26th, Snopes[73] published an article about the Facebook group controversy.
Support
Berniebros
“Berniebro” is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactic aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.
Rally Turnouts
Numerous news outlets and Reddit have reported Bernie Sanders drawing significantly large crowds for his rallies. “I am surprised by the size of the crowds. In Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday, we had close to a thousand people,” Sanders told reporters on June 11th, 2015, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C.[15] These numbers were however dwarfed by another rally he had on June 21st, 2015, in the University of Denver, which had at least 5,500 Coloradans listening to him speak inside the gymnasium.[16] Another rally Bernie Sanders had on July 19th, 2015, drew another larger amount of supporters, having over 11,000 people listening to him speak in downtown Pheonix, Arizona.[17] On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders hosted a rally which gained over 15,000 people, after having been blocked from speaking at Westlake Center due to #BlackLivesMatter protestors disrupting him.[18] A day later on August 9th, 2015, nearly double this number appeared at a Portland rally, with over 19,000 people inside the Moda Center and over 9,000 people outside it. On September 3rd, 2015, people filled the 26,000 person capacity inside the Boston Convention Center for a Bernie Sanders Boston rally, with a large quantity of people also outside the center.[30] On March 21st, 2016, Bernie Sanders hosted 3 rallies across Washington which attracted a combined total of over 30,000 people.[63]
Deez Nuts’ Endorsement
On August 23rd, 2015, the presidential candidate Deez Nuts (aka Brady Olson) endorsed Bernie Sanders. Brady Olson posted on Facebook “just gonna throw this out there now. This is not for the general election. My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.” In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Deez Nuts wrote that he didn’t want to “see Clinton, Bush, or Trump in the White House, so I guess I’m just trying to put up a fight.”[23]
Reputation
Bernie Sanders has established a reputation for having highly progressive views and being consistent with his voting and political views throughout his lifetime. He is notably far left and has gained a reputation for garnering large crowds at his rallies.
Progressivism
Since his election to the Senate, Sanders has emerged as a leading progressive voice on issues like income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform. He rose to national prominence on the heels of his 2010 filibuster of the proposed extension of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy. Sanders is also outspoken on civil liberties issues, and has been particularly critical of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act.[1]
Criticism
Bernie Sanders has faced two primary criticisms: his appeal to African Americans, and for his stance on gun control -the latter criticism often pointed out by Hillary Clinton. Sanders had blamed some of his issues with minority voters on the fact that he represents a state, Vermont, that is 95% white, and had planned to begin campaigning in the American South with an event in Charleston, South Caroline on the day after the 2015 Charleston Church Shootings, which he was forced to cancel due to the violence.[12] He has a D-minus voting rating by the NRA and often points this out when defending from attacks on his moderate gun control stance. [62]
Black Lives Matter Protests
Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement have disrupted multiple Bernie Sanders rallies. On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders was supposed to give a speech, but was blocked by Black Lives Matter protesters in a fashion similar to the Black Lives Matter disruption he dealt with three weeks prior (shown below). Conspirists on Reddit have claimed Billionaire George Soros is influencing this behavior by giving millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously being a Hillary Clinton supporter. A likely motivation for this would be the fact Bernie Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.[19]
Related Memes
Barnie Sandlers
@BarnieSandlers, a Twitter parody account of Bernie Sanders, posts a series of political advertisement parodies featuring fake quotes attributed to Bernie Sanders. The first example of the modern template used for “Barnie Sandlers” Quotes was posted via Bernie Sander’s official Twitter account on May 20th, 2015 (shown below).[24]
The image has been frequently exploited for parodies online, especially on the @BarnieSandlers[25] account on Twitter which has about 150 followers as of July 29th, 2015, and on the Barnie Sandlers profile on Facebook[26] which has over 9,000 likes as of July 29th, 2015. The “Barnie Sandlers” quotes typically contain the words “dank” or “meme” or have a reference to weed. Oftentimes, the image used in the background is replaced with an image of Bernie Sanders having obnoxious hair or have memetic items photoshopped onto him. The name “Barnie Sandlers” is likely a pun made from combining the name Bernie Sanders with the names Barney (the Purple dinosaur) and Adam Sandler.
Feel The Bern
Feel The Bern is a heavily spread phrase and chant of Bernie Sanders supporters. The phrase’s origin is presently unknown but has strong roots in Reddit.[43] This phrase has been heavily applied by the Bernie Sanders campaign for marketing purposes.[44] The twitter hashtag #feelthebern has received a massive amount of retweets. An alternate hashtag, #feelthebarn, was inspired by the Barnie Sandlers meme. Numerous news outlets have been reporting on various important people and states feeling the bern.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52] A notorious example of the phrase was displayed by Bernie Sanders himself on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, where Bernie Sanders briefly spoke about a ‘Feel the Bern’ mug.[53] Another reference was made to the phrase when Bernie Sanders was shown dancing onto the stage of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to the song ‘Disco Inferno’ to the lyrics ‘burn baby burn’. His dancing from that appearance has since spread on the internet for being funny and cringe-worthy.[54]
Bernie Sanders’ Hair
While discussion of his policy stances in the mainstream media has been comparably sparse, there have been several news media mentions of Senator Sanders’ hair, which often becomes unkempt during campaign events. On April 29th, 2015, the day before Sanders’ official campaign announcement, the Washington Post published an article titled “Great Moments in Bernie Sanders’ hair”, featuring photographs of his hair waving about accompanied by humorous captions.[9] On May 15th, 2015, New York Magazine collected media quotes about the Senator’s hair, saying that the press had been obsessed with his physical appearance in a way that wasn’t present for any other candidate.[10] On August 17th, 2015, Bernie Sanders berated a reporter for asking about his hair, stating “O.K., Ana, I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?”[22]
#BernieSoBlack
#BernieSoBlack is a satirical hashtag created by social progressives in response to Bernie Sanders’ perceived excessive focus on economic issues to the detriment of social issues. It was created by Roderick Morrow, a podcaster and comedian, after an altercation between Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter protesters at a Netroots Nation conference (a convention for left-leaning political activists). Sanders’s supporters promptly defended his record on social issues online, pointing out in particular that he participated in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with Vox,[14] Morrow explained the reasoning behind his creation of the hashtag.
Whenever he’s asked a question, he goes into a spiel on economics -- which is fine, obviously, people do want wage and class equality. But certain issues are race issues, and they do need to be talked about, at least from a candidate that I would like to vote for. […] And it seems like any time black people bring this up on Twitter, there’s all these people who, I don’t know, they’re just sitting around searching his name on Twitter or something, they just come and get in your mentions and start harassing you, they start saying the same things over and over to you, like, “He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King” […] I’m not denigrating that work, but it’s almost as if they’re trying to say, “You shouldn’t expect him to continue this” or, “Because he’s done stuff in the past, you shouldn’t question him now.”
The hashtag quickly began trending, spawning several notable examples.
During the first debate for the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary held on October 13th, 2015, Sanders addressed Hillary Clinton to comment on a political scandal regarding sensitive government emails sent via her personal email account, saying “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails” (shown below).
Immediately after, Twitter users began tweeting about the statement along with the hashtag “#DamnEmails,”[32] gathering upwards of 1,800 mentions in the first 24 hours according to Topsy.[31] Additionally, the @damnemails[33] Twitter feed was launched, featuring tweets about the debate exchange. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Sanders comment, including Wired,[34] Yahoo[35] and NY Daily News.[36]
Bernie or Hillary?
Bernie or Hillary? refers to a series of fake campaign posters supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary against Hillary Clinton in which Sanders is depicted as being more knowledgable than Clinton on a series of popular but apolitical topics.
“Bernie Sandwiches” and “Bernie Sandals”
Following Sanders’ victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary on February 9th, 2016, he was mistakenly referred to as “Bernie Sandwiches” by MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes and “Bernie Sandals” by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Immediately after, the Mashable News Vine feed posted clips of the gaffes (shown below).
That evening, Twitter user @jennychawla_[55] posted a photoshopped picture of a pair of sandals with a Sanders campaign promotional image printed on the top (shown below, left). Meanwhile, other Twitter users posted photoshops and jokes about Bernie Sanders sandwhiches (shown below, right).[56][60][61] In the coming days, several news sites reported on the online reactions to the gaffes, including The Daily Dot,[57] UpRoxx[58] and NPR.[59]
Birdie Sanders
Birdie Sanders is the nickname given to a bird that flew onto the podium in front of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his speech at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon in late March 2016.
#BernieMadeMeWhite
#BernieMadeMeWhite is a hashtag used to joke about the media’s representation of Bernie Sanders supporters as Caucasian during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The hashtag became popular after media reports of Sanders victories depicted diverse states, including Hawaii, as being “white and rural.”
Bernie Sanders Glowsticks Hoax
Bernie Sanders Glowsticks is a viral hoax image aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks.
#BernieLostMe
#BernieLostMe is a hashtag used by supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to share their reasons as to why the rival candidate Bernie Sanders is the less suitable nominee for the Democratic National Convention, which began trending after Sanders refused to denounce some of his supporters who behaved violently at the Nevada Democratic Convention in May 2016.
Professional wrestling is a form of entertainment that combines athleticism and theatrics. It portrays itself as a combat sport taking place for wrestling championships while predetermining the outcomes of the matches to focus on providing the most entertainment possible for the audience. Placed alongside the matches are promos, or skits that are meant to attract interest or develop a story-line put in place. The professional wrestling industry formerly portrayed itself as a legitimate sport, though when it became harder to hide the secrets of the business, it became an open secret for audiences. The choreographed nature of professional wrestling is not discussed during shows in order to help sustain a willing suspension of disbelief.
History
Wrestling as a sport has existed for centuries, dating back 2300 BC thanks to documentation in Egyptian tombs and artwork many years later. The most well-known form of wrestling is the Greco-Roman style, derived from traditional Greek wrestling. Greek wrestling was the first event added to the Olympic Games that were not a footrace, and became a popular staple of the ancient Games.
Professional wrestling, as a display of entertainment and not for serious sport, began in France around 1830, when showmen presented wrestlers under names such as “Edward, the steel eater”, “Gustave d’Avignon, the bone wrecker”, or “Bonnet, the ox of the low Alps” and challenged members of the public to knock them down for 500 francs.
The modern style of professional wrestling, popularized by the United States and United Kingdom during the late 19th century, was developed under different styles being mixed together. There was “catch-as-catch can”, which may have been developed by Lancashire style of wrestling, as well as the “collar-and-elbow” style created by the Irish. These different styles were mixed together and was developed into the modern day form of professional wrestling, classified as “Catch wrestling”.
Originally thought of as unorthodox and more lax in style, catch wrestling differs from Greco-Roman in its allowed grapples; Greco-Roman strictly prohibits grabbing below the waist, while catch wrestling allows holds above and below the waist, including leg grips. But, from the late 19th century onwards, a sub-section of catch wrestling changed slowly into the sport known worldwide as pro-wrestling, recognized as much for its theatrical antics and entertainment as wrestling ability. However, this change did not become predominant until following the Second World War, and there are still forms of Shoot wrestling existing in professional wrestling, in the present day.
The most notable foreign countries that have a rich history in professional wrestling are Mexico and Japan. Luchadores, the common name for Mexican wrestlers, are known for their high-flying acrobatics and intricate submissions while puroresu was the genre of wrestling headed by Japan. Mexico indulges in some of the over-the-top antics of modern-day American pro wrestling while Japan is distinct in its psychology and presentation of the sport. It is treated as a legitimate fight, with fewer theatrics; the stories told in Japanese matches are about a fighter’s spirit and perseverance. In strong style, the style most typically associated with puroresu, full contact martial arts strikes and shoot submission holds are implemented. Both styles of wrestling implemented by these two countries, lucha libre and puroresu, have influenced American wrestling in presentation and in-ring ability, with stars such as Antonio Inoki, Rey Mysterio, and Eddie Guerrero having matches with American wrestlers or wrestling in United States promotions.
Antonio Inoki and Muhammad Ali in an exhibition bout.
Professional Wrestling Slang
The professional wrestling business has a variety of different terms and phrases used in-business by fans, promoters, and other wrestlers that are normally not used during programming. The reason is mainly to maintain the image and helping fans suspend their disbelief to believe that the wrestling they are watching is legitimate. Below listed are the most commonly used terms:
Botch: A goof-up, getting something that was planned wrong.
Buried: A term for a wrestler whose reputation as a credible character is devalued beyond repair.
Face: The good guy in a story, wrestlers that the fans should cheer for.
Heel: The bad guy in a story, wrestlers that the fans should boo.
Kayfabe: Simply, the reality of the fictional world that professional wrestling puts forward.
Over: Established as a notable name in wrestling, a character fans care about.
Shoot: Going off of the script, being completely honest about something.
Work: A moment that is played out to fool the audience into thinking it was beyond real.
Impact
Professional wrestling began to flourish in the 1950’s, during the introduction of television. The man considered responsible for popularizing modern wrestling in American television was George Raymond Wagner, better known as “Gorgeous George”. In 1941 in Eugene, Oregon, Wagner debuted in his Gorgeous George persona, playing the role of a heel (or villain). He drew the ire of fans in attendance thanks to his exaggerated “pretty boy” behavior, quickly drawing in crowds in subsequent shows all wanting to see and ridicule Gorgeous George. Wagner developed his persona to be more antagonistic by cheating at every possible chance during his matches and having a snooty, pompous personality. When television was looking for programming to fill time slots, they looked toward professional wrestling. Gorgeous George made his first television appearance on November 11, 1947 and he immediately commanded the same star power as Lucille Ball and Bob Hope, revolutionizing professional wrestling from being just about the action to the theatrics and characters. George could also be credited with single-handedly establishing television as a worthy entertainment medium in the United States.
Gorgeous George headshot and autograph.
In 1942, the famous Mexican hero known as El Santo (The Saint) made his debut in Mexico City, dressed in silver tights and wearing a silver mask. El Santo won an 8-man Battle Royal and the public became heavily interested in the masked wrestler. His career went on for five decades, his popularity rising to the point of becoming a folk hero for the common man. El Santo appeared in comic books and over fifty-two movies, with the public interest becoming so great that El Santo was always wearing his trademark mask, wearing different masks that was designed for a specific scenario, even for sleeping. Much like Gorgeous George, El Santo brought much attention and profit to professional wrestling programming all over Mexico.
A movie poster for one of El Santo’s films.
World Wrestling Federation/World Wrestling Entertainment
In March 1979, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), for marketing purposes. Vincent Kennedy McMahon purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd. from his father, Vincent James McMahon, and began establishing his vision for the WWF. This included signing Terry Bollea as the top talent of the promotion, who would eventually become known worldwide as Hulk Hogan. Hogan was coming off of his popular role in Rocky III as Thunderlips, which McMahon saw as a marketing opportunity. Several notable icons of the wrestling industry that came to the WWF included “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Sgt. Slaughter, The Iron Sheik, and Andre the Giant.
McMahon was finding success with the WWF but needed something that would make his promotion stand out, and thus, created the WWF’s flagship show, WrestleMania. What helped separate WrestleMania from other promotions who had the same idea was that McMahon made it accessible to those outside of wrestling, bringing in Mr. T, Muhammad Ali, and Cyndi Lauper to be a part of the event, as well as signing a deal with MTV to provide coverage of the event. The peak of this period of wrestling traces back to WrestleMania III, in a match that could be argued to be the most significant match in the history of professional wrestling; Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, which was viewed by over 93,173 in attendence at the Pontiac Silverdome.
Due to several legal troubles in 1992 that both hurt the WWF in the public view and in their profits, Hulk Hogan along with several other WWF wrestlers left the company and headed to the main competition, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). This led to a group of new stars being pushed into the spotlight, billed as the “New Generation”, that group including The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Scott Hall (then known as Razor Ramon), and Kevin Nash (then known as Diesel). The WWF would find growing success with the debut of their weekly television program Monday Night RAW. Despite the talent involved in the New Generation, the WWF was still falling behind their rival, WCW. It appeared that the WWF was in critical danger of folding, until The Montreal Screwjob occurred, which led to the famous feud between “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon. Eventually, former boxing champion Mike Tyson was brought in to appear and have a role in the rivalry that would gain the WWF mainstream media attention and significantly boost ratings.
Along with Steve Austin, several other stars were being born thanks to the now-established “Attitude Era”, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who has been a part of a heated rivalry with Austin for years. Both men as well as the other popular WWF wrestlers would appear outside of wrestling, with Austin appearing as a recurring guest star in the claymation MTV series Celebrity Deathmatch (which included an episode where Austin fought Mr. McMahon in a Deathmatch) and The Rock becoming a host on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in 2000.
Following the acquisition of both WCW and ECW as well as renaming itself World Wrestling Entertainment thanks to a lawsuit by the World Wildlife Foundation, WWE saw the departure of two of their biggest stars, Rock and Austin. During what was referenced to as the “Ruthless Aggression Era”, it saw one wrestler who became established as the new face of WWE, John Cena. Cena’s original gimmick of a rapper was soon changed into a more marketable gimmick that has been criticized by dedicated wrestling fans, but it has brought much profit to the WWE, thanks to Cena’s merchandise and appearances in other media. Cena has also been a major part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting over 400 wishes for children with life-threatening illnesses, with Cena being the biggest wish granter in the charity’s history.
John Cena
Undertaker’s WrestleMania Streak
Mark William Calaway, better known in the WWE as The Undertaker, held the longest reigning undefeated streak at WrestleMania, reaching up to 21 victories and 0 losses. The Streak began at WrestleMania VII, with Undertaker defeating “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka, and went on to defeat notable wrestlers such as CM Punk, Kane, Ric Flair, Randy Orton, Edge and Triple H. One of the most unorthodox matches to occur during the Streak was against Giant Gonzales at WrestleMania IX, being the only match where the Undertaker won by disqualification. At WrestleMania 25, Undertaker was challenged by Shawn Michaels, and the match went on to become one of the highest rated matches of all time by various pro wrestling reviewers. The next year, Undertaker and Shawn Michaels had a rematch, with the added implication that if Shawn Michaels lost, he would retire. Undertaker managed to defeat Michaels once again and end Michaels’ career.
At WrestleMania XXX, the Streak was broken by former WWE and UFC champion Brock Lesnar, much to the shock of many in attendance and those watching from home. Many fans were outraged that Lesnar was the one chosen to be the person to end the Streak, and not give the notoriety to another wrestler who was much more active than Lesnar.
Undertaker is now 21-1 at Wrestlemania and my childhood is ruined. In any event, #ThankYouTaker
The Montreal Screwjob is the title of one of the most infamous incidents in professional wrestling with real-life implications. The incident mainly involves Bret Hart, Michael Hickenbottom (more popularly known as Shawn Michaels), and Vince McMahon, as well as Hart’s contract with the WWE (or WWF at the time). Hart won the WWF Championship at the pay-per-view “Summerslam” in August 1997. A week prior to the pay-per-view “Survivor Series”, Hart signed a contract with rival promotion WCW, in which he would perform for them in December of the same year. McMahon did not want Hart to leave the WWF and Survivor Series as the champion, but Hart refused, as the event would be held in his home country of Montreal, Quebec, Canada and he did not want to drop the title to Michaels, whom he had personal issues with on-and-off screen. All three men then came to the agreement that the match would be ended in a disqualification, which would mean that Hart would retain the title and he would lose it at a later time.
However, without Hart’s knowledge, McMahon ended up deciding that Michaels would be the WWF Champion by the end of the night. After the filming ended, Bret Hart caused destruction of various ringside equipment, angry at the outcome and the betrayal. After he was calmed down by his brother Owen, along with his in-laws and fellow wrestler Jim Neidhart and Davey Boy Smith, Hart traced the letters W-C-W in the air before leaving the arena.
The Montreal Screwjob affected not only the WWF from thereon, but WCW as well, as this moment would change the landscape of the WWF and bring Vince McMahon into his role as a heel, and subsequently, make new stars out of his wrestlers, namely “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. McMahon would embrace his persona as an “evil boss” who would screw wrestlers out of winning titles and McMahon would give them to wrestlers he saw fit to be the champion.
In 2006, nine years after the Montreal Screwjob, Bret was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and was seen as a sign that Hart and McMahon mutually came to an agreement about the events, although that already occurred in 2002, when McMahon checked on Hart during his recovery from a stroke. On January 4, 2010, Hart appeared on Monday Night RAW to “bury the hatchet” with Michaels. The two reconciled and apologized to one another, closing the book on their troubled relationship. McMahon would engage in a storyline feuding with Hart, which culminated at WrestleMania XXVI, with Hart defeating McMahon in a match.
The Fall of Owen Hart
Owen Hart, Bret’s brother, died on May 23, 1999 when an equipment malfunction occurred during his entrance from the rafters of Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., at the WWF’s Over the Edge pay-per-view event. Owen was performing under the character of The Blue Blazer, a “buffoonish superhero” who was supposed to be lowered down to the ring, where he was supposed to be “entangled” in the harness and release himself and fall for comedic effect, which needed to use a quick-release mechanism. However, due to unknown reasons, when performing the stunt at the pay-per-view, Hart was released from his harness and fell 78 feet, landing on the top rope chest-first and falling into the ring. Medical personnel were out to treat Owen while the broadcast showed nothing of the event, only leaving WWF television announcer Jim Ross to inform the home audience that Owen was badly hurt and that no storyline or staging is involved. Owen was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died of his injuries.
Owen Hart
Jim Ross informed the TV audience of the tragedy after it occurred, and WWF management was forced to decide whether to continue the show or stop it altogether. They decided to carry out the show to the end, but no footage has been released and a lawsuit was filed by Martha Hart, Owen’s widow, along with the rest of the Hart family. A settlement was reached in November 2, 2000, with the WWF giving the Hart family $18 million. The manufacturer of the harness system also was involved in the case, though a settlement was reached and thus, dismissed. Martha would use millions of the settlement to establish the Owen Hart Foundation.
The following night after the event, Raw Is Owen was put on for the audience, as with the WWF wrestlers, managers, referees, along with the McMahon family, paying tribute to Owen Hart throughout the show, with shoot testimonies given by select wrestlers being shown for the audience. The show ended with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin performing his beer guzzling routine and leaving a beer can in the ring ‘for Owen’. The tribute was the highest-rated special history in Raw history and the third highest-rated show overall.
Chris Benoit’s Double Murder Suicide
On June 25, 2007, it was reported on WWE.com that Chris Benoit and his family was found dead in their home in Atlanta, Georgia. On that evening’s edition of Monday Night Raw, all storylines were dropped to present a tribute to Benoit with comments from other WWE wrestlers (similar to the testimonies during Raw Is Owen) and showcasing Benoit’s matches. However, before the program was over, reports surfaced that the case was being investigated under the idea that Benoit murdered his wife and son before killing himself.
Chris Benoit
The following night on WWE’s ECW program, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon appeared in a recorded statement prior to the broadcast, stating that “other than my comments, there will be no mention of Mr. Benoit’s name tonight.” Soon after, WWE quickly distanced themselves from any mention of Chris Benoit during programming or in related media, and an investigation was established into the WWE’s wellness policy. A study done by Julian Bailes, the head of neurosurgery at West Virginia University, showed “Benoit’s brain was so severely damaged it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.”
The implications of the event are still felt today, as WWE strictly enforces the rule of “No chair shots to the head”, which was a popular stunt to perform prior to the death of Benoit. Outside of wrestling, the National Football League, among other sports leagues, has been creating and enforcing new rules that deal with concussions to a player and what to do when such an event occurs. With new cases arising of different athletes dealing with the side effects of concussions, efforts are being made to prevent lasting damage on those who have suffered from the injury.
On January 2, 2014, WWE started sending out memos for the upcoming WWE Network announcing that they will air footage featuring Benoit for the first time since the murders, but an advisory warning will be displayed by WWE before each archival airing featuring Benoit.
Online Presence
Botchamania
Botchamania is a on-going web series produced by Maffew Gregg, showcasing the botches (basically wrestling maneuvers, promos, and related matters ending up going wrong) of the past and present, from WWE, WCW, TNA, ECW, and various other promotions. Botchamania[1] as a concept was originally created by a YouTuber named TheOriginalMikey. The videos were rather sub-par especially when other YouTubers tried to add their own spin to Botchamania. Maffew, believing that “I could make a better video than this in my sleep” released Botchamania 4, and then his own versions of Botchamania 1, 2, and 3.
Botchamania has several running gags within the series, based on more prominent and popular botches. One of these running gags (shown below) involves the promotion CZW (Combat Zone Wrestling) and its founder/wrestler, John Zandig. Zandig cuts a rather unintelligable promo on events that occurred prior to the segment, proclaiming in the first couple seconds “JESUS!!” in an exaggerated manner. Whenever a Botchamania is segueing into something involving CZW, there is an edit involving Conan O’Brian’s Chuck Norris Lever skit, with a sound bite of Zandig when the lever is pulled or there is a piece of popular media featuring Jesus or activating a button or lever and inserting Zandig. Fans are encouraged to submit their own “JESUS!” segments or endings for Botchamania.
Maffew had a website dedicated solely to Botchamania – botchamania.net – but towards the end of March 2010, there was a sudden surge in the cost of hosting, and Maffew needed $500 to cover the traffic the site was getting. Donations poured in, covering the cost in roughly two days, but other technical difficulties caused the site to basically stall out; Maffew eventually started up botchamania.com[2] and it is still going. His Twitter can be found here. [3]
Jim Ross
Jim Ross is a WWE Hall of Fame ringside commentator who is best known for his emotion, his voice, and his slang while at the commentary table. Some of his phrases have become in-jokes, such as “slobberknocker” (meaning a hard fought match with certain brutality), “business is about to pick up here!” (usually referring to the sudden appearance of an unexpected person), and more. Specific moments from his career have also become legendary, such as The Undertaker and Mankind’s Hell in a Cell match at King of the Ring 1998 where he famously proclaimed upon the falls of Mankind, “Good God almighty! Good God almighty! They’ve killed him! As God as my witness, he is broken in half!” and “Will somebody stop the damn match?!”. Fans have taken these voice clips and others and dubbed them over different moments.
WWE Sign Guy
“WWE Sign Guy” is the nickname of Rick Achberger, a man who has been a longtime fan of WWE and follows the shows around the country, always wearing a red backwards cap and a blue workman’s shirt in order to be recognized. He has gained his own following within the wrestling community with his appearance and creative, provocative signs that he is able to display in the front row of any event he appears at. Achberger made an appearance on the game show Deal or No Deal, where he played for $1 million. His appearance on the show also featured John Cena and Bobby Lashley cheering on Achberger (in their role as faces), while Edge and Randy Orton were antagonizing Achberger (as they were heels).
E-Federations
E-Federations (also typeset as eFederation, e-fed or just referred as fed) is a fantasy wrestling league or promotion in e-wrestling, operated electronically and is based on professional wrestling. Formed in 1995 with a small group of people and four efeds that used email based feds. It uses roleplay aspects to shape events in the way it turns out in the real business. In modern day, these federations are mostly ran through the use of a message board, where everything is conveyed via text form with images, and sometimes videos, borrowed from other entities, contrary to when conducted by means of website, email, postal mail, dicing systems, and simulated or strategic gaming.
The most prominent type of E-Federations are ones used in professional wrestling video games, mainly the games using the WWE license. These gaming E-Federations typically use original characters, popular fictional characters, or celebrities, all created using the game’s Create-A-Wrestler mode.
Connor “The Crusher” Michalek
Connor Michalek was a young fan of WWE from Hampton Township, PA, that was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer and was able to meet wrestler Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan) through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. He met Danielson in 2012 through Make-A-Wish and Connor was invited to several WWE events over the course of two years, his last event attended being WrestleMania XXX. Early in 2014, Connor’s father Steve told WWE that his son was losing his battle and WWE decided to invite the two to WrestleMania, where Danielson won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. After the match, he directly approached Connor at ringside and hugged him, telling him “Connor, you mean a lot to me. You give me a lot of strength. You helped me earn this, please keep on fighting.” Connor passed away from his brain cancer three weeks later and WWE released a tribute video dedicated to Connor that has been going viral, receiving over 2.3 million views on YouTube.
Jericho Invented X
Christopher Keith “Chris” Irvine, better known by the ring name Chris Jericho, has been praised for his different “personas” throughout his wrestling career, from the cocky “King of the World” gimmick to his brooding, slow-talking claims of being the “best at what I do”. Before Chris Jericho made a return to WWE programming on January 2nd, 2012, he conducted an interview with 411Mania.com where he made remarks about wrestlers stealing his moves.
“There seems to be a lack of respect for the forefathers who came in and did it first and it’s not just [CM] Punk, it’s a whole litany of guys from Miz to Cody Rhodes to Mason Ryan to Sin Cara to Kelly Kelly, everybody is stealing moves, looks, ideas."
While it was perceived that Jericho was serious about his statements, his comments reflected his in-ring character when he officially returned to WWE, feuding with CM Punk about Punk’s claims to being the “Best in the World”. As a result, images began to appear claiming various things that Chris Jericho also invented.
Infamous One-Liners
Several phrases and quotes uttered by different wrestling talent throughout the years have grown into their own meme in the wrestling fanbase, much like Zandig’s CZW promo, thanks to the outrageous or perfectly timed nature of the moments that have spawned these sayings.
“Hulk Hogan, We Coming For You, N***a!”
This quote is attributed to long-time wrestler Booker T, who said this infamous phrase at 1997’s WCW Spring Stampede in a promo about Hulk Hogan, who had joined the New World Order (nWo) faction at the time, and the wrestlers who aligned with WCW were against him.
In 2011, Booker T explained in an interview that the reason for the line was that he got caught up in the energy and emotion of delivering the promo, as well as his upbringing in an urban environment. He also said that he approached Hulk Hogan after the promo and apologized, meaning no ill will. Hulk Hogan replied, “But you know what? I’m a good N-Word.”
“You Have A Vagina!”
Around June 5th of 2011, Phil Brooks (better known as CM Punk) argued with a fan at a WWE house show in Australia, calling him a “homo” as well in the video that was placed on YouTube. TMZ circulated the video and CM Punk apologized for the comments he made in the video, saying, “I’m glad TMZ posted that video because everybody needs to be held accountable for their bullshit, me included. What I said was bullshit. I’m embarrassed. I own up to being a total douche in this situation and I offer a sincere apology to anybody I hurt with careless words.”
Scott Steiner Hates Fat People
Scott Steiner, a wrestler known for his heated and off-the-wall promos, has performed several promos that have caught into the wrestling fandom as infamous. However, two of his most exploitable promos revolve around the weight of his opponents.
David Flair Titantron
Titantrons are the videos that play during the entrances of wrestlers, depending on the organization. David Flair, son of Ric Flair, holds the distinction for one of the most infamous Titantrons of all time. The combination of the generic rock instrumental, bland videography, and the random edit to Ric Flair appearing disappointed inspired others to create their own David Flair style Titantrons with a similar formula.
Arthur is an educational television series, created by Cookie Jar Entertainment and funded in part by the No Child Left Behind Grant. The show is set in the fictional American city of Elwood City, and revolves around the lives of 8-year-old Arthur Read, an anthropomorphic aardvark, his friends and family, and their daily interactions with each other[2].
History
The show is based from the illustrated series by the illustrator Marc Brown. Cookie Jar Entertainment group started to product the animated series in 1994 and the first episodes were aired in 1996. The television show includes a large cast of notable characters[4]:
Arthur : The protagonist of the series. He is an elementary school aged aardvark with round glasses and a yellow long sleeved shirt. He also has a dog named Pal.
DW : Arthur’s younger sister. Seen mostly as a pest and annoyance to Arthur, she is stubborn, bossy, and loud. She is a pre-school aged aardvark who has been a part of the supporting cast since the show’s pilot. She has also had multiple episodes revolving around her and her life. She has an imaginary friend named Nadeen who leaves later on in the series as part of growing up. She enjoys a fictional series Mary Moocow (a spoof of Barney) which irritates her brother and family.
Buster Baxter : Arthur’s best friend and one of the most popular characters. He is the same age as Arthur and reads the same comic books as his best friend about Bionic Bunny and Dark Bunny (satires of Superman and Batman.) He is a victim of asthma and loves to eat excessively. A spin off starring him was created in 2003 called Post-Cards from Buster which was filmed part animated part real life as he travels the world with his father documenting the lives of children he meets along the way. It ran from 2003 to 2008, before being revived in 2012.
Francine : Francine is an 8th grade anthropomorphic monkey in the series in the same class as Arthur and Buster. Her demeanor is headstrong and willful. She is a Jewish-American living in an apartment complex with her family. Despite being from a low-income family, her best friend is the daughter of the richest man in town.
Muffy : best friend of Francine. Muffy is the spoiled daughter of Eldwood city’s local tycoon and is used to an expensive lifestyle. Owning all the latest electronics and “in” fashions she comes off to most as snobbish and bratty. She has moments of humility however, when finding out money really can’t buy you happiness.
Brain : earning his namesake for being the smartest in his class, Brain sometimes has inferiority complex and hides that, while he is intelligent, he was held back early in his life due to his emotional maturity. He is African American and celebrates Kwanzaa and other African cultural festivities.
Binky : the eldest of the casts’ children, Binky is the playground bully when others are around while secretly being having soft hobbies like opera, clarinet, and nature watching. His temper and image makes him come off a mean person, but it is all a ruse.
Reception
The show has earned 4 Daytime Emmy Awards since it’s debut in 1994. It is one of the longest running cartoons in the United States next to the Simpsons and Spongebob Squarepants.[3] The series has been praised for highlighting issues such as cancer, dyslexia, allergies, violence, and Asperger syndrome. The show has had guest stars ranging from the late Mr Rogers and Philip Seymour Hoffman to Lance Armstrong, Matt Damon, and YoYo Ma[5].
Fandom
Arthur has generated both sincere and humorous appreciation on social media. In the former category, there are Tumblr blogs such as “Fuck Yeah, Arthur!”[8] and “a-a-r-d-v-a-r-k,”[9] and the Arthur Facebook[13] page has over 1,000,000 likes. In the latter category, there are blogs such as “Arthur Out of Context”[10] and the Twitter account @ArthurScenes,[11] which as of July 28th, 2016, has over 15,000 followers. Both sites post Arthur screenshots that could be misinterpreted when taken out of context for humorous effect.
Arthur also has his own Wiki-style research website, Arthur Wiki,[12] that has 3,651 pages.
Related Memes
Arthur Comic Creator
Arthur Comic Creator is an online comic series based on the educational children’s television cartoon Arthur[2] made via a generator[1] hosted by PBS Kids. Similar to Law For Kids PSA Parodies and Stop Bullying Comics, internet users began using the comic generator application to create humorous parodies with inappropriate messages.
He Does It For Free
He Does It For Free is an expression used to mock 4chan moderators, also known as “janitors,” who are accused of abusing their power or being overly sensitive. Is it often associated with images of the anthropomorphic cartoon dog John Morris from the cartoon television series Arthur, who is employed as an elementary school janitor on the show.
Arthur Punches D.W. is an infamous clip from the childrens TV show Arthur, in which he punches his little sister D.W. The short clip eventually became a target of parodies, remixes, and YouTube Poop videos.
“You’ve Got To Be Kidding!” Parodies
“You’ve Got To Be Kidding!” is a quiz game on the PBS’s website. It showcases Arthur characters sharing a personal issue and presents 3 solutions. The player is rewarded when answering with the best decision and is meant to promote good choices. Photoshopped versions of the game have surfaced online however, giving a shocking question and presenting equally inappropriate answers.
Arthur on Black Twitter
On July 27th, 2016, Black Twitter began tweeting pictures from Arthur with relatable, mature captions.[6] The next morning, Buzzfeed covered the trend in a listicle called “14 Times ‘Arthur’ Summed Up Your Struggles Perfectly.”[7]
Arthur’s Fist
One picture of Arthur’s balled up fist was popularly used as an image to express anger, which soon enough spawned several twitter parody accounts, the most popular being “@ARTHURSFIST,”[14] who has regularly gained between 10 and 50 retweets on their posts in its first day of existence.
Arthur and DW Slash Pairing
The Arthur tweetstorm also resulted in a high amount of sexual tweets. Some even implied incest; one image in particular, of Arthur putting on his pants while DW lays on his bed with her face in her hands, got popular enough that “Arthur and DW” were trending on Twitter the next morning.
Halloween is an annual event celebrated in many countries worldwide on October 31st, which is often associated with various themes involving the fall season, pranking and horror.
Background
Halloween may have origins in the ancient Irish pagan festival Samhain,[2] which celebrated the end of summer with feasting, bonfires, sacrificial offerings and homage to the dead. The word “Halloween” means “hallowed evening” or “holy evening” and dates back to 1745. The mass Irish and Scottish immigration during the 19th century is believed to have brought the celebration of Halloween to North America, as many Christian denominations previous maintained opposition to the celebration.
Viral Costumes
2007
In 2007, Flickr[6] user Stefanie Seskin uploaded a photograph of herself on Halloween dressed as a LOLCat (shown below, left). That year, software engineer Matt Cutts[7] posted a photograph of himself wearing a LOLCat costume for Halloween (shown below, middle). Also for that year’s Halloween, Flickr[9] user Alida Saxon posted a photograph of person dressed in a Lime Cat costume (shown below, right).
2008
On October 13th, 2008, the design blog CMD Shift Design[10] posted several photographs of Internet-themed Halloween costumes (shown below). On October 29th, the Internet news sites Urlesque[11] and BuzzFeed[8] published a listicle of meme Halloween costume idea.
2009
In October 2009, several Internet news sites Neatorama and Thrillist highlighted various Internet meme costumes. Additionally, Know Your Meme temporarily launched a DIY“Hallow-meme costume builder.”[15] That year, the first Hallowmeme event was held in New York City (shown below, right).
2010
On October 12th, 2010, MentalFloss[13] highlighted a photograph of a man wearing a “Double Rainbow”: costume (shown below, left). On October 19th, Mashable[12] published an listicle of “Social Media Halloween Costume Ideas.” That year, the online retailer BrandsOnSale listed an Antoine Dodson costume for sale (shown below, right).
2011
On October 31st, 2011, Redditor Snap_Judgement uploaded a photograph of himself dressed as Business Cat to /r/pics[21] (shown below). That year, several news sites published articles about Internet meme Halloween costumes, including The Huffington Post,[16] Oddee,[17] Smosh,[20] Nerve[18] and Neatorama.[19]
2012
On October 21st, 2012, Redditor The_Origami_Man posted a photograph of himself wearing a High Expectations Asian Father costume (shown below, left).[23] On October 28th, Redditor hanako66 uploaded a photograph of himself wearing a Giorgio Tsoukalous costume (shown below, middle).[24] On November 1st, Redditor Magnets_and_Ghouls uploaded a photo of herself wearing a Scumbag Steve costume (shown below, right).[25] That year, several news sites published articles about Halloween meme costumes, including CNN,[25] UpRoxx[26] and The Daily Dot.[27]
2013
On October 29th, 2013, Redditor Zangler posted a photo of a man in a Guy Fawkes costume described as “Adult 4chan Man costume” (shown below).[32] That year, articles listing meme costume ideas were posted on Mashable,[28] Smosh,[29] Time[30] and BuzzFeed.[31]
2014
On October 25th, Redditor scarletregina posted a photograph of a Shiba Inu dressed as Doge (shown below, left).[34] That year, several news sites published listicles containing meme Halloween costumes, including Time,[35] Mashable[36] and Refinery 29.[37]
2015
In 2015, the online retailer Yandy[38] placed a Pizza Rat costume for sale (shown below, left). On October 30th, Redditor Ryanwesley posted a photograph of himself costumed as Kim Davis for Halloween (shown below, right).[39]
Highlights
Pumpkin Carving Art
Pumpkin Carving Art is the craft of carving images or patterns onto pumpkins. Traditionally known as jack-o-lanterns, photographs of intricately carved pumpkins are shared online every year around the beginning of autumn in celebration of Halloween.
The Pumpkin Dance
The Pumpkin Dance is a YouTube video of a man dressed in all black wearing a Jack O’Lantern mask dancing to the theme song from the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The clip, which originally aired on the KXVO news channel in Omaha, Nebraska during a Halloween broadcast in 2006, went on to spawn several mash-up videos, remixes and photoshopped GIFs.
He’s My Favorite
He’s My Favorite! is a Halloween-themed exploitable webcomic of a child trick or treating in a costume. While the original comic features an innocent dialogue between the treat giver and the trick-or-treater, it was soon turned into a fodder for parodies featuring other fan-favorite characters from popular video games and cartoons.
We’re a Culture, Not a Costume
We’re a Culture, Not a Costume was a poster ad campaign that features students of various ethnicities holding photos of people dressed in Halloween costumes that could be perceived as culturally insensitive. The campaign inspired a series of photoshop parodies depicting animals and fictional characters with photos of people wearing their respective Halloween costumes.
HallowMeme
HallowMeme is an annual Internet meme-themed costume contest and party held in New York City during the week of Halloween.
2Spooky
2Spooky is an abbreviation of the phrase “too spooky” that is typically associated with pictures and animated GIFs of skeletons and the song “Spooky, Scary Skeletons” by Andrew Gold.
Spoopy
Spoopy is an intentional misspelling of the word “spooky” which is associated with a Halloween sign written in a human skeleton typeface. The phrase is often associated with the abbrebiation 2Spooky on the microblogging site Tumblr.
Skeleton War
Skeleton War is an inside joke which originated in 2013 and circulated through Tumblr in October 2014, as a way to tag GIFs or pictures of skeletons used to celebrate the month leading up to Halloween, similar to 2spooky.
Nightmare Fear Factory Photos
Nightmares Fear Factory is a haunted house attraction located in Niagara Falls, Canada. Since the early 2000s, they have photographed the reactions of their visitors as they go through the venue to capture their candid fear. In the past few years, collections of these photos have gone viral every October.
Steal Her Look
Steal Her Look is a series of instructional posts for costume ideas on Tumblr that offer a list of high-end, boutique clothing items and fashion accessories required to achieve the look of an Internet meme, such as a fictional character, viral video celebrity or inanimate object, as a parody of the familiar “lookbook” format widely used in fashion magazines and seasonal catalogues.
Blackface Costume Controversies
Blackface Costume Controversies refer to a series of online backlashes prompted by Halloween costumes that entail painting one’s own face in black or brown as to emulate the darker skin tone of black people. Despite the widespread cultural stigma surrounding the practice in North America, many celebrities and other individuals have come under criticism for sporting the blackface as part of their costumes.
#HalloweenFail
On October 15th, 2014, late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon posted a tweet launching the hashtag #HalloweenFail to share “funny, weird or embarrassing0” Halloween stories (shown below).
In the first 24 hours, #HalloweenFail[4] became a worldwide trending hashtag, with over 6,900 mentions according to the Twitter analytics site Topsy.[5]
Hulk Hogan’s Sex Tape Scandal refers to a sexually explicit video in which former professional wrestler Terry Gene Bollea, better known by his stage name Hulk Hogan, is shown engaging in sexual intercourse with Heather Clem, the wife of radio personality Todd Clem. Clips of the video were widely circulated online throughout 2012, which lead Bollea to file lawsuits against both the Clems and Gawker Media for violating his privacy. Many have speculated the lawsuit against Gawker could potentially bankrupt the company, as well as set important legal precedents in regards to privacy rights and freedom of the press.
Background
In April 2012, a 30-minute sexually explicit video in which Hogan and Clem engage in sexual intercourse began circulating online. In the video, radio host Todd Alan Clem (a.k.a. Bubba the Love Sponge) can be heard telling his wife Heather “If we ever need to retire, here is our ticket,” prior to Bollea entering the room. On October 4th, Gawker[7] released a one-minute clip from the video titled “Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe For Work but Watch it Anyway.”
Notable Developments
Howard Stern Appearance
That month, Bollea was interviewed on the Howard Stern radio show about the tape, claiming he was covertly filmed without his consent (shown below).
Lawsuit Against the Clems
Also in October 2012, Bollea filed a lawsuit against the Clems for invading his privacy by filming him without his consent. On October 29th, a settlement was reached and Todd Clem issued a public apology to Bollea on his radio show.
“I am now convinced that Hulk Hogan was unaware of the presence of the recording device in my bedroom. I am convinced [Hulk Hogan] had no knowledge that he was being taped…It is my belief that Hulk is not involved, and has not ever been involved, in trying to release the video, or exploit it, or otherwise gain from the video’s release in any way.”
Lawsuit Against Gawker
On April 24th, 2013, Hogan sued Gawker for the post, and demanded they take the tape down. The site initially refused, citing their first amendment rights as journalists in the public interest, but a judge later required them to remove it.[8] On October 21st, 2014, Redditor Alexxm posted an image juxtaposing Gawker headlines about the Bollea sex tape with headlines criticizing “The Fappening” iCloud leaks, accusing the online tabloid of hypocrisy (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 5,600 votes (94% upvoted) and 690 comments on the /r/TumblrInAction[1] subreddit.
On July 6th, 2015, a civil trial against Gawker Media convened in Florida, in which Bollea is seeking $100 million in damages for violating his privacy, personality rights and intentionally inflicting emotional distress for publishing the sex tape. On July 24th, 2015, the National Enquirer[3] and Radar Online[4] published transcripts of Bollea’s statements heard in the background audio of the sex tape:
“I mean, I don’t have double standards. I mean, I am a racist, to a point, f*cking n*ggers. But then when it comes to nice people and sh*t, and whatever."
“I mean, I’d rather if she was going to f*ck some n*gger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall n*gger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player!”
On July 29th, Bollea filed a motion accusing Gawker of leaking the tape audio to compromise the lawsuit against them.[5] In October, a judge granted Bollea access to Gawker’s computer system to allow a forensic expert to search for evidence that the company leaked a recording of Hogan to the National Enquirer. On March 5th, 2016, The New York Times[2] published an article about the lawsuit, noting that it may set important legal precedents in regards to privacy rights and freedom of the press. On March 7th, Bollea appeared on the stand at the trial, where he claimed he was “in character” when questioned about the Howard Stern appearance, and that he was “completely humiliated” by Gawker publishing the video
On March 9th, former Gawker editor Albert J. Daulerio was questioned as a defendant in the case. When asked if he could “image a situation where a celebrity sex tape would not be newsworthy,” Daulerio responded “if they were a child” under the age of “four.” That day, Gawker claimed Daulerio was being “flippant” in the statement.[6] On March 14th, YouTuber Court Chatter View uploaded footage of Daulerio being questioned about the remark (shown below). On the following day, Redditor The-Wing submitted the video to /r/videos. Within 24 hours, the video received upwards of 1.08 million views and the Reddit post gathered more than 8,500 votes (83% upvoted).
Verdict
On March 18th, 2016, a verdict was delivered awarding Hogan $55 million in compensatory damages and $60 million for emotional distress. By the end of the month, the six-person jury will decide if additional punitive damages will be awarded. Following the delivery of the verdict, Gawker CEO Nick Denton announced plans to appeal the decision, claiming that “key evidence and the most important witness were both improperly withheld” from the jury.[11] That day, the tech news site Ars Technica published an article titled “$115 Million Verdict in Hulk Hogan Sex-Tape Lawsuit Could Wipe Out Gawker.” In the coming days, several posts about the verdict reached the frontpage of the various subreddits, including /r/news,[13][18] /r/technology,[14] /r/squaredcircle,[15] /r/KotakuInAction/,[16] /r/The_Donald/,[17] some of which celebrated Hogan’s victory in the case (shown below).
Peter Thiel’s Funding
On May 23rd, 2016, The New York Times[19] published an article titled “Gawker Founder Suspects a Common Financer Behind Lawsuits,” reporting that Nick Denton suspected someone in Silicon Valley was financing various lawsuits against the media company, including Bollea’s defamation lawsuit. The following day, Forbes[20] published an article titled “This Silicon Valley Billionaire Has Been Secretely Funding Hulk Hogan’s Lawsuits Against Gawker,” which named PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel, whom Gawker outed as a homosexual in 2007, as the secret financier. On May 25th, The New York Times[21] published an interview with Thiel, in which he admitted to financing the lawsuit against Gawker. That day, several posts about the news reached the front page the /r/news,[22] /r/ProRevenge[23] and /r/KotakuInAction[24] subreddits. On Twitter, many claimed Thiel’s funding of the trial was a threat to freedom of the press, while others mocked the arguments as sanctimonious.
Settlement
On November 2nd, 2016, months after Gawker had closed due to bankruptcy as the result of the case, Hogan and Gawker reached a settlement in which Gawker would pay Hogan $31 million dollars after the judge awarded Hogan $140 million in damages after the case.[28] The stories about Hogan were also removed from the site.
Gawker’s Sale Rumors
On May 26th, the New York Post reported that Nick Denton had “begun quietly soliciting bids for the sale of his company” in the wake of the verdict. That day, several other news sites reported on the story, including the Wall Street Journal,[25]CNBC[26] and Business Insider.[27]
The 2016 United States Presidential Election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election in the U.S. that took place on November 8th, 2016. The two major candidates were former First Lady, Secretary of State and Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton, running with Tim Kaine, and Republican real estate mogul Donald Trump, running with Mike Pence. Donald Trump was elected as 45th president of the United States after defeating Hillary Clinton in electoral votes.
Background
2016 Democratic Presidential Primary
The 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary is the preliminary round for the Democratic party to pick the candidate they wish to support for the 2016 general election. Online, most of the attention centered around the race has been focused on the conflict between candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders..
2016 Republican Presidential Primary
The 2016 Republican Presidential Primary is the preliminary round for the Republican party to decide which candidate they wish to support for the 2016 general election. It has gained much attention online, most notably for its inclusion of front runner Donald Trump.
Notable Developments
Super Tuesday
On March 1st, 2016, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia held primaries and caucuses for the Democratic and Republican presidential nomination. Additional Republican caucuses were held in Alaska, North Dakota and Wyoming and a Democratic caucus was held in American Samoa. That evening, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won seven states with a total of 417 delegates and rival Bernie Sanders won four states with a total of 230 delegates. In the Republican race, Donald Trump won seven states with 203 delegates, Ted Cruz won three states with 144 delegates and Marco Rubio won one state with 59 delegates. The following day, Jimmy Kimmel Live aired a “Lie Witness News” segment in which they ask people on the street if they voted in the primary (shown below).
Chris Christie Face
During Trump’s victory speech in Florida, he was joined by former candidate and supporter Chris Christie. On Twitter, many mocked Christie’s pained-looking facial expressions made during the speech (shown below).[2][3][4]
Additionally, writer Xeni Jardin tweeted an animated GIF of Christie’s face with a pulsating rainbow triangle overlay, along with the hashtag’s #illuminati and stay woke (shown below).
On March 11th, 2016, The Alex Jones YouTube channel posted a video titled “Anti-Trump Protesters Go Berserk!”, featuring a heated argument between Trump supporters and anti-Trump activists taking place outside of a Trump rally in St. Louis, Missouri. After the video began circulating on 4chan, two anti-Trump protesters were nicknamed “Carl the Cuck” and “AIDS Skrillex,” and were widely mocked for their argument tactics, including the invocation of Godwin’s Law and discounting a Trump supporter’s arguments for being a “White male.”
Birdie Sanders
On March 25th, 2016, Democratic primary presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made an appearance at a campaign rally held at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. During his speech, a brown house finch flew onto the stage, which immediately prompted cheers and laughters from the crowd (shown below). As Sanders, who seemed just as entertained by the unexpected intruder, tried to resume his speech, the bird approached the Vermont senator even closer by perching on his podium, triggering further excitement and bewilderment from his supporters in attendance, as well as many others online who witnessed the strange interruption via livecast.
#HillarySoQualified
On Wednesday, April 6th, Bernie Sanders stated in a speech that he believed that Hillary Clinton was unqualified to hold the office of president based on her previous decisions in fundraising, the Iraq War and other positions she had previously held. The hashtag #HillarySoQualified was launched by Clinton supporters to praise their candidate’s experience, but was subsequently hijacked by Sanders supporters (shown below).
#DropOutHillary
On May 4th, 2016, the hashtag #DropOutHillary began trending on social media after the Republican presidential primary candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich suspended their campaigns, with many supporters of both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders calling for Clinton to do the same.
The Delegates, Donald
On May 11th, 2016, 4chan users began posting photoshops of United States Senator Ted Cruz along with a variety of internal monologue-style captions assertively demanding the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to “hand over” the delegates he had secured during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.
John Miller Tapes
On May 13th, 2016, The Washington Post published an article titled “Donald Trump Masqueraded as Publicist to Brag About Himself,” which reported that the New York City real estate mogul had routinely pretended to be a publicist for himself under the names “John Miller”
and “John Barron” when speaking to the press, citing the accounts of journalists, his former aides and a 1990 audio recording of a phone conversation between People magazine reporter Sue Carswell and John Miller, a man identifying himself as Trump’s publicist that the newspaper had obtained.
Star of David Tweet Controversy
On July 2nd, 2016, Trump tweeted an anti-Hillary Clinton poster featuring an image of a blue hexagram, clearly resembling the Jewish Star of David (✡), with the caption reading “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever” and set to the background image of a pile of $100 bills (shown below). The post quickly prompted a firestorm of social media backlash from his critics and Clinton’s supporters, many of whom blasted the Republican presidential candidate for promoting anti-Semitic imagery.
#IGuessImWithHer
Following Clinton’s Democratic primary election victories held on June 7th, 2016, many news media outlets reported that she had become the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee. On social media, many former Sanders supporters announced their support of rival Hillary Clinton along with the hashtag “#GirlIGuessImWithHer.”
#TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet
On June 25th, 2016, The Wall Street Journal released poll results reporting that Hillary Clinton held a 17-point lead among women over Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election. That day, the @Bakedalaska Twitter feed shared a photo of a young woman wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat with the hashtag #TrumpGirlsBreakTheInternet. Within four days, the tweet gained over 3,000 likes and 1,000 retweets.
On July 12th, 2016, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders formally endorsed rival Hillary Clinton for president against Republican candidate Donald Trump in the upcoming general election. That day, political news blogger Harlan Hill launched the #DemExit social media hashtag, encouraging Bernie Sanders supporters to leave the Democratic Party in protest of Clinton’s nomination in the 2016 United States presidential election.
Clinton’s Instagram Raid
On July 16th, iFunny user iCarlyFetish submitted an image announcing a raid against Hillary Clinton’s Instagram page, encouraging viewers to comment the phrase “Spicy Boy” on uploaded images. The following day, a 4chan user submitted a post urging viewers to “go on Hillary’s Instagram and spam Spicy Boy.” In the coming days, many of Clinton’s Instagram posts were spammed with the phrase.
Republican National Convention
Stephen Colbert’s Takeover Stunt
On July 17th, the day before the Republican National Convention, YouTuber Tom Cahill uploaded a video of Stephen Colbert taking the main stage at the Quicken Loans Arena to mockingly announce the beginning of the “2016 Republican National Committee Hungry for Power Games” in character of Caesar Flickerman, the emcee of the eponymous game in the _Hunger Games _ film series.
#NeverTrump Protests
Only a few hours into the three-day convention on July 18th, chaos erupted on the floor when anti-Trump delegates and supporters of the #NeverTrump movement began calling for a roll call vote (by individual count) instead of a voice vote (by verbal response) on a proposed change to the convention rules, which would “unbind the delegates” from the results of the primaries and allow them to vote on their own judgment calls, opening up the possibility of Trump getting blocked from being nominated in the first ballot. By the time the convention’s rules committee denied the motion for a roll-call vote on the grounds of insufficient signatures, which was caused by the last-minute withdrawal of three out of nine state delegation that had backed the method, the floor turned into loud exchanges of shouting between the supporters of Trump and his opposition; the Colorado delegation walked out in protest.
Notable Speeches
On July 18th, 2016, Melania Trump delivered a speech in support of her husband’s candidacy for president at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Following the speech, many accused her of plagiarizing portions of Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech, with some internet users mocking her with the satirical hashtag #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes. The following day, Ben Carson delivered a speech that attempted to link Hillary Clinton to Lucifer by bringing up that Clinton wrote her senior thesis on community organizer Saul Alinsky. On July 20th, Ted Cruz conspicuously failed to endorse Donald Trump in a speech where he implored Republicans to “vote their conscience.” The crowd erupted in boos and chants of “Trump!” The next morning, Cruz defended his speech by telling the Texas delegation “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and father.”
#HillaryForPrison
During the 2016 Republican National Convention in late July, several news sites reported that “Hillary for Prison” movement had gained significant traction among attendees. On July 20th, Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie performed a mock prosecution against Clinton at the convention, in which he listed various alleged offenses and asked the crowd if she was “guilty, or not guilty."
#TrumpYourself
On July 21st, 2016, Clinton’s Facebook and Twitter pages announced the launch of #TrumpYourself, a web application hosted on Hillary Clinton’s official campaign site. Within the hour of its launch, #TrumpYourself quickly grew traction on Facebook and Twitter, causing the site to crash temporarily.
Democratic National Committee Email Leak
On July 22nd, 2016, Wikileaks[9] published a collection of nearly 20,000 e-mails exchanged among key staff members within the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the governing body of the United States Democratic Party, as well as unofficial correspondences with members of the press, between January 2015 and May 2016. Among other findings, the leaked emails detail how several officials within the DNC, which is supposed to remain neutral during the primary electoral process, had attempted to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in order to secure the victory of Hillary Clinton.
Democratic National Convention
Crying Bernie Sanders Supporters
On July 25th, 2016, supporters of former 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders were filmed and photographed crying during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That day, screen caps of the crying convention attendees were widely circulated on social media, often accompanied by humorous captions (shown below).
“Fight Song”
On July 26th, 2016, the Democratic National Convention YouTube channel uploaded an a cappella cover of the song starring various celebrities singing in support of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (shown below). Within one week, the video gained over 1.6 million views and 14,300 comments, with upwards of 30,800 dislikes and 28,100 likes. Online, many mocked the music video for being cheesy and cringeworthy.
Howard Dean’s “Scream” Reenactment
The same day, Howard Dean made an onstage appearance at the convention, where he reenacted the infamous speech he had given at a post-caucus rally event in Des Moines, Iowa during his primary campaign in 2004, which instantly pleased the crowd on the floor with laughters and cheers.
Khizr Khan’s Speech
On July 28th, 2016, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Pakistani-born Americans and the parents of American war veteran Captain Humayun Khan, made a special appearance at the Democratic National Convention to deliver a speech in honor of their son, who was killed in action by a car bomb during Operation Iraqi Freedom in June 2004. During the speech, Khizr also criticized Donald Trump for his proposed ban on Muslim immigration and questioned the Republican presidential nominee’s understanding of the United States Constitution. In an interview with ABC News, Trump questioned if Khan’s wife Ghazala “was allowed to have anything to say” and claimed to have made “sacrifices” for the United States with his businesses and charity work. In the coming days, Trump was widely condemned by political opponents for his statements about Khan, which many derided as being disrespectful toward the Gold Star Khan family.
Clinton’s React to Balloons
On July 28th, 2016, the final day of the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton accepted the nomination for president in the upcoming election in November. Shortly afterwards, she was joined onstage by her husband and former President of the United States Bill Clinton, her running mate Tim Kaine and several staffers, at which point around 100,000 red, blue and white balloons were released from the ceiling of the venue to celebrate the conclusion of the convention.
Trump’s NAMBLA Donation Hoax
On July 29th, 2016, Redditor RIPrince submitted an article titled “Trump Suggests Nothing Will Prompt Him to Release Tax Returns” to the /r/politics subreddit. In the comments section, another Redditor speculated that Trump was keeping his tax return private to prevent the discovery that he donated to NAMBLA. In the coming days, the rumor proliferated across social media platforms as a way to mock Trump’s habitual use of the phrase “many people are saying” when citing unfounded claims and far-fetched conjectures in his campaign speeches.
Donald Maroney
On August 2nd, 2016, the Donald Maroney Tumblr[1] blog was launched, featuring photographs of Trump captioned with tactless quotes uttered by the character Jenna Maroney (played by Jane Krakowski) in episodes of the television sitcom 30 Rock (shown below).
Trump’s “Second Amendment People” Joke
On August 9th, 2016, Donald Trump gave a speech in Wilmington, North Carolina where he tried to drum up support by insinuating that Hillary Clinton would abolish the Second Amendment that states Americans have the right to bear arms. While talking about the possibility of Hillary getting to put anti-gun judges on the Supreme Court, Trump suggested that “Second Amendment” people could prevent it from happening.
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment, and by the way, and if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks…Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I dunno.”
Following the speech, many online accused Trump of suggesting that gun enthusiasts assassinate Clinton if she became president, while the Trump campaign claimed he only meant for gun owners to vote against Clinton to prevent her from winning the election.
#ManyPeopleAreSaying
On August 8th, 2016, Trump posted a tweet that claiming that “many people are saying” Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri was executed due to “Clinton’s hacked emails." That evening, the hashtag #ManyPeopleAreSaying began trending worldwide on the social networking platform, with tweets containing various jokes and conspiracy theories about the Republican presidential candidate (shown below).
Seth Rich’s Death
On July 10th, 2016, Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was shot and killed while walking home at approximately 4:20 A.M. on a residential street in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington D.C. During a press conference the following day, Metropolitan Police Department Captain Anthony Haythe announced that police discovered Rich conscious and breathing at the scene after being shot several times, though he fatally succumbed to the wounds after being transported to a nearby hospital. Due to the timing of his death, many conspiracy theories circulated online speculating that Rich had been killed for being the anonymous source behind the 2016 DNC Email Leak, though no evidence linking the shooting has surfaced.
Donald Trump’s White Sign
On August 11th, 2016, Donald Trump delivered a speech at the National Association of Home Buildings, where he held up a large white graph showing a sharp decline in home ownership in the United States. That day, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign’s deputy digital communications director Rob Flaherty posted a screen capture of Trump holding a blank version of the graph with the instructions “go to town, folks," leading others to create various photoshops using the template (shown below).
Says Who?
On Wednesday, August 17th, 2016, Cohen appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room to address a recent shakeup in the Trump campaign staff. Host Brianna Keilar observed “You guys are down,” to which Cohen interrupted, “Says who?” Keilar responded “Polls. Most of them. All of them?” After a long pause, Cohen repeated, “Says who?” Following the broadcast of the interview, many mocked Cohen’s appearance on social media.
#TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner
On September 1st, 2016, Gutierrez appeared on MSNBCs All In with Chris Hayes to discuss Trump’s comments made during an immigration speech on August 31st, 2016. While discussing “problems” faced by America, correspondent Joy Ann Reid pushed Gutierrez to clarify “What problems?” Gutierrez responded that his “culture” was very “dominant,” and might lead to “taco trucks on every corner.” Online, many mocked the comments on social media along with the hashtag “#TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner”.
#HackingHillary
In early September, critics of Clinton launched the hashtag #HackingHillary to mock her frequent coughing fits, which many have speculated are signs of the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate’s failing health.
Clinton’s Basket of Deplorables Gaffe
On September 8th, 2016, Clinton was interviewed on the Israeli television, where she said that Trump supporters are in “two big baskets,” one of which contains “deplorables” who consist of “racists” and “haters." The following evening, Clinton made a similar statement while speaking at a private fundraiser, where she said “you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call ‘the basket of deplorables’." On September 10th, Donald Trump Jr. posted a photoshopped movie poster on Instagram of the 2010 action film The Expendables, featuring various prominent conservatives and Pepe the Frog with the title “The Deplorables” (shown below).
In the coming days, several news sites identified Pepe as a “symbol of white nationalism,” leading the official Hillary Clinton campaign blog to publish an “explainer” accusing Trump Jr. of posting a “symbol associated with white supremacy.”
Body Double Conspiracy Theory
On September 11th, 2016, Clinton attended a memorial ceremony in honor of those who perished in the September 11th, 2001 attacks, where she abruptly left claiming she felt “overheated.” While waiting for her vehicle, Clinton appeared as if she were about to collapse before aides helped her into the van (shown below, left). After the incident, Clinton visited her daughter Chelsea’s Manhattan apartment, where she emerged hours later and was filmed by reporters (shown below, right).
That day, some conspiracy theorists on social media began speculating that a body double was posing as the presidential candidate after the incident, along with the hashtag #HillarysBodyDouble (shown below). Additionally, many argued that Hillary Clinton impersonator Teresa Barnwell was performing the body double role.
Bowl of Skittles Meme Controversy
On September 19th, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a photograph of a bowl of skittles with the caption “If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? / That’s our Syrian refugee problem." Immediately after, Trump was widely criticized for posting the image, with many accusing him of promoting Islamophobia.
Presidential Debate
There are a total of four nationally broadcast debates scheduled for the general election between September and October, including one debate involving vice-presidential nominees.
CNN Debate
On September 26th, the first round of the debates began at 9:00 p.m. (EST). In the hours leading up to the start, several debate-related hashtags began trending on various social media platforms, including #DebateNight on Twitter[12] and #Debates2016 on Facebook.[13]
The nearly two-hour long debate was marked by a series of increasingly confrontational moments from both sides, with Clinton taking a full front attack on Trump’s lack of transparency in disclosing his personal finances and tax returns, as well as his controversies involving sexism, race and business practices, while Trump retaliated by criticizing her role in the enlargement of ISIS and e-mail scandal while serving as Secretary of State under the Obama administration.
Some of the more noteworthy moments from Trump included his frequent sniffles, which prompted tongue-in-cheek rumors and jokes about his health condition in reference to #HackingHillary, his description of the DNC hacker as someone sitting on his bed who weighs 400 pounds, which also led to several jokes from hacktivist circles on Twitter, including a response from @YourAnonNews. Meanwhile, a variety of Clinton’s baffled facial reactions to Trump’s remark during the debate also went viral on Twitter, including a comparison to Jim Halpert from the American TV sitcom The Office.
Online Presence
Hillary Clinton
As of September 2016, Clinton has upwards of 8.98 million followers on Twitter,[5] 6.17 million likes on Facebook[6] and 2.1 million followers on Instagram.[7]
Correct the Record
Correct the Record (CTR) is an independent-expenditure only committee, also known as a Super PAC, which maintains a large presence on social media to promote and defend the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. While other Super PACs are prohibited by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from coordinating directly with campaigns or political parties, CTR is able to work closely with the Clinton campaign due to its exclusive use of various social media in its operations. Online, the organization has been scrutinized for paying people to defend Clinton in various online discussions, a practice many have denounced as an example of “astroturfing.”
Donald Trump
As of September 2016, Trump has more than 11.7 million followers on Twitter,[8] 10.8 million likes on Facebook[9] and 2.5 million followers on Instagram.[10]
Nimble America
Nimble America is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The organization has been widely denounced by Trump supporters on the /r/The_Donald subreddit, where many speculated that the organization is a scam and criticized its initiatives as astroturfing.
Election Day
On November 8th, 2016, the General Election went underway in polling stations across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Gary Johnson being listed on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington D.C., while Jill Stein was listed on the ballot in 44 states and Washington D.C. In addition, 24 other third party and independent candidates were listed on the ballot in select states.
The Results
Despite most forecasts and projections based on exit poll data that generally favored Hillary Clinton’s victory in the election, Donald Trump quickly negated many pollsters’ and experts’ expectations by claiming victory in eight of the eleven swing states, namely Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. By the eleventh hour of the election day, Trump continued to widen his lead in delegate count through his victory after another across the midwest t-states.
At 3:00 a.m. (EST) on November 9th, Donald Trump secured over 270 electoral votes, or the majority of the 538 electors in the electoral college, effectively becoming the president-elect of the United States. In contrast, Hillary Clinton had managed to secure 218 delegates, a number that is far below the projections put forth by most leading public opinion polls. Trump, along with his vice-presidential running mate Mike Pence, will take office as the 45th President on January 20th, 2017.
Impact
#NotMyPresident
On November 9th, the hashtag #NotMyPresident became the top trending topic on the social networking site. That day, a Facebook[1] event page titled “Trump is Not My President” was created for a march on Union Square, New York City on November 12th. Within 48 hours, the page gathered more than 12,000 responses as “going” and 29,000 as “interested.”
“Meme Magic” is a slang term used to describe the hypothetical power of sorcery and voodoo supposedly derived from certain internet memes that can transcend the realm of cyberspace and result in real life consequences. Since its coinage on the imageboard 8chan, the fictitious concept has gained popularity on 4chan’s /pol/ (politically incorrect) board and been heavily associated with several in-jokes and shitposting fads on the site, including Ebola-chan, Baneposting and Donald Trump. Some have compared it to the occult concept of the egregore,[11] an autonomous psychic entity which influences the thoughts of a group of people.
Origin
The earliest uses of the term can be tracked to March 2015, when the Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed while en route to Düsseldorf, Germany and several online communities started drawing parallels with the memorable plane scene from The Dark Knight Rises. The first use comes from a webm titled “Meme Magick”, created by YouTuber First Last (and reuploaded to his YouTube channel on August 6th, 2015), which was first posted on 8chan’s random board /b/ and later on the Baneposting board /bane/. The earliest archived reference to it is a post on /pol/ from March 26th claiming that /tv/ used “meme magic” to crash the plane.[5]
Percursor
While the term was used in the past, it was mostly to refer to the spread of catchphrases or image macros, like the first archived example from a /mlp/ thread asking about the popularity of the catchphrase I Want to Cum Inside Rainbow Dash.[1] Furthermore, several users refer to the “White People” Conspiracy Hoax spreaded in September 2014 in relation to the Ebola Outbreak from the same year as the first use of “meme magic”.
Spread
On May 10th, 2015, two 8chan boards centered on meme magic were created: /bmw/ (Bureau of Memetic Warfare)[9] and /magick/.[10] Since then, the expression has been used to refer to several happenings from the past regarding Internet memes, like the 2014 Slender Man stabbing (by the paranormal board /x/), the posting of the character Ebola-chan by /pol/ to make the pandemy stronger or the 2015 Umpqua Community College Shooting related to a /r9k/ post; and several tactics to use that power, like posting pictures or GETs. The term has also been associated to the Egyptian God of darkness Kek[8] and a black-and-white photo of a man (shown below).
Various Examples
Winter-chan
Winter-chan is a female anime character created to be an anthropomorphic representation of the winter season. The character is used 4chan members to express the response of right-wing Europeans to those fleeing the Middle East in the European Migrant Crisis. The idea behind Winter-chan was to create a manga character who would be used to summon a cold and harsh winter in the way that the user believed that Ebola-chan created a more powerful epidemic. The harsh, cold winter summoned by the Winter-chan would be painful, or fatal, to those fleeing the Middle East.
Lemmy Kilmister’s Death
On December 28th, 2015, a thread about Motörhead‘s vocalist Lemmy Kilmister health was submitted on 4chan’s music board /mu/, being one of the responses “hell be fine”.[3] A few hours later, Lemmy’s death was announced,[6] leading to several jokes regarding that post on the thread being the cause of his death. The catchphrase “hell be fine” also experimented some spread on 4chan, mainly on /mu/.[4]
Donald Trump
From June 2015 onwards, the term has been heavily associated to the bussinessman and 2016 United States elected President Donald Trump, with /pol/ users using the “meme magic” to make Trump win the elections and transform the country under a similar ideology. Several notable events include the posting of a Trump Pepe picture on Trump’s twitter (shown below, right) or the use of a Yiddish curse word to talk about Hillary Clinton, being consequently reported on a opinion editorial featuring the word “Oy vey”.[7]
Tag Yourself is a fandom survey meme in which the participant is presented with a lineup of celebrities or fictional characters and prompted to identify one that is the most relatable. Recognizable by the poorly drawn avatars of the characters and ill-phrased descriptions of their traits in Comic Sans, the illustrative surveys went viral on the popular microblogging platform Tumblr in late January 2016.
Origin
The earliest known variation was posted by Tumblr user Goblinlord[2] on January 24th, 2016. The survey post, which featured MS Paint-style illustrations of six bird-like original characters with the caption challenging its viewers to “reblog and tag which bird you are,” garnered more than 101,000 notes within the first 72 hours.
Precursor: 4chan “Choose Wisely” Threads
On the online image board 4chan, a popular forum game is creating lists of options which only allow one of these to be chosen. Popular themes in these lists include the viewer finding themselves in a dangerous situation and having limited options of help, or coming accross magical items which grant special abilities or cause lifechanging events.
Spread
The illustrations usually consist of poorly drawn character art with mislabeled names and heavily opinionated descriptions of their characteristics. On January 24th, numerous variations began circulating on Tumblr, many of which garnered tens of thousands of notes in the following 24 hours. Some of the early variations to pass the milestone of 30,000 notes include:
The following day, the @tagyourselfmeme[16] Instagram feed was launched, highlighting notable examples from the series. Over the next 10 months, the feed garnered upwards of 33,800 followers. Also on January 25th, Twitter user @gentleskies[18] tweeted a Pepe the Frog-themed variation of the survey (shown below).
On January 27th, The Daily Dot[15] published an article titled “The ‘tag yourself’ meme lets you choose your own destiny.” On February 9th, Smosh[17] published a listicle highlighting various examples of the meme. On May 9th, 2016, Instagram[14] user _memethief posted a Dat Boi-themed version of the meme. On November 4th, the news site Mic[19] published an article referring to Tag Yourself as “the best meme of 2016.”
Various Examples
Additional numerous examples can also be found on Tumblr through the tags “tag yourself”[12] and “tag yourself meme.”[13]
You Reposted In the Wrong Neighborhood is the name of a song by ＳＨＯＫＫ青.[1] It combines the lyrics of “Shake That” by Nate Dogg and Eminem with the instrumental from “Casin” by glue70.[2] It has inspired a series of remix videos on Youtube.
Origin
ＳＨＯＫＫ青 posted “You Reposted In the Wrong Neighborhood” to Soundcloud on March 24th, 2014. As of August 17th, 2016, the song has over 689,000 plays.
While it’s unclear when the song was first used in a remix video (reddit users on threads in /r/OutofTheLoop[6] and /r/youtubehaiku[7] are baffled), one of the earliest examples is a video[3] posted by Youtuber Rene Descartes on August 11th, 2015 called “umaru goes hard” (shown below).
Spread
Remix videos with “You Reposted in the Wrong Neighborhood” began appearing more frequently towards the end of 2015. sorox94 posted an Undertale variation called “You Determined In the Wrong Neighborhood”[4] that’s gained 52,385 views as of August 17th, 2016 (shown below, left), while another uploaded by Frojo Memes[5] on December 26th, 2015 (below, right), has gained 91,019.
More and more video remixes have been posted throughout 2016, as users have matched the song to footage of The Simpsons character Moe dancing,[8]Overwatch characters dancing,[9] and Anime characters dancing.[10][11] On June 8th, 2016, the Youtube channel “chill Station”[12] posted a “full version” that edited ＳＨＯＫＫ青’s original post to include the entire a capella from “Shake That.”
Word Replacement Remixes refers to a series of Youtube Poop videos where all the words in a certain clip are all replaced with something else, usually a different word or another video entirely, which can increase the video’s running time to several hours.
Origin
The first known word replacement video (shown below, left) was “Hotel Mario (Nouns replaced with explosions)” by YouTube user mrSimon, which was created in 2006 and uploaded to Youtube on November 30, 2008 with the description “The original 2006 hit.”[1] A similar video (shown below, right) was uploaded to YouTube by user Groudon0199 titled “Hotel Mario (Common nouns in intro replaced with big explosions)” on May 27, 2007, making it the earliest noun replacement video on YouTube.[2]
Spread
On June 23, 2007, Stegblob uploaded the video "Hotel Mario (Nouns Replaced With “PINGAS”)" (shown below) that has since become the most popular Hotel Mario word replacement remix, with more than 247,000 views in about 9 years.[3]
Since then, word replacement remixes gained popularity in Youtube poops over the course of the next few years, primarily in 2008.
While word replacement remixes have been continually made since their peak in 2008, there has been a recent resurgence in these types of videos due to the recent popularity of "Nutshack ":http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nutshack-edits edits. The first word replacement Nutshack edit (shown below) was uploaded on July 30, 2016 by Ringabel as “Hotel Mario every noun replaced with the entire nutshack theme”.[4]
On September 7th, 2016, Baconlovar uploaded the video “the nutshack theme but every nutshack is replaced with the entire reading of the bee movie script”, (shown below, left) which was the first word replacement video to reach over 1 million views.[5] More recently, on November 17, 2016, Avoid at All Costs uploaded “The entire bee movie but every time they say bee it gets faster”, (shown below, right) resulting in the first word replacement video to reach over 10 million views and the most viewed word replacement video of all time with more than eleven million views as of November 28.[6]
Bee Movie is a 2007 Dreamworks computer-animated comedy film about the adventures of Barry B. Benson, a disillusioned bee who leaves his hive and goes on a journey in search of a new career. Despite its moderate commercial success and mixed critical reception, the film gained a significant ironic fandom on YouTube and Tumblr..
History
Produced by Dreamworks Animation and featuring voice acting by American comedian Jerry Seinfeld and actress Renée Zellweger, the film centers around the protagonist Barry B. Benson, a talking bee who fights to reclaim sovereignty from humans. Bee Movie was released in theaters on November 2nd, 2007.
Reception
Upon its release, the film grossed $126 million at the box office in the United States and a worldwide total of $287 million. While the film was regarded a moderate box office success worldwide, it was met with disappointing performance and lukewarm reception in the United States. As of 2016, Bee Movie is DreamWorks Animation’s third lowest-grossing computer-animated film. The movie holds a rating of 51% (based on 169 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes and 54% (based on 34 review) on Metacritic. As of 2016, Bee Movie is DreamWorks Animation’s third lowest-grossing computer-animated film. The movie holds a rating of 51% (based on 169 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes[15] and 54% (based on 34 review) on Metacritic.[16]
Online Presence
On May 14th, 2012, a page for Bee Movie was created on TV Tropes.[12] On March 16th, 2013, Redditor bottledbeaches created the /r/beemovie[10] subreddit. On July 22nd, 2016, BuzzFeed[13] published an article titled “For Everyone Who Still Can’t Believe ‘Bee Movie’ is Real,” which highlighted several Tumblr posts about the film. On July 29th, Seinfeld posted a tweet asking if there was any interest in a sequel to the film, which garnered more than 47,000 likes and 24,200 retweets in four months (shown below).
The following day, the tweet reached the front page of the /r/movies[9] subreddit, where many mocked the idea of making Bee Movie 2. On August 19th, the internet humor site Dorkly[14] released a listicle highlighting the “12 Most WTF Tumblr Posts About Bee Movie.” On November 28th, BuzzFeed published an article about various Bee Movie memes.
Related Memes
Bee Shrek Test in the House
Bee Shrek Test in the House is a parody fandom created from a hypothetical crossover involving the characters Shrek, Barry Bee Benson and Johnny Test and Cory Baxter from the show Cory in the House.
Bee Movie Script
The Bee Movie Script, also known by the introductory line “according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly,” is a copypasta that consists entirely of the full-length screenplay of the 2007 computer animated family comedy film Bee Movie, which is typically used in spamming and shitposting on various social media sites, most notably on Tumblr.
Beestiality
Beestiality, sometimes also called Bee-stiality, is the shipping name for the particularly bizarre romance arc of the film. As Barry and Vanessa spend time together, Ken becomes inexplicably jealous of the bee, and eventually attempts to kill Barry, prompting his wife to break up with him. The absurdity of Vanessa leaving her husband of fifteen years for an insect has lead to the Barry/Vanessa ship gaining a popular ironic fandom on sites like Tumblr.
Bee Movie But
Bee Movie But is a series of video and audio remixes of the film based around a particular altered characteristic. On October 22nd, 2016, YouTuber wankerflaps uploaded a video titled “Bee Movie But it Keeps Getting Faster,” featuring the audio track from the film which is progressively sped up (shown below, left). Within one moth, the video gained over 902,000 views and 4,300 comments. On November 3rd, YouTuber Avoid at All Costs posted a remix of the Bee Movie trailer that slows down each time the word “bee” is uttered (shown below, right).
On November 4th, Redditor jacobkj314 posted a screenshot of wankerlflap’s YouTube video captioned with a “please disconnect the bluetooth speaker” joke (shown below). In 25 days, the post received more than 2,800 votes (96% upvoted) on the /r/dankmemes[7] subreddit.
On November 17th, YouTuber Avoid at All Costs uploaded a remix titled “The Entire Bee Movie but Every Time They Say Bee it Gets Faster,” which accumulated more than 11 million views and 33,000 comments within two weeks (shown below, left). On November 22nd, YouTuber That One Ghost Named Asdfghjkl posted a remix titled “The Bee Movie But Without Bees” (shown below, right). Over the next week, the video gained over 3.01 million views and 7,700 comments. On November 28th, Smosh[11] published an article about the remix videos.
Casually Explained is a YouTube channel featuring a series of original educational animated videos that offer casual and humorous explanations on a wide range of subject topics, including science, math, relationships, health, fitness and technology.
History
On December 7th, 2015, the Casually Explained channel was launched. The following day, the first video was uploaded to the channel, featuring a parody instructional video for sketching a graph of a polynomial function by using the Wolfram Alpha web application (shown below, left). On December 26th, Casually Explained posted a video explaining the concept of absolute hot, the postluated highest attainable temperature of matter (shown below, right).
On February 3rd, 2016, the channel uploaded a video mocking various fitness and weight lifting in-jokes, which received more than 1.15 million views and 890 comments (shown below, left). On May 29th, an episode titled “Is She Into You?” was released, satirically explaining how to tell if a woman is sexually attracted to a man (shown below, right). Within two months, the video garnered upwards of 3.3 million views and 4,200 comments.
The following day, Casually Explained posted a video explaining the concept of the friend zone, which gained over 2.6 million views and 4,400 comments in two months. On July 18th, a video featuring a graph ranking various animals on the spectrum of intelligence was released. Within one month, the video garnered upwards of 1.6 million views and 3,700 comments.
Social Media Presence
In December 2015, the @CastuallyE[3] Twitter feed was created, which gained more than 4,500 followers within eight months. On February 4th, 2016, a Facebook[4] page for the YouTube channel was launched, accumulating more than 45,700 likes in six months. On July 4th, Casually Explained created a Patreon page.[1] Within one month, the page received $160 per month in donations from 49 patrons.
“We Are Number One” is a song sung by main villain Robbie Rotten in the Icelandic children’s television show LazyTown, which was broadcast on Nickelodeon. Online, the song has gained a spontaneous surge of parodies and mashups through Soundcloud and YouTube.
Origin
On October 3rd, 2014, the 107th episode of the then long-running children’s television show LazyTown, Robbie’s Dream Team, aired. In the episode, Robbie designs his own “dream team” (3 imperfect clones of Robbie) in order to capture the superhero Sportacus. Baffled by the incompetence of his clones, Robbie decides to teach the dream team to be villains through his song.
Hey!
We Are Number One
Hey!
We Are Number One
Now listen closely
Here’s a little lesson in trickery
This is going down in history
If you wanna be a Villain Number One
You have to chase a superhero on the run
Just follow my moves, and sneak around
Be careful not to make a sound
Shh
No, don’t touch that!
We Are Number One
Hey!
We Are Number One
Hey!
We Are Number One
Ha ha ha
Now look at this net, that I just found
When I say go, be ready to throw
Go!
Throw it at him, not me!
Ugh, let’s try something else
Now watch and learn, here’s the deal
He’ll slip and slide on this banana peel
Ha ha ha, gasp What are you doing!?
Hey!
ba-ba-biddly-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba
We Are Number One
Hey!
ba-ba-biddly-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba
Villain Number One!
Hey!
Hey!
ba-ba-biddly-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba
We Are Number One
Hey!
ba-ba-biddly-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba
We Are Number One
We Are Number One
We Are Number One
Hey, hey!
Spread
On September 13th, 2016, the song was picked up by Youtuber SiIvagunner, starting with his uploads “We are Number One – LazyTown: The Video Game” (shown below, left) and “We are Number One (Beta Mix)- LazyTown: The Video Game” (shown below, right), garnering over 900,000 views and over 130,000 views respectively.[1]
The song has also been used as a Soundcloud meme in the form of Soundclown joke mashups (examples shown below).
Since early November, Word Replacement Remixes of the song have risen to prominence on YouTube.[2] Some of these have achieved more than a million views.[3] Due to the quotable nature of the song, memes referencing lines and scenes from “We Are Number One” have become popular on Twitter and Instagram (examples below).
Stefan’s Response
On October 13th, 2016, an Ask Me Anything thread titled “I am Stefan Karl (Robbie Rotten from LazyTown) and I am in the fight of my life against cancer! AMA!” was submitted to the /r/IAmA subreddit by user ClarkStreetGang.[4] Robbie Rotten actor Stefan Karl acknowledged the popularity of the meme, and thanked everyone for their support in Karl’s fight against cancer.
On December 4, the original AMA post was edited, and a Facebook event created, to announce a livestream performance of the song.[5] On December 9, 2016, the official LazyTown YouTube channel uploaded a video titled, “We Are Number One but it’s the original and it’s 1 hour long….”[6] On December 11, 2016, Karl hosted a livestream performance of “We Are Number One” featuring himself, the original cast of Rottens (Bjorn, Bergur, and Snorri), and Máni Svavarsson, who composed the song.[7][8]
On December 12, the stems for the song were released for free download for anyone to use in their own remixes.[9] The stems were also posted to Soundcloud (shown below) as well for listening.[10]
Roblox is a massively multiplayer online game created by developers David Baszucki and Erik Cassel, in which players are able to create their own virtual worlds using blocks of varying shapes, sizes and colors. Other members may also enter and socialize within his/her game. Complex games may be scripted via Lua, a programming language. Roblox also has a developed community which composes of many forums, groups and blogs.
History
In 2004, a beta version of Roblox titled Dynablocks was released. The following year, the game was renamed Roblox as a portmanteau of “robots” and “blocks.” From 2006 to 2008, Roblox maintained significant player growth, with continuous updates providing improved an user interface and graphics to the game.
Erik Cassel’s Death
On the morning of February 11th, 2013, co-founder Erik Cassel passed away after a 3 year-long battle with cancer.[2] In remembrance, the Roblox admins created a memorial level dedicated to Cassel and the community gave their tribute by dressing as Cassel.
Roblox Con
Gameplay
Roblox players are able to customize virtual avatars with a variety of heads, bodies, clothing and equipment. Additionally, players can create customize appearance items to sell in the in-game market. Players can participate in a variety of games, some of which are made by the Roblox community. The game allows players to meet friends within the virtual world and add them to a friends list.
Fandom
Many YouTubers reguarly post Roblox gameplay videos, including DanTDM (shown below, left) and FGTeeV (shown below, right). As of December 2016, the Roblox Facebook fan page has over 510,000 likes.[3]
Charitable Works
2013 Philippines Relief Effort
One week after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, ROBLOX started a relief fund to donate money to those in the Philippines. The community has helped donate over $2,000.
Gremlin D.Va is a chibi-style cartoon caricature of D. Va, one of the playable characters in the team-based first-person shooter Overwatch, who is portrayed as a stereotypical gamer engrossed in e-sports subculture and lifestyle, such as frequent consumption of McDonald’s, Doritos and Mountain Dew. The fan-made character became widespread among the fans of Overwatch on Tumblr in early June of 2016.
Origin
In Overwatch, the playable character Hana Song (a.k.a. “D.Va”) is a professional Starcraft player who controls a large mech suit in the battlefield. On May 27th, 2016, Tumblr user radtone posted a chibi fan art of D.Va along with an IRC post about her gloves, gaining over 1,300 notes in the following week (shown below, left).[1] The same day, radtone posted another fanart featuring the Overwatch character Soldier: 76 and the chibi D.Va, gaining over 7,400 notes in the following week (Shown below, right).[2]
Spread
On June 2nd, Tumblr user fumeknight posted a comic of D.Va asking Mercy and Pharah in middle of the night to go to McDonalds, which gained over 17,000 notes prior its deletion.[5]
On June 3rd, Tumblr user dakkpasserida[6] posted an illustration of Gremlin D.Va, in which she is shown jumping with the caption “haha get rekt nerds” (shown below). In four days, the post gathered upwards of 1,200 notes. The same day, Twitter user @OhHeyDJ[7] posted an illustration of D.Va eating a bag of Doritos chips while scratching her posterior (shown below, right).
On June 6th, Kotaku[8] published an article about the illustrations titled “Overwatch Fans Have Turned DVA Into a Dorito-Eating Gremlin.” The same day, Tumblr user automaton-dreams posted an aesthetic version of Gremlin D.Va (shown below, left). The following day, Tumblr user blackbookalpha posted a webcomic in which the Overwatch character Pharah shoots bottles of Mountain Dew at D.Va (shown below, right).
“Game On” Emote
On August 17th, 2016, Blizzard released a new patch update available for testing, which included several new emotes for the characters.[11] One of the introduced emotes featured D.Va using her mech to play a videogame while eating Doritos and Mountain Dew, as a nod to the fan despiction of the character.
