About

Scientology is a belief system created by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard in 1952, inspired by his earlier self-help system Dianetics. Scientologists believe that humans are limited by traumatic past events that keep them from realizing their immortality. The Church of Scientology is devoted to promoting the belief system, which has been known for suing critics who claim that the organization abuses and extorts finances from its members.

Beliefs

Scientologists believe that humans are immortal beings that have been infected with the souls of dead aliens, which are the root of humanity’s problems. Founder L. Ron Hubbard referred to the historical events causing the alien soul infection as a “space opera”, which included the story of an evil galactic ruler named “Xenu.” According to the story, Xenu transported billions of frozen aliens to the planet Earth 75 million years ago, dropped them in volcanoes and destroyed them with explosives. After the aliens died, their souls (known as “Body Thetans”) lost their sense of free will and began inhabiting the bodies of humans.

Online History

Scientology and Usenet

The Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology^[1] was created by Scientology critic Scott Goehring on July 17th, 1991. According to Wikipedia^[2], the group sparked many debates about the organization’s practices for several years until December 24th, 1994, when several high-level secret Scientology documents, which included the Xenu story, were leaked on to the newsgroup by an anonymous poster. The Church of Scientology reacted by hiring lawyers to have the documents removed. On January 11th, 1995, the Scientology lawyer Helena Kobrin sent a message to Usenet servers to delete the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup from Usenet, but the request was ignored. Scientologist lawyers then went after newsgroup participants. On February 13th, 1995, federal marshals raided the homes of Arnaldo Lerma, Lawrence Wollersheim, Robert Penny, Karin Spaink, Zenon Panoussis and former Scientologist minister Dennis Erlich on grounds that the newsgroup participants posted copyrighted materials. In 1998 and 1999, the newsgroup was hit with several spam attacks flooding the group racist articles with forged message headers to appear as if they were sent by members of alt.religion.scientology. The attacks were referred to as “sporgery”, a combination of “spam” and “forgery.”

Online Campaigns

On July 15th, 1998, Salon^[3] published an article titled “A Web of their own”, which reported that the Church of Scientology was distributing starter kits for members to launch their own Scientology websites. The article went on to report that the source code of the pages contained long lists of Scientology-related keywords, which were criticized as an attempt to drown out Scientology critics in web search results. In addition to site-building software, the starter kits contained a censorship program known as Scieno Sitter, which blocked sites critical of the organization.

On YTMND

In June 10th, 2006, YTMND^[4] founder Max Goldberg announced that he had received a cease-and-desist^[5] letter from Scientology lawyers requesting the removal of several pages that mocked the organization. After Goldberg refused to take down the sites, YTMND users responded by creating more Scientology-related sites. In the month of June alone, over 550 YTMND pages were created mocking Scientology.

On Wikipedia

On August 15th, 2007, MSNBC^[6] published an article titled “New online tool traces Wikipedia edits”, which reported that a tool called the Wikiscanner revealed that PCs from the Church of Scientology were removing criticism from the church’s Wikipedia entry. On May 29th, 2009, The Huffington Post^[9] reported that the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee ruled to ban access to the website from IP addresses coming from within the Church of Scientology and had restricted several anti-Scientology editors from certain topics as well.

Project Chanology

On January 14th, 2008, a video was leaked on YouTube of the Scientologist actor Tom Cruise extolling the virtues of the Scientology belief system. The video began spreading after it was posted on the image board 4chan, which resulted in the Church of Scientology sending a take down request to YouTube for copyright infringement.

In retaliation, ad-hoc group of Internet users known as Anonymous started Project Chanology, which initially consisted of prank calls and faxes to Scientology centers, and denial-of-service attacks against Scientology websites. In February, the first wave of protests occurred outside Scientology churches around the world.

Reception

Since its inception in 1954, Church of Scientology has been involved in a series of public scandals and legal battles, from criminal convictions of its members in Operation Snow White and allegations of financial frauds to various accusations of mistreatment and cult-like oppression of members within the community. The Wikipedia entry describes the Church of Scientology as “one of the most controversial new religious movements to have arisen in the 20th century.”

News Media Coverage

The organization’s lack of transparency and secretive or mythical practices have drawn scrutiny from the news media since its early years after the foundation. In the 1960s, Church of Scientology made the headlines in the United States after Food and Drug Administration’s 1963 raid and seizure of the Church’s E-meter devices as illegal medical devices and also received attention in Australia after an official investigative report about the Church titled “Anderson Report” was published on behalf of the Australian state government in 1965.

In the 1970s, public scrutiny over the legitimacy of Scientology intensified with the exposure of Operation Snow White, the Church’s conspiracy to infiltrate and steal from more than 136 government agencies in 30 countries to purge unfavorable records about the organization and its founder. As a result, eleven senior members associated with the Guardian’s Office were convicted of federal crimes and also led to the launch of an investigation into Operation Freakout.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, investigative reports and allegations regarding the Church’s commercial activities continued to surface from the news media as well as governmental bodies and courts, including a TIME magazine article published in 1991 which describes Scientology as “a hugely profitable global racket that survives by intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner.” In addition, scandals about the Church have been covered by a number of major U.S.-based news publications and programs, including NBC Dateline, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and the ASsociated Press among others.

Criticisms

While the criticisms of the Church remain widespread in the news media, Scientologists have also made themselves infamous for their counterattack tactics against the detractors or critics of the church, oftentimes dismissing their assertions as having an alternative agenda to misrepresent its beliefs. The Church’s combat against its critics became highly publicized for the first time in 1967 after the FBI discovered its covert plot known as Operation Freakout which sought to have one of its prominent critics imprisoned or committed to a mental institution in revenge.

Operation Clambake

Operation Clambake is one of the most prominent anti-Scientology websites hosted at Xenu.net and founded in 1996 by Andreas Heldal-Lund. The site regularly publishes criticism of the Church of Scientology, including texts of petitions, news articles, exposés, and primary source documents. The online publication came into spotlight in 1996 after it became one of the first websites to host secret documents pertaining to Xenu and OT III and at the peak of its popularity, the site was ranked as high as the second place in Google PageRank for the term “Scientology.” However, many Xenu.net pages have been removed from Google’s indexes after the Church issued DMCA takedown notices against the documents.

Related Topics

Celebrity Affiliations

As early as 1955, Scientology has catered to celebrities and artists, when L. Ron Hubbard launched “Project Celebrity”^[32] to target influential people to join the religion. He offered a small plaque as a reward to churchgoers who “bring one of them home,” later opening a Celebrity Centre^[33] in Hollywood, California in 1969. Over the years, many notable actors, actresses and musicians^[34] have subscribed to the religion including John Travolta, Juliette Lewis, Kirstie Alley, Beck, Jenna Elfman and Tom Cruise. Cruise^[35] began advocating for the religion in 2004, vocally criticizing psychiatry, claiming it was a “psuedoscience.” A video interview with the actor in which he spoke about the religion was uploaded via YouTube in January 2008, causing the church to issue the takedowns which sparked Project Chanology.

Anonymous Campaigns

Despite the takedowns, Anonymous members continued to re-upload the Tom Cruise interview video. Seeing Scientology as dangerous^[36], Anonymous members created the YouTube channel Church0fScientology^[37] on January 21st, 2008 uploading a message to the Church to inform them that they have made it their goal to eradicate Scientology from the internet.

After this video, Scientology blogger Mark Bunker of Xenu TV^[38] made a response video complimenting their enthusiasm. Anonymous members nicknamed him Wise Beard Man^[39], seeing him as an ally in their war against the religion. As of July 2012, there are more than 21,600 results for the search query “anonymous and scientology” on YouTube.^[40] Photos of Anonymous protests and anti-Scientology media can be found on Tumblr^[41] under the tag “chanology.”

Sporgery

Sporgery^[10], a portmanteau of “spam” and “forgery,” refers to the act of flooding articles to Usenet newsgroups with altered headers to make them appear like multiple people were submitting the messages. It was coined in alt.religion.scientology in January 1999 by poster Tilman Hausherr^[11] after more than one million forged articles were posted to the site. The unknown spammers took message headers from articles written by critics of Scientology and paired them with body content taken from posts in other newsgroups or gibberish gathered from across the web.^[12] Between October 1998 and July 1999, 982,716,596 bytes of data were spammed to the newsgroup^[13], maxing out at more than 180 million bytes in July 1999 (shown below).

While the sporgery attackers were never found, it is rumored to have been orchestrated by Scientologists^[13], who had posted about a plan of action to “outcreate the entheta” on the newsgroup. After one phone number was released by an ISP as a possible perpetrator of the spam, the subpoena sent to Pacific Bell Telephone for the records on that specific number was challenged by lawyers from the Religious Technology Center^[15] and quietly settled.

Scieno Sitter

Scieno Sitter^[16] is a computer program distributed by the religion that blocks sites critical of Scientology from being viewed. It was first distributed in 1998 via CD-ROMs mailed out to church members as software that would help them create their own Scientology website.^[17] These sites, once put online, were filled with pro-Scientology keywords in their metadata to overload search engines with positive information to outweigh the religion’s online critics.^[18]

The filter itself blocked hundreds of words, including web addresses, names of critics, Scientology terms, and the names of current Scientologists who were found posting on alt.religion.scientology. The filter would either remove the offending words from the webpage a person was looking at, or completely shut down the browser if it contained trigger words like “Robert Vaughn Young,” the name of a former church member who later wrote about his experiences, or “Xenu.” The CD stated that the program was created to keep hate mail and “entheta,” or negative ideas, suggestions or comments. The program was discussed on the A&E show Investigative Reports^[19] in December 1998 and mentioned in the 2006 film The Bridge^[20], where the Scientologist character attempts to access the website Operation Clambake and is shown being unable to.

Xenu

The mythos of Xenu has been discussed on several online outlets, despite the church’s effort to keep it under wraps. In 1972, Operating Thetan III: The Wall of Fire^[21] was first published in Robert Kaufman’s Inside Scientology, detailing the story of Xenu capturing and freezing alien bodies and bringing them to earth. Operating Thetan III was first published online on December 24th, 1994, leading to a legal battle^[22] about copyright infringement, but the poster’s identity was never discovered.

The story has been discussed on several other places including the Straight Dope message board^[23], where L. Ron Hubbard’s science fiction writing background was discussed as part of the creation of the story, despite Hubbard’s claim that his memories from the Xenu era were recalled through autohypnosis. On Yahoo! Answers^[24], 1111 questions have been asked about the intergalactic dictator. Xenu was included in lifestyle site Matador Network’s list of 6 Wacky Creation Myths Around the World.^[25] In 2008, the independent online fighting game Faith Fighter was released^[26], featuring Xenu as the final boss.

What Scientologists Actually Believe

The phrase What Scientologists Actually Believe comes from the November 16th, 2005 episode of animated comedy series South Park titled “Trapped in the Closet.”^[27] After the character Stan joins the religion, some members believe he is the reincarnation of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. While the church’s president explains Scientology’s belief system to Stan as per the Operating Thetan III document^[21], is illustrated as the caption “This is What Scientologists Actually Believe” is shown onscreen (below).

After the episode aired, its mockery became a point of contention for celebrity members of the religion, causing the voice actor for Chef, musician Isaac Hayes, to leave the show.^[28] Online, YouTubers began making similar clips with badly drawn art or using material from religious videos to critique other religions including Mormonism^[29], Christianity^[30] and Creationism.^[31]

External References

Overview

Operation Antisec (a.k.a Operation Anti-Security, #antisec)is an international hacktivist campaign launched by a coalition of Anonymous hackers including former members of Lulzsec. The operation officially began with the attacks against UK’s Serious Organized Crime Agency on June 20th, 2011 and still continues with high-profile targets in private business, government and even military sectors.

The groups involved claim that the operation aims to protest government censorship and monitoring of the internet. LulzSec members also mentions ending what they believe are corrupt racial profiling and copyright laws as a goal of the operation.

Background

Long prior to the launch of Operation Antisec, the broader concept of Anti Security Movement^[1] was conceived in 1999 as a counter-measure against the cyber-security industry and their tendency to disclose security vulnerabilities as a scare-tactic to drive sales profit in computer security programs.

According to Wikipedia, most of anti-security attacks started sometime between 1999 and 2000, targeting websites like SecurityFocus, SecuriTeam, Packet Storm, and milw0rm, as well as mailing lists like “full-disclosure”, “vuln-dev”, “vendor-sec” and Bugtraq, as well as public forums and IRC channels.

The term “Anti Security Movement” was first introduced in the manifesto document available as an indexed page on the website anti.security.is^[2]:

The purpose of this movement is to encourage a new policy of anti-disclosure among the computer and network security communities. The goal is not to ultimately discourage the publication of all security-related news and developments, but rather, to stop the disclosure of all unknown or non-public exploits and vulnerabilities. In essence, this would put a stop to the publication of all private materials that could allow script kiddies from compromising systems via unknown methods.

More recently in 2009, several security communities like Astalavista^[3] and milw0rm^[4], as well as the popular image-hosting site ImageShack^[5] have been targeted by Anti-Security associates. The group behind Operation Antisec has claimed that it aims to protest government censorship and monitoring of Internet usage. In addition, various digital rights-related issues like corrupt racial profiling, hardline copyright laws and the War on Drugs have been also cited as grounds for launching particular attacks.

Notable Developments

June 20th: Lulzsec and Anonymous Join Efforts

• On June 20th, 2011, Lulzsec announced via Twitter it has formed a partnership with the mysterious hacking collective Anonymous under the banner of “Operation Anti-Security” or “Operational Anti-sec.” Between June 20th, and 26th, the newly formed coalition released several packets of confidential information obtained from various sectors, including government and private businesses.

June 26th: Lulzsec Disbands

• Though LulzSec disbanded as a group on June 26th, 2011, members have been reported to be continuing the operation from within Anonymous.

June 27th: Homeland Security Department & The Sentinel Program

• On June 27th, Anonymous released sensitive information obtained from the Cyberterrorism Defense Initiative’s Sentinel program, a network security initiative designed to provide anti-cyberterrorism tactics for workers in public safety, law enforcement, state and local government, and public utilities. Administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to “educate technical personnel in cyberterrorism response and prevention,” the released information contains resources on publicly available hacking resources and counter-hacking tools, as well as form letters that could be used to obtain user information from Internet service providers.

June 28th: Brazil, Anguilla, Zimbabwe and Tunisia

• On June 28th, the group released a large set of private, user-related information obtained from government sources in the countries of Anguilla, Brazil, Zimbabwe as well as the Municipality of Mosman council using the method of SQL injection. On Twitter, Anonymous accused Brazil of data manipulation and Zimbabwe for the controversial 2008 presidential election. In addition, Anonymous hackers also gained control of a Tunisian government website under the name of Operation Tunisia, replacing the webpage with a propaganda flyer.

July 11th: Military Meltdown Monday

• On July 11th, Anonymous hacked into systems belonging to U.S. defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, thereby gaining unauthorized access to nearly 90,000 personal accounts from a number of U.S. government and military agencies under the banner “Military Meltdown Monday.” Some of the targeted victims include the United States Central Command, United States Special Operations Command, the United States Marine Corps, the United States Air Force, the United States Department of Homeland Security and the United States Department of State. AntiSec also includes an “invoice for our audit of your security systems,” for a total of $310, for four hours of work.

July 13th: Operation Green Rights

• On July 13th, Anonymous issued an announcement of a new campaign entitled “Operation Green Rights,” which would target any and all companies it perceived as harming the environment.

In a related video released via YouTube on the same day, the group named several corporations like Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Canadian Oil Sands, Imperial Oil and the Royal Bank of Scotland as companies that are especially responsible for the world’s current environmental problems.

July 14th: Monsanto Employee Contacts

• On July 14th, the agricultural biotech company Monsanto confirmed that its network had been infiltrated by the hacker collective Anonymous. In a statement provided to CNET news, the firm’s Director of Corporate Affairs Tom Helscher explained:

“Last month, Monsanto experienced a disruption to our Web sites which appeared to be organized by a cyber-group. In addition, this group also recently published publicly available information on approximately 2,500 individuals involved in the broader global agriculture industry.”

According to the CNET report, the hackers allegedly obtained the contact details of 2,500 people in protesting the company’s lawsuits against organic dairy farmers who have used labels stating their products don’t contain growth hormones, a product Monsanto used to make. Monsanto currently make genetically engineered seeds and pesticides. It was also one of the seven company’s to supply the U.S. military with Agent Orange during the Vietnamese War.

The attack was publicized through a tweet posted by Anonymous earlier in the week, which stated: “#Anonymous hacks Monsanto computers; posts employee info http://on.msnbc.com/qhqs1m #OpMonsanto goes #AntiSec.”

July 19th: FBI Arrests 14 suspects of Anonymous Hacks

• On July 19th, cable news outlets CNN^[7] and Fox News^[8] reported at least 14 people were arrested in New York, New Jersey, Florida and San Francisco Bay Area as part of an ongoing FBI investigation of the notorious “Anonymous” collective, citing a senior federal law enforcement official. In New York City alone, federal agents executed the search warrants in a half dozen locations in Long Island, Brooklyn and the Bronx, where they seized computers and other digital records.

The federal authorities have yet to reveal the specific charges of the arrested individuals, but all are believed to have been involved in carrying out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on numerous high-profile corporate and government websites.

August 7th: Shooting Sheriffs Saturday

On August 5th, members of the Antisec hacking group posted an official statement via Pastebin^[9], releasing 10 gigabytes of confidential data allegedly obtained from over 70 U.S. sheriffs’ offices and law enforcement agencies. The leaked information reportedly contains over 300 e-mail accounts associated with law enforcement officers and agencies, home addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers, police training videos and identities of anonymous tipsters. The group also claimed to have used the stolen credit card information to place donations to the Bradley Manning Support Network, ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation and several other digital rights advocacy groups.

Codenamed “Shooting Sheriffs Saturday,” the mass infiltration of law enforcement databases was served in retaliation to recent arrests of Anonymous associates, including the British teenager Jake Davis (also known as Toipary) who’s been identified by the U.K. police as a key member of Anonymous operations and the spokesperson of the mysterious hacking group Lulzsec.

Most of the targeted law enforcement sites were hosted by Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing Servers and they were successfully hacked within the first 24 hours of launch,according to the TIME Magazine Blog^[10]. Furthermore, not long after Antisec’s initial intrusion and data heist, the group also claimed it was able to hack their replacement servers and deface all 70+ domains.

We have no sympathy for any of the officers or informants who may be endangered by the release of their personal information. For too long they have been using and abusing our personal information, spying on us, arresting us, beating us, and thinking that they can get away with oppressing us in secrecy. Well it’s retribution time: we want them to experience just a taste of the kind of misery and suffering they inflict upon us on an everyday basis. Let this serve as a warning to would-be snitches and pigs that your leaders can no longer protect you: give up and turn on your masters now before it’s too late.

August 19th, 2011: Vanguard Defense Hack

On August 19th, 2011, Antisec released a gigabyte of private documents and 4,713 emails obtained from Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI), the Texas-based firm best known for its development of U.S. military weapons like ShadowHawk, an unmanned helicopter capable of handling aerial surveillance, as well as security consulting services with U.S. government agencies.

Antisec also revealed that after breaching the company’s website, they extracted thousands of published e-mails from an account associated with Vanguard’s senior vice president Richard Garcia. He is also a board member at Infragard, an FBI program designed to facilitate cooperation between public and private cybersecurity initiatives.

The Tech Herald reported that Antisec targeted Vanguard due to their affiliation with a number of state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the Texas State Police, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Marshals Service. According to their interview with an Antisec associate, they were able gain access to Garcia’s e-mail account through VDI’s website, though the source wouldn’t specify what method was used.

The VDI data leak will have a searchable index, and its own website. Within the leaked messages, there were emails to several government agencies, as well as law enforcement agencies in Arizona, Illinois, and Ohio, each one wanting to purchase or gather information on VDI’s unmanned vehicle. There were several memos, some Confidential, most classified as For Official Use Only, related to intelligence gathering for various business sectors. One such memo, several months old, warned that a group calling itself Rising Tide were planning “protest and possibly civil disobedience” activities against oil and natural gas interests in Pennsylvania and Texas.

Back in June 2011, AntiSec affiliate LulzSec hacked the Web site of InfraGard Atlanta, releasing passwords and other sensitive information.

September 2011: Texas Police Chiefs Association

Following the arrest of Topiary and several members allegedly linked to Operation Antisec, Anonymous launched retaliatory attacks against the websites of the Texas Police Chiefs Association and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. On September 1st, the Texas Police Chiefs Association website was defaced by the group and various documents marked “sensitive” and “for official use only” including police officers’ personal phone numbers were released in public.

October 2011: International Association of Chiefs of Police

On October 21st, Anonymous dumped 600 megabytes of information obtained from various law enforcement agencies including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, and the Sheriff’s office of Baldwin County in Alabama in support of the Occupy movement.

Leaked information included membership rosters, internal documents, and social security numbers from the International Association of Chiefs of Police; nearly 1000 names, ranks, addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers of police officers in Jefferson County, Alabama and Birmingham, Alabama; 1000 names and passwords of members of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association; and the financial information and client list of web developer and marketing company Matrix Group, a business with several law enforcement clients.

In addition to the leaks, Antisec claimed that at least 40 law enforcement-run websites were targeted by the hacktivist group, many of which had their content replaced with an anti-police rap video.

November 2011: California Department of Justice

On November 18th, 2011, Anonymous published 38,000 email messages that were obtained from the Gmail account of Alfredo “Fred” Baclagan, a special agent supervising computer crime investigations with the California Department of Justice and the Computer and Technology Crime Hightech Response Team. According to the group’s statement, obtained information included exchanges among forensic experts discussing techniques for tracing cybercriminals and coordinating requests filed by law enforcement agencies. In addition to official correspondences, Anonymous announced it had gained access to Baclagan’s home address and phone number, as well as his text messages and his voicemail. The group also claimed that they used his Google Voice account to reach Baclagan’s friends and family members and purchased a camera using his Google Wallet account.

December 2011: Strategic Forecasting E-mail Hack

On December 24th, 2011, members of Anonymous had stolen e-mails and credit card data from the website of Strategic Forecasting Inc, a United States-based global security think tank group commonly known as Stratfor. Claiming to have retrieved over 200 gigabytes of data, the hackers criticized Stratfor in a Pastebin statement^[11] for being “clueless when it comes to database security,” noting that the passwords were unencrypted and many of them were simply the name of the company.

After the hacking incident was reported in the news, the group posted two sets of credit card information, one containing 3,956 items and the other with 13,191 items. On the following day, they posted a set of over 30,000 items. The hackers also stated the credit card data was used to make donations to several charity organizations, including the Red Cross, Save the Children and CARE, though it remains in doubt whether the payments were ever processed to the groups.

February 2012: Wikileaks Publication of Global Intelligence Files

On February 27th, 2012, Wikileaks began publishing more than 5 million e-mails^[12] from Strategic Forecasting Inc. that were allegedly obtained by Antisec-affiliated hackers in December 2011. According to the statement accompanying the leaked documents, the e-mails dubbed “Global Intelligence Files” reveal the inner workings of the intelligence publisher and its affiliations with large military defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and various government agencies.

Stratfor, a self-described publisher of geopolitical analysis based on private intelligence, released a statement via its Facebook page on the same day, describing Wikileaks’ decision as “deplorable” and “illegal.” The firm further asserted that some copies of the e-mails may have been forged or altered to include inaccuracies, though they refused to validate the authenticity of any documents. Following the leak, numerous Anonymous-affiliated Twitter feeds including @AnonOps, @AnonyOps and @YourAnonNews posted links to the Wikileaks page along with warnings about future leaks. According to the Wired article^[12] citing an anonymous source with ties to Anonymous, the hackers decided to turn the information over to Wikileaks because the site was deemed more capable of analyzing and publishing the data.

“Basically, WL is the ideal partner for such stuff. Antisec acquires the shit, WL gets it released in a proper manner.”

August 2012: Wikileaks Exposes TrapWire

On August 9th, 2012, Wikileaks began releasing a new batch of documents regarding a governmental surveillance program known as TrapWire, a predictive software designed by the U.S. security firms Stratfor and Abraxas Corp to detect early signs of impending terrorist plots. Due to the covert nature of its operations prior to the release of the documents, the news was quickly met by baseless speculations and sensational headlines in the blogosphere as well as mainstream news outlets. Shortly after the Wikileaks’ release in August, the news site became targeted with a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks allegedly launched by a group calling itself “AntiLeaks,” rendering it virtually inaccessible for nearly a week.

September 2012: Millions of Apple ID Leaked

On September 3rd, @AnonymousIRC tweeted a link to a Pastebin post^[18] allegedly containing more than one million Apple Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs), a 20-digit hex value code that is used by Apple developers and mobile advertising networks to track user behaviors. In the following hours, the announcement of the data dump became widely reported in the tech news blogosphere^[15] and picked up by major U.S. news outlets^[16] as well.

1,000,001 from a total of 12,000,000 iOS devices, courtesy of FBIpastebin.com/nfVT7b0Z#Anonymous#AntiSec

— AnonymousIRC (@AnonymousIRC) September 4, 2012

According to the communique, AntiSec hackers obtained the data during the second week of March 2012 after gaining access to the Dell laptop computer belonging to FBI special agent Christopher K. Stangl, who has been actively involved with the agency’s cybersecurity recruitment efforts in the FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team. Shortly after the breach, Stangl’s laptop yielded a spreadsheet file with sensitive user information of more than 12 million Apple devices, ranging from UDIDs, user names, names and types of devices to mobile phone numbers, mailing addresses and zip codes linked to the UDIDs. Furthermore, the group explained that the hack was intended to raise public awareness surrounding the FBI’s intelligence gathering and monitoring of millions of Apple user information.

In addition to the release of Apple device-related data, the group specifically addressed journalists and reporters that it will not reveal any further information until Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen was featured on the front page of the news site with a huge picture of him dressed in a ballet tutu and shoe on the head. On the following day, Chen jokingly complied with the request by writing an article titled “Anonymous Demands to See Gawker Writer In Ballet Tutu For More Information On Massive FBI Hack”^[17] featuring a photo of a pug wearing a tiara and a pink ballet tutu.

On Twitter

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Sorority Girl’s E-Mail Rant was an e-mail sent by University of Maryland student Rebecca Martinson to her fellow Delta Gamma sorority sisters, in which she berates them for being “boring” and “awkward." The e-mail was subsequently leaked online and reblogged via internet news sites, even inspiring the creation of celebrity dramatic readings.

Background

On April 18th, 2013, Gawker^[1] published the transcript of an email that was forwarded from an anonymous tipster and originally addressed to the University of Maryland chapter of the Delta Gamma sorority (shown below). Written by a senior member of the club, the e-mail scolded sorority sisters’ behavior at recent events, threatening them with violence if they did not improve their social skills with members of the brother fraternity Sigma Nu. Within five days, the article received over 420,000 views and 2,600 comments.

If you just opened this like I told you to, tie yourself down to whatever chair you’re sitting in, because this email is going to be a rough fucking ride.

For those of you that have your heads stuck under rocks, which apparently is the majority of this chapter, we have been FUCKING UP in terms of night time events and general social interactions with Sigma Nu. I’ve been getting texts on texts about people LITERALLY being so fucking AWKWARD and so fucking BORING. If you’re reading this right now and saying to yourself “But oh em gee Julia, I’ve been having so much fun with my sisters this week!”, then punch yourself in the face right now so that I don’t have to fucking find you on campus to do it myself.

Notable Developments

Author’s Response

The same day, Gawker updated the post with a follow-up e-mail sent from the Delta Gamma chapter president, who asked for the website to remove the offending e-mail or the names “Delta Gamma” and “Sigma Nu.”

“My name is [redacted] and I am the current president of Delta Gamma at the University of Maryland. It has been brought to my attention that you recently published an unsavory email that was sent out over my chapter’s list-serve. Is it possible for you to either remove the article or just remove the names “Delta Gamma” and “Sigma Nu” from your article? This email absolutely does not reflect our chapter’s values nor Sigma Nu’s and any assistance you can give us is greatly appreciated."

Identity Revealed

The same day the e-mail was leaked on Gawker, the author of the e-mail was identified as University of Maryland student Rebecca Martinson. Photographs of Martinson were subsequently posted on the Total Frat Move Forums^[2] (shown below), where members discussed her attractiveness and speculated about her sexual interests.

In the coming days, screenshots from her now-deleted Twitter^[6] feed (shown below) began circulating on various news sites, including Scallywag And Vagabond,^[3] The Frisky,^[4] Bro Bible^[5] and Jezebel.^[7]

Dramatic Readings

On April 18th, 2013, the Pophangover YouTube channel uploaded a video in which actress Alison Haislip performs a dramatic reading of the email (shown below, left), which received over 268,000 views and 600 comments in the next five days. On April 22nd, Funny or Die released a dramatic reading by actor Michael Shannon (shown below, right), gaining more than 27,000 up votes and 71,000 Facebook likes within the first 24 hours.

Delta Gamma’s Response

On April 22nd, the Delta Gamma sorority president Laurie Petrucce Roselle issued a statement via Facebook^[8] announcing that Martinson will be reprimanded for her “inappropriate” and “profanity-laced” e-mail.

We want to make it clear that this letter in no way reflects the values of Delta Gamma as an International Fraternity or our chapter at the University of Maryland. The processes by which Delta Gamma handles member discipline are confidential, but we have a team of women working with the chapter to take all appropriate action including protecting, educating and supporting the chapter members in the aftermath of this event.

Two days later on April 24th, Delta Gamma released a statement on its Facebook page^[9] announcing that Martinson has resigned from her post in the aftermath of the e-mail leak.

Delta Gamma has accepted the resignation of one of its members whose email relating to a social event has been widely distributed and publicized through social media and traditional media channels.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

2013 Boston Marathon Explosions refer to the deadly bombings that took place in Boston, Massachusetts during the annual Patriots Day race on April 15th, 2013. Due to the close proximity of the detonations to the finish line, the moment of the blasts and the immediate aftermath were captured on footage and instantly shared online.

Background

On April 15th, 2013, at approximately 2:50 pm (ET), two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon on Boylston Street near Copley Square, killing three people and injuring at least 176 others. Later that day, law enforcement officials said that the bombs appeared to have been homemade, with at least one of them identified as a pressure cooker filled with shrapnel and planted on low grounds for lethal impact.

Casualties

As of April 16th, three people have been confirmed dead, including an 8-year-old boy named Martin Richard. According to hospital employees, at least 10 of the injured suffered severed limbs and 15 remained in critical conditions.

Online Reactions

Within minutes, numerous photographs and video footage of the explosions and the aftermath from the site began circulating on Twitter and YouTube. A total of six real-time discussion threads were created within 24 hours of the explosion, with many Redditors updating each others with the latest developments and links to helpful resources such as the temporary housing registry for displaced marathon attendees, live scanner feeds, Google’s Person Finder and the #bostonbombing IRC channel.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]}

#PrayForBoston

Immediately following the explosions, many people turned to Twitter as a way to share photos, report news and check on loved ones attending the event. On April 15th, the phrase “Boston Marathon” was tweeted 2,910,316 times.^[16] Approximately an hour after the bombing, USA Today^[17] compiled a chronological series of tweets from news media outlets as well as attendees showing how the event unfolded via Twitter.

Tweeted messages of sympathy from celebrities, politicians, journalists and athletes were compiled on the NY Daily News^[18], Fox Nation^[19] and the Huffington Post.^[20] Additionally, the hashtag #PrayForBoston^[21] began trending on Twitter minutes after the bombing.^[22] The hashtag was ranked #1 globally until 9 PM EST that night^[23] and was used a total of 2,828,464 times on April 15th.^[24]

In the hours following the explosion, Twitter became a soundboard for people to discuss conspiracy theories surrounding the event^[25], attributing it to North Korea or the Tea Party. Simon Rickettes, a reporter from The Guardian^[26], noted at least 12 pieces of unverified information that were traveling through Twitter as if it was confirmed news.

Random Acts of Pizza

For people who were not in the Boston area and wanted to help out people affected by the blasts, many turned to the Random Acts of Pizza subreddit^[4], offering to send pizzas to hospitals, people housing stranded runners and police departments. Around 5 p.m. (ET), Moderator iamnotevenperturb launched a general Boston Marathon thread^[6], garnering nearly 600 comments within 18 hours. Many of the orders were made through Anytime Pizza, who called in their entire staff the make and deliver pizzas, completely emptying their kitchen. Four local hospitals eventually had to stop accepting deliveries and Redditors were encouraged to donate to other places in need.^[5]

Patton Oswalt’s Status Update

At about 5 p.m. (ET), American comedian Patton Oswalt posted a Facebook status update^[27] detailing his initial reaction to the news. Praising those who ran towards the detonation site to help others and reassuring that the good will always outnumber those who stand in the darkness, Oswalt’s message was met by positive responses from his fans and followers on Facebook. Within the first 24 hours of posting, the status update received at least 298,000 likes and 224,000 shares.

Shelter Finder Google Doc

At approximately 5:30 PM EST, two Google Document forms began circulating the web, the first for displaced runners who needed a place to stay and the second^[7] listing contact information for people offering their spare beds or couches. Though it is unclear who began these Google Docs, Allston resident Chris McCartney-Melstad was the first person to use the form to offer a place in his apartment. As of 1:30 p.m. (ET) on April 16th, hundreds of people in the area have added their names to the list.

Google Person Finder

Immediately following the explosions, Google launched a Boston Marathon Person Finder page,^[15] which allows users to search for or add information about specific individuals. To address privacy concerns, Google allows users to set expiration dates for each record added and announced they will be removing all records from the database several months after the crisis. Google had previously deployed Person Finder pages following the Haiti earthquake (January 2010), the Chile earthquake (February 2010), the Pakistan floods (July 2010), the Christchurch earthquake (February 2011), the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (March 2011) and the Van earthquake (October 2011).

/r/FindBostonBomber

On the day after the attacks, British Redditor oops777 launched the /r/FindBostonBombers subreddit as a hub site for community members to collect and analyze photographs and videos that have been captured from the scene.

Hoaxes

The Family Guy Episode

Later that same day, a YouTube video of an episode clip from Family Guy^[31] began circulating online, which showed main character Peter Griffin triggers explosions with his cell phone and driving over injured victims at the Boston Marathon. First uploaded online by conspiracy talk radio host Alex Jones, the video was soon revealed to be an edited clip from an episode titled “Turban Cowboys” that aired on March 17th, 2013, in which Peter Griffin becomes a Muslim and discovers that he is part of a terrorist plot to blow up a bridge. Shortly thereafter, FOX removed the original episode from online streaming services in the light of the tragic real-life event.

Man in the Red Shirt

Another image from the scene that went viral on Facebook depicted a man in a red shirt embracing an injured woman on the ground with an emotional backstory suggesting that the man had planned on proposing to his girlfriend after crossing the finish line.^[32] It was soon debunked as a hoax based on a photograph taken by John Tlumacki for Boston Globe and Getty Images, the original description of which read: “A man comforts a victim on the sidewalk at the scene of the first explosion near the finish line of the 117th Boston Marathon.”

Mystery Man on the Roof

Within hours of the bombings, a particular photograph^[29] of the second explosion taken by Suffolk University student Dan Lampariello began drawing attention from conspiracy theorists after a viewer spotted a hazy figure of a man standing on rooftop at the time of the detonation. By 5 p.m. (ET), the image had been retweeted at least 5,000 times^[30] and sparked a debate regarding its authenticity and significance in connection to the bombings.

Blue Robe Guy

On April 17th, F.B.I officials released a photograph of one of the backpacks believed to be linked to the bombings (shown below, left) , which quickly spread across the front pages of daily news sites and blogs. Within hours, amateur investigators on Reddit and 4chan began analyzing photographic evidence gathered from the site shortly before the detonations in an attempt to identify of potential suspects matching the description provided by the authorities.

By 8:30 a.m. (ET), several individuals who were seen in photographs with backpacks moments before the explosions had been marked as persons of interest, particularly one man who became known as the “Blue Robe Guy” for wearing a blue fleece and a black backpack that faintly resembled the one shown in the FBI image (shown above, right). At least 57 photographs brought up during the discussion were subsequently compiled into an Imgur gallery post, gaining more than 1.6 million views in less than 24 hours.

Investigation

On April 18th, F.B.I. released the first surveillance photos and videos of two main suspects being sought after. In one of the photos posted on the F.B.I website, both suspects were seen wearing black jackets, khaki fatigues and black backpacks. Shortly after, Redditor SPAtreatment posted an image identifying the hat as a Bridgestone golf cap, while many others searched for additional photos matching the official description.

Online Speculations

In the early hours on April 19th, a Redditor submitted a link to a Huffington Post article^[36] about Brown University student Sunil Tripathi who had been missing since mid-March, implicating that the student might have played a role in the attack. The post^[37] soon reached the front page of Reddit and the speculation continued to spread elsewhere as users on Twitter began reporting that they had heard Tripathi being named as one of two possible suspects via police scanner.^[38]

However, by the next morning, the rumor was debunked as pure speculation after the deadly shootout between the suspects and the police. In response, the moderator of /r/FindBostonBombers issued a statement apologizing for the misimplication of Tripathi in the case and cautioning people to refrain from doxing personal information until official confirmation.

Manhunt Operation

Later that same day, the investigation saw its first breakthrough in the case when a violent shootout erupted on the campus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, leading to the death of Boston police officer Sean Collier and a wild police chase in Cambridge.

During the course of the explosive-ridden standoff, one of the main suspects, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was fatally wounded and later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Ruslan Tsarni’s Plea

On April 19th, as the manhunt for the second suspect continued amidst a city-wide lockdown, the uncle of the two bombing suspects appeared in a local news interview to publicly denounce the nephews for their alleged involvement and called them “losers” for shaming the entire people of Chechnya. Furthermore, when asked if he had any advice for the younger Tsarnaev at large, he asked Dzhokhar to turn himself in and ask for forgiveness.

The uncle’s emotional address towards his nephews quickly made his name rise to a trending topic on Twitter, where his remarks were highly praised by many viewers as patriotic and heartfelt. The viral takeoff of Tsarni’s interview statement was picked up that same day by The Washington Post^[45], Gawker^[46], New Yorker^[47] and TIME Magazine among many other publications. Meanwhile on Reddit^[48], Tsarni was hailed as an unforgiving patriot through the impromptu advice animal series “Uncle Ruslan.”

Aftermath

The Arrest

The manhunt came to its fruition on the evening of April 19th, when a resident of Watertown, Massachusetts found a body laying in a pool of blood inside a boat stationed in his backyard, suspected to be Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The authorities subsequently surrounded the boat and used a thermal imaging device to verify that the body was still moving (shown below). After exchanging fire with the suspect for more than an hour, Tsarnaev was taken into custody and transported to the hospital, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.^[49]

On April 22nd, after being treated for severe injuries at the hospital, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged with “using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death” and “malicious destruction of property resulting in death” in connection to the bombings. In addition, Tsarnaev was also charged with four counts of murder. On July 10th, 2013, Tsarnaev made his first public appearance at the arraignment for a total of 30 charges, to all of which Tsarnaev pled “not guilty.” On January 30th, 2014, United States Attorney General Eric Holder released a statement revealing that the federal government will seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

#FreeJahar Movement

Similar to the online fandom that grew out of support for Aurora, Colorado theater shooter James Holmes, the arrest of the younger Tsarnaev was met by supporters who rallied around him on Twitter with the hashtag #FreeJahar,^[50] inspired by Tsarnaev’s Twitter handle^[51] that was exposed by Gawker^[52] the previous day. Throughout the third week of April, the hashtag was mentioned by several news sites including The Blaze,^[70] Wired^[71], the Week^[72], Gawker^[73], the Huffington Post^[74] and Heavy.^[75] As of July 2013, the hashtag has been used on Twitter more than 140,000 times^[69], with both serious and mocking sentiments.

In addition to the Twitter hashtag, the support spread to Tumblr^[76][77] where at least three single topic blogs claiming his innocence have launched since April. The movement saw a renewed interest in July 2013 when a group of supporters assembled in front of the Moakley Federal Courthouse for Tsarnaev’s first public hearing, chanting “Free Jahar.”^[81] Two days later, The Atlantic^[82] published a piece investigating the reasons why women have gotten involved in actively supporting the alleged bomber.

Rolling Stone Cover Story

On July 16th, 2013, Rolling Stone magazine revealed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev^[53] would be featured on the cover of the upcoming August 1st issue, along with an editorial piece about Tsarnaev’s transformation into a suspected terrorist, based on interviews with dozens of his friends, teachers and neighbors. In less than 24 hours of online publication, the feature article accrued more than 1,900 comments. Rolling Stone also shared the cover on their Facebook page^[54], generating more than 4,500 shares and nearly 15,000 comments. The post also generated thousands of tweets criticizing the magazine for treating Tsarnaev like a rock star (shown below). On the 16th, “Rolling Stone” was mentioned on Twitter more than 165,000 times according to Topsy Analytics^[55], a 3,126% increase in volume from the previous day.

Between the evening of the 16th and morning of the 17th, the impassioned response to the Rolling Stone cover photo was picked up by dozens of news outlets, including Huffington Post^[60], Buzzfeed^[61], CNN{62], Business Insider^[63], USA Today^[64], CBSNews^[65] and Boston.com^[66] On the morning of July 17th, the hashtag #BoycottRollingStone^[56] began to trend, drawing endorsement from Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Brad Ziegler^[57] as well as newsmagazine distributors including CVS and Tedeschi’s Food Shops.^[59] Within hours, the hashtag was used more than 1,800 times.^[58] According to a tweet from Fox 25 reporter Catherine Parrotta^[67], Boston mayor Thomas Menino called the cover a “disgrace” and plans to contact the publisher. Meanwhile, supporters of Tsarnaev also slammed the cover^[68] for calling him “The Bomber” without being proven guilty (shown below).

On the afternoon of July 17th, Rolling Stone editors responded to the outcry on their Facebook page^[83] stating that their thoughts are with the victims of the bombings but they were standing by the story. As Tsarnaev fell into the age group of many of their readers, they found it necessary to examine all of the layers of his character to gain a better understanding of how a tragedy like this one happened.

CBS The Good Wife

On November 24th, 2013, CBS’ legal procedural drama The Good Wife ran an episode titled “Whack-A-Mole,”^[84] in which an ad-hoc investigation launched by a group of online vigilantes on the fictitious social news site “Scabbit” inadvertently leads to the racial profiling of an American professor of Middle Eastern descent and false accusations of a bombing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, fueled by the heated discussions of conjectures, theories and circumstantial evidence (shown below).

On the next day, Redditor Kneeco28 started a discussion thread about the episode on /r/television^[85], where it garnered more than 654 up votes within the first 24 hours, while similar articles comparing the episode plot to the timeline of /r/findbostonbombers soon followed on Entertainment Weekly, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, AV Club, TechPresident and Vulture,^[86] just to name a few.

Trial and Verdict

On March 5th, 2015, the trial began for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, with charges on 30 separate counts, including multiple murders and uses of explosives for the purpose of murder; since the act was deemed one of terrorism, the trial was a federal and guilty verdicts could potentially carry the death penalty as a sentence. Massachusetts does not apply the death penalty to its own trials in the state, and because of this difference, it was substantially more difficult to find potential jurors willing to serve the death penalty.^[87]

The trial lasted until April 7th, 2015, and the defense admitted Tsarnaev’s guilt while simultaneously attempting to portray him as acting under the influence of his older brother, Tamerlan. The prosecution portrayed him as “an equal partner in the carnage.” On April 8th, after less than two days of deliberation, the jury found Tsarnaev guilty on all counts. ^[88]

On May 15, in a unanimous vote, the jury handed down a death sentence in six of the 17 counts Tsarnaev had been found guilty of.^[89] Following the announcement of the verdict, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch released a statement praising the decision:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev coldly and callously perpetrated a terrorist attack that injured hundreds of Americans and ultimately took the lives of three individuals: Krystle Marie Campbell, a 29-year-old native of Medford; Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; and Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester who was watching the marathon with his family just a few feet from the second bomb. In the aftermath of the attack, Tsarnaev and his brother murdered Sean Collier, a 27-year-old patrol officer on the MIT campus, extinguishing a life dedicated to family and service.

We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack. But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families. We thank the jurors for their service, the people of Boston for their vigilance, resilience and support and the law enforcement community in Boston and throughout the country for their important work.^[90]

Search Interest

External References

Overview

#TheTriggering is a hashtag-based activist campaign launched by Canadian conservative political commentator Lauren Southern to challenge the contemporary values of political correctness and the radical faction within the social justice movement by sharing provocative message that would be deemed as triggers for the aforementioned group in defense of free speech on March 9th and 10th, 2016.

Background

On September 18th, 2015, Southern posted a tweet calling for the creation of a day named “The Triggering,” during which participants would post “offensive” statements on social media in defense of free speech (shown below, left).^[1] Over the next six months, the tweet garnered upwards of 980 likes and 730 retweets. The following day, Southern announced that the hashtag campaign “#TheTriggering” would take place on March 9th, 2016 (shown below, right).^[2]

Notable Developments

On March 7th, 2016, the Internet culture blog Age of Shitlords^[3] published an article about the upcoming social media campaign. The following day, a post promoting the hashtag was submitted to the International Skeptics Forum,^[8] which called for readers to stand up for free speech “like Socrates would.” On March 9th, Twitter users began posting the hashtag “#TheTriggering”^[5] along with various statements criticizing political correctness (shown below).

That morning, Twitter user @MartinDaubney posted a screenshot of Twitter search, accusing the platform of “suppressing” the hashtag (shown below). Meanwhile, Redditor pl0x submitted a post about the campaign to the /r/KotakuInAction^[7] subreddit.

During much of the day, the #TheTriggering remained a worldwide trending topic on Twitter. Meanwhile, YouTuber Fem Fighter uploaded a satirical response video titled “#TheTriggering is Triggering,” in which she feigns outrage over the hashtag campaign (shown below). In the coming days, several news site published articles about the hashtag campaign, including Infowars,^[6] The Mary Sue^[4] and WeHuntedTheMammoth.^[9]

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

TheLegend27 is a fictional character appearing on an online ad for the mobile video game Game of War: Fire Age, where several players start talking about the legendary player and their feats. The ad’s transcript inspired a copypasta, which gained traction in middle December 2016.

Origin

On October 5th, 2016, the Game of War official channel uploaded an ad named “Campfire Stories”. In the ad, four players gather around a campfire in order to talk about TheLegend27, a player that keeps defeating them; at the end, one of the players is revealed as TheLegend27. In the following two months, the video gained over 43 million views.

What are you guys playing?
I’m supposed to be playing Game Of War™ but this one player keeps kicking my ass.
Is it TheLegend27?!
Yeah, TheLegend27.
Who is the legend 27?

Some say TheLegend27 is the first Game Of War™ player ever.
Born from fire.
I heard, TheLegend27 can hurl a boulder farther than a catapult.
I heard TheLegend27 once defeated an entire army with a single blow.
But the worst part is, just when you think you’re safe, just when you think you might escape…
WHAM!!! Just like that!
collective gasps
Iphone Notification
What? No, no no no, no no no!
Iphone Notification
That’s impossible!
“TheLegend27” has captured my hero!
Mine too!
Aw you guys, I’m sure it’s not that bad.
You have no idea what just happened.
I might have some idea.
Woman turns around, and powers her device’s screen, showing she is in fact TheLegend27

Spread

In the following days, the commercial inspired several copypastas on Reddit, while the original had begun appearing in CollegeHumor and YouTube comments sections.^[1] Redditor ohrules^[2] submitted an inquiry about TheLegend 27 to /r/OutOfTheLoop on December 11th, 2016. The commercial also inspired several video remixes, which were compiled and posted by EenGamer on the 11th.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Nut Button refers to an image of a hand going to hit a blue button, badly edited to have the word “NUT” on it. The image often has text above it, usually “When you’re hitting it from behind and she turns around and moans ‘X’”, or something similar. Over the course of 2016, it evolved such that “nut” was replaced with different words and the captions were applied to several different, not always sexual subjects.

Origin

On December 6th, 2015, Tumblr user zakk.lol^[3] posted the original image as a joke reply to a Smash the Like request from user browningtons. In the original image, the button said “LIKE.” The post, shown below, has gained 129,729 notes as of January 12th, 2016.

Spread

On January 26th, 2016, Tumblr user kuma-dot-net posted the template with the title “when u see da anime bae and she thicc”, and the caption “BOY” (below).^[1] It obtained about 7,000 notes in 3 months.

On April 6th, 2016, Dolan Dark posted an edit of the image (below) on Twitter with the phrase “Don’t ever nut to me or my son ever again”, referencing Don’t Talk To Me Or My Son Ever Again. In 3 weeks, it garnered over 200 retweets and 800 likes.

Over the course of the year, many more edits were made, with some changing the text on the button to fit different jokes. On January 11th, 2017, memearchives^[4] reblogged zakk.lol’s original post, after he had added “This is it. The original use of this image. I created this with pure intentions, and now it’s known only as the Nut Button.”

Various Examples

Multiple Button

The Multiple Button variation of the series features a red, green and blue button placed above the Nut Button, indicating that the blue button’s caption is selected over the other two options. On March 10th, Redditor Pm_Me_Ur_Ricecooker posted a multiple button image which selects preventing water from splashing during a bowel movement over ending world hunger and poverty to /r/dankmemes^[7] (shown below, left). On March 11th, Redditor DankMemesBestMemes submitted a post announcing that “Multiple choice button memes on the rise!” to /r/memeeconomy.^[6]

On March 12th, 2017, Redditor ImAGod47 uploaded an image in which the ”Meet Herobrine in Minecraft button is selected (shown below, top, left). Within 48 hours, the post gained over 2,400 votes (98% upvoted) on /r/dankmemes.^[5] In the coming days, many additional variations were submitted to /r/dankmemes (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Cummies is a term which typically refers to a submissive woman who enjoys the orgasm of her dominant male partner, typically reffered to as her “daddy”, within the BDSM relationship type known as “DDLG” (short for Daddy Dom / Little Girl). The phrase became widely popular after an emoji spamcopypasta featuring a girl in the aforementioned relationship asked for “cummies” (semen shots from oral sex).

Origin

The term “cummies” has been used in a variety of different communities (mostly BDSM related) to refer to semen. One of the earliest known uses was in a post to a cuckold dedicated Tumblr blog from a user identifying themselves as “missy”, on September 22nd, 2013.^[1] The earliest known use of the phrase in reference to a DDLG relationship was in a post by Tumblr user littlemermaidvirginprincess on or shortly before December 31st, 2013.^[2]

Spread

The term gained widespread use both in the DDLG and other BDSM-realted communities in late 2013 and into 2014. By late 2014 the term was a staple term in the DDLG community. On October 21st, 2014, the online news site The Daily Dot reported on a story about a condom being filled with spaghetti.^[3] In the article the author mentions cummies as an offshoot of the DDLG community and claims that “French Toast is involved somehow”. On December 10th, 2014, a YouTuber by the name of cyberspacebabe uploaded a video in which several people are shown saying “cummies” in a confused manner (shown below).

On March 4th, 2015, a copypasta about a DDLG relationship by Tumblr user studip,^[3] was submitted. The post including several emojis, and various references to cummies. In 9 months, the post gained over 25,300 notes.

On August 5th, 2015, a YouTuber by the name of Smokin’ Beer uploaded a video titled The Cummies Song (Original) in which a young woman in a kigurumi sings about cummies (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

“This is the ideal male body,” also known as “This is the ideal ‘make’ body,” refers to a series of jokes parodying a tweet posted by Canadian-American conservative media personality Steven Crowder that highlighted a picture of Russian heavyweight MMA fighter Fedor Vladimirovich Emelianenko as an example of the ideal male physique.

Origin

On January 13th, 2016,^[1] Crowder tweeted the picture of Emelianenko along with a short caption describing it as “the ideal make [sic] body.” (shown below).

However, Crowder’s tweet didn’t draw any major attention until August 16th, 2016, when popular video-editing comedian Vic Berger IV mocked a tweet by Crowder that said “There is an epidemic of young, very portly girls dressing quite whorish. Unsettling.” Twitter user @playazball^[2] replied to Vic Berger IV’s tweet with screenshot of Crowder’s “ideal male body” tweet captioned “and for you men, take note of what Steven feels is the ideal body,” inspiring the spread of the joke (shown below).

Spread

Joke variations where Crowder’s original text is applied to different images began spreading rapidly through Weird Twitter, to the point where “The Ideal Male Body” was a Twitter moment^[3] by the end of the day. Popular variations included Graham, ^[4] Toad crossed with Bayonetta, ^[5] Homer Simpson,^[6]Shrek, ^[7] Frasier,^[8] and many more. The meme was covered by The Daily Dot,^[9] New York Magazine,^[10] College Humor,^[11] and The Verge.^[12]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References

About

Bob Ross (1942 – 1995) was an American painter best known for his instructional television show The Joy of Painting, which aired on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations from January 1983 to May 1994.

Background

The Joy of Painting was an American half-hour instructional television show hosted by Ross. During each episode, Ross would complete an imaginary landscape using a variety of tools and brushes while using the wet-on-wet oil painting technique; instructing viewers regarding the techniques so anyone could follow along.

Prior to his painting career, the Florida-raised Ross was a member of the United States Air Force which brought him to Alaska, inspiring the first snow and mountains that would become a theme in his artwork. Ross also had an affection for small animals, which he raised and set free; occasionally bringing them with him in the show. He was known for several catchphrases coined on his show, including “happy little trees” and “there are no mistakes, only happy accidents”;^[1] alongside his afro haircut and soothing voice became notable characteristics associated with him.

Online History

The Joy of Painting is still frequently syndicated by PBS stations nationwide, and there have been several events of online newsworthiness featuring the painter and his show. Clips of Ross frequently show up in YouTube Poop and montage parody videos (see below video parody section), and even PBS’ own Digital Studios has remixed Ross videos to create a viral hit, entitled “Bob Ross Remixed” (shown below, left). Since its original posting in July of 2012, this video has acquired over 8.92 million views. In addition, the online series “Epic Rap Battles of History” featured a Bob Ross vs. Pablo Picasso battle (shown below, right); since it’s posting in November of 2013, that video has gained over 26 million views.

On April 14th, 2014, the popular statistics blog FiveThirtyEight released an analysis they’d created of Bob Ross’ painting catalog. They found that Ross painted trees, mountains, and clouds more frequently than any other types of objects, and used the painter’s oeuvre to explain several statistical methods.^[3] This analysis proved to be a viral hit for the site, and the work was covered by mainstream press outlets like The Verge,^[4] Laughing Squid,^[5] and the AV Club.^[6]

Twitch Marathon

To celebrate the launch of their new channel called Twitch Creative,^[10] the streaming site Twitch streamed every episode of The Joy of Painting in a 400 hour, 8.5 day marathon, complete with their traditional chat structure.^[7] The stream, which began on October 29th, 2015, averaged about 40,000 views at any given time, and as of November 3rd, 2015, had acquired over 2.3 million total views and over 314,000 followers. The stream was controversial both because of the mainstream, non-gaming community that were pulled to the site,^[8] and also because of the mainstream’s reaction to the Twitch chat group, which, for instance, reacted negatively when Ross had a female guest on to paint.^[9]

During the stream, various phrases gained memetic usage during notable sections in the show: Such as viewers saying “RUINED” whenever Bob Ross painted over an earlier done section and saying “GG” at the end of each episode. Twitch itself also appealed to the site’s memes by introducing KappaRoss, a variation of Twitch’s highly popular Kappa emoticon edited to have Ross’ characteristic afro; likewise the stream’s introduction image also featured an image of Josh DeSeno, the face of Kappa, as Bob Ross (shown below).

The first stream ended on November 6th with over 180,000 viewers. Following this, the stream started to feature a countdown leading to November 9th; where Twitch introduced the Bob Ross Mini Monday Marathon, a weekly monday stream featuring one season of The Joy of Painting from 3pm PST to 9:30pm PST.^[11] Alongside with the new stream, several emoticons were also added to the Twitch chat; including bobrossCloud and bobrossTree, based on Ross’ popular comments towards painting them; and several of Ross’ brushes and phrases. During the first monday stream, the channel managed to surpass over over 445,000 likes and reached nearly 4 million total views; viewers averaged out at around 50,000, being higher at the start of the stream but gradually dropping over time.

Related Memes

Photoshop Bob Ross

Photoshop Bob Ross is a photoshop meme using an image template of the celebrity painter standing in front of a blank canvas. Taken from a promotional photograph for his instructional television program The Joy of Painting, it is most often used as an exploitable to frame various images in the blank canvas as if they were drawn by Ross.

Video Parodies

In addition to the photoshop meme, there are several video parodies and tributes to Ross’ show, The Joy of Painting. This can be attributed to the show’s continued syndication on public access television networks.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Irate Gamer is a YouTube personality portrayed by Chris Bores who is known for his series of ill-tempered video game reviews. His YouTube series has been frequently compared to Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN, also known as James Rolfe), leading some fans of AVGN to proclaim Bores to be a ripoff, dislike all of his videos and leave an excess of hateful comments and parody response videos on his uploads.

Online History

Chris Bores released his first Irate Gamer video on his YouTube channel^[1] on April 28th, 2007, in which he played the Back to the Future video game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. In the seven-and-a-half minute video, Bores combined clips from the movie with the gameplay, while he gave a relatively hostile overview of his playthrough. Many fans initially compared this video to the AVGN’s review of the same game uploaded nearly a year earlier, as Bores raised many of the same points Rolfe had made in his production. As of October 2012, the comments have been disabled on the video due to the controversy it caused.

In July 2007, Bores launched the official website at irategamer.com^[2], and later that year, launched two additional web series. In October 2007, Bores uploaded a Ghost Hunters-inspired video (shown below, left) in which he and a group of people explored the Patterson Tower^[3], a supposedly haunted Ohio landmark. This video evolved into a supernatural exploration series called Haunted Investigators^[4] in which Bores and friends visit local places known for being spooky. The next month, Bores launched Irate Gamer NEO^[5], a show dedicated to reviewing modern games (shown below, right). In 2008, Bores further expanded his channel adding the series Irate the 80s^[6] in which he reviews food, drinks and toys popular in the 1980s.

In 2009, Bores began compiling a documentary style show called History of Video Games^[7], chronicling the growth of both arcade and console games over the years. As of October 2012, there are five episodes of this show, reaching the release of the console Fairchild Channel F in 1976. In 2011, he began refilming the videos in high definition for a potential DVD release. Also in 2011, he launched a Facebook profile^[8] for himself, where he has nearly 1500 friends and publishes updates publicly for people to follow.

Reputation

Silent Rob’s Criticism

On September 11th, 2007, a YouTuber known as Silent Rob uploaded a video comparing the Irate Gamer to the Angry Video Game Nerd. Rob accused Bores of plagiarism and predicted that his next video, scheduled to be a review of the Teenage Mutant Ninja TurtlesNES game, would be a near copy of Rolfe’s review.^[9] Since Rob used footage from Irate Gamer episodes, the original video was taken down due to a copyright claim by Bores, but has since been reuploaded by Angry Video Game Nerd fans.

Commentary from Other YouTube Reviewers

In 2008, Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic, released a video that was part of a faux feud with the Angry Video Game Nerd in which he claims that Rolfe has become the “Irate Gamer” in respect to the Critic’s videos after an extremely long series of vulgar insults (shown below, left). This is followed by canned booing, and Walker apologizing, saying that this comment was going too far. Rolfe acknowledged the Irate Gamer for the first time a year later at a convention (shown below, right) where he stated “he pretty much pretends that I don’t exist so why would I even need to say anything about him?”

Parody Videos

There are several mean–spirited parodies of the Irate Gamer Show on YouTube, including several accounts dedicated solely to hating on Chris. These videos exaggerate the flaws of his videos to ridiculous proportions, like the “Isuck Gamer Show” (shown below, left). Many other videos depict the feud between the Angry Video Game Nerd and the Irate Gamer (shown below, right). That Guy With The Glasses reviewer Linkara has also parodied Bores’ videos, reviewing an issue of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers comic in the style of the Irate Gamer, exaggerating his perceived flaws. As of November 2012, there are 600 search results for “irate gamer parody.”^[10]

Related Memes

Bores n’ Doors

In late 2008, Bores uploaded his review of the obscure NES cult game “Monster Party”^[11] while appearing upset that he has not been invited to a Halloween party occurring across the street from his home. Multiple times throughout the episode, the Irate Gamer’s doorbell rings and he is greeted with people who believe the party is happening at his house. These scenes spawned the “Bores n’ Doors” video fad, in which various characters from other works, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, are depicted visiting Irate Gamer during episodes.

Breakfast is Ruined!

Chris Bores posted a video unaffiliated with any of his series in 2007 featuring a rant about the cereal Lucky Charms, noting that the shapes and colors of the marshmallows had changed since his youth. To summarize this frustration at this, Bores proclaims “Face it. Breakfast is ruined!” This line is often used in parody videos as a quintessential example of complaints by the Irate Gamer that could be considered irrelevant, exaggerated nitpicking.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Fine Brothers, made up of Benny and Rafi Fine, are YouTube producers best known for their React series in which different groups of people are filmed watching viral videos.

Online History

On September 21st, 2004, the brothers released their first YouTube video titled “GI Joe The Epic Saga,” featuring action figures for characters from the children’s cartoon series G.I. Joe (shown below). The series gained a fan following online,but were subsequently taken down due to cease and desist orders from Hasbro in 2006.^[10] The videos were subsequently reuploaded on YouTube on alternate accounts.

On June 4th, 2007, the Fine Brothers Entertainment YouTube channel was launched. The first video uploaded to the channel was titled “Burger King Safety Dance,” in which a man wearing a Burger King mask dances to the 1982 new wave song “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats (shown below).

React Series

On October 16th, 2010, the React series was launched with the episode “Kids React to Viral Videos #1,” featuring various children reacting to various viral videos, including Double Rainbow and “2 Bunnies 2 Cups” (shown below, left). On November 17th, 2011, a “Teen React” series premiered, which followed the same premise but contained more mature videos (shown below, right).

On May 24th, 2012, the series “Elders React” was created, featuring seniors watching viral videos on YouTube (shown below, left). On December 2nd, the first “YouTubers React” video was uploaded, in which various notable YouTube vlogger are filmed watching YouTube videos (shown below, right).

MyMusic

On April 15th, 2012, the brothers launched the mockumentary comedy show MyMusic, based around a cast of characters working at the fictional MyMusic production company. Originally created as a TV show, it grew into a web show after $100 million funding from Youtube, as part of their Original Channel Initiative^[3].

React World and Trademark Controversy

On January 26th, 2016, Fine Brothers Entertainment revealed plans to trademark the brand name “REACT” and provide licenses to those who wished to make their own Fine Brothers-style reaction videos. In a video about the new “React World” licenses, the brothers claimed they only require ad revenue sharing and no upfront fees to license holders (shown below, left). On January 28th, the video reached the front page of /r/videos,^[11] where many expressed displeasure with the YouTube producers for attempting to license their reaction video format. Within four days, the post gained over 9,400 votes (95% upvoted) and 6,400 comments.

In the following days, several well-known vloggers on YouTube began sharing their reactions to the Fine Bros’ announcement. On January 28th, YouTuber Cr1tikal posted a video reacting to the announcement, which criticized it as an overreaching attempt at copyrighting reaction videos on YouTube (shown below, left). On January 29th, YouTuber Boogie2988 posted a video expressing apprehension toward the idea of licensing the reaction video format (shown below, right).

On January 31st, the brothers released an update video in which they attempted to address many concerns about their “React World” licensing program. In the video, they claimed they were not attempting to copyright “reaction videos” but were merely trying to license to those who wished to use their exact format (shown below).

On February 1st, Kotaku^[5] published an article about the controversy, noting a similarity to the Sony’s unsuccessful trademarking of “LetsPlay”. The same day, the Guardian^[6] published an article explaining the backlash and the mentioning how the Fine Brothers YouTube channel was losing a significant number of subscribers. Additionally, the article reported that the Fine Brothers had previously submitted takedown requests for videos on YouTube, including “Seniors React” and “British Kids React.” Meanwhile, several YouTubers created livestreams highlighting the rapidly decreasing subscriber count, including Sabconth^[7] and SCRUFFY JC^[8]. Many critics circulated the only statistics website Socialblade^[9], providing real-time updates of the Fine Brothers’ subscription count. From January 26th to February 1st, the channel lost over 100,000 subscribers per day.

The evening of of February 1st, Fine Brothers Entertainment published an open apology letter on the blogging platform Medium,^[12] noting they would be rescinding the trademark for “React,” end the “React World” program and release all past content takedowns on YouTube.

Search Interest

External References

About

Robin Williams was an American actor and comedian who starred in dozens of notable films and TV shows over the course of more than four decades, during which he rose to international fame for portraying a wide range of memorable characters, from his memorable comedic roles in Mrs. Doubtfire and Good Morning, Vietnam to the more serious roles in Good Will Hunting and The Dead Poets Society. On August 11th, 2014, at age of 63, Williams committed suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California.

Acting Career

Williams began his acting career in 1977 guest starring on TV shows such as The Richard Pryor Show and Eight Is Enough. His break-out role was the alien Mork on the TV show Mork & Mindy which ran from 1998 to 1982, which he won a Golden Globe for Best TV Actor (Musical/Comedy) in 1979. His first big screen role was the starring role in Popeye in 1980. He starred in a several comedic dramas in the 1980s including The World According to Garp (1982) and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987). He starred in several family and children’s comedies in the 1990s including Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Flubber (1997). In the early 2000s he starred in several dark films including One Hour Photo (2002), Death to Smoochy (2002) and World’s Greatest Dad (2009).

Online History

Social Media Presence

As of August 2014, Williams’ Twitter account^[2] has gained over 1.3 million followers and his Facebook account^[3] has gained over 6.5 million likes. His Instagram account^[4] has gained over 320,000 followers

Kim Kardashian Tweet

On May 7th, 2013, Williams tweeted out a side by side picture of Kim Kardashian in the dress she wore at the Met Gala next to a picture of Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire in a similar dress. Within a year the tweet gained over 320,000 retweets and over 220,000 favorites. Several websites covered the tweet the next day including The Huffington Post^[13] and The Daily Mail.^[14]

Google Search Queries

Upon the breaking news of his death from suicide in August 2014, millions of internet users searched for information relating to Robin Williams. According to Google Trends, “the impact of his death was so great that it prompted people to seek information about mental health. Searches for ‘depression’ increased by 3x, followed by ‘depression symptoms’ and ‘depression test.’” In December 2014, Google Trends recognized “Robin Williams” as the fastest rising search term (for any individual) of the year.

Related Memes

What Year Is It?

What Year Is It is the caption of an image macro featuring a photo of Robin Williams’ disheveled-looking character from the 1995 film Jumanji. In rage comics, it is often used in similar fashion to the my face when reaction faces to convey the disoriented sense of time experienced when waking up.

Reputation

Williams was most well known for his exceptional fluency in ad libitum, improvisational acting and impersonation skills, both on-screen as an actor and on-stage as a stand-up comedian, as well as his distinct style of delivering jokes in rapid-fire succession.

Accolades

Williams received his first Academy Award nomination in 1988 for his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam. He received three more nominations, winning one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1998 for Good Will Hunting. He received 11 Golden Globe nominations, winning five. He also received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005.

Personal Life

Williams was born on July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois. He briefly attended Claremont McKenna College and Juilliard School.

Death

Robin Williams died^[6] on August 11th, 2014, with police suspecting his death to be caused by suicide through asphyxiation. That day several websites posted retrospectives of his work, including The Huffington Post^[7] and Buzzfeed.^[8] The same day, Mashable posted a video retrospective for Williams, within 24 hours it gained over 340,000 views.

On the following day, several websites published a collection of celebrities reacting to his death on Twitter, including ABC News^[11] and Mashable.^[12]

Zelda Williams’ Response

On the night of the announcement of Williams’ death, Zelda Williams, the late actor’s only daughter, tweeted a message of gratitude to everyone who sent their condolences, along with a quote^[16] from Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s classic children’s book The Little Prince in remembrance of her father:

That same night, Williams also issued a brief statement sharing her own memories of her father via her Tumblr blog^[15], while addressing the issue of negative messages she had received from trolls on Twitter.

Then in the early hours of August 13th, Williams tweeted another message urging her followers to report two Twitter users, @PimpStory and @MrGoosebuster, who had apparently sent her photoshopped images depicting her father supposedly after his death.

“Please report @PimpStory @MrGoosebuster. I’m shaking. I can’t. Please. Twitter requires a link and I won’t open it. Don’t either. Please."

Shortly thereafter, Williams deleted the tweet and issued another statement via her Twitter^[17] and Instagram^[18] accounts that she will take a hiatus from social media activities.

Susan Schneider statement

Several days after Williams’s suicide his wife, Susan Schneider, released a statement revealing for the first time that Williams had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for some time prior to his death. She also confirmed that “his sobriety was intact” at the time of his death.^[20]

Henry Rollins Rant

On August 21st, 2014, LA Weekly^[23] published an opinion piece by Henry Rollings titled “Henry Rollins: Fuck Suicide.” The piece explains Rollins does not think anyone with children has the right to kill themselves, explaining his thought process:

" I think as soon as you have children, you waive your right to take your own life. No matter what mistakes you make in life, it should be your utmost goal not to traumatize your kids. So, you don’t kill yourself."

The article begins with Rollins referencing Williams’ suicide and goes on to explain Rollins thinks less of people, and if they are artists, their work, if they commit suicide.

The piece immediately sparked a backlash from other writers accusing Rollins of not understanding depression.

Also on August 21st, UpRoxx^[21] published a post titled “Henry Rollins Wrote A Confusing Rant About Robin Williams, Depression And Suicide” which featured celebrities on Twitter criticizing Rollins’ piece.

On August 22nd, Flavorwire^[24] published an opposition essay titled “Fuck Suicide? No, Henry Rollins, Fuck You.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Polygon is a video game site owned by Vox Media, which publishes news, reviews and video content.

History

On October 4th, 2012, Polygon^[1] was launched as the third web property by Vox Media out of the company’s tech news blog The Verge.

Controversies

GamerGate

In the wake of the Zoe Post that spawned the GamerGate movement, many criticized Polygon editor Ben Kuchera for donating to the Patreon page of video game developer Zoe Quinn prior to reviewing her game. On August 26th, Polygon released a statement announcing that all writers must disclose any contributions they have made to developer’s Patreon accounts.

Rock Band 4 Review

On June 1st, 2015, Polygon^[2] published an article about the game Rock Band 4. The following day, TotalBiscuit posted a dramatic reading of the article on SoundCloud, in which he mimics the accent of a wealthy aristocrat (shown below).

Doom Gameplay Footage

On May 12th, 2016, Polygon uploaded a 30-minute video containing footage from the recently released reboot of the Doom video game series (shown below). In the video, the player is shown moving erratically and repeatedly missing targets while shooting various weapons. After many viewers left comments on the video pointing out the player’s lack of first-person shooter experience, the comments and ratings were disabled for the video. That day, the video was mocked on the /r/gaming^[3] and /r/KotakuInAction^[4] subreddits.

On May 16th, Redditor Tac_Reso uploaded an animated GIF of two police officers in Family Guy wildly shooting while running titled “Polygon trying to play Doom” (shown below, left). In five days, the post gained over 860 votes (96% upvoted) and 120 comments on the /r/pcmasterrace^[7] subreddit.

On May 18th, Markus Persson posted a tweet^[6] mocking the Polygon video, which received more than 7,000 likes and 2,300 retweets in 72 hours. The following day, TotalBiscuit criticized Polygon’s video production team for creating poor content (shown below, right).

Traffic

As of May 2016, the site has an global rank of 2,361 and a United States rank of 835 on the traffic analytics site Alexa.^[5]

Search Interest

External References

About

The Retrowave Text Generator is a web application that allows users to create graphic images with custom texts in bright neon colors reminiscent of ’80s science-fiction film posters and production logos, a style of visual art that has been also referred to as neon-noir. In October 2016, the image generator gained widespread attention with the growing popularity of retrowave aesthetics on the internet, in a similar vein to the Stranger Things-themed title sequence generator Make It Stranger.

Origin

On July 16th, 2016, generator site PhotoFunia announced on its Instagram^[1] that it had introduced a new text effect generator^[2] it dubbed Retro Wave.

Spread

In the coming months, images using the generator appeared on Flickr,^[3] but it did not gain widespread popularity until October 5th, 2016, when images using the generator began spreading very quickly through Twitter, to the point where it was a Twitter moment the following day.^[4] Most users used the generator to post popular memes. Popular examples include J. Cole Went Platinum With No Features, ^[5]Actually, It’s About Ethics in Gaming Journalism, ^[6]Smooth, ^[7] and many more. The spread was covered by The Daily Dot,^[8] The Mary Sue,^[9] The Next Web,^[10] and more.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Change.org is an online petition platform which allows anyone to launch and participate in crowdsourced petitions. In 2012, the site surpassed more than 20 million users in 196 countries.

History

After two years of development, Change.org^[1] was launched in February 2007 by the San Francisco-based for-profit organization Change.org, Inc. In its first year, the site allowed users to search for nonprofits and politicians that are in need of support based on their political orientations, in addition to social networking functions such as adding friends, sharing photos and joining groups for various social issues and nonprofit organizations. On the day of the site’s launch, it was featured on TechCrunch^[2], which likened the site’s original design to that of a social network.

The site was also featured on VentureBeat^[3] and the Nonprofit Technology Network^[4] in spring 2007 and by July, the site launched a Facebook application^[5] where users could easily access the site through their Facebook account. After President Obama’s election in 2008, Change.org partnered with social networking site MySpace to create a platform where users could submit policy ideas for Barack Obama (shown below).

News Media Coverage

Following the attention Change.org recieved from the Trayvon Martin case, the site began appearing in the media more frequently with mentions on NPR^[21], the Huffington Post^[22], Mashable^[23], Forbes^[24] and the Wall Street Journal^[25], among others. Many of these articles touch on the for-profit aspect of the site, by generating revenue from the email addresses of users who sign petitions.

Features

Petitions

In November 2009, Change.org introduced their petition tool^[12], integrating non-profit organization Democracy in Action’s government data with social media share buttons and embed codes. After transitioning away from its original social network setup, the site saw its first major spike in traffic after a petition was made in July 2011 to create a law to make it a felony for a parent or guardian to not notify authorities after a child has been missing for 24 hours. As of December 6th, 2012, the site hosts more than 350 thousand petitions, with 40,000 being created every month, which are browsable by popular topics, amount of signatures and most recent submissions.

The site has staff in twenty countries that provide translations in eleven different languages. Change.org maintains a presence on other forms of social networking including Facebook^[9] and Twitter^[10], where it has more than 102K likes and 415K followers respectively as of December 2012.

Highlights

Since its launch, a number of petitions^[14] have resulted in real-life changes, including a petition ensuring health care for victims affected by contaminated water at a military base^[15] and another urging schools to remove LFTB, a mixture of beef scraps and connective tissue, from school food.^[16]

Caylee’s Law

Following Casey Anthony being found not guilty for the murder of her two-year-old daughter Caylee in July 2011, a handful of petition launched calling for governors to make not reporting a child missing after 24 hours a felony for parents or guardians. One in particular, written by Oklahoma resident Michelle Crowder^[17] gained more than 1.2 million electronic signatures within 14 days. In response, lawmakers in eleven states have proposed bills of this nature and as of December 2012, seven of those have been approved.^[18]

Bank of America’s Debit Card Fee

On October 1st, 2011, 22-year-old nanny and Washington D.C. resident Molly Katchpole proposed a petition^[26] demanding Bank of America to drop its $5 / month banking fee for debit card customers. By the end of October, more than 300,000 signatures had been collected on the site, including one from President Barack Obama, ultimately leading the bank to withdraw its plan.

Lorax Petition Project

In December 2011, a fourth-grade class in Brookline, Massachusetts submitted a petition titled “Lorax Petition Project,”^[27] which requested Universal Studios to promote an environmental message on its website and trailer for the 2012 3D-animated musical comedy film Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, which chronicles the adventures of the Lorax as he fights against the greedy villain the Once-ler to save the environment from its plight. Throughout December, the petition accumulated more than 57,000 signatures, to which Universal Studios responded by updating the website with the environmental message per request.

Trayvon Martin

On March 8th, 2012, Tracey Martin and Sybrina Fulton launched a petition^[19] seeking justice for their son, Trayvon Martin, after he was fatally shot by the neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. In less than two weeks, it became the fastest growing petition on the site, at one point gaining 1000 new signatures per minute.^[20] More than 2.2 million people virtually signed the petition before it was announced that a Florida State Attorney would charge George Zimmerman with second degree murder. The trial is scheduled to begin in June 2013.

Traffic

As of December 2012, Change.org has a Quantcast^[7] score of 1024 in the United States, seeing 1.6 million monthly users, and a global Alexa^[8] score of 1395. In September 2012, the site had surpassed 20 million total users^[11], breaking 25 million in December.^[13]

Search Interest

External References

About

pixiv (site domain: www.pixiv.net^[1]) is a popular social network for illustrators in Japan, a sort of equivalent of deviantART in the English web.

History

pixiv was launched by the Japanese programmer Takahiro Kamitani who hit upon the idea by Flickr on September 10th, 2007 as a beta test. The website went under a renewal on December 18th, 2007 into basically what is offered now.

pixiv has support for multiple languages including Japanese, Chinese, English, Korean, Russian, French and Thai.

As of January 28th, 2012, the site consists of over 4 million members, over 24 million submissions, and receives over 2.8 billion page views monthly.^[2]

Features

High Affinity with Doujin

Many Doujin circles register the accounts and post promoting illustrations for their books released in Doujin market. Thus, trend in pixiv is much affected by that of Doujin market. For exapmle, Touhou Project fan art account for 5.8% of all illustrations.

pixiv Encyclopedia

pixiv Encyclopedia is an internet encyclopedia section in pixiv.^[3] It has been enhanced to offer information of many memes/fads relevant to illustrations.

Project

In pixiv, Project (企画, Kikaku) means user-generated events of posting illustrations in the same themes proposed by inventors. To run projects, a common tag “Project Catalog” (企画目録) is used for presentation, and the special page for the catalogs is prepared by the official.^[4] A few projects represented by Pixiv Fantasia are really grandiose, but most of them are user-generated casual events which just utilize template images and the illustration response feature as described next.

Illustration Response

Illustration Response (Japanese: イメージレスポンス) is a sort of trackback feature in weblog tools. It was implemented on September 15th, 2008 for the purpose of encouraging more smooth collaborations among users. However, users have usually used this feature not for sending completed illustrations as response, but for publishing exploitable templates to enjoy drawing together in specific themes. On pixiv, those are called “Illustration Response Project” (イメレス企画, Imeresu Kikaku). Expression Practice and Bottle Meme are famous successful illustration response projects.

Related Memes

For the complete listing of memes that pixiv is contributed, check out KYM Collection – pixiv.

Search Interest

External References

About

Samurai Jack is an animated action TV series created by Genndy Tartakovsky on Cartoon Network. The story follows a lone Samurai trapped in the future called Jack who seeks to defeat the evil being known as Aku and return to his timeline.

Premise

Long ago, a great evil known as Aku awakened from his temporary slumber and began his evil conquest to take over the world. To stop this evil, a Japanese lord sent his son away to train across the world and inherits him a mystical Katana that was forged by the Gods as the only weapon that can defeat Aku. Returning as a proud Samurai, the man that would later be known as Jack faces off against Aku, nearly defeating him. But before Jack could deliver the final blow, he was banished by Aku into the distant future where his reign of terror has become absolute. Determined to save the world, Jack embarks on a quest to defeat Aku and find a means to return back to his timeline.

History

Samurai Jack was first announced during a Cartoon Network press conference on February 21, 2001. The series ran from August 10th, 2001, to September 25th, 2004, with a total of 4 seasons or 52 episodes. On October 2013, IDW Publishing began to publish the Samurai Jack comic books series which takes place right after the end of episode 52. The comic was written by Jim Zub and drawn by Andy Suriano. The comic series ran on a monthly schedule that ended on May 2015, with a total of 20 issues. On December 2nd, 2015, Cartoon Network’s adult programming block, Adult Swim, announced via YouTube that Samurai Jack would return for a new season in 2016 (shown below, left). After delays, the first episode of the 5th season began airing on Adult Swim on March 11th, 2017.

Reception

Upon airing, Samurai Jack was met with positive acclaim, being nominated and winning in a number of award shows including the Annie, OIAF, Primetime Emmy, and TCA Awards between 2002 to 2005. The show currently holds an 8.3 user rating on IMDb^[1] and an 8.8 user rating on tv.com.^[2]

Online Presence

Discussions regarding Samurai Jack can be found on a number of websites including reddit,^[3] 4chan,^[4] and Tumblr.^[5] On March 28th, 2004, Urban dictionary user Dave submitted an entry regarding the show.^[6] The Samurai Jack Wiki has 223 pages regarding the series as of September, 2015.^[7] A Facebook page dedicated to the series has gathered over 167.200 likes as of September 2015.^[8] On February 21st, 2012, the Samurai Jack subreddit was launch which has gathered over 740 readers in 3 years.^[9] On Youtube, typing the keyword “Samurai Jack” would yield more than 84.500 results.^[10] On the art sharing site DeviantArt, typing the keyword “Samurai Jack” would yield more than 14.200 results worth of fanart.^[11]

Related Memes

Long Ago in A Distant Land

Long Ago in A Distant Land refers to the monologue uttered by the antagonist Aku during the intro of every episode in Samurai Jack. The monologue summarizes the events of the first episode leading up to Jack’s banishment to the future. The monologue has since become popular among fans the series, evolving into a copypasta with several derivatives replacing Jack and Aku with characters from various other media.^[11]

Extra Thicc

In the beginning of episode 48, “Jack vs. Aku,” Aku is shown ordering what sounds like a pizza over the telephone. The audience can only hear Aku’s part of the conversation. Towards the end, he demands that his order be “extra thick” (shown below).

The “extra thick” line later became fodder for remix, YouTube Poop style videos, playing on Thicc. One of the more popular examples with over 77,000 views was posted by Nepeta Leijon on October 9th, 2016 (shown below, top left).

Search Interest

External References

About

Boku no Hero Academia (translated as My Hero Academia) is a manga series created by Kōhei Horikoshi and published in the magazine Weekly Shounen Jump. The story is set on a world where people with superpowers (known as “quirks”) are commonplace; following the life of Izuku Midoriya, a boy born without a quirk who wants to become a superhero.

Premise

Boku No Hero Academia takes place in a universe where each person is born with a superhuman power, or “quirk”, following the exploits of Izuku Midoriya, who finds himself having no useful quirk, until he meets the strongest hero All Might. As Midoriya discovers the secret behind All Might’s quirk, he is determined to train into gaining All Might’s power and to enroll to Yuuei, the academy where all heroes apply to.

History

The first version of the manga series was published as a one shot manga in the magazine Jump Plus in 2008. Although it already had the concept of a superhero world and a main character who wants to became a hero, the oneshot has many differences respect the serialized manga, the main ones being the main character working for a gadget company and the heroes not having powers but using special gears.^[6] Boku no Hero Academia’s serialization began in the 32nd issue of Weekly Shounen Jump on July 7th, 2014, as part of “a special project.”^[1]

2016 Anime Adaptation

On October 27th, 2015, a possible anime adaptation was hinted after Kōhei Horikoshi published a screencap of a Shonen Jump’s cover announcing the green-light of an anime adaptation (shown bellow), being consequently reported on some news sites after its deletion.^[16] The anime adaptation was announced on the 49th issue of Weekly Shounen Jump, setted for release on November 2nd, 2015.

Reception

The first volume was released on November 4th, 2014, selling over 71,000 copies in its first week.^[4] A series of vomics (video comics) was announced, the first one being released on January 11th, 2015 and the fourth being released on January 31st,^[5] adapting the first chapter of the series with voice acting.

Online Relevance

Starting from the apparition of English scanlations in November 2014, Boku no Hero Academia quickly garined a fan following in the English net. In December 2014, a dedicated subreddit was created, gaining over 4,000 subscribers in the following 10 months,^[11] being also a wiki^[9] and a MyAnimeList page^[12] created during that time. As October 28th, 2015, searching the keyword “僕のヒーローアカデミア” on the Japanese artist community Pixiv leads to over 4,000 results,^[17] while searching “boku no hero academia” on the artist community deviantART leads to over 520 results.^[13] The series has also gained a significant presence on websites like Tumblr^[10] and 4chan’s /a/ board.^[14]

Asui Tsuyu / Frog Girl

Asui Tsuyu, also known by her fan given name Frog Girl, is a supporting character from the series whose quirk gives frog powers. Due her unique appearance and other character traits, she quickly gained a fan following on pages like 4chan’s /a/^[2][3] or Tumblr.^[15] Her popularity has also resulted in Asui getting a large quantity of fanart on image boards such as Pixiv^[7] or Danbooru,^[8] especially in comparison to the rest of the supporting cast.

Search Interest

External References

About

Yooka-Laylee is an upcoming platformer video game in development by the studio Playtonic Games. The project, run by former developers of the Banjo-Kazooie series, became the fastest video game to reach $1 million in pledges on Kickstarter in May 2015.

History

In 1998, the video game development company Rare released the game Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64.^[1] Several sequels for the game were subsequently released until 2008, when the final game Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts was released for the Xbox 360. In February 2015, several former Rare employees formed the video game studio PlaytonicGames and announced plans to develop a “spiritual successor” to Banjo-Kazooie. On February 16th, the @PlaytonicGames Twitter feed replied to YouTuber Jon Jafari that he would be voicing a character in the upcoming game (shown below).

On April 30th, Rare announced that the game would be titled Yooka-Laylee. On the following day, a Kickstarter^[3] campaign for the game was launched, which accumulated upwards of £1 million in funds in the first 24 hours, becoming the fastest video game in Kickstarter history to pass US$1 million. The game has an expected release date of October 2016.

JonTron Termination

In February of 2015, Playtonic invited famous YouTuber and notable fan JonTron to do some voice-acting for a minor role in the game. However, on March 23rd, 2017, Playtonic^[7] announced that they had removed JonTron’s voice acting following his recent controversial comments on race in his Destiny Debate.

Online Presence

The same day the game was announced, the /r/YookaLaylee^[5] subreddit was launched for discussions about the game. Also on April 30th, 2015, YouTuber GameXplain uploaded a video containing commentary about the game’s characters and gameplay (shown below).

Fan Art

As of May 2015, the keyword “Yooka-Laylee” yields over 270 search results on DeviantArt.^[6]

Reception

Early reviews of Yooka-Laylee were mixed. Some praised the game for its tone and faithful recreation of the Nintendo 64 aesthetic. The Escapist,^[8] in a 4.5/5 review, wrote that it was visually very pleasing and its humor was in line with its predecessor, Banjo-Kazooie. Still, others knocked it for its technical issues and dated gameplay. Polygon,^[9] in a 5.5/10 review, knocked it for its laborious challenges and “busy-work” feel. As of April 4th, 2017, the game has a score of 72/100 on Metacritic.^[10]

Search Interest

References