Work in progress

About

Take A Closer Look At That Snout is a phrase spoken over a video of an Elephant shrew. After the phrase is spoken, the Elephant shrew opens it’s mouth seeming to scream, though no sound can be heard. The video has become the subject of many parodies, often inserting different sounds when the animal opens it’s mouth.

Origin

The oldest known video was uploaded to YouTube on April 27th, 2010 by user LiLAH4.^[1] The true origin source of the video is currently unknown, but it is likely to be a nature documentary.

Despite being the origin for the meme, the video only accumulated less than 300,000 views nearly 5 years. By comparison, a Tumblr video version of the source video gained over 65,000 notes in 30 days.^[2]

Spread

The oldest know variant of the video was uploaded on May 12th, 2014 by YouTube user ZippAgain.^[3] The video shows the original clip, and inserts the classic Godzilla roar sound effect, as well as a blue beam emitting from the Elephant Shrew when it’s mouth opens.

The video remixes also became popular on blog site Tumblr^[4] in the later half of 2014, often utilizing the Tumblr Video Player which was released on October 23rd, 2014. The most popular one was posted by Tumblr user “Trained-Chimpanzee” which gained over 140,000 notes in ten days ^[5].

Various Examples

External References

[WIP]

About

History

Stories of characters being eaten alive have existed long throughout history such as the biblical story of Jonah and The Whale and Cronus of Greek Mythology devouring his children ^[2]. In 1997 the now defunct Vor-Com, a furry oriented website that focused on soft-vore, was created as one of the earliest websites dedicated to vore ^[3].

Major Categories

Soft

In soft vore the prey is consumed alive and whole. After being consumed the prey may be released, held for a time, or be digested. The prey may or may not be revived after digestion and in either case graphic scenes of digestion are either skipped or made painless.

Hard

Hard-vore is typically less common than soft-vore. In Hard-vore physical injury to the prey occurs, whether by chewing and/or tearing of flesh and bone or by violent digestion in the stomach’s acids.

Subcategories

[WIP]

Same-Size

Macro

Macro vore combines macrophilia and vore by featuring a predator much larger than the prey, often large enough for the prey to be bite sized.

Online Presence

Searching “Vore” DeviantArt results in over 74,000 results and over 64,000 images on Fur Affinity. In 2005 Two vore sites, strega.aryion.com and artists.aryion.com, merged and renamed Eka’s Portal under the domain name //aryion.com ^[4] and is now one of the largest vore communities on the internet. In 2011 the subreddit /r/vore was created ^[5].

Real-Life Incidents

Search Interest

[WIP]

External References

^[1]Vorarephilia: a case study in masochism and erotic consumption.

^[2]Kronos.

^[3]Com-Vor on Wikifur

^[4]Rules / Frequently Asked Questions / Term of Service / other information on Eka’s PortalNSFW

^[5]/r/VoreNSFW

About
Macrophilia (or macro for short) is a fascination with or a sexual fantasy involving giants, more commonly expressed as giantesses (female giants) The fantasy is typically based around one or more larger beings dominating a smaller being. Many fantasies include the macrophile shrinking before a normal sized woman or keeping his or her normal height while the partner grows in size. Others involve partners who naturally have a significant difference in size.

History
One of the earliest known possible inspirations for macrophilla was the 1958 Sci-fi/ Fantasy film “Attack of the 50 foot woman” [WIP]

Examples
[WIP]

Online Presence
Macrophile.com and giantessworld.net are the 2 main Macrophile websites. Also noted Furaffinity.net has over 100,000 results regarding macrophilia [WIP]

Notable Artist

Alef-gp
Stampy
Illogical
Cougr

About

Transformation, or TF, is a type of fetish featuring a character developing, or “transforming” from their own species into an animal or an inanimate object. This fetish is most common in furries and cartoon fans. TF art is usually drawn in a sequence or a comic, showing the stages of a transformation, although a single-pane mid-transformation picture is also common.

History

Origin

The idea of transformation has existed for centuries, and can go back as far as the stories of skin-walkers in Native American legends or the Selkies in Northwestern Europe mythology. The idea of lycanthropy and vampires also contributed to the origins of transformation, as did fairy tales like the Frog Prince. In modern times, various cartoons and films of the 1980’s and 1990’s like Street Sharks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Rock-a-Doodle and An American Wolf in London played a great factor in the development of the internet-age TF fandom.

The earliest known transformation-related website is the Transformation Story Archive^[1] which was created by Thomas Hassan in 1995^[2] to archive amateur TF work. From 1996 to 2001, the 54-part children’s book series Animorphs, written by K.A. Applegate was published, inspiring further development in the fanbase and is known by many as the reason for joining the fandom.

A popular variation of TF is Transgender (often abbreviated as TG), which involves a transformation of sex change, usually male to female. Typically most TG arts are used in conjunction with TF itself, which results in the combined abbreviation “TGTF”.

Spread

In 1997, the TF archive site “Transfur” was established, and in September of 1999 the cartoon TF archive website “Shadowlord Inc.” was created. As early as 2003, transformation art has been put onto DeviantArt, and since the creation of the website FurAffinity in 2005. The first Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games were released in late 2006, drawing further development of younger TF fans and attributing greatly to the “Pokémon” subset of TF. Many cartoon-oriented bureaus also focus on transformation art. Transformation has also been known as a focus of the webcomics “El Goonish Shive” and “The Wotch”.^[3]

The audience of TF is extremely diverse. In furry-oriented sites such as FurAffinity or Inkbunny, most TF have adult patrons and tend to be more explicit in nature. In DeviantART, however, a sizable number of TF fans are below the age of 17. The TF works in DA are usually SFW, less serious and often of low quality due to general lack of talent.

Inanimate TFs

Inanimate TFs are a specialized subset of TF featuring one or more victims transforming into an inanimate object, like dolls, plushies, or crystal statues, possibly influenced by stories with unusual polymorphs. Extreme cases may include non-corporeal objects such as furniture, electronic devices, a surreal deformation of the victim’s body, or even another fetish or genitalia itself.

Notable Examples

Notable Artists

References

^[1]Wikipedia – Transformation Story Archive

^[2]Transformation Story Archive

^[3]WikiFur – Transformation fiction – Transformation enthusiasts

work in progress
h2. About

Snoop Dogg/Snoop Lion (real name: Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.) is an American rapper, singer-songwriter and actor, with over 30 million albums sold worldwide. He is known for laid-back rapping style, using -izzle for rhyming and re-popularizing the use of it^[4] and his association with “weed culture”.

History

He began his music career in 1992 by collaborating with Dr. Dre on his solo debut album The Chronic and on the theme song of the movie Deep Cover. Snoop’s debut album, Doggystyle was released in 1993, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, becoming certified 4x Platinum in 1994^[1].

After the success of Doggystyle, he would go on to make several more albums and collaborate with many artists, such as Tupac Shakur, Katy Perry and Pharrell Williams. He is currently married to Shante Broadus, and has three children. His reported net worth is 135 million dollars^[2].

Online Presence

He has a large online following due to his music being universally acclaimed by reviewers and rap fans. Due to his association with marijuana, Snoop Dogg is most often associated with “weed culture” and its habits. He is also used in many montage parodies.

Fandom

(Work in progress)
He has several blogs dedicated to him on tumblr, like fuckyeahsnoopdogg^[5] and Snoop Dogg Doing Awesome Things^[6]. He also has a sub-reddit^[7] and has done a AMA on the IAmA sub-reddit, using the alias “Here_Comes_The_King”^[8]

“Smoke Weed Everyday”

Smoke Weed Everyday is a lyrical part from the 2000 rap single “The Next Episode”^[3] by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. The phrase has gained usage in numerious image macros, music remixes and YouTube Poop Music Videos .

Snoop Lion/Conversion to Rastafari Movement

In 2012, after a trip to Jamaica, he announced that he had converted to the Rastafari Movement and had decided on a new alias, Snoop Lion. Under the alias, he released a new studio album called Reincarnated^[1].

Search Interest

External References

About

Chrissy Teigen’s Cry Face refers to the pained facial expression worn by American model Chrissy Teigen while watching her husband give an acceptance speech at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, which inspired Twitter users to post humorous captions along screencaptured image of Teigen’s face.

Origin

On January 11th, 2015, singer-songwriter John Legend and rapper Common were given the award for “Best Original Song” for the song “Glory” off the soundtrack for the 2014 historical drama film Selma. During the acceptance speech, Legend’s wife Teigen was filmed watching her husband while wearing a pained facial expression (shown below).

Spread

Immediately after the speech, Twitter users began posting a screencaptured image of Teigen’s face, along with humorous captions about the expression (shown below).

That evening, Teigen responded to the reaction by posting a photo of her and Legend posing with crying faces (shown below, left). Within 17 hours, the post gained over 102,000 likes.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Je Suis Nico (I Am Nico in English with Nico being diminutive of Nicolas) is a hashtag and exploitable image of former French president and current UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy trying to sneak his way towards the front of the January 11th rally that took place in Paris, France, in order to pay tribute to the victims of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo Shooting. Because his action was seen as out of place and rude by news outlets and French netizens, he triggered a series of parodies online portraying him crashing into a wide variety of settings, from historical events to tv shows and movies in a manner similar to Sarkozy was there.

Origin

On January 11th 2015, an official silent rally was organized in Paris in homage to the Charlie Hebdo victims and to protest against terrorism as a whole. It was led by French president François Hollande and featured many important foreign politicians, a few examples being German Chancellor Angela Merkel or even Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photos of the event were taken by news magazine Paris Match^[1] in which they noticed that former president Nicolas Sarkozy made his way to the front of the rally (shown below) before giving his place when the whole rally stopped and observed one minute of silence in memory of the victims.

Spread

The photograph reached Twitter that same day in an update by news site l’Important^[2]. From then on, the hashtag #JeSuisNico came to light, following the popularity of Je Suis Charlie, leading to dozens of amateur parodies involving Nicolas Sarkozy inviting himself into various settings, historical or fictionnal. A Tumblr page was created as well, on January 12th^[3].
The parodies eventually caught the attention of various news websites reporting on it, such as Minute Buzz^[4], Le Nouvel Obs^[5] or even 20 Minutes^[6].

Notable Examples

External References

Origin

200% Mad is a reaction image series featuring angry-looking subjects accompanied by the caption “200% Mad” written in the cut-out character style of the Expand Dong meme.

Origin

In the 2013 action game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, the main protagonist Raiden has to fight his ways through a series of villains, including Senator Armstrong who appears shirtless and grinning in anger towards Raiden (shown below, left). On January 26th, 2014, an image macro featuring Senator Armstrong with the caption “200% Mad” was posted to the /v/ (video games) board on 4chan^[1] in a thread about Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (shown below, right).

Spread

Through out 2014, the image was posted on various other 4chan boards.^[2][5] On May 30th, Funnyjunk^[3] user rdangerdash submitted the image macro in the comment section of a post about an angry ex-girlfriend. On January 8th, 2015, Tumblr^[4] user commanderofpie highlighted a variation of the image with the caption “420 blaze it” (shown below).

Notable examples

[archive from 4chan : may contain NSFW content]

About

Super Smash Bros. Character Announcement Parodies, also known as “Super Smash Bros. Challenger Approaching Parodies”, “Fake Smash Bros. Reveals”, and “(X) Confirmed for Smash Bros.”, is an image macro series featuring various photoshopped images of Super Smash Brothers character introductions, where a character is introduced while referencing a quote and/or action the character says and/or does. It is used in very similar ways to A Challenger Appears and the “Super Smash Bros. Challenger Approaching” screens. However, it is also used as a satirical joke to troll people and/or to inflict humor on other people. It is used to make references to one another as well.

Origin

On June 11, 2013, two trailers for the upcoming game “Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS/Wii U” were revealed during a Nintendo Direct presentation. One trailer was for announcing the game, while the other announced “Villager” from Animal Crossing as a newcomer.^[1] As Villager captures Nintendo mascot Super Mario in his net, the screen then turns orange as the words “Villager Comes to Town!” appear on the screen.

Spread

[W.I.P.]

On June 17, 2013, gaming site Kotaku posted an article regarding the image macro series gaining popularity shortly after the conclusion of E3 2013 where many images of characters “joining” the battle were photoshopped and posted online.^[2]

On April 23rd, 2014, Funnyjunk user “jackpott” posted a photoshopped image of Shrek in front of a green background with the words “Shrek Takes Ogre!” beside it. As of January 2015, the image has gained 67 positive reputation points and 2 favorites.^[3]

On Tumblr^[4][5], there are over 100+ total search results for posts that contain “challenger approaching” and “confirmed for smash bros”. On Twitter, there are more than 2,000+ search results for tweets that contain “confirmed for smash bros” between October 23rd, 2014 and January 12, 2015.^[6]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Michael Jackson eating popcorn is a gif animation and reaction image used in forums and comment threads to denote that the poster is going to enjoy watching a complex argument or discussion topic unfold, in similar vein as Dis Gon B Gud. As the popularity of the animation grew, image macros featuring various famous characters interacting with Michael Jackson and his popcorn were made.

Origin

The animated gif was taken from a scene of the famous music clip for Michael Jackson’s hit song Thriller, released in 1982. The peculiar segment shows Michael Jackson delightfully eating popcorn while watching a horror movie in a theater (shown below).

Spread

Usage

As early as September 2nd 2007, YTMND users were the first to make parodies about Michael Jackson enjoying pop-corn with a site^[1] made by Chiyoumen. As of January 2015, it has gained over 5 000 views. Between 2007 and 2013, three more sites were made dealing with the same joke^[2]. As a reaction image in particular, individual animated gifs of the scene seems to exist as early as April 2008^[3] which were often used in forums and boards to show that the poster is enjoying a peculiar heated debate between other posters. A 2011 post from themetapicture.com^[4] showed how the gif may work as an ideal reaction when witnessing a Facebook argument, for instance. On Reddit, Michael Jackson is the main icon of the r/popcorngif sub-reddit dealing with various animated gifs of people eating popcorn^[5].

I came here to read the comments

As the gif became more and more widely used as a reaction, image macro versions were made with the caption “I came here to read the comments”, sometimes reduced as “I’m here to read the comments” (shown below).

An entry for macros was submitted to Meme Generator on April 3rd 2014^[6]. As of January 2015, over 9 000 parodies were made.
This led to new macros featuring the catchphrase on other people.

Because the original gif and macros were so used when dealt with arguments online, a new trend emerged featuring various other famous macro memes interacting with Michael Jackson and his beloved popcorn (shown below).

External References

About

CoCo refers to a Hip Hop/Trap single by Belizean rapper O.T Genasis (Odis Flores) that has gathered viral^[1] attention trough a series of vines.

Origin

The Song was released as a single on October 27, 2014, it features O.T Genasis talking about buying and selling “Coco” (Cocaine) and his love for it, the single has received negative responses for its simplicity.

The song has received 49,688,803 views and 367,846 likes on youtube.

Spread

After the release of the song, multiple vines featuring the song started appearing with the tags #Coco and #Iminlovewiththecoco , normally poking fun at Genasis pronuntiation of cocaine by associating it with Cocoa Chocolate and CoCoa Puffs, as well as his pronunciation of “Baking Soda” (shown in compilations below)

On November 26, 2014, internet music reviewer Anthony Fantano released a parody of the song under his alter ego Cal Chuchesta, talking about Cocoa (shown below) along with a remix featuring internet celebrity Filthy Frank and his alter ego Pink Guy.^[2]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Look At Him And Laugh is a catchphrase and reaction image, depicting characters laughing while pointing at things, that invite people to mock on someone who showed or said something found to be stupid, in a typical Schadenfreude way.

Origin

As a reaction image, the first macro displaying the catchphrase was part of the 60s Spider-man macro meme that took over 4chan in 2009. It depicts Spider-Man pointing at something and two police officers laughing with the capion “Look at him Look at him and laugh” underneath (shown below). While there is no archive pinpointing an exact date of its use on the imageboard, its earliest mention was from a Tumblr page^[1] cataloguing reaction images, dated April 6th 2011.

Spread

Through out the following years, the Spider-man picture became a widely used reaction on imageboards and forums alike, making appearances on 4chan^[2], Funnyjunk^[3], forum threads such as Gamespot’s^[4] and comment sections such as Gizmodo’s^[5] or even Fark^[6].

[WIP]

Notable Examples

External References

About

Trompe-l’œil is an optical illusion created in visual arts to make 2-dimensional works appear 3-dimensional, bearing many similararties to forced perspective.

Origin

Optical illusions involving 3-dimensional perspectives were used in ancient Greek and Roman times, typically in mural paintings. During the Renaissance period, many Italian painters employed perspective illusion techniques in ceiling paintings. The phrase “trompe l’oeil” was coined in the Baroque period when perspective illusion ceiling paintings grew in popularity in Belgium and the Netherlands.^[1]

Spread

Many tropes used in cartoons have employed trompe-l’oeil, like the Looney Tunes character Wile E. Coyote using paint to create a 3-dimensional tunnel on a cliff face (shown below, left). In the 1954 musical film Singin’ in the Rain, a scene featuring the character Cosmo Brown (played by Donald O-Connor) running up a wall features a trompe-l’oeil mural (shown below, right).

In August 2005, graffiti artist Banksy painted a series of images on the Palestinian side of the Israeli West Bank wall, which included a trompe-l’oeil painting of two children playing below a hole in the wall revealing a tropical beach (shown below).

Forced Perspective

The forced perspective photography technique creates an optical illusion by strategically placing a subject or object to appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. While the technique has been employed by various professional photographers and artists for many decades, it became a widespread practice among amateur photographers in the early 2000s with the emergence of inexpensive digital cameras and photo-sharing platforms like Flickr.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

David Lynch is an American director best known for his surrealist-style works containing disturbing, confusing and bizarre imagery, including the films Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive as well as the 1990s drama television series Twin Peaks.

History

In 1966, Lynch made his first short film titled “Six Figures Getting Sick” while attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (shown below, left). In 1977, Lynch released his first feature film Eraserhead, which tells the story of man’s experience caring for a deformed child.

In 1984, Lynch’s film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 science fiction novel Dune was released, revolving around the protagonist Paul Atreides and his experiences on the desert planet Arrakis (shown below, left). In 1990, the pilot episode of Lynch’s television drama series Twin Peaks premiered, which follows the investigation of a murder of a small town’s homecoming queen (shown below, right).

On January 25th, 1997, Lynch’s psychological drama film Lost Highway was released, telling the story of a jazz musician who is accused of his wife’s murder (shown below, left). On May 16th, 2001, the neo-noir mystery film Mulholland Drive was released, featuring an aspiring actress who moves into a strange apartment complex in Los Angeles, California (shown below, right).

Twin Peaks Revival

On October 6th, 2014, Showtime revealed that a limited series of Twin Peaks would air on the cable television network in 2016, which would include nine new episodes written by Lynch and Mark Frost with actor Kyle MacLachlan returning to the show.^[2]

Online Presence

Parody Trailers

On August 8th, 2007, YouTuber Cody R uploaded footage from the 1995 Disney animated film A Goofy Movie edited in the style of a David Lynch film (shown below, left). In eight years, the video gained over one million views and 1,300 comments. On September 22nd, 2008, YouTuber kaflickastan uploaded a Lynch-inspired parody trailer for the 1987 romantic comedy film Dirty Dancing (shown below, right).

On May 10th, 2013, YouTuber Patrick Willems uploaded a parody of various scenes from the 1991 action film Point Break made in the style of directors Wes Anderson, Tommy Wiseau, Joe Swanberg and David Lynch (shown below, left). On May 19th, 2014, YouTuber C-Spit uploaded a parody trailer for the 1983 science fiction film Star Wars: Return of the Jedi as if it were directed by Lynch (shown below, right).

Larry David Lynch

On December 14th, 2014, the Larry David Lynch Tumblr^[1] blog was launched, featuring multi-pane comics made from screenshots of Twin Peaks and Lynch’s films captioned with dialog from the television sitcoms Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld (shown below).

Personal Life

Lynch was born on January 20th, 1946 in Missoula, Montana. Lynch has stated that he thinks of himself as a libertarian politically, but aligns himself with the Democratic party in the United States. Lynch is an advocate of the practice of Transcendental Meditation and its ability to provide aid in the creative process.

Search Interest

External References

About

Joey Wheeler’s Creepy Chin refers to a series of exploitable images based creepy shots of the character from the 1998 Anime Yu-Gi-Oh^[4] (遊☆戯☆王 Yū-Gi-Ō!?, lit. “Game King”), the exploitables mostly stem from japan via twitter, although it has recently gained popularity on america.

The images are normally an example of QUALITY in anime

Origin

The meme originates from multiple still scenes taking from the first incarnation of the Yu-Gi-Oh anime released in 1998, which feature Joey Wheeler with a creepy smile and a pointy chin

Spread

Dispite the images existing for a decade, it wouldnt be until late 2014 that they would gain memetic traction, and would spawn multiple exploitables, which include replacing Joey Wheeler with characters from other media, as well as photoshopping his chin on multiple anime characters.

On November 17, 2014 the popular culture news site Kotaku, wrote an article about the meme, which features multiple images of joey´s chin photoshopped on random anime characters, on November 18th, 2014 the site SGCafe^[2] wrote a similar article with more examples.

the exploitables have trended in japan on twitter under the Hashtag #城之内顎クソコラグランプリ^[3]

Search Interest

External References

About

Julie Taylor Test is a method used to gauge the quality of a television actor’s performance by imagining the character’s inner life compared to the rest of the cast. The test was inspired by the perceived bland portrayal of the character Julie Taylor from the television drama series Friday Night Lights.

Origin

On February 3rd, 2013, the news site Salon^[1] published a recap of the British period drama Downton Abbey by staff writer Willa Paskin, which criticized actress Elizabeth McGovern’s portrayal of the character Cora Crawley in the series. The author claimed McGovern failed what they referred to as the “Julie Taylor test”:

“The test is as follows: Is it possible to imagine the inner life of this character? If no, is it possible to imagine the inner life of the characters surrounding him or her?”

Spread

On May 5th, 2013, Salon published an article titled “The Julie Taylor Test: How to tell if a TV actor is bad,” which listed several other examples of characters who failed the author’s Julie Taylor test, which included Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. In the coming days, several news site published articles about the test, including Jezebel,^[2] Refinery29^[3] and Clear Eyes Full Shelves.^[4]

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

Dick Poop is a mispronunciation of American cinematographer Dick Pope said by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (AMPAS) President Cheryl Boone Isaacs during the announcement of the nominees for the Achievement in Cinematography in the upcoming 87th annual Academy Awards.

Origin

On January 15th, 2015, AMPAS president Cheryl Boone Isaacs made an on-stage appearance at the Oscar Nominations ceremony to announce the nominees in upcoming 87th annual Academy Awards, scheduled to take place on February 22nd. While reading the list of nominees for the Achievement in Cinematography award, Issacs fumbled on the pronunciation of Dick Pope, the cinematographer for Mr. Turner, and referred to him as “Dick Poop.” Although she promptly corrected herself, Issac’s gaffe opened up a massive opportunity for toilet humor online.

Spread

Shortly after Boone’s on-air gaffe, the phrase “Dick Poop” soon became a trending topic on Twitter, garnering over 27,000 mentions on the site in matter of hours, while it was simultaneously picked up by various news outlets covering the nominees of the year’s Academy Awards, including Reuters^[11], NBC Today^[5], ABC News^[9], LA Times^[10] and New York Post^[7], as well as entertainment news blogs like Huffington Post^[12], Mashable^[13], TMZ^[14] and Slate.^[3]

Dick Pope’s Response

Later that same day, the 67-years-old English filmmaker responded to his sudden viral fame in an interview with USA Today, in which he brushed off the mispronunciation by saying “[he has] been called a lot worse.” According to the article, Pope heard the news via mobile phone shortly after the announcement of his nomination while getting a private tour of J.M.W. Turner’s portraits, the subject of the film directed by Mike Leigh.

“You don’t need to explain it to me. I have had it explained one hundred times,” said Pope. “I feel sorry for the lady who made the mispronunciation.”

Search Interest

External References

About

Sensible Chuckle is a reaction gif a man laughing while reading a magazine titled “Sensible Chuckle” from a scene in the Australian comedy show Danger 5.

Origin

On February 27th, 2012, Danger 5 premiered on the Australian public television network SBS One, featuring a group of international spies attempting to assassinate Adolf Hitler during World War II. In Season 1 Episode 3, originally aired on March 5th, 2012, the character Tucker (played by Sean James Murphy) laughs to himself while reading a copy of the fictional magazine “Sensible Chuckle” (shown below).

On April 18th, 2013, Redditor^[1] ARealHuman posted an animated GIF of the scene to the /r/reactinogifs^[6] subreddit, where it gained over 3,900 votes (96% upvoted) and 80 comments prior to being archived.

Spread

On the same day, the /r/SensibleChuckle^[7] subreddit was launched. On February 3rd, 2014, Redditor Turkish_Farmer submitted the GIF as a reaction to news that the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks football teams would be playing against each other the following year to the /r/reactiongifs^[3] subreddit. On July 7th, Redditor gaedikus submitted the GIF to express his reaction when seeing a picture of his ex on Facebook to the /r/TrollYChromosome^[2] subreddit. On August 27th, YouTuber Dinosaur uploaded an interview with Sean James Murphy in which he responded to a question about the “Sensible Chuckle” magazine scene (shown below).

On January 13th, 2015, Redditor TheWhyteMan submitted an edited version of the Sensible Chuckle GIF with clips of laughing celebrities appearing to read the magazine to /r/funny^[4] (shown below, left). On the following day, Redditor TheWhyteMan submitted an extended version of the GIF with several added laughing celebrities titled “Have I gone too far? (OC)” to the /r/funny^[5] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 4,100 votes and 950 comments in the first 24 hours. Also on January 14th, TheWhyteMan’s GIF was reposted on FunnyJunk,^[8] where it gathered more than 27,500 views and 760 upvotes that day.

Search Interest

External References

About

#OperationFaceplateNA is a hashtag used by Nintendo fans in North America to voice their concern over the release of the standard size New Nintendo 3DS in North America, instead only releasing its larger counterpart, the New Nintendo 3DS XL. The name refers to interchangeable faceplates that were a selling point for the system, but are only available with the standard size New Nintendo 3DS.

Origin

On January 14, 2015, Nintendo released a Youtube video on their channel advertising the New Nintendo 3DS XL in the US. No advertisement was given for the standard size system. Users in the comments section voiced their concern, and several people started using the phrase #OperationFaceplateNA. Soon, several people started posting Nintendo of America’s contact information telling people to voice their opinions to them under the hashtag #OperationFaceplateNA

Spread

Within a day of the video’s posting, several petitions appeared on change.org calling for Nintendo to release the standard size new 3DS in America. The largest one has garnered around 1000 signatures as of January 15.

About

Touchdown Tom is a meme based on Tom Brady, starting quarterback for the New England Patriots of the National Football League. It tends to be used whenever the Patriots – and by extension, Tom Brady – are losing, with commentators claiming, “Never count out Touchdown Tom.” This is due to repeated come-from-behind victories orchestrated by Brady over his fifteen years in the league.

Origin

Tom Brady is the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, a team in the AFC East division of the National Football League. Drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft, Brady has led the Patriots to five Super Bowls (along with three victories) and has won two Most Valuable Player trophies along the way. ^[1] The meme was created late in the 2013 NFL season by SB Nation writer Jon Bois, ^[2] who gave Tom Brady a nickname that was so banal, no actual sportswriter would even think of it. ^[3] This is due to Brady’s ability to throw a lot of touchdowns, a skill to which is not exclusive to him. While its inception came about in November of 2013, the full explanation was not told until January 9, 2014, when Bois explained it in his most recent (at the time) Breaking Madden article, “Breaking Madden: Never count out ‘Touchdown’ Tom Brady”. On November 24, 2013, the Denver Broncos were beating the Patriots 24-0 at halftime, while Jon Bois insisted via Twitter to “not count out Touchdown Tom.” After his final tweet on the subject sometime in the third quarter, Brady brought the team back to tie it up by the end of regulation, and oversaw an overtime victory. ^[4]

Breaking Madden

While the nickname Touchdown Tom originated in November 2013, it was more fully explained on January 9, 2014, when Jon Bois included it in his Breaking Madden series, articles he was writing for SB Nation about different scenarios he had concocted up in Madden 25 (the latest Madden at the time). ^[5] This mini-series would turn into three parts.

Never count out ‘Touchdown’ Tom Brady

The first episode (Never count out ‘Touchdown’ Tom Brady, season 1 episode 16) ^[6] debuted January 9, 2014 (though the video previewing it came out three days earlier, January 6, 2014). In it, Bois created a team of all Tom Bradys using the Madden creation tools, and had them face off against the Indianapolis Colts, who were given great defense in the first half, but terrible defense in the second half in order to try and facilitate a comeback. By the end of the first half, the Colts were staked to an impressive 74-0 lead, but a second half comeback led to Touchdown Tom and the Patriots winning 77-74 (the score is not shown at the end, though a touchdown is recorded, so the score can be believed to be either 77-74 or 78-74).

Edge of Tom-orrow

The next chapter (Edge of Tom-orrow, season 2 episode 7) ^[7] debuted in the second season of Breaking Madden. The title is a reference to the Tom Cruise-starring movie Edge of Tomorrow, which premiered in theaters June 6, 2014. ^[8] The episode’s theme was based around the movie’s premise, where Cruise must continually relive the same day over and over again until the necessary outcome is reached. In this case, the outcome is a quarterback sneak from the opponent’s one yard line for a touchdown. While Bois admitted the task seemed impossible, Touchdown Tom was able to successfully QB Sneak on the 344th try.

The Touchdown Tom Trilogy concludes

Spread

Though there had been references to ‘Touchdown Tom’ since October 2007, the official acknowledgement of the phrase (and its creator’s self-confirmation of it being a ‘meme’) came in November 2013. Since that point, the nickname gained a minor following, with its popularity spiking highest in October 2014, when the Edge of Tom-orrow episode came out. Its popularity waned since, though another spike began to occur due to the release of the trilogy’s conclusion. Because of its American origins, the ‘Touchdown Tom’ nickname has appropriately not spread out past the United States.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Wikipedia – Tom Brady
^[2] Twitter – good ol’ touchdown tom / 11-3-2013
^[3] SB Nation – Breaking Madden: The Touchdown Tom Trilogy concludes / 1-15-2015
^[4] Graph – Broncos v. Patriots
^[5] SB Nation – Breaking Madden: Meet CLARENCEBEEFTANK, the Jaguars’ five-foot, 400-pound quarterback / 9-5-2013
^[6] SB Nation – Breaking Madden: Never count out ‘Touchdown’ Tom Brady / 1-9-2014
^[7] SB Nation – Breaking Madden: Edge of Tom-orrow / 10-16-2014
^[8]IMDB– Edge of Tomorrow
^[9] SB Nation – Breaking Madden: The Touchdown Tom Trilogy concludes / 1-15-2015