About

2014 California Earthquake refers to a series of seismic activities that occurred in the state’s northern and southern regions, including the city of Los Angeles, beginning in early March 2014. Similar to the online reception of the 2011 Virginia earthquake, the event quickly led to humorous reactions from the local residents mockingly exaggerating its minimal impact.

Notable Developments

KTLA Newscast

On March 17th, 2014, at 6:25 AM (PST), Los Angeles news station KTLA’s morning news program was suddenly interrupted during live broadcast by the earthquake, prompting one of the news anchors Chris Schauble to yell “earthquake” in urgency before ducking under the desk for cover with his co-anchor Megan Henderson. That same morning, the dramatic newscast clip was uploaded via KTLA’s YouTube Channel.^[3] Within two weeks, the video has gained over 14.2 million views. The quake, which lasted less than a minute, interrupted a number of other LA-based morning news programs.

The video was covered the same day by many sites including Gawker^[5], Buzzfeed^[6], and E!Online.^[7] Also that day Schauble made a still of his surprised expression from the clip his Twitter avatar.^[4] Many on Twitter used the still to comment on the March 28th aftershock.

#LAearthquake I was like….. pic.twitter.com/obVvyAejxz

— Sandra (@Sassi_Sandy) March 29, 2014

On Twitter

In the two weeks following the first earthquake, the hashtag #LAEarthquake^[11] was tweeted over 12,000 times, with many California residents expressing disinterest in the quake and others weighing in that the seismic activity hadn’t been very strong.

I don’t get out of bed unless the earthquake is at least a 5.5. #laearthquake

— Emma Caulfield (@EmmaCaulfield) March 17, 2014

Looks like I picked the wrong week to start collecting antique china plates and Faberge Eggs.#LAearthquake

— Rove McMannus (@Rove) March 29, 2014

Many celebrities living in California tweeted about their own experiences with the earthquake and the aftershock on March 17th and March 28th. Several websites posted collection of these celebrity reaction tweets including The Huffington Post^[8], E! Online^[9], and The LA Times.^[10]

News Media Coverage

The initial earthquake and aftershock was covered by many major news sites including The Huffington Post^[12], The Washington Post^[13], and ABC News.^[14] While most covered the facts including magnitude and coverage of the minimal damage, others discussed the recent relative lack of earthquakes in the area prior and the possibility more could be to come.

Notable Examples

Soon, several image macros and “destruction photos” began to emerge in mocking commemoration of the earthquake, including photographs of various consumer goods fallen from their store shelves and other scenes of negligible damages and minor inconveniences that resulted from the event.

Search

External Links

About

The Matrix is an American science fiction film about a computer hacker who learns some hard truths about his own reality. It is the first film in the trilogy.

History

The Matrix was released on March 31st, 1999.^[1] The film stars Keanu Reeves as computer hacker Neo, Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, Neo’s teacher of sorts, and Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, Neo’s love interest.

Reception

Upon its release The Matrix was a critical and commercial success. The film earned a rating of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 73 on Metacritic.^[3] During its theatrical run the film grossed more than 463 million dollars worldwide.^[4] The success prompted two follow up films, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).

Accolades

The film won four Academy Awards in 2000 for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing and Best Effects, Visual Effects. It also won two 2000 BAFTA Awards for Best Sound and Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects.

Online Presence

As of March 2014, The Matrix’s Facebook page^[5] has over 6.2 million likes. The film is available to watch in its entirety on YouTube for $1.99 through Warner Brother’s YouTube channel.^[6]

Premise

Neo (Keanu Reeves) is a computer hacker contacted by a fellow hacker who offers to explain a phrase he’s seen online, “The Matrix.” Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) explains knowing the truth is dangerous, but Neo chooses to learn the truth anyways, in spite of the fact he’s being pursued by Agent Smith and his co-agents. Morpheus then explains that Neo has lived as a power source to machines his whole life, as has everyone in the human race since 1999, and his world is really a virtual reality. Morpheus believes Neo could be the one to unplug everyone and end the machine’s control. Though a prophet called the Oracle implies Neo is not the one who will unplug everyone, he continues to pursue the fight. After saving Morpheus, who had been captured by the agents, Neo gets a confidence boost and displays great powers. He is killed, but uses his powers to come back to life, and kills Agent Smith.

Fandom

In addition to the branded social media presence, there are numerous fan sites for the film such as MatrixFans.net^[16] and the Matrix page on FanPop.^[17] There are several Tumblr blogs dedicated to the film such as the-matrix^[11], fuckyeahthematrix^[12], and dewsmatrixfanpage.^[13] As of March 2014, the Fanfiction.net^[14] page for the film has more than 2,700 submissions and DeviantArt^[15] has over 6.8 million submissions for the film.

Related Memes

Video Parodies

On July 2nd, 2006, YouTuber AwkwardKnob^[9] uploaded a video titled “Matrix No. 5” (below, left) which features a violent action scene from The Matrix synched up with the 1999 Lou Bega song “Mambo No. 5.” As of March 2014, the video has over 180,000 views. On March 6th, 2007, How It Should Have Ended^[10] uploaded a HISHE video for The Matrix (below, right). As of March 2014, the video has gained over 4 million views.

On November 11, 2008, College Humor^[8] uploaded a video (below, left) titled “Matrix Runs on Windows XP,” which imagines The Matrix if it had to deal with all the bugs of the Windows operating system. As of March 2014, the video has over 10.4 million views. On October 1st, 2013, Screen Junkies^[7] uploaded an Honest Trailer for The Matrix (below, right). As of March 2014, the video has gained over 4 million views.

Red Pill / Blue Pill

Red Pill/Blue Pill refers to the choice Morpheus gives to Neo between living in his untroubled ignorance (by taking the blue pill) or learning the painful truth about reality (by taking the red pill). Photos on Tumblr depicting two things, one blue and one red, are often tagged #red pill/blue pill^[18] and are accompanied by jokes referencing The Matrix. It can also be used as a slang phrase to reference a difficult decision (or to cast aspersions on a decision that should morally be easy, but an individual is struggling with).

Matrix Morpheus

Matrix Morpheus is an advice animal image macro series featuring a screen capture of the fictional character Morpheus. The captions typically follow a two line format with the first line reading “What if I Told You,” followed by a revelation that often belittles futile or petty behavior, in a similar vein to the advice animal characters Conspiracy Keanu and Sudden Clarity Clarence.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Misleading Thumbnails are images that appear to resemble something else entirely after they have been reduced in size, creating a type of optical illusion. These are not to be confused with the contextually misleading thumbnails associated with YouTube vloggers known as “Reply Girls”, which contain sexually suggestive images meant to increase video view counts.

Origin

On February 13th, 2005, the “Misleading Thumbnails” Flickr^[1] group was launched, featuring photographs which could misinterpreted as a picture of something else when viewed as a small thumbnail on a gallery page.

Spread

On March 23rd, 2008, Ebaumsworld^[6] posted a photograph of a lamp that appears to be the underside of a woman wearing bikini bottoms in the thumbnail (shown below).

On April 1st, 2011, YouTuber FluffeeTalks uploaded a video in which he discusses a misleading photograph of canyon that resembled a woman’s genitalia (shown below). In the next three years, the video received more than 290,000 views and 2,500 comments.

On April 16th, a page titled “Misleading Thumbnail” was created on the Internet culture wiki Encyclopedia Dramatica,^[3] which highlighted misleading cropped photographs from social networking and dating site profile pages. On July 12th, BuzzFeed^[5] highlighted 15 examples of images that appear to be sexual in nature when cropped or viewed in a reduced size (shown below). On October 1st, Redditor Metal321 submitted a visually misleading photograph of several pigs titled “Its not what it looks like” to the /r/funny^[4] subreddit, where it gained over 3,100 up votes and 200 comments (shown below, bottom right). On December 21st, the /r/misleading^[2] thumbnails subreddit was launched, which gained upwards of 31,200 subscribers in the following three years.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

“You were the chosen one!” is a quote from the Star Wars franchise that is often used to express disappointment or displeasure towards something undesirable occurring with an individual or company.

Origin

In Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi is tasked with defeating his former apprentice Anakin Skywalker, who has led a genocide against the Jedi in spite of his prophecized role to bring an end to the Sith. When Obi-Wan defeats Anakin, he cries out “You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them. You were to bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness. You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.”^[2]

Spread

[Researching]

The quote rose to popularity in 2011, wherein it was used as an Image Macro.

In addition to the main quote, variants upon “You were my brother, Anakin.” also experienced a surge of popularity. It contains the same meaning as the original quote, but also adds an undertone of personal betrayal to the message.

Search Interest

External References

About

Hanami Trace (お花見 ﾄﾚｽ in Japanese), also known as “I’m the Only One From 5AM” (俺だけ5時から in Japanese), is a digital art meme featuring various depictions of a young Japanese man playing a handheld gaming device while participating in the springtime cherry blossom viewing tradition hanami.

Origin

In March of 2014, a Japanese television station interviewed people who had gathered outdoors to partake in “hanami,” the practice of viewing cherry blossoms in spring. During the segment, a man laying by himself wearing a green jacket revealed he had arrived at 5 a.m. that morning to find a spot to view the flowers. On March 29th, Twitter user @_kazuka_ tweeted several screen captures from the interview segment (shown below). Within the first 48 hours, the tweet gained over 16,800 retweets and 8,700 favorites.

新しいトレースの材料きたぞお前ら pic.twitter.com/A4T4lqlfvO

— 和花＊ (@_kazuka_) March 29, 2014

Spread

Later that day on March 29th, 2014, other Twitter^[1][2][3] users began posting illustrated parodies of the screen captured images, many of which featured Japanese anime and manga characters (shown below).

Those posting illustrated depictions of the man began referring to the meme as “hanami trace” (お花見 ﾄﾚｽ in Japanese) and “I’m the only one from 5am.” According to the Twitter analytics site Topsy, there were over 1,170 tweets containing the keywords “お花見 ﾄﾚｽ” posted on March 29th.

On March 30th, YouTuber IbisPaintUser049 submitted a hanami trace speed painting video (shown below). On March 31st, the video game news blog Kotaku^[5] published an article highlighting several notable examples from the series.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

Background

Keeping with internet tradition, on April 1st, 2014, numerous websites and online services released gag videos, blogs, and features in honor of April Fool’s Day.

Notable Examples

Google

The Internet and software giant Google continued its annual pranking with fake product announcements across several of its platforms, including a Pokemon challenge on Google Maps and a celebrity photobombing enhancement tool for Google+’s auto awesome application.

In addition to the Pokemon Challenge, Google also unveiled a number of other tongue-in-cheek product concepts, such as Google Japan’s Magic Hand device, which superfluously allows its user to operate a touchscreen smartphone or tablet device via USB-connected, joystick-controlled mechanical hand, and Gmail’s Shelfie service, which allows its users to share screenshots of their custom themed inboxes.

YouTube

Meanwhile, YouTube took a satirical jab at its own viral media culture by offering a mock forecast of up-and-coming viral trends in 2014, such as Clocking, a parody of Planking and other photo fads, Baby Shaming, a parody of Dog Shaming and Glub Glub Water Dance, a music video parody advertised as the Gangnam Style of 2014.

Since 2005, YouTube’s staff has worked tirelessly behind the scenes, meticulously crafting the viral videos and Internet memes you’ve come to know and love. From mainstream hits like Gangnam Style and Harlem Shake to your obscure web forum favorites, our staff of writers, producers and directors has shaped the pop culture moments that matter in our digital lives. And this year, we’ve got a big, special announcement. For the first time, we’re looking to you, the YouTube community, to submit your own viral trend ideas.

Reddit

Reddit released a motion-tracking webcam service known as “Headdit,” with the “head” being short for “Hand Equivalent Action Detection,” offering its users a hands-free way to browse and navigate around the site by moving their heads or making specific facial expressions. In the official blog announcement, a handful of action cues and gestures were provided in GIF form, including the frown (for downvoting), the look of surprise (for opening a link), the repeated nod (for upvoting) and even a “Cat Mode.”

Tumblr

Tumblr unveiled a premium membership known as Tumblr Pro. The membership was presented as a “free” option on user profiles and upon upgrading, users were presented with this video.

After the video played, user gained a top hat on the upper left-hand corner of their profile picture.

DeviantArt

Facebook

Twitter

TV Tropes

Users who tried to edit articles on TV Tropes were greeted with a Clippy-style lamp shade that would give off random facts.

XKCD

XKCD used the day’s festivities to post a “Suggest a Line” feature for it’s comic “Lorenz.”^[10] The comic featured multiple story lines that users could choose from in a multiple choice stye pick. Many of the different story lines included references to Pokemon, Kerbal Space Program, Dinosaur Comics, and other in-site jokes. When users arrive at the last panel of their chosen story line, they are presented with the option to “Suggest A Line” which implies that the comic would receive permanent user suggested lines at some future date.

YTMND

Users who navigated to the YTMND homepage on April 1st, 2014, were meet with an apparent obituary paying respect to the actor Sean Connery even though the actor was still alive.

The joke continued on their news post titled “Amazing Grace” which explained that this day was the 10th anniversary of YTMND and that Sean Connery spoke the phrase in the digital trailer for Finding Forrester which led to the creation of the original site.^[9]

Crowdtilt

Crowdfunding company Crowdtilt unveiled a project titled “Silicon Island” which made claims of being a utopia for tech startups.[8\ The island was claimed to be located 65 miles off the coast of California. The page also claimed that Dubstep would be played on the island 24 hours a day, there would be no kitchens thanks to Soylent, Bitcoin would be the official currency of the island, and food would be brought in by drones on Fridays. Through out the day, the progress meter continued to show significant donations towards their goal of $25 million.

Upon clicking the “Reserve Your Spot” button to fund it, users were reminded it was April Fools day and Crowdtilt expressed their apologies in gif.

Dinosaur Comics

Notable Accounts

Deadmau5

External References

^[1]blog.Reddit – Headdit

^[2]Official Google Blog – Auto Awesome Photobombs

^[3]Official Gmail Blog – Introducing Gmail Shelfie

^[4]Official Google Maps Blog – Become a Pokemon Master w/ Google Maps

^[5]Official Google Chrome Blog – Emojifiy the Web

^[6]Official YouTube Blog – Viral Video Trends for 2014

^[7]TV Tropes Forums – Office Assistant?

^[8]Crowdtilt – Silicon Island

^[9]YTMND– News: Amazing Grace

^[10]XKCD– Lorenz

^[11]Steam/Payday 2 – Introducing 3 New Classes

About

“Nope” is an informal variant of the negative response “no.” Online, the expression is used to indicate fear, disgust or general distaste and is typically associated with spiders and arachnophobia.

Origin

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary,^[2] the word “nope” as an emphatic form of “no” was used as early as 1888. It is unclear when the word was first used in association with fear and disgust online. On October 19th, 2010, the /r/nope^[1] subreddit was launched featuring photographs of spiders, accumulating more than 5,400 subscribers in the first four years.

Spread

On November 11th, 2011, Redditor oddfuture445 submitted a photograph of a person holding a black widow spider titled “Nope Nope Nope D:” to the /r/WTF^[9] subreddit, receiving upwards of 1,700 up votes and 200 comments before being archived (shown below).

On April 21st, 2012, Redditor jeth submitted a photograph of an engorged tick titled “Just pulled this off my dog. NOPENOPENOPENOPENOPE” to the /r/pics^[4] subreddit. In the comments section, Redditor KaptainKarmel replied with an original animated GIF of a man sitting at a computer who hits a red “Nope” button and is disintegrated by a laser shot from space (shown below, left). On April 23rd, Redditor raisin_bran_submitted KaptainKarmel’s GIF in a post titled “So I found out there’s such a thing as /r/spiders” to the /r/funny subreddit, where it gained over 21,300 up votes and 700 comments prior to being archived. On June 13th, Redditor wendus Zuckerberg submitted an animated GIF of an octopus walking across an ocean floor with the caption “nope nope nope nope” to the /r/funny subreddit, garnering upwards of 3,100 up votes and 40 comments (shown below, right)

On August 9th, FunnyJunk^[6] user wotyoulewkinat submitted a photograph of a gun pointed at a spider with the caption “nope,” receiving more than 21,300 views and 600 up votes in the following two years. On April 26th, 2013, Imgur^[7] user redwytnblak uploaded an album of notable nope GIFs. On June 18th, BuzzFeed highlighted several images and animated GIFs of spiders and other insects titled “15 Things That Will Make You Say Nope.”

Notable Examples

Animated GIFs containing the caption “nope” often feature a person or animal fleeing a scene in a similar vein to “abandon thread” GIFs.

Nope.avi

Nope.avi is a short video clip featuring a BLU Engineer character from Team Fortress 2 saying “nope.” Because of its abrupt nature, the video is most often used humorously as a negative response or a curt dismissal in discussion forums and comment threads.

Nope! Chuck Testa

“Nope! Chuck Testa” is a catchphrase associated with taxidermist Chuck Testa from Ojai Valley, California. The expression became popular after an advertisement for his services, produced by filmmakers Rhett McLaughlin and Charles “Link” Neal, was posted to Reddit in September of 2011.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Action Movie Kid is the nickname of Dreamworks animator Daniel Hashimoto’s son James, who stars in videos on his father’s YouTube channel featuring a variety of special effects.

History

On February 18th, 2014, Hashimoto launched the “Action Movie Kid” YouTube channel, with his first video featuring his son James seated at a kitchen table and launching a bolt of energy from his hand (shown below, left). The same day, he uploaded a video of his son standing in a living room editing to look like a scene from the 1999 action film The Matrix (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

Plants vs. Zombies is a Tower Defense game made by Popcap Games. The game is exactly as it says in the title. You are using a giant plant force consisting of a whopping 49 plants to fight giant hordes consisted of twenty five different kinds of zombies. Examples of plants are Sunflower, Peashooter, Kernel-pult and Citron.

History

Plants vs. Zombies was planned to be a sequel to the less-famous game Insaniquarium. For unknown reasons, this idea was canned, and replaced by a tower defense games. Popcap Games thought up several name ideas such as Lawn of the dead, Bloom and Doom and Mr. Toad’s Wild Lawn (As shown on Slideshare^[1]). until going with the simplest choice: Plants vs. Zombies.

On August 15th, 2013, The sequel to Plants vs. Zombies, Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time, was released worldwide for all Apple and Android devices. On December 11th, 2013, the game was changed drastically.

Gameplay

The gameplay features you planting plants to protect your home against many different zombies. You can but items from the store and do minigames as well. You unlock many new plants as you play through the game.

Reception

The original Plants vs. Zombies gained over 30 Game of the Year rewards. So many that a remake for the game was made for GOTY, with several new features.

The Plants vs. Zombies iOS app received 1 million dollars within the first week, and ranked number 1 app for a good amount of time.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 received an average rating of 4 in the iOS store, and 4.5 on the Android store.

Fanbase

PvZ’s fanbase consists of expert players. Many of them post videos for minigames, Survival Endless and Endless/Challenge zones.

Fan art

Much like other Subcultures, Plants vs. Zombies have a fair share of Fan Art.

Have Some Iceberg Lettuce! by MajesticBlueCocoa on deviantART
#01 Peashooter by Morellato on deviantART
merry christmas from plants vs zombies por fede by ezequielsosa on deviantART

Search Interest

Plants vs. Zombies is most notably searched at August 2013, hitting 100 searches.

External References

^[1]Slideshare – The making of Plants vs. Zombies / posted on 8-1-2010

About

“Y’all Got Anymore of…” is an expression typically used on discussion forums to request for additional information on a particular topic of interest, or more generally, to indicate one’s intense craving for something. Originally quoted by the drug fiending character Tyrone Biggums in Chappelle’s Show, the phrase is often iterated as a reaction image based on a still shot of Dave Chappelle’s character and the phrasal template "Y’all any more of them / X?”

Origin

As early as June 2010,^[5] image macros featuring the character Tyrone Biggums in front of a green and white color wheel background were submitted to Meme Generator^[6] under the title “Crackhead.”

Spread

The meme had its first break-out in December 2013, when Redditor abdullah10 submitted an image macro joking about asking for WiFi passwords to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[1] subreddit, where it gained over 1,400 up votes in three months (shown below, left). On January 4th, 2014, Redditor Baddabink posted a Tyrone Biggums image macro to /r/AdviceAnimals^[7] mocking the practice of constantly refreshing Reddit while it is down (shown below, right). In two months, the post accumulated more than 13,000 up votes and 90 comments.

On February 28th, Redditor jlmawp submitted a Dave Chappelle Crackhead image macro complaining about cold weather in Chicago, Illinois to /r/AdviceAnimals^[2] (shown below, left). On March 4th, Redditor mathemagician117 posted a low-resolution image macro with the caption “Y’all got any more of them / pixels” to /r/AdviceAnimals^[4] (shown below, right). In the first month, the posts garnered upwards of 33,600 and 11,900 up votes respectively. On March 7th, Redditor mathemagician117’s image macro was reposted on 9gag.^[11]

On March 18th, Redditor Masshole224 submitted an image macro criticizing conspiracy theories regarding the missing Malaysian Airlines flight to /r/AdviceAnimals,^[12] gathering over 11,200 up votes and 190 comments in two weeks (shown below, left). On April 1st, Redditor aakme posted an image macro joking about asking his female roommates to set him up with their friends to /r/AdviceAnimals^[13] (shown below, right). In less than 24 hours, the post accumulated upwards of 16,200 up votes and 400 comments.

Notable Examples

As of April 2014, two additional pages have been created on Meme Generator^[9][10] and a template titled “Dave Chappelle – Y’all Got Any More” was launched on the image-captioning site Livememe.^[8]

Search Interest

External References

W.i.p. feel free to request editorship.

About

The BioShock is a FPS (First Person Shooter) game. Developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K games. The first istallment of the series was released to PC, Xbox 360 and then later to Apple’s Mac OS X, and Playstation 3

History

The first BioShock game (BioShock) was released on August 21, 2007 and it’s gained positive reviews from the critics^[1]. The game itself is considered to be the spiritual successor to System Shock. The game’s art style is Steampunk and Art Deco^[2].

Gameplay

In the first two games of the series the player is exploring a fictional city, Rapture, first in 1958 when the Civil war broke out^[3], the second is in ’66, eight years after the fall of Rapture but in the second game the player is assumes the role of Subject Delta, an Alpha series Big daddy^[4]. In both games the player uses a special items called Plasmids to gain superhuman-like powers like Telekinesis or Pyrokinesis. In the third installment of BioShock, BioShock Infinite the main area of gameplay is in an another fictional city Columbia. Which is the opposite of Rapture with the fact Rapture is an underwater city while Columbia is a floating city on the sky. The game sets in 1912 however the Vigors (the modified version of Plasmids) is created after the discovery of ADAM the source of Plasmids, which was after some years of the creation Rapture.

Fandom

The BioShock instantly became the favourite among the System Shock fans. Among the many fan blogs there are some fan clubs in the US, Germany, France and Hungary. There are links on the 2k’s official fan site The Cult of Rapture^[5].

Fan art

Many fan arts had spawned about the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, also about the protagonists, antagonists and the Vigors/Plasmids too.

Related Memes

Would you kindly?

The Would you kindly? is a chatchphrase from the first BioShock game where if this sentence has spoken every order said after it will force the protagonist Jack to do it. This quote is became a running joke among the fans and also it is frequently used on the official wiki too.

External References

^[1]Metacritic – BioShock

^[2]Wikipedia – Art Deco

^[3]BioShock wiki – Rapture Civil War

^[4]BioShock wiki – Big Daddy

^[5]The Cult of Rapture – Spread the Word

The Kagerou Project (lit. Heat Haze Project) is a series of Vocaloid music videos, novels, and manga created by Vocaloid producer Shizen no Teki-P, a.k.a. Jin.

The project tells the story of a group of youths known as the Mekakushi Dan, who each have an eye-related power tied to the snakes in the hair of a Medusa-like woman named Azami. The overarching story follows two paths: Route 1, the true ending, and Route XX, the bad ending.

History
On May 30, 2012, Shizen no Teki-P (Jin) released the first song in the series, “Jinzou Enemy” to the Japanese video sharing site Nico Nico Douga where it became the third most viewed video on the site. However, the project didn’t truly take off until the third song in the series, “Kagerou Days” which remains Jin’s most popular song to this day.

(Currently under heavy construction.)

About

Yeet is a choreographed dance stylized by dipping one’s shoulder in rhythmic steps with both hands out in front and knees bent as if the performer is riding a bicycle. It became popular in February 2014 after footage of people performing the dance were uploaded to the video-sharing sites Vine and YouTube.

Origin

While little is known as of yet about the story behind the dance, Houston, Texas-based producer and video blogger Marquis Trill^[5] has credited five individuals @1ballout__ @Thefuhkinmann@KronicCaviar@AXXXXJXY@JollyceM@SmashBro_KB as the creators of the Yeet. The earliest known video of someone performing the yeet dance was uploaded by YouTuber Milik Fullilove on February 12th, 2014 (shown below).

Spread

On February 28th, 2014, the hip hop song “Yeet” by Quill featuring Showtime & Yeet Squad was uploaded to YouTube (shown below).

On March 1st, 2014, a Facebook^[1] page titled “Yeet Dance” was launched, gaining over 29,000 likes in the first month. On March 14th, YouTuber MarQuis Trill uploaded a video demonstrating how to perform the yeet dance (shown below, left). On the same day, YouTuber Denzel Meechie uploaded a music video titled “Official #Yeet,” featuring the purported creators of yeet identified by their Twitter feeds @1Ballout_^[3] and @SmashBro_KB^[4] (shown below, right).

Lil Meatball Vine

On March 20th, Viner Jasmine Nicole uploaded a Vine video of a young boy nicknamed “Lil Meatball” performing the dance at a school track (shown below). Within two weeks, the video gathered upwards of 122,000 revines and 104,000 likes.

On March 29th, Viner Noe Vazquez uploaded a remix of the vine dubbed with part of the rap song “A Milli” by Lil Wayne (shown below, left). On April 1st, Viner amvzinrnc uploaded a version of the video with guns edited into Lil Meatball’s hands (shown below, right).

On the same day, the hip hop news blog Hip Hop Wired^[2] posted a compilation of notable photoshopped images featuring an exploitable cutout of Lil Meatball from the Vine video (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About and history

Clash Of Clans is a free to play village attack/defense game where you train troops and build defenses (and other buildings) to attack other villages and defend yours. You also join clans so that others can donate troops to you (that, unlike others, can defend too). It was published by a Finnish company called ‘Supercell’ and it was released on August 2nd 2012 on IOS and September 30th 2013 on Android.

Gameplay

In CoC, when you start out, you have a town hall, a builder hut, and a gold mine. You get other stuff like cannons, air defense, elixer, dark elixer and heroes (See them as ‘mega’ troops) later on. Successfull attacks and defends give you trophies which increase your rank and allows better bonusses. You join clans to get donated troops by clanmates and climb up the ranks. You can also attack the goblins for small amounts of gold and elixer to help that ‘final push’ to build/upgrade something. gems buy special items and boost production of spells, troops and currency.

Reception

Clash Of Clans sparked quite the community that post videos and screenshots of their villages and record any really good attacks/defenses. They also make many beginners guides to help newbies get in the game, strategies for both the novice and professional and even some fanmade media like music videos. It’s widely considered one of the best IOS games and strategy games ever by the fans.

Search interest (interest over time)

Search interest (by country)

Other links

Official site
Wikia page

About

The Eraser Challenge is a dare game that involves rubbing a rubber eraser against one’s skin while reciting the English alphabet. Although it has been played by teenagers for years, the challenge drew attention from the news media and school officials in April 2014 after a Connecticut middle school principal alerted the parents about the dangers of the game.

Origin

The hashtag #eraserchallenge^[2] was first tweeted out on January 29th, 2012, by @StayTrueee_:

Imma Come To School With All These Damn Cuts On My Arm , smh #EraserChallenge GabrielaSayssss</p>&mdash; StayTrueee_ (StayTrueee_) January 29, 2012

The first Eraser Challenge video was uploaded to YouTube on March 25th, 2012, by YouTuber Rose Samples.^[1] The video titled “Eraser Challenge” showed her furiously rubbing a pencil’s eraser onto her arm while listing off words for each letter of the alphabet. As of March 2014, the video has gained over 30,000 views.

Spread

Eraser Challenge videos continued to spread through YouTube throughout 2012 and 2013, with some videos focusing on the injuries inflicted by the game rather than recording the game itself. On October 18th, 2012, YouTuber Bryson Sakacsi^[7] uploaded a video titled “What happened to me when I did the eraser challenge” (below, left) in which he advises against trying the challenge and shows off his eraser burn scars. As of March 2014, the video has gained over 3,000 views. On April 25th, 2013, YouTuber Ryan Martinez^[8] uploaded a video titled “Eraser challenge (painful)” (below, right) which features the large red burn he got from the challenge. As of March 2014, the video has gained over 3,000 views.

The game gained new attention after a middle school principal in Bethel, Connecticut warned parents of the game and the concern was covered by local news station WTNH^[3] on March 28th, 2014. The game was subsequently covered by sites like UpRoxx^[4], The Huffington Post^[5], and Medical Daily.^[6]

Notable Examples

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About

Juxtaposition is mentioned when two or more objects, images or things; mean or imply something when they closed together.

Related Consepts

Totally looks like

Totally Looks Like, also known as “separated at birth”, images place two different photos side-by-side to suggest that they share similar physical characteristics. They often feature celebrity look-a-likes, but can compare a wide variety of things including animals, fictional characters, and inanimate objects.

Sleeveface

Sleeveface (also known as “LP Portraits”) is a participatory photo meme that involves placing a record sleeve in front of one’s face and taking a profile picture, which reveals a “hybrid face” of the subject and famous person depicted on the vinyl cover.

Forced Perspective

Forced Perspective is a photography technique in which an optical illusion is created by strategically placing a subject or object to appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is.

External References

About

Hodor is a minor character in George R. R. Martin’s series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire and the adapted HBO fantasy television series Game of Thrones. He is known for assisting the character Bran Stark following a crippling injury and his singular catchphrase “Hodor.” Online, the character has developed a notable fan following among viewers of the HBO series.

Origin

In the HBO series Game of Thrones, Hodor is only capable of saying his own name and is often shown in the company of the crippled boy Bran Stark.

Spread

On July 8th, 2012, Redditor Von_Skyhawk submitted an image macro featuring three doors above a screen capture of Hodor to the /r/gameofthrones subreddit, where it gained

Fandom

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About

Tenimyu (Japanese: テニミュ) is an abbreviated name of Musical The Prince of Tennis (ミュージカル テニスの王子様, Musical Tennis no Ouji-sama)^[1], a musical franchise for the Japanese manga The Prince of Tennis by Takeshi Konomi.^[2] It also refers to a big misheard phrase/fake subtitle meme happened on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) in 2007.

Origin

The seed of this meme was a singing scene in “Musical The Prince of Tennis: Imperial Match Hyoutei in Summer”^[3], the 7th performance in this musical series played by the 2nd generation cast in August 2005 and released in DVD on November of that year. This scene is based on the manga’s episode of Ryoma Echizen’s game against Wakashi Hiyoshi in Kanto Tournament, which is included in chapter 154-157. Then, it came to get the first attention by a YouTube video which was submitted to NND in beta service on January 18th, 2007.^[4] This video, called “Aitsu Koso ga Tennis no Oujisama” (あいつこそがテニスの王子様, lit. “He Will Be The Prince of Tennis”), had been watched about 700,000 times in its first three weeks, and deleted by copyright infringement in the following month.

The Musical

Musical The Prince of Tennis, running since 2003, is a quite unique “sports manga” musical played by young male actors only. Supported by many female fans, it has grown to a very succeeded musical franchise that has drawn 1.7 million of spectators in the first decade. Even English wiki page for this show has been launched by fans in overseas.^[6]

This musical’s another characteristic is its actor selection process which chooses casts by whether their looks fit to the original characters’ image out of consideration of their actual acting carrier or skills. So, there are a few of strange moments in this show caused by young actors’ impassioned but immature performances. However, it’s the biggest enjoyment for fans to watch the growth of their favorite actors throughout the shows.

Spread

By the great help of NND’s comment feature working as subtitles and decoration, funny misheard/fake phrases by users went quite well with actors’ bad pronunciations/singing even if those were slightly unmatch. Led by those user comments, this video immediately became to one of the killer contents in that newborn video sharing service. Though copyright holders tried removing for several times, users have continued re-uploading since after NND’s relaunching on March 6th 2007.^[7][8][9] As of March 2014, the fourth reincarnation of this video (shown below) had earned over 4.5 million views^[10], and the total view count of all of the reprints has reached over 6 million. The amount of related videos tagged under “Tenimyu” has reached over 4700 as well.^[11]

【ニコニコ動画】Aitsu koso ga Tennis no Oujisama (あいつこそがテニスの王子様)

Tenimyu meme is also dubbed as “The First Great Three” (初代御三家) together with Let’s Go! Onmyouji and Kishimen, and known as one of the most important memes that established NND’s unique comment style in the earliest days of that video sharing service. In a reflection of the popularity, this song has been included in many niconico medleys created in later years.

Notable Examples

Different from many other NND memes, Tenimyu is a simple meme to enjoy comments on the musical’s original videos. It hasn’t derived so many parody videos like MAD videos memes.

【ニコニコ動画】有機VS人参【ニコニコ動画】カナダ☆レモン　
Left: “Organic vs. Carrot” | Right: “Canada☆Lemon”
【ニコニコ動画】空耳ミュージカル 「たこ焼きライス」【ニコニコ動画】空耳ミュージカル　「パワー忍者です」
Left: “Takoyaki Rice” | Right: “I’m a Power Ninja”

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Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.

About

Game of Thrones House Sigil Parodies are a series of fan artworks illustrating the heraldic badges of various groups, both real and fictional, in the style of the coats of arms featured in the HBO fantasy drama TV series.

Origin

The earliest known collection of Game of Thrones sigil parodies was submitted by DeviantArt^[10] user Lokiable on May 6th, 2012. The set featured Game of Thrones-style emblems for a variety of other popular TV shows, films and video game franchises, including Captain Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean and Spider Man. In December that year, Lokiable’s pop culture sigils were reposted by The Laughing Squid^[11], The FW^[12] and The Mary Sue.^[13]

Spread

On June 7th, 2012, College Humor^[2] published “Game of Thrones House Sigils for Other TV Families.” The post featured house sigils for popular shows such as Downington Abbey and The Walking Dead. The College Humor TV sigils were reposted by many sites including UpRoxx^[3], io9^[4], and Buzzfeed.^[5]

On March 23rd, 2013, Redditor CerebralBypass submitted a collection of house sigils for the characters of the science fiction television show Firefly to Reddit’s /r/geek/^[6] thread. As of March 2014, the submission has over 300 upvotes.

On March 29th, 2013, College Humor^[7] published “12 Game of Thrones House Sigils for the Internet” which created sigils for popular websites such as Twitter and Facebook. The sigils were reposted by several sites such as The Laughing Squid^[8] and Kotaku.^[9]

Notable Examples

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About

James Franco is an American actor best known for his leading role as the underachieving high school student “Daniel Desario” in the short-lived 1999 TV series Freaks and Geeks and other appearances in a number of award-winning films, most notably the 2001 TV biopic film James Deen, the Spider-Man film trilogy and his Academy Award nominated performance in the 2010 drama film 127 Hours, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor.

Acting Career

In 1999, Franco was cast as Daniel Desario in the television series Freaks and Geeks, which gathered a cult following despite being canceled after only eight episodes (shown below, left). In 2001, Franco was cast for the title role in the biographical film James Dean (shown below, right).

In 2002, Franco portrayed the character Harry Osborn in the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man (shown below left) and went on play the same role in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). In 2008, Franco co-wrote and co-starred in the stoner comedy film Pineapple Express (shown below, right).

In 2010, Franco starred in the survival drama film 127 Hours for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor (shown below, left). In 2012, Franco portrayed the rapper Alien in the comedy drama film Spring Breakers (shown below, right).

Online History

In February 2011, Franco created verified accounts on both Facebook^[2] and Twitter,^[3] gaining over 6.4 million likes 1.95 million followers in the next four years respectively. On February 18th, 2011, Franco posted a video to his social media profiles as evidence of his identity (shown below).

On January 24th, 2012, Franco launched a personal Tumblr^[4] blog. On May 16th, 2012, Franco published an article on The Huffington Post^[6] defending himself against an article by New York Observer^[7] writer Drew Grant, which mocked the actor’s blog posts.

“Bound 3” Music Video Parody

On November 25th, 2013, Franco and actor Seth Rogen released a shot-for-shot remake of the music video “Bound 2” by rapper Kanye West (shown below). Within five months, the video gathered upwards of 7.9 million views and 11,000 comments. As of April 2014, Franco has received more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram.^[5]

On March 21st, James Franco posted a photoshopped parody of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s Vogue magazine cover featuring himself and fellow actor Seth Rogen to his Instagram^[2] feed (shown below). In the first four days, the post received over 233,000 likes.

Minor Soliciting Scandal on Instagram

On April 1st, 2014, Instagram^[1] user Lucy Clode posted a video of James Franco outside the stage door of the Broadway show Of Mice and Men. That evening, Clode uploaded several screenshots of direct messages and text messages purportedly sent by Franco in a Imgur photo gallery (shown below). During this exchange, Franco asked Clode if she wants to meet in a hotel room, even after learning that she is 17-years-old, and sent selfie photos of himself as proof of his identity (shown below), .

On April 2nd, Franco posted a tweet telling parents to “keep their teens” away from him. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the scandal, including D Listed,^[9] The Daily Dot,^[10] The Huffington Post,^[11] BuzzFeed,^[12] E Online^[13] and Gawker.^[14] Additionally, the women’s interest blog Jezebel^[8] speculated that the controversy may be a viral marketing stunt for his upcoming film Palo Alto, in which Franco portrays a soccer coach who becomes romantically involved with his 14-year-old babysitter.

I'M NOT! I HOPEPARENTSKEEPTHEIRTEENSAWAYFROM ME. Thank you http://t.co/I1d4n3yVe0

— James Franco (@JamesFrancoTV) April 2, 2014

Personal Life

Franco was born on April 19th, 1978 in Palo Alto, California and was raised in a secular and politically liberal household. He has been romantically connected to actresses Marla Sokoloff and Ahna O’Reilly.

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