Editor’s Note: This entry is currently being worked on, feel free to request editorship

About

The Ren & Stimpy Show, often only called Ren & Stimpy, is an American animated television series which was created by Canadian animator John Kricfalusi, the show has gained a cult following after it’s run and has received critical acclaim, most of it’s soundtrack has also been used for Spongebob Squarepants

History

The main characters were created at around 1978 by the show’s creator for his own amusement while he was in Sheridan College. Ren was inspired by an Elliott Erwitt photograph of a sweatered chihuahua at a woman’s feet and Stimpy’s design was inspired by the Tweety Bird cartoon called A Gruesome Twosome, in which the cats had a big nose in the animation, Nickelodeon later approached Kricfalusi and showed him three shows, one of them being with a live action host showing different cartoons parodying certain genre’s, in Your Gang, part of the show mentioned above, one of the children’s pets were a cat and dog, a parody of the cat and dog genre, Kricfalusi liked the pets and singled them out for their own show

The pilot was in production in 1989, The animation was done by the creator’s own animation company, Spümcø, the show was screened at film festivals for several months before appearing in Nickelodeon’s 1991 lineup

Reception

The show has received a 7.6 rating on IMDB and has gained a cult following after it was cancelled, the show had also received mixed reviews

Influence

The show had influenced two “clones”, 2 Stupid Dogs from Hannah Barbera, which lasted 2 seasons and 26 episodes, and The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show from Disney, which only lasted a season and 13 episodes before cancellation

Controversy

The show had bothered Nickelodeon since the creators said they didn’t want to make an educational series, complaints of the show often were about the toilet humor and harsh language in the show, some segments of the show had also been altered to remove any references to religion, politics, and alcohol, the episode “Man’s Best Friend” was shelved off by Nickelodeon due to it’s violent content, but had later premiered the infamous “Adult Party Cartoon” knockoff of the show

Related Memes

Ren Snaps / You Dare Not Agree with X

Ren Snaps (also known as: You Dare Not Agree with X) is a YTP remix fad based on a clip from the episode called “Stimpy’s Fan Club” (shown above). In each instance, a person or thing replaces the spot of the main character Ren. Occasionally, the pitch of the voice is changed and/or the video is edited in some different way.

Search Interest

External References

W.I.P

Mario Kart is a series of multiplayer racing video games developed and published by Japanese gaming giant Nintendo as a spin-off from the Super Mario series. The Mario Kart series sets itself apart from most other racing games as players are allowed to use in-game items during races to speed themselves up or slow others down.

Super Mario Kart

The first installment in the series, Super Mario Kart, was released for the Super Famicom platform on August 27, 1992. It was then released in North America For the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on September 1, 1992, and in Europe on January 21, 1993.
In Super Mario Kart, the player can control one of 8 different characters (Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Bowser, Koopa Troopa, Donkey Kong Jr., and Toad), each one able to use their own unique items. Up to 2 people can play simultaneously. There are two single-player modes, Grand Prix (where you race against 7 AI-controlled bots) and Time Trial (where you race alone and try to complete laps as quickly as possible). The game also featured three multiplayer modes, Grand Prix, Match Race, and and Battle Mode.
The game sold over 8 million copies worldwide, making it the third best-selling Super Famicom/SNES game of all time. Super Mario Kart was critically acclaimed and has an average GameRankings score of 93.6%.
Super Mario Kart saw a release on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console in 2009.

Mario Kart: Virtual Cup

There was an Mario Kart game planned for the Virtual Boy in 1995 but it was scrapped due to the sad little thing’s failure.

Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart 64 was released in Japan for the Nintendo 64 on December 14, 1996, in North America on February 10, 1997, and in Europe on June 24, 1997.
Thanks to the capabilities of the N64, the track designs were able to be rendered in three-dimensional polygons. Characters and items, however, remained as two-dimensional sprites.
Mario Kart 64 also featured 4-player simultaneous multiplayer gameplay. Playable characters include Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and Wario.
The game was generally well-received, with a Metacritic score of 83/100.
Mario Kart 64 was re-released to the Wii Virtual Console in 2007.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the first Mario Kart racing game to be released on a handheld console (the Game Boy Advance). It launched in Japan on July 21, 2001, in North America on August 27, 2001, in Australia on September 13, 2001, and in Europe on September 14, 2001. Mario Kart: Super Circuit was also the first in its series to not be developed by Nintendo EAD; the game was instead developed by Intelligent Systems.
The character roster was the same as it was in Mario Kart 64. Up to four players can play at once using link cables.
Mario Kart: Super Circuit received solid reviews, with a GameRankings score of 91.54% and a Metacritic score of 93/100.

Mario Kart: Double Dash!!

Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is the fourth game in the series, released in November 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube.
Double Dash!! is the first and currently the only Mario Kart game to have two characters riding a kart. It also supports LAN play, which allows up to 16 players to compete at once, using the Nintendo GameCube Broadband adapter. The game has 20 total playable characters.

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Conchita Wurst’s Beard

Conchita Wurst’s Beard is a photoshop meme based on the iconic beard sported by the Austrian drag performer and the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. In similar vein to other photoshop memes based on facial and body features, Wurst’s beard is superimposed onto faces of celebrities and pop culture icons for humorous effect.

Origin

On May 10th, 2014, Austrian singer Thomas Neuwirth^[1] was crowned the winner of the 59th annual Eurovision Song Contest for her performance of “Rise Like a Phoenix” as her on-stage drag persona “Conchita Wurst,” complete with full makeup, hair and gown, as well as a fully-groomed facial beard. Wurst’s striking appearance quickly led many news outlets to dub the singer the “bearded drag queen”^[4] or “bearded lady.”^[5]

Spread

Later that night, British comedian and actor Russell Brand tweeted a photo of himself wearing a dress with a caption reading, “I’m knackered – but what a great night,” implying he looks like Wurst.

Also on May 10th, 2014, Digital Spy^[3] published a post titled “Conchita Wurst wins Eurovision: The best Twitter reactions,” which featured tweets that included pop culture icons such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid photoshopped with a beard in homage to Wurst.

Several news sites asserted Wurst resembles a bearded Kim Kardashian, including an article publish on Metro^[13] on May 10th, titled “Eurovision Song Contest 2014: Anyone else think Austria’s bearded lady Conchita Wurst looks like Kim Kardashian?,” and an article published on New York Daily News^[14] on May 11th, titled “See It: Cross-dressing Kim Kardashian look-alike wins Eurovision singing contest.”

On May 12, The Huffington Post UK^[2] reported on the trend and featured 14 photoshopped celebrities with the beard.

Backlash

Throughout the Eurovision competition there was backlash against Russia’s anti-LGBT policies in the form of heckling the Russian competitors,^[7] the Tolmachevy Sisters, as well as the competition’s Russian presenter. Russia also joined fellow European countries Armenia and Belarus in launching petitions^[8] to have Wurst taken out of the competition. After Wurst’s win, many Russian men posted pictures of themselves shaving their beards^[7] as a way to dissociate with Wurst and voice their disapproval of her win. On the day of Wurst’s win a hashtag which translates to “Prove that you’re not Conchita,”^[10] was used by rapper Aleksandr Stepanov on a picture of him shaving posted to Twitter[11}. Within 48 hours the hashtag^[12] was tweeted out over 60,000 times.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

#WhatJayZSaidToSolange is a Twitter hashtag associated with various fan gossips and jokes surrounding a surveillance video clip that shows Solange Knowles, the younger sister of singer Beyonce, attacking her brother-in-law and rapper Jay-Z in an elevator ride to an after-party for the Met Gala in May 2014.

Background

On May 12th, 2014, celebrity gossip site TMZ^[1] released an elevator surveillance video clip which apparently shows Solange Knowles, an American singer-songwriter and the younger sister of Beyonce, slapping and punching a man identified as celebrity rapper and her brother-in-law Jay-Z, on their way to a 2014 Met Gala after-party in New York City on May 5th, 2014.

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About

“I Can’t Even”is an Internet slang expression used to indicate that the speaker is in a state of speechlessness, either as a result of feeling overjoyed or exasperated, depending on the context in which it is said. Due to its incomplete sentence structure, the adverb “even” in the expression can be interpreted as a substitute verb for “manage.” On Tumblr, the phrase is often used to caption reaction images in which the subject collapses in frustration or bewilderment.

Origin

The earliest known use of the incomplete phrase “I can’t” was submitted to Urban Dictionary^[1] by user JJFADS on January 7th, 2005, defining it as an expression used to indicate a “breaking point.”

Spread

As early as April 2007, the term “even” was used to convey a feeling of speechlessness with the phrase “What is this? I don’t even”. On July 3rd, 2010, Urban Dictionary^[2] user tooyoung submitted an entry for “I can’t even,” describing it as an expression used by people on Tumblr. On August 10th, Tumblr^[4] user blaketh posted a pie graph titled “What I Can’t,” shown to be comprised entirely of the variable “even” (shown below). Within four years, the post gained over 1,100 notes.

On October 9th, 2013, the Tumblr blog TheBunionPaper^[8] published a satirical news article titled “Rich Girl in Dining Hall Can’t Even,” accumulating upwards of 1,900 notes in seven months. On November 20th, the feminist culture blog The Toast^[6] published an article about Internet linguistics, which described the meaning of the expression “I have lost all ability to can.” On January 26th, 2014, country music singer Kacey Musgraves repeated the phrase “I can’t even” during her acceptance speech for Best Country Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards (shown below).

On February 3rd the pop culture blog Thought Catalog^[7] published an article criticizing the use of the phrase. On March 18th, the GarlicJacksonComedy uploaded a video in which a man contacts an emergency hotline about his girlfriend saying “I can’t” and “I’’m literally dying” (shown below). In two months, the video received more than 630,000 views and 260 comments.

On April 8th, an image macro featuring a photo of several teenage girls titled “Tumblr can’t even right now” was submitted to Imgur^[5] (shown below). Within one month, the image garnered upwards of 13,600 points and 570 comments.

On May 10th, YouTuber Sam Tabor uploaded a video titled “I Can’t Even,” in which he is filmed using the swirl effect in Apple’s Photo Booth software while performing his impersonation of teenage girls on Twitter (shown below). On May 12th, Redditor EducatedCloud submitted the video to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit, where it gained over 15,900 upvotes and 700 comments in the first 16 hours.

Search Interest

External References

About

Sign Holding refers to photos of activists and protestors holding signs, posters or whiteboards with their messages written on them which began during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Protests. Their popularity with activists soon lead to the trope being parodied.

Origin

The title for the single topic Tumblr for We are the 99 Percent came from a General Assembly poster shared on the official Occupy website in early August 2011. The name reflects the opposite of the nation’s richest 1%, who control nearly half of America’s total wealth, according to various research studies. The blogger behind the project, a 28-year-old New York City activist only known as Chris, created the Tumblr on August 23rd, 2011 to put faces and stories to the nameless “99%.” In its first post, the blog asks readers to submit a photo of themselves holding a sign with a single sentence about how America’s financial situation is affecting their lives. The blog began curating photo submissions on September 8th, 2011. As of September 2012, the blog is still active but with a much smaller volume.

Spread

Activism

Be a Man

“Be a Man”: a social media campaign started by Iranian men that involves taking a picture of oneself wearing the hijab, a head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women, and sharing it online. The subversive photo fad first began on Facebook during the 2009 Iranian protests following the arrest of student activist Majid Tavakoli, who was forced to put on the hijab after being taken into custody for state propaganda.

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Dear Girls

Dear Girls is a photoshopped image featuring model Cole Mohr in space holding a sign instructing women to not be insecure. The photograph has been criticized for being pseudofeministic and even misogynistic, inspiring a number of parody images reenacting the photo. On May 8th, 2011, the Latvian site Spoki^[10] published an image compilation including a photo of fashion model Cole Mohr^[9] edited with an outer space background and a sign which read “Dear Girls / don’t be insecure / you don’t need make-up & nice clothes / you’re all fucking beautiful.”

What’s goin’ on…

Whats goin on..*[sic] is the title of a confessional YouTube video starring a teary-eyed California teenager Jonah Mowry, whose silent and moving monologue about being bullied as a gay student drew millions of views on YouTube and words of encouragement from various celebrities in early December 2011. The video was uploaded to YouTube^[22] on August 10th, 2011. At the time when the video was made, he was thirteen years old and about to start eighth grade. Jonah begins his monologue by describing the hardships of being bullied using a stack of white index cards. He then goes on to say that he has been bullied since first grade, started self-harming in second grade and was afraid to start in 8th grade because he felt that his peers hated him for being gay. He ends the video with a final card saying that despite all of this, he has a million reasons to be here.

“This is What I was Wearing (Tell Me I Asked for It, I Dare You)”

This is What I was Wearing is the slogan that was originally seen on a sign held by a feminist activist at the 2011 SlutWalk in New York City. Online, both the slogan and the photograph of the sign have been parodied through image macros and photoshopped images. On October 3rd, 2011, a photograph of a casually attired young male protester with a sign which revealed the outfit was the same one he was wearing when he was raped was posted the official SlutWalk NYC Tumblr.^[6] The photo was taken that day at the SlutWalk^[7]protest held in Union Square against victim-blaming, slut shaming and rape culture. According to a post on The Slut Project^[8], the image was captured by photographer Francesa June. Though its original post has been deleted, the photo has more than 35,000 notes on Tumblr as of May 2013.

“We’re a Culture, Not a Costume”

We’re a Culture, Not a Costume is a poster ad campaign that features students of various ethnicities holding photos of people dressed in Halloween costumes that could be perceived as culturally insensitive. The campaign inspired a series of photoshop parodies depicting animals and fictional characters with photos of people wearing their respective Halloween costumes. In late October of 2011, a student organization at Ohio University named “Students Teaching Against Racism in Society”^[8] (STARS) launched a campaign to raise awareness about racially insensitive Halloween costumes. On October 21st, the president of the organization posted several images of awareness posters on her Tumblr blog.^[1]

Who Needs Feminism

Who Needs Feminism? is a movement organized via a single topic Tumblr and Facebook page that feature photos of people holding handwritten signs explaining why they need feminism and why feminism is important to them. A Tumblr^[1], Twitter^[9] and Facebook page^[2] were all launched on April 11th, 2012 by 16 female students at Duke University as part of their final project^[3] in a class titled Women in the Public Sphere. Prior to its web launch, the students went around campus asking their peers why they needed feminism, taking pictures of them holding up a whiteboard with their explanation on it.^[4] These photos were also printed poster-sized and hung around campus.

Iran Loves Israel

“Iran Loves Israel (also known as “Love and Peace”)":http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/israel-loves-iran-iran-loves-israel is a grassroots anti-war campaign that aims to bring mutual assurance of peace and reconciliation between the peoples of Iran and Israel, two rivalry nations in the Middle East with a history of animosity. The initiative was launched by two Israeli graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir in early March 2012. On March 17th, 2012, Tel Aviv-residents and Israeli graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir launched a Facebook campaign with pacifist slogans addressed towards Iran, affirming their love for the Iranians and assured that “Israel will not bomb Iran.” The original instance was created by Edry himself and uploaded onto the Facebook page of Pushpin Mehina, a small graphic design preparatory school.

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“Not A Martyr”

Not A Martyr is a social media campaign started by young men and women in Lebanon to voice their opposition to the ongoing violence in the region and euphemistic use of the term “martyr” by politicians to describe the innocent victims of terrorism. The campaign launched after a car bomb exploded in the busy central district of Beirut in Lebanon, on December 27th, 2013, killing six people and injuring at least 50 people, including a 16-year-old boy named Mohammad al-Chaar, who happened to be hanging with his friends near the site moments before the bomb went off.

I, Too, Am Harvard

I, Too, Am Harvard is a single topic blog featuring photographs of African American students at Harvard University holding whiteboards with racist and insensitive comments that have been said to them because of their race. Launched in early March 2014, the Tumblr-based photo project has since led to the creation of numerous spin-off blogs for minority students at other universities and colleges.

#BringBackOurGirls

#BringBackOurGirls is a hashtag campaign launched by a group of Nigerians to raise awareness and call upon the international community for action after nearly 300 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by a jihadist terrorist group in April 2014. On April 15th, 2014, approximately 276 Nigerian female students were abducted by a group of armed militants from the Government Girls Secondary School^[1] in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. In the following days, Nigerian officials speculated that the Islamic jihadist terrorist group Boko Haram may have been behind the kidnappings and criticism of the Nigerian government’s inaction and Western media’s lack of coverage emerged. On April 23rd, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls was first tweeted out by lawyer Ibrahim M. Abdullahi^[9]and spread through Twitter users in Nigeria.^[8] As of May 2014, a little over 50 girls have reportedly escaped their kidnappers. On May 5th, the leader of Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the abductions in a video statement. On May 3rd, 2014, education and equality activist Malala tweeted a picture from her foundation’s Twitter account^[3] of herself holding a sign with the hashtag. In less than a week the tweet gained over 4,000 retweets.

Crowdsourcing

Public Resignation

Public Resignation refers to the act of quitting one’s job in front of an audience in real life or on the Internet, which is usually manifested in the form of an open letter or video recording of a speech. On March 13th, 2009, Flickr^[1] user Neil Berrett uploaded a photograph of himself holding a large cake containing his letter of resignation from his position at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard (shown below, left). In the first five years, the photo gained over 440,000 views and 700 favorites.

WDYDWYD?

“WDYDWYD? (initialism for Why Do You Do What You Do)”: is a collaborative art project designed to survey and document people’s responses to a simple yet compelling question: why do you do what you do? According to a 2010 WIRED Magazine article,“In Silicon Valley, that question has become the hottest team-building meme since Outward Bound--and it’s spreading.”

One Million Facebook Likes Pleas

One Million Facebook Likes Pleas are ad hoc campaigns launched by individuals seeking to raise one million “likes” on the social networking site in order to win a bet in real life. Each post is typically accompanied by a photograph of the pleader and the pledger, along with a poster sign revealing the prize at stake. The first casual instance of “One Million Likes” plea to go viral came in November 2012, after Dan Urbano from Newton, Massachusetts made a bet with his children that if their picture asking for a cat got 1,000 likes on Facebook, he would make their wish come true. Within hours of posting on November 7th, the Facebook plea made by Urbano’s children surpassed its goal and by November 12th, it had received more than 110,000 likes and 100,000 shares.

Kira Hudson’s Facebook Lesson

Kira Hudson’s Facebook Lesson refers to a social media experiment featuring a photograph of a teenager launched by Colorado resident Kira Hudson in order to demonstrate to her daughter how quickly an image can spread once it is posted on the social networking site Facebook. Shortly after the photograph was posted on Facebook in March 2014, it subsequently drew the attention of users on 4chan and spawned a number of parodies. On March 18th, 2014, Hudson posted a photograph on Facebook^[1] of her 12-year-old daughter Amia holding a sign reading “Mom is trying to show me how many people can see a picture once it’s on the Internet” (shown below). In the next 48 hours, the post reportedly gained close to one million likes before it was removed.

About

“It was me, Dio!” (also known by its Japanese variant “Kono Dio Da!”) is a memorable quote from the Japanese manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. The line is spoken by the eponymous antagonist Dio Brando to supporting character Erina Pendleton, with the former stating that he stole her first kiss. Recreations of the scene have become popular on the internet, along with variants on the quote.

Origin

The scene originally occurred in chapters 3 and 4 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood, which were released in 1987^[1][2]. After protagonist Jonathan ‘JoJo’ Joestar and Erina Pendleton share a day together, Erina discovers that Jonathan harbors feelings for her. She runs away as she is unsure of what to do next, but she ends up crossing paths with Dio Brando, who seeks to emotionally manipulate Jonathan for his own gain. Recognizing that Jonathan is in love with Erina, Dio steals her first kiss as a way of alienating her from Jonathan, gloating “Your first wasn’t JoJo! It was me, Dio!”.

Spread

The screencap of the scene which had become associated with the quote and spawned the majority of the derivatives, came from the first episode of 2012 Phantom Blood anime adaptation^[3]. It was first seen on 4chan as early as October 6th, 2012, the day after the episode was broadcast in Japan.^[4] Since then, many 4chan discussions that involve Dio Brando often mention this scene or feature the screencap.

The anonymous user that uploaded the photo alluded to the quote’s similarity to the Glasses Sayaka meme, although the JoJo quote precedes it by over two decades. On October 14th, 2012, the derivative of the Glasses Sayaka meme (pictured below, right), featuring Dio, was posted on 4chan’s /a/ board.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Michelle Obama’s #BringBackOurGirls Sign is a photograph of the First Lady of the United States holding up a sign in support of the hashtag campaign for the safe return of nearly 300 Nigerian school girls who were abducted by a jihadist terrorist group in April 2014. Since its upload via Obama’s official Twitter account in May 2014, the photograph has been turned into a popular exploitable template for online parodies.

Origin

On May 7th, 2014, a few days following the launch of #BringBackOurGirls on Twitter, Michelle Obama shared a picture of herself looking rather concerned while holding up a sign with the hashtag written on it. In less than a week, the First Lady’s tweet brought in more than 57,000 retweets and 34,000 favorites.

Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families. It's time to #BringBackOurGirls. -mo pic.twitter.com/glDKDotJRt

— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) May 7, 2014

External References

^[1]Twitter – The First Lady’s Tweet

[This article is under construction]

About

R+L=J is the theory that states than the character Jon Snow, Ned Stark’s bastard son from the A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones series, is not actually Ned’s son but the son Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen had during Robert’s Rebellion, the war that took place 16 years before the beginning of the events of the series.

History

American Girl, also known as The American Girls Collection, is an American doll line first released by Pleasant Company in 1986. The dolls originally depict nine to eleven-year old girls from various eras in American history (collectively known as the Historical Characters, but was rebranded in 2014 as BeForever), but was expanded in 1995 to include characters in modern settings.

The original dolls were manufactured by Götz during the 1980s to late 1990s, starting when Pleasant Rowland, an American educator and entrepreneur, bought the remaining stock of “Romina” dolls by the German doll firm to be rebadged as Edwardian-era character Samantha Parkington, complete with books detailing her story and various accessories.^[1] Two other characters were released by the Pleasant Company in 1986 alongside Parkington – Kirsten Larson, a Swedish immigrant from the 1850s, and Molly McIntire, a Scottish-American daughter of a World War II army doctor, and in the 1990s the company introduced Felicity Merriman, Addy Walker, and a line of dolls representing the modern era.^[2]

Mattel now heads the company as Rowland sold the line to the toy giant in 1998 for $700 million.

Online Presence

Stop-Motion videos (AGSM/AGMV)

AG Stop-Motions and AG Music Videos, often abbreviated as AGSM or AGMV, are a series of user-created stop-motion videos made by fans, depicting the dolls in various stories and settings, and/or recreating popular music videos with their dolls.^[3]

Photoshoots

Photoshoots are also a common pastime among fans, where they model their dolls in various poses or settings, using either point-and-shoot cameras or even DSLRs, which are uploaded on various social networking sites such as Youtube and/or Instagram.^[4]

Impact

Due to its educational nature, the company and its toy line has earned praise from parents and schoolteachers alike, mostly as it is viewed as a “wholesome” and less-objectified alternative to Mattel’s Barbie dolls, and as a result has won numerous awards.^[5]

On the other hand it has also drawn criticism from some for the expense of the dolls^[6] and their accessories, as well as for their depiction of the characters, like with Samantha being marketed as Victorian (even if she would be more accurately portrayed as an Edwardian-era girl), and more recently with American Girl giving less emphasis on the historicals in favour of the My American Girl/Girl of the Year line, to which My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series creator Lauren Faust pointed out in a Twitter post.^[7]

The company’s popularity has spawned numerous parodies and homages, notably in The D’oh-cial Network episode of The Simpsons, Conan^[8], the MAD animated series^[9], where Kit Kittredge has a daughter named Kitty who participated in a parody of Toddlers and Tiaras, and in an episode of Saturday Night Live, poking fun of Miley Cyrus’ stage persona and drug references in her songs by giving her a Molly doll, alluding to the psychedelic drug MDMA.

Footnotes

^[1]GOTZ Romina, PRE-SAMANTHA Doll, 1985, NEW-IN-BOX, RA (07/11/2011)

^[2]AGPlaythings: AGoT

^[3]How to Take Pictures of Your American Girl Doll: 6 Steps

^[4]Instagram photos for tag #americangirldoll

^[5]Oppenheimer Toy Award

^[6]How much does an American Girl doll really cost?

^[7]Twitter / Fyre_flye: Even “American Girls” was once …

^[8]Conan Visits The American Girl Store

^[9]Tater Tots and Tiaras

About

The Smash Ball is a highly popular item from the Super Smash Bros series. Upon breaking it, the Smash Ball allows the player to perform a very special attack, known as the Final Smash. However, you could have a helpful or useless Final Smash depending on the character you play as.

Origins

Smash Balls were first seen in the third installment of the Super Smash Bros series, Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Wii.

Spread

When fans found out about Final Smashes, they started to do many things about the Smash Ball, such as making parodies, paper crafts, comics revolving around Final Smashes, animations and even hacking the game to replace existing Final Smashes with new ones.

Final Smash Predictions

Since the release the announcement of Super Smash Bros Brawl, people have been requesting characters to be in future Smash Bros games, however with all Smash Bros characters since Brawl having a Final Smash, some people started thinking of Final Smashes, as well.

Notable Examples

About

Carter the Banana Boy is a photoshop meme based on a picture of a young boy in sunglasses and looking at the camera while eating a banana. In this series, an exploitable cutout of the boy is photoshopped into a variety of base images to portray him as the star of an action film, in somewhat similar vein to The Action Movie Kid.

Origin

On May 12th, 2014, Redditor Theone211 submitted a photograph of a little boy eating a banana in a post titled “This is Carter. He knocked on my door to ask if he could have a banana then left” to the /r/funny^[1] subreddit (shown below). In the first 24 hours, the post gained over 73,100 upvotes and 2,600 comments.

In the comments section, Redditor FuriousGeorge06 suggested someone should “photoshop an explosion behind him,” which was promptly followed up by a set of three “explosive” photoshopped parodies from Redditor Saurongetti, along with a blank template of the boy eating the banana (shown below, far right).

Spread

That same day, Reddit sodelll posted an image macro of the photo with the caption “I’m here to fuck bitches and eat bananas / and I’m almost done with my banana” to /r/funny^[2] (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Redditor dayofgreed submitted the picture of Carter to the /r/photoshopbattles^[3] subreddit, where several Redditors posted images with Carter superimposed into the backgrounds of film posters (shown below, right).

Also on May 12th, 2014, other photoshopped images featuring Carter reached the front page of Reddit,^[4][5][6] many of which earned upwards of 10,000 upvotes in 24 hours (shown below). Later that day, compilations of notable examples were subsequently posted on BuzzFeed^[7] and Mashable.^[8]

On May 13th, actor Wil Wheaton tweeted that Carter was his “favorite person on the Internet today,” receiving over 240 favorites and 85 retweets in less than 12 hours.

Carter the Banana Kid is my favorite person on the Internet today.

— Wil Wheaton (@wilw) May 13, 2014

Search Interest

External References

About

“You Should Be Studying” is an image macro series featuring photographs of celebrities who are regarded as sex symbols, and captions urging the reader to study hard. Intended to serve as a motivational poster for students, the meme has seen quite a few variations on Tumblr, especially during the months of December and May when final exams traditionally take place in primary and secondary schools.

Origin

On December 12th, 2011, Tumblr user Speakington^[1] created a photo set featuring Benedict Cumberbatch,Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Hiddleston with the words, “You should be studying,” photoshopped over each one. As of May 2014, the post has gained over 19,000 notes.

Spread

In 2012, there were at least six notable instances of the meme with more than 1,000 notes each, including Tumblr user atedaryltv’s ^[5]Doctor Who post on December 9th, 2012, which has gained over 17,000 notes as of May 2014. On May 7th, 2013, an Avengers rendition of the meme, which was originally published on Tumblr user danfour’s^[6] blog on May 6th, was submitted to 9gag.^[3] As of May 2014, the photo has gained over 63,000 notes.

Collection posts with many photos, targeted at multiple fandoms tended to gain the most notes. Tumblr user flox-pollimon’s^[2] post, which features actors from the Supernatural,Avengers,Merlin, and Doctor Who was published on May 1st, 2013, and gained over 85,000 notes within a year. In 2013, There were six more related posts that gained over 1,000 notes.

Notable Examples

External References

About

Ridley is Too Big (Expletive sometimes included) is an ongoing debate about the potential inclusion of the character Ridely from the Metroid series in the upcoming installments of Super Smash Brothers. Because of his regular appearance in the games he is oftentimes cited as the best choice for a second Metroid Representative, however the other side of the argument states that his near-building size would make him unrealistic as a playable character.

History

Leader of the alien creatures known as the Space Pirates, Ridley is the most common antagonist in the Metroid Series, appearing in over half the games and cheating death from each of the previous encounters with Samus. Because of his regular appearance and his history of being the one responsible for the death of Samus’s parents, he is to Samus as Bowser is to Mario or Ganon is to Link, making him an optimal choice for a series representative.

Starting as a human tall purple dragon, Ridley’s appearance changed over the years to increase his size more and more as the game hardware could support bigger moving objects. In Super Metroid, Ridley was about 2 times the height of Samus while curled up. And in Metroid Prime he was finally free from the limitations of 2d sprites and could fully stretch out his body, revealing that he is at least 4-6 times the height of Samus if he stood on his hind legs (8+ times if you account his tail). His fighting style changed over the years to accommodate this as well, oftentimes picking up Samus in a single hand in attempts to crush her.

Ridley appeared in the opening cutscene in Super Smash Brothers Melee, colored and scaled the way he was in his original appearance in Metroid, but updated to his look in Super Metroid (the only two games he had appeared in up to that point in time). Due to popular demand, Ridley was also a fightable Boss in the game Super Smash Brothers Brawl in both his Organic and Meta forms. These Ridleys where scaled to his Super Metroid and Metroid Prime scales respectively.

The creator of Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, stated in an interveiw that he thinks Ridley would be too big for his inclusion in Super Smash Brothers Brawl, and therefore made him a Boss Character. In the sequel, Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo Wii U, Ridley returns as a boss character who will appear in the Pyrosphere Stage in his form from Metroid the Other M.

Origins

RESEARCHING

Earliest known instance of the argument came from a GameFAQ thread, which since then has been deleted.

Spread:

[WIP]

Points to the Argument

The common arguments for Ridley as follows:

~“He was just about a foot taller than Samus in the original Metroid”
~“What about the intro to Super Smash Brothers Melee where he looked just a few feet higher than Samus when you took perspective into account?”
~“Bowser is just as big right?”
~“Can’t they just shrink Ridley down like some of the other characters they have had to resize to fit into the game? (the shrinking of Bowser, the growing of the Kirby Characters and Olimar, etc)
~”Isn’t it just Meta Ridley who is that big?"

The common arguments against the above points as follows:

~“That’s been the only time Ridley was ever that size, and literal NES Ridley looks insanely derpy.”
~“At the time, there has only ever been Two Metroid Games with Ridley in it. Metroid and Super Metroid. So it was thematically correct for the time Melee was released. Also the intro didn’t account for Ridley’s Tail, which adds to his overall size considerably.”
~“Bowser can change his size canonically. And is usually that size in any of the spinoff games.”
~Two Points: 1. “Ridley is not only large, but he is also fast, oftentimes relying on his ability to fly quickly to overwhelm his opponents. If you shrink him down and make him “Heavyweight”, you lose a lot of what Ridley actually is.” 2. “Despite resizing being a common thing in Smash Bros, all the characters within the same represented universe (example: Kirby and King Dedede) are still scaled to each other in the same way as they where in their source material”
~“Classic Ridley just likes to curl up for whatever reason. Animating a creature that big back then would have looked wonkey and put major stress on the hardware.”

Ridley Mods in Super Smash Brothers Brawl

There is a handful of Mods created for Super Smash Brothers Brawl, oftentimes sizing him to Bowser or Charizard.

Exaggeration of Ridley’s Size

As a response to the size argument, many photoshoppers and artists had taken it upon themselves to exaggerate the size of the dragon. Examples include having Ridley, or even just his foot, positioned next to the other characters of the Smash Brothers Series while comically increased out of proportion, or having him compared to Sun or even Galaxy Sized Objects.

Notable Images

[WIP, the author of this page doesn’t know how to make pseudo-galleries]

Google Trends

Note : Help Needed!
+I don’t know if anne,jpg is really silent since I never visited it, but my friend tells so. If you have personal experiences with the site, you could help by confirming if it is silent or not.

About

A screamer is a practical joke that is meant to scare the viewer abruptly. Such sites often include screaming noises and pop-up scary pictures. Due to it’s nature, several reaction videos can be found all over YouTube in which the common form is jump scare. Screamers are a very common trolling schemes used often in bait-and-switch.
Screamers fall into different categories:
Flash – Created using flash player:
Example : Scary Maze Game
Video – Screamer presented in video:
Example : Ghost Car
GIFs – A screamer in GIF format:
Example : anne.jpg+

Origin

The earliest known screamer currently is Kikia. uploaded in the year 2003, the video has been passed around China and Taiwan until the whole world. Ever since then, more screamers are being made such as the Scary Maze Game.

Flash

These types of screamers are usually created using flash player. The most common form of flash screamers are ones that are presented as a game, where the game makes a player concentrate into a certain spot, and after a while a scary picture will suddenly pop-up along with a scream.

Scary Maze Game

This is one of the most famous screamer in the internet, originated in year 2003, it makes the player play a maze, upon level 3, the player will focus on the tight lines, and upon passing through it, a picture of Regan McNeil (played by Linda Blair) in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist appears. For the full article click here.

Color Blind Test
It makes the player focus on several Ishihara Tests, after a while, the pop-up will appear.

Video

These certain screamers are presented in video, that can be found throughout YouTube. Usually they are calm in the start, but will scare the viewer in the end.

Kikia
One of the very first known screamers, and like the usual ones, it starts peacefully, a little boy sitting in a poorly drawn field, the animation continues, then a face from the game Fatal Frame II is shown, along with blood curling scream.

Ghost Car
This is also a famous screamer, the ghost car is one of the several k-fee commercials, it features a car peacefully driving, then the car disappears and a zombie pop-ups in the screen. Full article : Ghost Car.

GIFs

These screamers are presented in GIF, they are usually silent although some contains sound.

Reaction Videos

Due to the scary nature of these screamers, several reaction videos have been posted on YouTube.

External References

(WIP)

About

Vinesauce is a Twitch– based video game streaming website which features a group of gamers commentating on a wide variety of games. They are famous for often playing bizarre games and their use of black comedy.

Origin

The original Vinesauce YouTube page^[1] was created in February of 2010 by the streamer known as Vinny. The name “Vinesauce” originally comes from Vinny’s experience playing Mario Party, in which, playing a minigame, a joke arose between him and his friends that the vines in the minigame looked like they were coming out of an ass. ^[2] The streaming site^[3] was created in May of 2010.

Vinesauce Today

Today, Vinesauce has a total of streamers, ^[4] including Vinny (Vinesauce), MentalJen, Joel, KY, RevScarecrow, Fred, Limes, FearGingers, Imakuni, Darren (VicariousGaming), Bobito, Hootey, and StudyGuy.

In addition, there is a TV Tropes page^[5] for Vinesauce., as well as Twitter^[6] and Tumblr^[7] pages.

Related Memes

Bonzi Buddy

Bonzi Buddy is an infamous adware program designed for Windows XP. It recieved a boost in popularity in February of 2014 after streamer Joel featured it prominently in his “Windows XP Destruction” video. ^[8]

Supra Mayro Kratt

Mayro is a poorly drawn version of the famous video game character Mario, who stars in his own surrealistic series of fan games. Vinny commentated a fan game called Super Mayro Kratt^[9] on August 27, 2012.

Sanic

Sanic, much like Mayro, is a poorly drawn version of a successful video game character, this time Sonic The Hedgehog. Vinesauce has used the character’s fan games in videos, such as Sanic R. ^[10]

Search Interest

External References

About

Sad Batman is a photoshop meme based on a black-and-white photograph of actor Ben Affleck posing as the sullen-looking protagonist on the set of the upcoming Batman film. Similar to Sad Keanu and Sad Kayne, the meme involves editing a cutout exploitable of Ben Affleck’s Batman into the background of images that accentuate his apparent loneliness.

Origin

On May 13th, 2014, Zack Snyder,^[1] the director of the Man of Steel sequel tentatively titled Batman vs. Superman (2016), tweeted the first picture from the set of the movie featuring Batman (played by Ben Affleck) standing next to the Batmobile. Within 48 hours, the photo gained over 44,000 retweets and over 24,000 favorites.

About half an hour later, the hashtag #SadBatman was introduced by Twitter user Willhanafin,^[2] and in the following 48 hours, the hashtag #SadBatman^[3] was tweeted out over 1,000 times.

Spread

On the same day as the photo was tweeted, The Daily Dot^[4] published an article titled “Why is Ben Affleck such a sad Batman? Here are some answers” and Blastr^[4] published an article titled “That didn’t take long: ‘Ben Affleck is Sad Batman’ memes already rolling in.” The meme was also covered by several sites on May 14th, including SlashFilm^[6], Metro^[7] and Yahoo Movies.^[8]
Within 48 hours, the hashtag #SadBatman^[3] was tweeted out over 1,000 times.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Parrots are a type of bird that can be found in subtropical and tropical areas. There are three types of parrots: New Zealand parrots, true parrots and cockatoos. Because of their ability to imitate human voices and non human sounds viral videos of parrots mimicking have spread rapidly online.

Editor’s Note: This entry is currently being worked on, feel free to request editorship

About

[w.i.p.]

The Allstate Mayhem is a advertising character from Allstate Corporation Commercials in 2010. After when the Commercials is been shown it was become as a Cult Following.

History

[w.i.p.]

Search Interest

Editor’s Note: this entry is currently being worked on, feel free to request editorship

About

Stephen Sutton was a British blogger/charity activist who was best known for his Stephen’s Story blog and his fundraising efforts for the Teenage Cancer Trust charity, he died on May 14th 2014 while he was sleeping at the age of 19 from colorectal cancer

Online History

He was diagnosed with stage B3 colorectal cancer ^[1] when he was 15 and went through aggressive radiation and chemotherapy treatments, the cancer was deemed incurable after it spread to the lungs and liver two years after he was diagnosed and Stephen was hospitalized due to a collapsed lung and was put on life support

Teenage Cancer Trust

Stephen Sutton began participating in Teenage Cancer Trust events after he was diagnosed and began fundraising ^[2] with them, reaching for a goal of £10,000 and was eventually raised to £1,000,000, multiple celebrities also supported Stephen Sutton

Campaigns

Stephen Sutton launched the campaign “#thumbsupforSteven” and asked people to post selfies of themselves promoting his campaign, he also started the “Stephen’s Story” blog on Facebook

Discharged

After his goal was met on April 23rd 2014, he was discharged from the hospital due to improvements in his condition, he met Prime Minister David Cameron also, and broke the record for the most number of people making heart shaped gestures.

Death

On the early hours of May 14th 2014, Stephen Sutton had died in his sleep from colorectal cancer, he was 19 years old, he had raised £3.44 million around the time of his death, Prime Minister David Cameron had praised him for his “spirit and bravery”, following his death, a spark of tributes spread across Twitter and Facebook

Tragic news that Stephen Sutton has passed away. His bravery & determination to live life to the full was an inspiration to us all.

— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) May 14, 2014

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Wikipedia – Colorector cancer

^[2]JustGiving – Stephen’s fundraising page