About

A glow cloud refers to a mobile lighting fixture featuring a lampshade made out of cotton in the shape of a cloud. On Tumblr, the novelty lamp is primarily associated with fan art tributes to the character with the same name featured in the popular podcast series Welcome to Night Vale.

Origin

On July 1st, 2012, the science fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale released its second episode titled “Glow Cloud”^[4] In the episode, a mysterious glowing cloud descends on the fictional city, and because of its ability to execute mind control over those around it, the citizens of the town repeats “All hail the mighty Glow Cloud.” The earliest known D.I.Y assembly instructions for a glow cloud was featured on 3 Chic Geeks^[10] on September 20th, 2013.

Spread

Richard Clarkson’s Cloud

On October 16th, 2013, Design Taxi^[7] published a post titled “A Fluffy Cloud Lamp That Plays Music,” which featured a cloud lamp created by artist Richard Clarkson which doubled as a speaker and featured motion sensors that allowed the lamp to produce thunder and lightning effects when activated. In 2014, the artist continued to work on the lamp and added numerous additional features, including an audio-responsive LED-bulb and a bluetooth-enabled subwoofer speaker that can be activated via remote control. On February 14th, 2014, Clarkson uploaded a demo video for the product to Vimeo,^[2] which has been covered by Fast Company^[6] and The Daily Dot.^[1] Although Clarkson has never explicitly stated whether his project was inspired by the mysterious character in Welcome to Night Vale, The Cloud has been often described as a real life “glow cloud” from the podcast.

Welcome to Night Vale Fan Art

On January 29th, 2014, YouTuber WishinOnKristyn^[8] uploaded a video titled “DIY Cloud Light! (Recycled Christmas Lights Idea # 2).” On February 9th, YouTuber ThreadBanger^[9] uploaded a video titled “DIY Glow Cloud.” As of June 2014, the video has gained over 110,000 views.

On June 24th, Tumblr user wifightclub^[12] published a post that featured pictures of her Glow Cloud art project. In less than two weeks the post gained over 270,000 notes. As of July 2014, there are over 18,000 pieces of fan art tagged Glow Cloud on DeviantArt.^[5]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

The Opie and Anthony Show is a talk radio duo consisting of Gregg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony Cumia who have served as hosts for The Opie & Anthony Show on various radio stations in the United States since 1995.

History

In 1994, Hughes and Cumia began working together on a radio show in Long Island, New York. In 1995, the pair moved to Boston’s WAAF radio station to launch the talk show Opie & Anthony. On April Fool’s Day in 1998, the show was terminated after the pair orchestrated a prank in which they told listeners that Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had died in a car accident while riding with a young female Haitian prostitute. In June, the show was relaunched at the New York City station WNEW-FM. By 2000, it had become a top 10 afternoon drive show in the state. In 2001, comedian Jim Norton became a regular guest on the show. On August 15th, 2002, a Virginia couple visiting Manhattan were arrested while appearing to have sex at St. Patrick’s Cathedral as part of the show’s “Sex for Sam” contest. One week later, the show was canceled by Infinity Broadcasting for the incident. On October 4th, 2004, the Opie and Anthony Show returned on XM Satellite Radio. In April 2006, a deal was signed with CBS Radio to broadcast the Opie and Anthony Show on several rock stations. In May 2007, the duo were suspended by XM Satellite Radio for 30 days for comments made during a show in which a guest named “Homeless Charlie” revealed he wanted to forcefully have sex with former United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former First Lady Laura Bush (shown below).

Online Presence

On September 22nd, 1999, the Opie and Anthony Show-related web forum WackBag.com^[3] was launched. On June 27th, 2005, the Opie and Anthony Show wiki OApedia^[9] was created. On March 3rd, 2008, a Facebook^[8] page titled “The Opie and Anthony Show” was launched, which accumulated more than 110,000 likes in the next seven years. On April 16th, 2011, a page for the show was created on the Internet culture wiki Encyclopedia Dramatica.^[10] On March 24th, the /r/opieandanthony^[2] subreddit was launched for discussions related to the radio show.

Highlights

Minnesota Governor’s Walkout

Many audio and video recordings of Opie and Anthony shows have been uploaded to YouTube. On December 2nd, 2009, the Opie Radio YouTube channel uploaded a video of former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura walking off the show following an argument with comedian Jim Norton (shown below). In the first five years, the video gained over 1.29 million views and 23,000 comments.

Louis CK vs. Donald Rumsfeld

On February 24th, 2011, comedian Louis C.K. uploaded audio of his appearance on the Opie and Anthony show in which he accuses former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of being a reptilian humanoid, garnering more than 750,000 views and 2,200 comments in the next four years.

Internet Culture

On June 25th, 2007, guest Jimmy Fallon discussed the shock site Lemon Party during his appearance on the Opie and Anthony Show (shown below, left). On December 11th, 2007, YouTuber ErockFan uploaded a video in which Opie & Anthony Show producer Erik Nagel is filmed attempting the cinnamon challenge by putting a spoonful of dry cinnamon in his mouth (shown below, right).

On January 11th, 2008, YouTuber ErockFan posted footage of comedian Louis C.K.’s reaction to the “2 Girls 1 Cup” shock video (show, left). In six years, the video gathered more than 990,000 views and 1,000 comments. In July 2010, American perennial candidate Basil Marceaux was interviewed on the Opie and Anthony show during which he was asked to clarify his political platform (shown below, right).

Controversies

Anthony Cumia’s Racist Twitter Rank

On July 2nd, 2014, Cumia^[1] posted several tweets claiming that he was assaulted by a woman for taking pictures with her in the frame and continued to rant about her race.

In the coming days, the controversial rant was reported on by several news sites, including Jezebel,^[4] UpRoxx,^[5] New York Daily News^[6] and The Washington Post.^[7]

Search Interest

External References

About

Fly Art Productions is a single topic blog featuring hip hop lyrics captioned over classic works of art.

Origin

On December 12th, 2013, the Fly Art Productions Tumblr blog was launched, with the first post featuring the 1908-1909 painting The Kiss (Lovers) by Gustav Klimt with lyrics from the song “Bound 2” by Kanye West (shown below).

Spread

Notable Developments

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

(shamelessly reworded using the Successful Black Man article)

About
Sombrero Mexican, also commonly known as “Juan” or even “Successful Mexican” for some reason, is an advice human image macro series featuring a photo of a a Mexican man wearing a massive sombrero in front of a red and green color wheel background. The jokes typically use puns that involve Spanish words or poke fun at Mexican stereotype.

Origin (picture before the colorwheel, ignore the macro)

Notable Examples:

(I’m actaully kidding about this one, don’t worry guys)

W.I.P, Please help

About

Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California consisting of lead vocalist Chester Bennington, guitarist Brad Delson, turntablist Joe Hahn, second vocalist Mike Shinoda, drummer Rob Bourdon, and bassist Dave Farrell, the band has been known to inspire fan art considered edgy, as well as the band’s music being in several AMV’s and spawning notable lyrics such as “Crawling in my skin, these wounds will not heal” and “In the end, it doesn’t even matter”

Online History

Formation

Linkin Park was formed in 1996 by Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, and Mike Shinoda, the bands original name was Hybrid Theory, which would also become the name of the band’s debut album

Discography

The band released their first EP on May 1st 1999 that was also called Hybrid Theory, the band was eventually re-named as Linkin Park, in October 2000, the band released their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which dealt with problems of lead vocalist Chester Bennington, it was a commercial success and was certified Diamond, it peaked at number two ^[1] on the Billboard 200, Meteora was released three years later, followed by Minutes to Midnight in 2007, A Thousand Suns in 2010, Living Things in 2012, and The Hunting Party in 2014

Reception

Linkin Park has been criticized for not being unique as well as being edgy and angsty with songs such as Crawling and repeating the same song structures, on June 19th 2005, user SKS submitted the 6th most top voted definition on Urban Dictionary ^[2] of the band, criticizing the fans of the band

An angsty band popular among kids who shop at Hot Topic and have pent up anger. The most popular of their lyrics, “Craaaaaaaaawwwwwwling in my skiiiiiiin”, is very popular among gaming messageboards, where people sub lyrics from other songs and lines from movies with that lyric.

On October 17th 2007, a video was uploaded to YouTube by the band’s channel of the band’s lead singer talking about him breaking his wrist during a concert in Melbourne, the video currently has 1,004,647 views as of July 4th 2014

Music Critics and Magazines have often given Linkin Park generally positive reviews, the band has both a fandom online and people who dislike the band on the internet

On YouTube

Linkin Park’s music has been used in several Anime Music Video’s on YouTube as well as videos considered cringeworthy

On DeviantArt

Linkin Park has often been in the likes section of most original character fanart

On Reddit

On reddit, A fan subreddit of the band was created called r/LinkinPark ^[3]

On Twitter and Facebook

The band’s official twitter ^[4] was created in January 2009 and received 4.12 million followers within 5 years, the Facebook ^[5] page also has 63,968,000 likes likes as of July 4th 2014

Facebook Page Hacking

On June 2nd 2014, the band’s official Facebook page was hacked, the hacker sent spam messages to fans

The hackers also promoted a new album by rapper Jay Z on the band’s page

The likes for the page started rapidly dropping, some fans also noticed that the page was hacked

The band later got the page back and removed the spam posts

Search Interest

External References

Overview

2014 Tumblr-4chan Raids refer to back-and-forth raids carried out by sites Tumblr and 4chan in early July 2014.

Background

On June 9th, 2014, a Tumblr shutdown4chan posted a plan^[1] to have a raid on 4chan on the 4th of July, during the American Independace Day. The goal, according to the post, was to shut down the site.

During the raid day, several posts attributed to Tumblr were made on 4chan’s /b/ board, calling out the users for their prejudice and injustice. After that 4chan retaliated by flooding several tags on Tumblr related with feminism, social justice, and several big fandoms with porn and gore.

Notable Developments

After the events, several petitions were created, aimed at 4chan with the goal of shutting down the site^[2][3]. In retaliation 4chan users created a petition to label users of Tumblr as “mentally handicapped landwhales”^[4].

Notable Examples

[researching]

External References

About

Matt Wilson is a movie character and animated GIF. which features him cockblocking his fellow high school student Dave Morgan by shaking his head. It is commonly used as a reaction image and is also used to represent a third party being denied the right or want to something.

Nope.

Origin
The character and GIF is from the 1992 stoner flick Encino Man, in which a caveman called Link, played by Brendan Fraser, is awakened from his tomb of ice and unleashed unto the modern world. High school student Dave Morgan, played by Sean Astin, and his best friend Stoney, played by Pauly Shore, attempt to teach him and turn him into one of their own and pass him off as a foreign exchange student from Estonia. Upon entering his science class to learn about the evolution of man, Dave notices his high school crush Robyn Sweeney. When she notices him, Dave optimistically waves, only for Matt, the school bully, and Robyn’s current boyfriend, to swoop in, shaking his head in disapproval. Matt is played by actor Michael DeLuise.

Matt, here behind Wayne on the left, before his days of epic nope and delicious douchebaggery, once worked as cameraman on hit Illinois tv show, “Wayne’s World” – circa. February 14th 1992, that very year. analsphinctersayswhat?

Spread

Matt Wilson has become a popular GIF. used across a variety of forums and websites, albeit it commonly being unkown by name or where it originated. The movie itself garnered negative reviews amongst critics, although has since gone on to become a 90’s cult classic. The film also produced two notable catchphrases, both by Pauly Shore’s character Stoney, “Bud-dy!” and “Wheeze the Juice!”. Matt also produces a notable insult in the film which he directs at Dave, “Robyn wouldn’t piss on your gums, if your teeth were on fire.” Another Meme/Gif to come out of it was the “Shoosh” in which Matt yells the word in a high pitched voice at the other main characters.

Stoney knows whats up… and he wants it.

Slang

Even though the 1990’s are over, some notable slang survived Y2K. A quick overview of said slang:

*Nugs = Titties – A play on the word jugs.
*Grindage = Food – A reference to the digestive system.
*Wheeze(ing) the juice = Sticking your head under a slurpy machine, and taking it from the tap.
*Wheeze(ing) the juice (alternate) = Sucking dick and ingesting male bodily fluid.

Link“k”

A follow up Gif was created not long after the inception of “Shakes Head”. The Gif features the star of the movie Link, on a rollercoaster wearing sunglasses, nodding his head back and forth. This particular follow up Gif is also a reaction image, representing “k” in response to mindless ranting tumblr. or a TL;DR comment, it is also used when viewing a shocking or suprising image, video or article.

I’m too sexy

I’m too sexy are the two dancing Gifs spawned by the movie, the first involves Link dancing to the song “I’m too sexy”, and the second a high school dance at the end of the movie. Both are used to demonstrate ones no fucks to give, and general badassery.

Notable Examples

(W.I.P. If you like to help edit, feel free to request.)

About

Name My Band or sometimes Hey X, Name Our Band is a common thread on 4chan in the /b/ (Random) board. This thread always begins with a group photo and a message to name their band. The response ends up in common shitposting.

History

W.I.P.

Spread

W.I.P., but I’m pretty sure the spread started somewhere in 2011.

Search Interest

Technical difficulties. Please wait until fixed.

External References

About

Yung Lean is the pseudonym of Jonathan Aron Leandoer Håstad, an amateur rapper from Sweden known for his use of dreamy synth pop and lyrics focusing on video games and specific American brand names, including Arizona Iced Tea, North Face jackets and Gatorade sports drinks. Described as a polarizing figure in the European hip hop community due to his subdued rapping style, Yung Lean gained much of his notoriety after releasing his video “Hurt” in June 2013.

Online History

Yung Lean uploaded his first video, titled “Greygoose,” to his YouTube channel^[2] on February 5th, 2013. The black-and-white music video features Lean rapping while looking out across a city. As of June 2014, the video has gained over 160,000 views.

Lean continued to upload rap videos throughout 2013, including “Oreomilkshake” on April 29th and “Racks on Racks” on June 17th.

“Hurt”

On June 18th, 2013, Yung Lean uploaded what would be his breakout video titled “Hurt.” The video features a background similar to a Windows 97 screensaver and heavy product placement by brands and items popular in the late ‘90s and early 2000s such as Pokemon cards and Game Boy Color. Within a year, the video gained over 1.7 million views. The song was featured on Lean’s Debut mixtape, Unknown Death 2002, which was released on July 9th, 2013, with Mishka,^[1] a Brooklyn clothing brand.

The video was covered by several sites that month including Vice^[3] and Animal New York.^[4] On July 14th, 2013, the subreddit /r/sadboys^[9] was created by Redditor d4rkhorizoN. As of June 2014, the reddit had gained over 3,000 views.

Tour

On January 26th, 2014, Lean uploaded a video announcing the White Marble tour he’d be going on with the Sad Boys in 2014. Within six months the video gained over 50,000. The tour began in Copenhagen on March 12th, 2014, making 27 stops within a month.

On June 18th, 2014, Lean announced her Black Marble Tour in the US and Canada on his Facebook page.^[7] In less than a month the post gained over 3,000 likes. The tour will begin on July 14th, 2014, in Raleigh, North Carolina, and runs for 15 stops finishing in New York City in September. On June 30th, he announced the final day of the tour, September 7th, was already sold out.

Notable Examples

Reputation

As of June 2014, Yung Lean’s YouTube channel has gained over 62,000 subscribers. His Facebook page^[5] has gained over 70,000 likes and his Twitter account^[6] has gained over 51,000 followers.

Search Interest

External References

About

True Blood is a television supernatural drama airing on HBO which follows Sookie Stackhouse as she navigates a world where vampires have recently revealed themselves and desire to integrate into society. The show is based on the The Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris.

History

True Blood is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris, the first novel in the series, Dead Until Dark was released in May 2001. The television show premiered on HBO on September 7th, 2008. It ran for seven seasons, and will conclude at the end of the 7th season on August 24th, 2014, after 80 episodes.

Premise

Two years after synthetic blood makes it possible for vampires to survive without feeding off people, they’re fighting for their rights to become equal American citizens. During this time Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) is a telepathic waitress in a small town in Louisiana. Sookie begins a relationship with Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), a vampire who recently returned to town. The other people in Sookie’s life include her best friend Tara Thorton (Rutina Wesley), her brother Jason Stackhouse (Ryan Kwanten) and her grandmother Adele Stackhouse (Lois Smith).

Reception

True Blood received a score of 8.1 on IMDB^[12] and a rating of 64 on Metacritic.^[13] Its season premiere drew over 1.4 million viewers^[14] and its last season premiere drew over 4 million viewers. It has been nominated for four Golden Globes, winning one in 2009 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama (Anna Paquin).

Online Presence

As of July 2014, True Blood’s official Twitter account^[1] has over 700,000 followers and its Facebook page^[2] has over 11.6 million likes. All seasons are available to HBO subscribers to watch online through HBO Go. Fans can all access episode guides and character sketches at the True Blood Wikia.^[2]

Fandom

There are numerous fan-run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the True Blood fandom including trublood^[4], hellyeahtrueblood^[5] and ericandsookielovers.^[6] Popular Tumblr tags fans use to tag their content include TrueBlood^[7] and TB.^[8] Fans also gather to discuss the show on the subreddit /r/TrueBlood^[9], which has over 18,000 subscribers as of July 2014. As of July 2014, there are over 1,600 True Blood fanfiction submissions on Fanfic.net^[10] and more than 61,000 fan art submissions for the show on DeviantArt.^[11]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Alejandro Sabella’s Fall is a photoshop meme inspired by the Argentinian national football team manager’s fainting reaction after Gonzalo Higuain’s ball struck the bar during the quarterfinal match against Belgium at the 2014 World Cup.

Origin

On July 5th, 2014, Argentina and Belgium played against each other in the quarter-final match at the World Cup Brazil, which ended with the Argentinian side’s 1 – 0 victory. Along with the team’s midfielder Lionel Messi, Argentinia’s Gonzalo Higuain proved himself to be among the best players on the field, having scored an early lead for the team in the eighth minute into the game. In the 65th minute, the striker nearly scored a second goal but ended up striking the post. In response, Argentinian manager Alejandro Sabella closed his eyes and began falling on his back, shortly before catching himself in balance. That same day, Viner Gustavo Lema uploaded a video clip highlighting Alejandro Sabella’s dramatic “fainting” reaction (shown below), which gained 8.2 million views and more than 3,800 likes in less than 48 hours.

Spread

Within the hour, Sabella’s fainting reaction instantly became dubbed the latest photoshop meme from the 2014 World Cup tournament, with some of the early contributions coming from Bleacher Report^[7], ESPN and other Spanish-language sports news blogs. According to Topsy^[10], mentions of the Argentinian manager’s surname “Sabello”^[9] was tweeted nearly 300,000 times on the day of June 5th, easily doubling the volume of tweets that were measured for the keyword during the group-stage matches in the tournament. On June 6th, the meme was picked up by numerous British sports tabloids and Spanish-language news sites, including Metro^[3], International Business Times,^[4] Daily Mail^[5] and The Mirror.^[6]

Notable Examples

World Cup Mash-Ups

Sabella’s fainting reaction has been also mashed up with more subtle references to similar photoshop memes from the previous games and the current tournament, such as Zinetti Zidane’s infamous head-butt at the 1998 World Cup France, Nigel De Jong’s high kick at the 2010 World Cup South Africa and Tim Howard’s Saves at the 2014 World Cup Brazil (shown below, left to right).

Search Interest

External References

About

Peach Time is a meme derived from a rage comic depicting a face with half-closed eyes. The face then produces a peach out of thin air and declares that it is peach time. The comic spawned many derivatives, mostly due to its abrupt and surreal nature.

Origins

[researching, request editorship if you wanna help! ]

“le peach rage” was submitted to /r/f7u12_ham/ in September 2013 by user dasf7u12_hampton. The post received 42 comments and 760 karma. The Imgur link provided indicates that the image was in fact created a month earlier, on August 12th. It has over 35,000 views as of July 2014.

The comic was first uploaded on Tumblr by user ajaxdotcom on May 16th, 2013. Since then, the original post has gathered over 130,000 notes as of July 2014.

Spread

[researching]
The meme has since spawned numerous derivatives, most of which replace “peach time” with a different fruit/period of time.

Notable examples

References
#peach time on Tumblr

About

Jihad Barbie refers to a photo meme started when Holly Fisher, a conservative women living in West Virginia, posted a picture of herself holding a gun and a bible which resembled a photo of a Reem Riyasha, a female suicide bomber also holding a book and a gun.

Origin

On July 1st, 2014, Holly Fisher, who describes herself as “Christian. Wife of an Army combat-infantry vet. Mom of 3.” in her Twitter bio, tweeted^[2] a picture of herself in front of a Hobby Lobby holding a Chick-Fil-A cup and wearing a pro-life T-shirt with a caption which read, “ATTENTIONLIBERALS: do NOT look at this picture. Your head will most likely explode.” Within a week the tweet gained over 2,000 retweets and over 3,000 favorites.

The image spread on Facebook with the title “How to Make a Liberal’s Head Explode,” and once Fisher noticed its spread^[1] on July 3rd, it had gained over 20,000 likes.

On July 4th, Fisher tweeted out a photo of herself holding a bible and a gun standing in front of an American flag. In less than a week the tweet gained over 1,000 retweets and over 2,000 favorites.

Spread

The same day she tweeted the picture, Fisher began receiving a photo featuring suicide bomber Reem Riyasha in which she is holding a gun and a book and standing in front of a flag like Fisher. In a tweet acknowledging receiving the pictures she dismisses the comparison.

On July 7th, Fisher tweeted an example of one of her photos edited which called her a jihad barbie, joking about the nickname.

The same day Heavy^[3] published a post titled “Holly Fisher: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know,” which reported Fisher had received death threats because of the images. The same day Slate^[5] published a post titled “Defiant Hobby Lobby Supporter Inadvertently Recreates Iconic Gaza Jihadist Image,” which reported on the side by side image of Fisher and Riyasha. The following day Fisher and the meme were featured in posts published on Buzzfeed, UpRoxx^[4] and the Daily Mail.^[6]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Columbusing is an Internet slang term used to describe the act of white people appropriating non-white culture for themselves without recognizing its true origins. The term is named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who was credited with discovering the Americas while it was already inhabited by indigenous people.

Origin

On June 23rd, 2014, CollegeHumor^[1] released a sketch comedy film titled “Colmbusing: Discovering Things for White People,” in which a man explains how the term “Columbusing” is used to describe white people discovering existing trends as if they were new (shown below).

Spread

On the following day, the video was highlighted on The Huffington Post,^[3] where it received over 40,000 Facebook likes in the next two weeks. On June 25th, 2014, the women’s interest site Jezebel^[5] published an article praising the video for calling out cultural appropriation. On July 6th, NPR^[2] published an article titled “Columbusing: The Art of Discovering Something That is Not New,” which cited a BuzzFeed^[6] article referring to empanada baked pastries as “hand pies” as an example of Columbusing. The following day, the Internet news site UpRoxx^[4] highlighted the CollegeHumor video.

Search Interest

External References

About

I Happen To Be An Expert On This Subject/Topic is an expression used to preface an explanation on a subject or a topic on discussion forums and image boards.

Origin

On September 16th, 2004, a user Marnieworld posted a reply to a comment on Democratic Underground forums^[1] titled “Well I happen to be an expert in the subject”. The earliest known use of the phrase in image macros was on December 21st, 2008^[2], in Canon Digital Photography forums when an image of Bill Nye with the caption (picture below) was linked in a comment.

Spread

On June 6th, 2010, NovaJinx posted a blog entry^[3] about the idea of Aniblog MarathonOn, which had an image macro derivative of Cirno from Touhou Project. On August 24, 2010, the image macro was uploaded on penpen’s microblog^[4].

Many other derivatives featuring characters from a variety of franchises like Fate/Stay Night, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Katawa Shoujo have been circulating various sites, like 4chan, Funnyjunk, and more.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

[not available]

External References

About

Daquan is a fictional character featured in jokes circulated primarily by the Black Twitter community, which are paired with stock photographs of young white children being scolded by an adult. The character is typically portrayed as an African American inner city youth who serves as a bad influence to impressionable young white women.

Origin

On July 2nd, 2014, Twitter user @RealRaymondJ^[7] posted a tweet featuring a stock photograph of a young girl making a dismissive hand gesture to her mother with the caption “Mom I don’t want a David, I want a Daquan” (shown below). In the first week, the tweet gained over 14,500 retweets and 11,000 favorites.

Spread

On July 7th, 2014, the @YahBoyDaquan^[2] Twitter feed was launched, gathering more than 45,000 followers in the next 24 hours.

The same day, Redditor Loelin submitted a post to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[1] subreddit asking for an explanation of the Daquan jokes. Also on July 7th, notable examples from the series were highlighted on the hip hop news site Hip Hop Wired^[5] and the Internet news blog UpRoxx.^[3] Meanwhile, a Daquan post was submitted to the Twitter trends site What the Trend.^[4] On July 8th, the International Business Times^[6] reported that the keyword “Daquan” had been tweeted over 100,000 times in 24 hours.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

The Potato Salad Kickstarter is a satirical crowdfunding campaign started by Columbus, Ohio resident Zack Brown to raise money for the sole purpose of making potato salad. Despite the utter lack of general information and logistical details surrounding the project, Brown’s Kickstarter campaign quickly surpassed its $10 goal and went on to raise more than $50,000 in less than a week.

Background

On July 3rd, 2014, Zack Brown submitted a Kickstarter proposal for a project simply titled “Potato Salad.”^[1] The description of the project read:

“I’m making potato salad.

Basically I’m just making potato salad. I haven’t decided what kind yet.

Brown set the goal at $10 and end date to August 2nd, 2014. Backer incentives included Brown saying the backer’s name while making the potato salad for a donation of at least $1 and a bite of the potato salad for a donation of at least $3.

Notable Developments

Stretch Goals

After the Kickstarter campaign met its goals of $10, Brown began adding new “stretch goals” within the description, describing what he would do with more money. The first update featured three stretch goals:

“Stretch Goals:

$35 – I will make 4x as much Potato Salad. I know $40 isn’t 4x $10, but you guys have earned it.

$75 – Pizza Party!

$100 – I will try two different Potato Salad recipes."

Additional incentives were added as well including a potato salad themed hat for donations of $25 dollars or more and a book of international potato salad recipes for donations of $50 or more.

News Media Coverage

On July 5th, Buzzfeed^[2] published an interview with Brown titled “Meet The Guy Who Launched A Wildly Successful Kickstarter To Make Potato Salad.” By July 5th, the campaign had already raised over $1,000 dollars and gained over 200 backers. Within the interview Brown explained his feelings on the campaign more than surpassing its goal, saying:

“[My original goal was] $10. I thought I could possibly get to $20 and have to make potato salad with a stranger. Now I get to make potato salad with the whole internet! Someone said they could help me set up a live stream, so I guess we’re doing that!"

He also hinted at a possible future Kickstarter campaign saying:

“I’ve been thinking of another, slightly larger project for some time, but for now I want to make sure this potato salad is done before I start it.”

On July 6th, the Kickstarter was covered by UpRoxx,^[3] by the 6th it had raised over $3,000 and gained over 600 backers. On July 7th the campaign was covered by many sites including The Verge^[4] and The Washington Post.^[5] By July 7th, the campaign had gained over $15,000 and over 2,000 bakers. As of July 8th, at 4:50 PM EST, the campaign had gained over $53,000 and over 4,000 backers.

Reddit AMA

On July 6th, Brown hosted a Reddit Ask Me Anything.^[6] Questions ranged from what kind of add-ins would be included in the potato salad to why he had decided to make potato salad. When asked “What are your thoughts on how to safely mail a bite of potato salad? Some of the ingredients require refrigeration,” since some of the incentives included a bite of potato salad he explained:

“Yea, it’s going to be a challenge. I would have put it under risks if I had ever considered that anyone outside of Columbus would want some. I thought I’d just go to people’s houses and hand it off.”

Search Interest

External References

Note: Work In Progress. Help Is Appreciated.

About

Homer Simpson’s Bush Disappearance is a series of reaction images that are used in a series of four panels. It’s often used to mock people who often change bandwagons in sports.

Origin

The image is a screenshot from the The Simpsons season 5 episode, Homer Loves Flanders. In the scene, Homer is asking his neighbor Ned Flanders and his children, Rod and Todd if they wanted to hang out with him. When the Flanders refused Homer’s offer, Homer replied by saying, “Oh, oh ok.” before disappearing into the bushes.

Spread

The image’s use first occurred during the 2013 NBA and NFL Seasons in which fans of teams that often performed poorly would switch sides for the team that could have a playoff run. It was also used for fans who would often change sports because of one of their team’s poor performance in a season. Numerous sport meme sites such as MLB Memes, NFL Memes, and NBA Memes often used the image macro during the respective sport’s postseason.

Image Examples

External References

About

How to Kill a Mockingbird is a flash animation parody of Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. It is centered around a child’s book report presentation of that novel. However, because the boy has not actually finished reading the book, he improvises the report by fabricating his own “summary” of the novel. This report starts off as faithful, but quickly devolves into an epic struggle between humanity and mockingbird.

The animation is notable for being one of the earlier viral videos on the internet, being released in 2004 and receiving millions of hits. It is also well known for being very long (12 minutes) and thus gained reputation as an “epic” flash.

The animation famously features the Pirates vs. Ninjas debate – their conflict being an integral part of the book report – and may have helped contribute to the debate’s popularity.

Origin

“How to Kill a Mockingbird” was created by two Stanford undergraduates, Anthony Scodary and Nico Benitez in November of 2004, and was originally hosted at Stanford’s (now defunct) student page for Scodary on the 13th of that November.^[1][2] The day after, Scodary and Benitez registered their own website – AwesomeFunny.com^[3]– where they linked back to the Stanford page.^[4]

Spread

Various wikis^[5][6] suggest that the animation originally spread through blogs^[7] and e-mail. The video was also often posted as a lighthearted distraction on threads discussing the actual novel.^[8] Along with its presence on the original creators’ website – AwesomeFunny – flash sites like “i am bored”^[9] and Albino Blacksheep^[10] ripped the flash almost immediately after it became public (November 15th and 17th, 2004 respectively), and thus “How to Kill a Mockingbird” received several million hits on these sites taken together.^[11] A video copy of the flash was uploaded to YouTube on November 7, 2010.

Because the video features the famous Pirates vs. Ninjas debate, it appears in many threads relating to the topic.^[12]

Search Interest

Searches for “how to kill a mockingbird” follow a cyclical pattern, with peaks during the American school year and lows during the summer. However, it is clear that there is a huge spike in searches for the video in late 2004 and early 2005, when the animation was released, that decrease slowly up until 2007 or so as flash animations became less popular.

External References

^[1]Wayback Machine – How to Kill a Mockingbird

^[2]Stanford – web.stanford.edu/~scodary/tkam.htm

^[3]who.is – awesomefunny.com

^[4]Wayback Machine – Awesomefunny.com

^[5]tvwiki.tv – AwesomeFunny

^[6]the full wiki – Pirates versus Ninjas

^[7]New Links – How to Kill a Mockingbird

^[8]The Literature Network – Help with “To Kill A Mockingbird”

^[9]i am bored – How to Kill a Mockingbird

^[10]Albino Blacksheep – How to Kill a Mockingbird

^[11]Timber Cave – Bio

^[12]Google – Search results for “‘how to kill a mockingbird’ pirates vs ninjas thread”

About

“Problem” is a 2014 pop song performed by American recording artist Ariana Grande featuring Australian rapper Iggy Azelea. Since its release in May, the song has spawned dozens of fan-made parodies and covers, the popularity of which can be partially attributed to Azelea releasing a hit song, ‘Fancy,’ a few months prior and Grande’s large fanbase steming from her starring role on the Nickelodeon children’s show Victorious.

Origin

On May 1st, 2014, the ArianaGrandeVevo^[1] YouTube channeled uploaded the music video for the track, which is in black and white and features the lyrics overlayed over close-ups of Grande and Azelea. Within three months, the video gained over 51 million views and 33,000 comments.

On May 30th, the YouTube channel uploaded a second music video for the song, which features a 1960s mod astetic and pyscadelic backgrounds. Within two months, the video gained over 65 million views and over 75,000 comments.

Spread

On May 20th, 2014, YouTuber Mikey Bolts^[2] uploaded a video (below, left) titles "Ariana Grande “Problem” (Family Guy/South Park Voices)," which featured him singing a parody of “Problem” as the characters on the animated television shows Family Guy and South Park. Within two months the video gained over 1.4 million views. On May 24th, 2014, YouTuber Brittani Louise Taylor^[3] uploaded a “Problem” parody (below, right) about enjoying her hotel room. Within two months the video has gained over 370,000 views.

On May 30th, 2014, YouTuber AwesomenessTV^[4] uploaded a “Problem” parody (below, left) about being glad for school to be over for summer vacation. As of July 2014, the video has gained over 150,000 views. On July 3rd, 2014, YouTuber TheKeyofAwesome^[5] uploaded a parody of “Problem” (below, right) with altered lyrics that criticized specific aspects of the song and music video. In less than a week the video gained over 1 million views.

Notable Examples

Parodies

Covers

Search Interest

External References