Overview

Pending Larry Quote is a note left at the top of a press release containing the third-quarter earnings report for the multinational Internet and software corporation Google, which was prematurely released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2012. Written in all-capital letters and meant to be for internal use only, the discovery of the note quickly inspired the creation of the #PendingLarryQuote hashtag and the parody profile @PendingLarry on the microblogging site Twitter.

Background

On October 18th, 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission^[1] posted Google’s third-quarter earnings several hours before it was scheduled for release on the web. Aside from the company’s disappointing revenue figures, it was also discovered that a placeholder for a pending quote from Google CEO Larry Page was mistakenly left intact at the top of the press release, reading “PENDING LARRY QUOTE.” Although not directly related to the memo, Google shares dropped nine percent in value on that day before stock exchange trading was temporarily halted.

Notable Developments

On Twitter

Shortly after the earnings report was released, the hashtag #PendingLarryQuote began circulating on Twitter, often accompanied by tweets mocking the press release note. The same day, The @PendingLarry novelty Twitter account was created, featuring humorous tweets about the earnings report from the perspective of Larry Page. Also on October 18th, the business news blog InvestorPlace^[3] published a post titled “The Top 5 ‘Pending Larry’ Tweets,” which highlighted several notable examples from the @PendingLarry feed.

…oops.

— Pending Larry (@PendingLarry) October 18, 2012

News Media Coverage

The same day, the blunder was reported by a number of traditional news media outlets, including NPR,^[4] The Wall Street Journal,^[5]CNBC,^[7] and Forbes,^[11] and several Internet news and tech blogs, including BuzzFeed,^[2] Mashable^[10] and CNET.^[6] Many of the news reports noted how the press release place holder was gaining momentum as an in-joke online.

Twitter Feed

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

This is the most Evil Toddler

First created by blogger Brian Rosman in April 2011, here’s the Obama speech that blew up Romnesia in October 2012:

Lots of good nerdy history in the Wikipedia article

Some images:

About

One-Winged Angel is a musical theme from the game Final Fantasy VII.^[2] It became notable for being the background theme music for the game’s final battle against Sephiroth.^[1] The popularity of the character, combined with the popurity of the game itself, has made the theme one of the most notable songs in gaming history.

Origin

Final Fantasy VII was first released in 1997 for the Sony Playstation. The game itself is a role-playing video game developed by Square Enix as the seventh installment in the Final Fantasy series. During the last part of the game, the player battles the main antagonist Sephiroth. During this battle, Sephiroth takes on multiple forms as the battle progresses, the last form being called Safer Sephiroth. It is during this battle that One-Winged Angel plays as the background music. The theme was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and was the first theme in the series to feature vocal lyrics.

Spread

[Researching]

Canonical Reappearance

Sephiroth’s popularity has gained him multiple appearances in other games in the franchise and even outside of that, each time with One-Winged Angel accompanying him. Within the main series, One-Winged Angel can be found back in Dissidia Final Fantasy, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, and Crisis Core. Sephiroth also appears as a boss character in the Kingdom Hearts series, a collaboration between Square Enix and Disney Interactive Studios, along with his theme (shown left). The most notable reappearance of both Sephiroth and One-Winged Angel was in the 2005 animated film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (shown right), due to the orchestral performance being accompanied by The Black Mages, an instrumental rock band formed by Nobuo Uematsu himself.

Search Interest

External References

About

Tamagotoji (Japanese: 卵とじ, lit. Egg scramble) refers to a series of hand-drawn animated videos of developing the story along a love song with the same title.

This is one of the popular templates for hand drawn animations among amateur animators/illustrators in the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) and YouTube.

Origin

The song “Tamagotoji” was written by a Japanese female singer songwriter Kurahasi, Yoeko (倉橋ヨエコ)^[1], which was first included in her 4th full Album “Tadaima” (ただいま, lit. I’m home) released in December 2005.

Meanwhile, the first instance in this series was a video posted by a NND user ヨエコスキー (Yoekosukī)^[3] on July 1st, 2009.^[4] And that was a fanfiction for Touhou Project getting an inspiration from the song.

In that video, he drew a story that Remilia Scarlet, who wasn’t good at cooking, challenged making a good bento filled with her love/friendship for Reimu Hakurei with the help of many Touhou characters by his hand drawn animations.

Spread

Since the late 2009, not a few amateur illustrators inspired by that video have been mimicking this lovely story by various kind of characters with their own rendition. Besides, because many Fujoshi, female Otaku, receive this series quite favourably, some of videos in this series are filled with the flavor of Yaoi, homosexual relationships of male characters.

In NND, the videos in this series are tagged under the song title “Tamagotoji” or a keyword “Yoekosukī-Respect” (ヨエコスキーリスペクト). More than 100 videos have been uploaded to NND.^[5]

Notable Examples

For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.

BLEACH_^[6]
Pokemon^[7]
_Soul Eater^[8]
[Yaoi!!] Inazuma Eleven^[9]

Appearance outside of Japan

Non-Japanese people also have joined into this fad, though the number of them is a few. They have occasionally posted their works to deviantART^[10] or YouTube.^[11]

The Avengers
Pandora Hearts
Flipy and Flaky from Happy Tree Friends
[Yaoi!!] Morenatsu^[12]

Search Interest

[Not Available]

External References

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

(Work in Progress

About

Starstrukk Remixes are a phenomena similar to Nigel Thornberry Remixes where the sirens in the song are replaced with other sound effects.

Origin

(researching)

The first instance of the remix originated from a text post from tumblr user methlabor. ^[1]

Spread

External Links

^[1] tumblr – methlabor: nice legs daisy dukes makes a man go siren from silent hill plays

^[2] tumblr – tagged: makes a man go

^[3] tumblr -tagged: nice legs daisy dukes makes a man go

About

“Swole” is slang term referring to having large or well defined musculature as a side effect from lifting weights.

Origin

An anonymous Urban Dictionary^[1] user submitted an entry for “swole” on June 2nd, 2003, which defined the term as “being jacked,” a label for someone who has large muscles.

Spread

On May 26th, 2012, the /r/swoleacceptance^[3] subreddit was created, which served as a forum for muscular individuals to discuss prejudice they experience in day-to-day life for being physically fit.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Feminist Nazi is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of Layla Joyce Subritzky from Big Brother Australia’s 2012 season. The captions typically depict a naive approach to stereotypical feminist ideas, in a similar manner to College Liberal.

Origin

Prior to the image’s use in the Feminist Nazi series, the photo of Layla Subritzky shown looking upwards with her mouth open was used for a MemeGenerator^[5] titled “Big Brother Layla” and included on a handful of Facebook pages for Big Brother memes.^[6][7]

Precursor

“Feminist Nazi” refers to the term “Feminazi,” which was first printed in radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s 1992 book The Way Things Ought to Be^[1] and attributed to Tom Hazlett, a professor at the Cato Institute. In the book, Limbaugh notes that a Feminazi is much different than a feminist because, to a feminazi, " the most important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur."^[2] Limbaugh has been quoted using the term to refer to several women’s groups including the National Center for Women and Policing and the Feminist Majority Foundation^[4], and high-profile women including Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, Christine Lahti and Camryn Manheim.^[3]

Spread

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Congelamento (from portuguese ‘freezing’) is a series of videos and images parodying the brazilian soap-opera “Avenida Brasil”, whose the episode usually would ends in a dramatic scene where the camera closes on a person while the image goes monochromatic and the background change to the credits.

Spread

The television network that aired the soap-opera recognized the popularity of the effect and launched an app that would make the effect to regular photos.^[1] There are also parody videos of Congelamento on Youtube where an dramatic scene from a movie or a series is shown and in the end, the effect is applied over a character making an expression of shock or worry.

Template

External References

Background

During the third and the last U.S. presidential debate on October 23rd, 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama’s plan to reduce the size of the naval forces by asserting that there are less military ships than there were at the beginning of the World War I in 1917.

Mitt Romney: “Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now at under 285. … We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me.”

President Obama rebutted Romney’s criticism by arguing that the quantity of naval firepower came second to their strategic roles and capabilities in the context of technologically advanced and modern military.

Barack Obama: “You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets. We have these things called aircraft carriers and planes land on them. We have ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. It’s not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships, it’s ‘What are our priorities?’”

Notable Developments

Within minutes of the candidates’ exchange on the U.S. Navy’s downsizing plans, Twitter became inundated with photoshopped images and the hashtag #horsesandbayonets, which swiftly took over the top trending topics in the United States and worldwide. At 9:45 p.m. (ET), former Democrat presidential candidate and senator John Kerry tweeted about Obama’s rebuttal, which was retweeted more than 5,550 times in less than 24 hours.

I think POTUS just sank Romney’s battleship

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) October 23, 2012

In keeping up with the recent trend, several parody accounts also emerged on the microblogging service, including @HorsesBayonets and @HorsesBayonette, which was originally introduced as @RomneyBinders during the second presidential debate on October 16th. By midnight, @HorsesBayonette had gained more than 34,200 followers.

By the end of the debate, “horses and bayonets” had vaulted to the top of Google’s trending search terms, surpassing other debate-related keywords like “Syria,” “Mali” and “Drones.” According to Twitter’s election coverage team (@Twitter Government), President Obama’s witty remark became the most-tweeted moment of the evening, peaking at 105,767 mentions per minute on Twitter.

Meanwhile on Tumblr, the single topic blog Horses Bayonets and Horses and Bayonets were launched to curate some of the best photoshopped instances, image macros and other jokes from all over the web. On Facebook, dozens of similar fan pages dedicated to “Horses and Bayonets” were created.

External References

Jokes and Parody Sites

• Tumblr – Horses and Bayonets
• Tumblr – Horses and Bayonet Single Topic Blog
• Twitter – Obama’s Bayonets
• Twitter – Horses and Bayonett
• Twitter – @JohnKerry’s Tweet
• Twitter – @TwitterGovernment’s Tweet
• Facebook – All Results for Horses and Bayonets

News Media Coverage

• The Atlantic Wire – ‘Horses and Bayonets’ Goes from Obama’s Mouth to Parody Tumblr in 9 Minutes
• Politico – Top debate Google searches: ‘Horses and bayonets,’ ‘tumult’
• Associated Press – Social nets grab ‘horses and bayonets’ debate line
• Washington Post – Romney saddled with ‘Horses and Bayonets’ meme
  
• Wall Street Journal – #horsesandbayonets Gallops Across the Internet
• Slate – The debate’s biggest loser: Memes

“Daily Reminder” Is a meme originating on /pol/ early 2012, “Reminding” browsers of politically incorrect facts, along with a picture of Malik Agar, the “Whitest man in Argentina”. The posts say something such as “Daily reminder that mormons aren’t christians.” or, “Daily reminder that transgendered people are mentally ill.”.

About

Sword Art Online is a Visual Novel which turned into the Japanese Animes airing at Fall 2012 (that’s Autumn 2012 for you Baka Gaijins). It is Annie mated by KyoAni, a studio are well known for turning pretty much any Visual Novel into the Anime.

The story of Sword Art Online is about a Neat Hikokimori codenamed Kirito who plays a Vidya Gaem where the primary focus is the use of Meelee weapon such as, but not limited to Swords, Maizes, Hummer, and Pole arms. The GM decided to toss in a twist to the game, rendering anyone who dies in the Vidya dies iRL by frying the brain with microwaves (I’m not making this up srs). Suddenly, the netizens were unable to log-out and all of them retained their iRL look instead of having a specified Avatar.

Sachi says Goodbye is an AMV made by Le Redditor named iGreaseBreh as a reaction to the most dramatic turning point of the series. It features a delayed voice massage from his 1st girlfriend named Sachi to the main protagonist Kirito. Because Sachi is already dead by that point, Kirito cried after hearing her sing Jingle Bells ;_;

Spread

This heart-touching AMV caused a lot of U2bers to make more of their own AMV’s featuring the most emotional music from Linken Sphere, Paper Cut.

Notable Examples

About

Fawkes Security is a group of self-proclaimed ethical hackers established in December 2011 who align themselves with the Anonymous movement. In October 2012, the group took responsibility for a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on banking company HSBS before posing a bomb threat set to detonate on November 5th, 2012.

Online History

Fawkes Security launched a Twitter account^[1], YouTube channel^[2] and private Facebook group^[3] in December 2011. According to the group’s first video communique, its objective is to target companies and people they view as oppressing average citizens across the globe.^[4]

HSBC Attack

On October 18th, 2012, HSBC Bank revealed that the company came under a large scale DDoS attack,^[5] claiming that it only took their online services offline and did not affect any sensitive customer data. The attack was initially thought to be caused by a group named Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters^[9], who also took credit for DDoSing other American bank websites including Capital One Bank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo; however, a Pastebin document^[6] claiming responsibility for the attack on behalf of Fawkes Security was uploaded later that same day, citing several of their real-time tweets as proof. The group also told British newspaper The Register^[7] that they planned on targeting more banks in the future, as the group feels they are at fault for the problems with the world’s economy. The next day, @FawkesSecurity further claimed in a tweet (shown below) that they had collected the details from 20,000 credit card accounts during the DDoS^[8], but have not provided any proof.

When HSBC said ‘’user data had not been compromised’’ This isn’t entirely correct. We also managed to log 20,000 debit card details. #OpHSBC

— Anonymous (@FawkesSecurity) October 19, 2012

Bomb Threat

On October 22nd at approximately 9:45pm (ET), during the United States presidential debate, @FawkesSecurity tweeted a link to its latest video message (shown below) claiming that a military grade bomb consisting of 200 kilgrams of composite Nitroglycerin and commercial explosives had been concealed in a government building somewhere in the United States. They also added the information in the form of a Pastebin document^[10], warning readers that the bomb is in a tamper-proof box and cannot be disarmed without exploding if found before the detonation date of November 5th. The message was subsequently picked up by other Anonymous-affiliated channels on Twitter, many of which included the hashtag #OpV^[15] to cross-promote Operation Vendetta^[21], an Anonymous protest set to take place in front of the British House of Parliament on November 5th, 2012, in commemoration of Guy Fawkes Night.^[16]

Soon after the video began to circulate, other Anonymous-aligned Twitter accounts including @YourAnonNews^[11], @TheAnonNation^[12] and @Asher_Wolf^[14], and the Anon Central Tumblr^[20] began claiming the bomb was a hoax^[13] and that @FawkesSecurity was not speaking for the whole community. Despite this, news of the threat was shared on Breitbart^[17], Softpedia^[18] and TechNewsDaily.^[19]

Twitter Feed

Search Interest

External References

About

Transit Fight Videos are amateur recorded altercations that take place while on public transportation. The videos are typically disseminated through sites like YouTube, Liveleak and World Star Hip Hop.

Origin

On February 16th, 2010, a video of a white man fighting a younger black man on a bus in Oakland, California was uploaded to YouTube by college student Iyanna Washington. The white man, who was dubbed “Epic Beard Man” on 4chan, was identified as Oakland resident Thomas Bruso, known for his reputation of belligerence.

Spread

[Researching]

Notable Examples

External References

(W.I.P.)

About

Sean Patrick Reiley, better known by his nickname Seanbaby, is a comedy writer most famous for his self-named website Seanbaby.com^[1], as well as his reviews in the video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly. His site was one of the first humour based sites on the internet to become notable, with famous webcomic author Shaenon K. Garrity stating ’I’ve said this before, but Seanbaby was the first person to think of being funny on the Internet and actually succeed’.^[3]

The Site

First started in 1999, the site was one of the most influential comedic websites on the internet, featuring many types of humor which would become hugely popular online over the next couple of years, including humourus caustic reviews of bad video games, features on unusual and cheesy forms of media from the 80’s and exagerated acts of manliness and badassery, written in a profanity and insult-laden style utilizing overly detailed metaphors and long rambling sentences. Although articles on the site have for the most part stopped since 2005, he currently works as a columnist for Cracked, writing articles very similar in style to the ones on his site^[2].

Notable Site Features

Search Interest

Due to Seanbaby’s internet fame being at it’s peak pre-Google Insights, search interest in Seanbaby has gone down over the years, but has never died down completely.

External Links

^[1]Seanbaby.com

^[2] Cracked – Seanbaby

^[3] Narbonic: Director’s Commentary – September 26th – October 1st

About

Drunk Jeff Goldblum is a series of commercial parody videos starring American actor Jeff Goldblum in which the audio track is slowed down to make his speech sound slurred. The most notable instances of the series are based on Apple’s TV commercials voiced by Goldblum and released in 1999.

Origin

The earliest known slowed-down video featuring Jeff Goldblum was based on a 1999 TV commercial for Apple and uploaded by YouTuber notatypewriter on July 30th, 2007. Since its upload, the video has gained at least 1.4 million views over the span of five years.

Spread

On September 16th, 2007, a link to YouTuber notatypewriter’s video was submitted by NeoGAF Forum member OmgRite in a discussion thread titled “Drunk Jeff Goldblum + Apple computer.”^[1] However, the parody video remained largely unexposed until it was picked up by various pop culture news sites and internet humor blogs in early April 2008, from The Huffington Post^[5] and BuzzFeed^[10] to Milk and Cookies^[2], Videogum^[11] and eBaumsworld.^[9] Throughout the summer of 2008, a handful of other time-stretched parodies of Apple’s TV commercials starring Jeff Goldblum surfaced on YouTube, including major contributions from YouTuber DrunkYT.^[13]

Notable Derivatives

By 2009, the concept had been applied to other well-known footage of Jeff Goldblum as seen in television and films, such as scenes from the 1993 American sci-fi film Jurassic Park and his guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. In addition, there are a number of similar parodies featuring the voices of other celebrities and Apple commercial models.

Paypal Ad Parody

On October 16th, 2012, the meme returned to spotlight with YouTuber Kyle J. Britt’s slowed-down parody of a Paypal advertisement starring Jeff Goldblum. In the following week, the latest update in the series was picked up by Jason Kottke^[14], Gawker^[15] and The Atlantic Wire^[16] among others.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Poka Poka series (Japanese: ポカポカしてるだけシリーズ, Pokapoka Shiterudake Series) refers to a series of hand drawn animated videos of one character pounding on another’s chest along with the fan-made remixed version of Hammer song from Super Smash Brothers series by Nintendo.

This animation is one of the popular templates for parodies among amatuer illustrators on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND).

Origin

“Poka Poka” (ポカポカ) is a Japanese onomatopoeia for a sound of pounding something mildly, which sounds very cute to the Japanese sensibility. And videos in this seires is made from combining two “Poka Poka” materials.

One, the action, is taken from just a 1-second footage in the opening movie of a Japanese TV anime series for a manga Seitokai Yakuindomo written by Tozen Ujiie.^[1] It was aired from July to October in 2010. The other, an electro-pop tune playing in the background, is a vocal remixed version of Hammer song, which was composed by a famous NND user Satsuki Ga Tenkomori^[2] and sung by moe voice actor/singer Nanahira in 2009.^[3]

“Poka Poka” Beating in Seitokai Yakuindomo
“Poka Poka” singing by Nanahira

The trigger of this series first combined these materials and reproduced the action by Akio Fudo and Michiya Kuon from a Japanese TV anime series for a video game Inazuma Eleven produced by Level-5.^[4] This video was uploaded to NND on July 14th, 2010.^[5]

Spread

The cuteness of this video was received favourably by other female amateur illustrators on NND due to a huge popularity of Inazuma Eleven among Japanese female Otakus and its quite convenient editing style. They soon began mimicking the style of this video with their favorite characters.

As of October 2012, the amount of videos in this series on NND is near 250.^[6]

Notable Examples

For more videos, check out the videos section in this entry.

Gintama^[7]
BLEACH^[8]
Tiger & Bunny^[9]
Minecraft^[10]

Appearance Outside Japan

Non-Japanese people also have joined into this fad, though the number of them isn’t so many. They have occasionally posted their works to YouTube^[11] and deviantART.^[12]

Naruto
Professor Layton
Star Wars OC
South Park

Search Interest

[Not Available]

External References

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

About

“Check Your Privilege” is an online expression used mainly by social justice bloggers to remind others that the body and life they are born into comes with specific privileges that do not apply to all arguments or situations. The phrase also suggests that when considering another person’s plight, one must acknowledge one’s own inherent privileges and put them aside in order to gain a better understanding of his or her situation.

Origin

The phrase “Check Your Privilege” was used as early as March 2006 on the social justice blog Shrub.com^[1] in an article explaining how to accept one’s inherent privilege and understand situations that members of non-privileged groups are going through.

Precursor: Privilege Checklists

The concept of a social privilege checklist was popularized by Peggy McIntosh in a 1998 article titled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”^[2] In the article, she discusses both white and male privileges with a list of 26 advantages that white people have due to their skin color.

* I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
* I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
* I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
* I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
* If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race

Inspired by this article, many privilege checklists in both article and list form began popping up online, especially via the women’s studies listserv WMST-L.^[9] In September 2006, social justice blog Alas! A Blog^[3] compiled a list of fifteen of these, including those for able-bodied people^[4], black males^[5], members of the upper class^[6], Americans^[7] and heterosexuals.^[8]

Spread

In 2007, “Check Your Privilege” appeared on a number of blogs including Feministe^[10], Shapely Prose^[11] and The Geek Side.^[12] In 2008 and 2009, the phrase was used on women’s blogs including The F Word^[13], Feminist Critics^[14] and The Angry Black Woman.^[15] In June 2009, “Check Your Privilege” was mentioned on the Geek Feminist Wiki^[16] as a method to remind other people of how their background shapes their thoughts. In November 2010, a Redditor used the phrase on /r/MensRights^[17] in response to a story about a false rape accuser’s ability to remain anonymous while the name of the man she accused stays exposed in the media. In March 2012, the domain checkyourprivilege.com^[23] was registered, but does not contain any content. That October, an article was published on the British news site the Guardian^[22] about how the term has evolved into a bullying tactic for commentators who align themselves with social justice agendas and use privilege-related arguments to derail conversations.

On YouTube

As of October 2012, there are more than 2300 search results on YouTube^[25] for “check your privilege,” including both serious vlogs (shown below, left) and satirical videos (shown below, right).

On Tumblr

In January 2011, “Check Your Privilege” appeared in a Tumblr post^[18] by user feyboy in reference to seeing straight white cisgender women in college complaining about not receiving a monetary allowance from their parents. During the course of 2011, the phrase became a popular tag on Tumblr^[19] with the rise of social justice blogs on the platform, along with several others including “die cis scum”^[20] and “social justice.”^[21] In August 2012, the parody blog Children Who Need To Check Their Privilege^[23] was launched to provide satirical commentaries on images of babies and small animals as a mockery of the social justice blogging community. On August 31st, the webcomic Homestuck introduced a character named Kankri^[24] (shown below), seeming to represent a parody of a stereotypical Tumblr social justice blogger. In his first appearance, he mentions checking his piety privilege.

Search Interest

External References

About

Silk Road is an online black market which can only be accessed via The Onion Router (TOR) anonymous web browsing client. On the site, goods are sold in exchange for Bitcoins, a peer-to-peer digital crypto-curency created by Satoshi Nakamoto. Many of the sellers specialize in selling drugs, oftentimes shipping to countries where they are illegal to possess.

History

The Silk Road^[11] website began development in November of 2010 and was launched three months later in February of 2011. The site remained relatively unknown until June 1st, 2011, when Gawker^[5] published an article by staff writer Adrian Chen titled “The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable.” On July 28th, 2012, the tech news blog Gizmodo^[13] reported that a man from Melbourne, Australia had been arrested for attempting to import drugs purchased on the site. On August 1st, 2012, a paper titled “Traveling the Silk Road: A measurement analysis of a large anonymous online marketplace”^[12] was released by Carnegie Mellon computer security professor Nicolas Christin, which reported that the site’s total sales had increased to approximately $1.9 million a month (shown below).

Bitcoins

The Bitcoin protocol was first described by Satoshi Nakamoto^[2] in a paper^[4] distributed on a cryptography mailing list^[3] on October 31st, 2008. The Bitcoin network itself was created on January 3rd, 2009, which included the release of the first Bitcoins and an open-source Bitcoin client. Bitcoins use a peer-to-peer network that regulates the currency according to network software, with no more than 21 million Bitcoins issued in total by 2140. Bitcoins can be purchased and current exchange rates can be viewed on the MT Gox^[8] Bitcoin exchange.

TOR

The Silk Road website can only be accessed via TOR anonymous browsing client, which allows its users to browse the Internet anonymously by separating identification and routing, thus concealing network activity from surveillance. The alpha version of the TOR software was announced via FreeHaven.net^[9] mailing list on September 20th, 2002, followed by its presentation at the 13th USENIX Security Symposium on August 13th, 2004.

Features

The site allows users to browse an online market through several categories linked in the sidebar, including drugs, apparel, books, digital goods, drug paraphernalia, erotica and forgeries. The drugs category contains several subcategories, including psychedelics, cannabis, dissociatives, ecstasy, opioids, prescriptions and stimulants. Buyers can register for free without an email but sellers must purchase a special account. Similar to other online marketplaces, users can rate their experiences with individuals sellers to report back if the product they purchased was of sufficient quality and delivered in a timely manner.

Reception

On June 6th, following the posting of Adrian Chen’s article, United States senators Joe Machin and Charles Schumer sent a letter^[10] to the U.S. Attorney General urging law enforment to shut down the Silk Road website. On June 12th, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article titled “Drugs Bought With Virtual Cash,” reporting that the site would be moving to a new server in order to handle a marked increase in traffic. The article went on to report that Silk Road’s increase in popularity corresponded with a rise in the value of Bitcoins. On July 16th, 2012, Gawker^[7]published a follow-up article titled “Are Authorities Closing in on the Online Drug Market Silk Road?”, which reported on rumors that had been circulating about authorities going after Silk Road’s administrator known as “Dread Pirate Roberts.”

Search Interest

External References

Pai de Família (Portuguese for “family man”) is a man from a Brazilian gay porn video. Pai de Família’s real name remains unknown, but he’s often called Jailson Mendes, as he’s credited in the movie. Pai de Família’s main claim to fame is, well, taking it in the ass.

Pai de Família is, in a way, a different kind of meme. He’s not mass marketable. He’s not “like”-able on Facebook, not shareable, not bloggable nor rebloggable. He’s a kind of meme that’s unique to anonymous imageboards. A young kid trying to look cool on the Internet by sharing stuff on Facebook couldn’t use Pai de Família. You can’t steal OC of Pai de Família, and you can’t twist the meme to mean something it does not. There’s only one thing he stands for: deliciousness.

Used at a time when all Original Content flows into humor blogs and are destroyed in days, the Pai de Família is the resistance, after all no comedy-blog would post about a middle-aged fat man being pounded hard. The importance of the meme is not in your favor, at homosexuality, or in the picture or video as a whole but in representing the resistance of the mass of brazilian imageboards, which unfold in order to create something that will not be instantly stolen and misrepresented in seconds.

History

Pai de Família was noticed by a gay anon from BRchan, the most popular anonymous imageboard in Brazil. The sheer absurdity (and at the same time, the mundane normalcy) of a 40-something burly man being fucked by a very vocal, bearded thug while exclaiming, “delicious! ooh, so delicious man” in a manner similar to a fat pig being buggered attracted the attention of BRchan, generating much OC. Pai de Família remains popular there. The video is definitely NSFW, but there’s a collection of Pai de Família’s best moments (which are totally SFW).

External Links