About

Many online multiplayer video games feature a voice chat system, in an effort to foster greater communication and teamwork between players. However, such a system can be frequently abused for entertaining purposes, commonly known as mic spam. Mic spam is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “Annoying, entertaining, or just out right stupid sounds, music, and such,” and can be performed either by a player making noise into their computer’s physical microphone or by using third party software as an internal microphone. The latter is used to broadcast sound files or music.

Mic spam is generally received negatively by other players, and as such is frequently performed solely for the entertainment of the spammer. However, mic spam can also be used for practical purposes: one common practice is to use a soundbite of Nope.avi as a negative response in-game.

Background

Games based on Valve’s Source Engine, such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike, are among the most popular for mic spam. The Source Engine made its debut with the 2004 releases of Counter-Strike: Source and Half Life 2, and remains under active development. Several third party programs have been designed with mic spamming on the Source Engine in mind, such as Half Life Sound Selector and Half Life DJ.

Team Fortress 2 was released on October 10, 2007. The game received widespread acclaim for its graphical style and balanced and entertaining gameplay, as well as its dedication to coordinated teamwork, and the game continues to maintain a large fan base, which has only grown since the game was made available as a free-to-play title on June 11, 2011. Team Fortress has become so popular for mic spam that entire servers have been dedicated to its practice, with players taking turns spamming music or other audio files.

Mic spam can also be seen on console titles, such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, as well as those games’ PC counterparts.

Examples

Google Search Trends

Google Trends show a lack of interest until early 2008, shortly after the release of Team Fortress 2, with search volume peaking in July 2011, the same month Team Fortress was released as a free-to-play title.

References

• http://www.ign.com/articles/2007/10/09/team-fortress-2-review
• http://www.hldj.org/

WORK IN PROGRESS– ASKFOREDITORSHIP

About

Mega Man, also known as Rock Man (Japanese: ロックマン) in Japan, is a successful video games series created by the video game company Capcom. The game features an incantation of a robot named Mega Man (aka the Blue Bomber), who utilizes his Mega Buster to fight various forms of evil including Dr. Wily and Sigma. Since it’s release in 1987, the series has sold over 29 million copies worldwide, spawning multiple spinoffs across various gaming platforms, and gained a strong presence on the internet.

History

Mega Man (Original Series)

The first Mega Man series started on the NES in 1987 with Mega Man. The game features the original Mega Man fighting 6 robot masters owned by the game’s villain Dr. Wily. By defeating a robot master, Mega Man acquires an ability of that robot master which can be used to defeat another robot which is weak to the ability. After defeating all robot masters, Mega Man would enter Dr. Wily’s skull castle, facing off against huge bosses, having a rematch with all robot masters, and a final showdown with Dr. Wily. Later installments had 8 robot masters instead of 6.

The series yielded 10 games with the Mega Man 1 to 6 on the NES, Mega Man 7 on the SNES, Mega Man 8 on the Playstation and Sega Saturn, and Mega Man 9-10 both on downloadable gaming services for the Wii, PS3, and XBox 360.

Mega Man X

Mega Man X is the first spinoff series, debuting in 1993 on the SNES. The series takes place decades afters the events of the first series. Similar to the original series, the player controls a new incarnation of Mega Man named X and battles 8 animal-like Robots known as Mavericks before squaring off against the series main antagonist Sigma. In addition to X, players can also control a saber wielding reploid named Zero. The series yielded 8 games with X1-X3 on the SNES, X4-X6 on the PS1, and X7-X8 on the PS2. In addition, an RPG titled Mega Man X: Command Mission was released for the Gamecube and PS2. Zero became a popular character and has been used in many Capcom fighting game series.

Mega Man Legends

Mega Man Legends is the third series in the franchise and differs widely in gameplay. The protagonist controls a teenager named MegaMan/Rock Volnutt who searches through ruins for energy sources. With help from his adopted sister Roll Caskett, Rock works to obtain this sources from the Bonnes, a group of pirates along with their Servebots. The series spawned 2 games and a spinoff featuring Tron Bonne, all for the Playstation.

A third game was announced for the 3DS, but was cancelled shortly after production of the Prototype was created, yielding a massive fan backlash towards Capcom along with a fan-driven campaign to resurrect the franchise.

Mega Man Battle Network

Mega Man Battle Network takes place in an alternate universe where people use programs called NetNavis to navigate through cyberspace. The protagonist is a preteen named Lan Hikari, who uses his NetNavi Megaman.EXE (Rockman.EXE in Japan) to battle various evils including Mr. Wily (no relation to Dr. Wily) and his organization WWW (World Three). The gameplay also differs as Battle Network relies heavily on RPG elements. Battles are fought on grids and Megaman.exe can use battle chips to perform attacks and improve his stats.

The series was primarily on the Game Boy Advance and spawned 6 titles, though some titles had different versions (similar to Pokemon). In addition, a game titled Megaman Network Transmission was released for the GameCube.

The series also spawned an anime series MegaMan NT Warrior which followed the video game series but had major differences in the plot and characters. The anime ran from 2001 to 2006.

Mega Man Zero

Mega Man Zero can be seen as a sequel to the Mega Man X series. The Zero series focus on the reploid Zero, approximately one century after the events of the MMX series. Zero joins a group of reploids in battling the forces of Neo Arcadia. Similar to the X series, the Zero series requires defeating enemies by using different weapons. The series has been known to be incredibly more difficult than it’s predecessors.

The series saw 4 releases on the Gameboy Advance with the first game (Mega Man Zero) seeing it’s release in 2002. A spinoff series Mega Man ZX was launched in 2006 on the Nintendo DS, which was later followed up by a sequel Mega Man ZX Advent.

Mega Man Star Force

Mega Man Star Force is a series that take place 200 years after Mega Man Battle network and returns to the RPG styled gameplay as seen in Battle Network. The Star Force series spawned 3 titles on the Nintendo DS.

Rockman Xover

Rockman Xover is a crossover video game released on the Apple IoS system. The game was released in 2012 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Mega Man franchise. The game features a new protagonist who battles villains from all Mega Man series to date. The release of the game generated a negative backlash from fans.

Street Fighter X Mega Man

Street Fighter X Mega Man is a crossover video game originally starting as a fan game from a Singaporean fan developer before being published by Capcom. The game features the original Mega Man battle various Street Fighter characters including Ryu and Chun-Li. Street Fighter X Mega Man was made as a free download from Capcom-Unity on December 17, 2012. The gameplay and graphics are in vein with the original Mega Man series, including 8-bit graphics. Various Street Fighter music themes were “mashed-up” with Mega Man themes.

Online Presence

Though the official series presence online is limited, the official Facebook^[3] page was set up and accumulated 140 thousand likes as of January 2013, and the official @MegaMan^[4] Twitter account was created on November 20, 2012 has gained of 3,000 followers as of January 2013.

Fansites

The series has managed to develop an early presence on the net. The earliest Mega Man fansite was the Mega Man Homepage^[1], which was launched in 1994. The site’s main goal is to provide a source of information within the series and franchise. It is also dedicated to providing news info within series, and providing links to site about fan fiction, art, music, etc. in it’s ’Fan Community" section.

Four years later, The Mega Man Network^[2], formerly known as Mega Man X Online, was created by Reeve and DarkMoogle, and made open on August 2000. The site’s original focus was to provide information about the Mega Man X series, but due to the growing popularity of the site, the site change their name to The Mega Man Network in 2002, providing news and infomation to the rest of the series.

The wikia site “Mega Man Knowledge Base”^[7] was created on May 2005, as a comprehensive database for the franchise, ranging from video games, characters, and merchandises. As of January 2013, the site has complied more then 3,000 articles.

Fan Art

On the art-sharing site deviantArt, fan art featuring characters from the series has been posted to the site, with over 65,000 results under the search term “Mega Man,”^[5] as of January 2013. On FanFiction.net^[6], over 5,000 stories has been added, as of January 2013.

Related Memes

Gutsman’s Ass

Gutsman’s Ass is a YouTube Poop fad which utilizes a scene from episode 2-25: Bad Day at Peril Park of the animated series Mega Man. In the original scene, Rush, Mega Man’s robot dog sidekick, tore off the the tail of a Kangaroo disguise, revealing Gutsman. The fad initially sparked after Youtuber Kajetokun uploaded the scene to the site.

Rejected Mega Man Villains

Rejected Mega Man Villains refer to a YTMND fad which features a series of fan-created characters that portray as villains from from the series. The characters often feature unconventional designs and names, to appear as if they were turned down by the video game company Capcom.

What am I Fighting For!

“What am I Fighting For!” is a catchphrase first said by main character Zero during a cut scene from the video game Mega Man X4, first released on the Sony Playstation on 1997. Zero said the phrase after having his love interest, Iris, die in his arms. Since then, the quote became notorious with Mega Man fans, with the phrase becoming a subject of parody and remix.

Can’t Beat Air Man!

Can’t Beat Air Man! (Japanese: エアーマンが倒せない , Air Man ga Taosenai) is a doujin song based around the frustration the player feels when trying beat Air Man, one of Dr. Wily’s evil minions and a boss character, who first appeared on Mega Man 2. The song has been remixed and covered after being uploaded to the Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga on 2007.

110 Million Memories! / Okkusenman!

WIP

Green Biker Dude

WIP

You Got Mega Man

WIP

Search Interest

External References

About

University Compliment Pages are anonymous Facebook communities where students at a specific university are invited to privately message a compliment about another student which gets publicly posted by the main page. The posts are often genuine compliments directed at a specific person or group of people, but sometimes include inside jokes within the school community similar to University Meme pages.

Origin

On September 12th, 2011, a group of four undergraduates at Queen’s College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada started a Facebook account titled Queens U Compliments^[1] (sic) with the idea that other Queen’s University students could send a message to the profile’s inbox sharing positive praise of someone else on campus. One of the four creators, Rachel Albi, Erica Gagne, Jessica Jonker or Amanda Smurthwaite, would then publish the comment from the account. As of January 2013, the account has 5000 friends and 208 additional subscribers.

Spread

Shortly after the Queens U Compliments took off, the creators started a private group called University Compliments^[2] as a hub space for other universities and institutions. By November 14th, the Facebook trend had been picked up by various college newspapers including Yale^[3], Penn State^[4], Tufts^[5], University of Arizona^[6] Princeton University^[8] and New York University.^[7] Many of these articles discussed the pages in a positive light, but a few doubted whether or not the students at their universities would abuse the anonymity as a platform for veiled harassment or mean-spirited discourse disguised as a compliment.

News Media Coverage

Facebook University Compliment pages saw their first boost from news media coverage on November 29th, 2012, when TIME’s tech blog^[9] featured an article about the Queen’s University page. Following this report, similar articles about Facebook Compliment pages were featured on the Huffington Post^[10], CBC News^[11], NBC News^[12], New York Daily News^[13], The Observer^[14] and Seventeen Magazine.^[15]

Notable Examples

Messages

Pages

Search Interest

External References

About

RSA Animate is a series of videos featuring animations drawn from lectures on a variety of topics, including education, economics, science and history. The videos are illustrated by Cognitive Media founder and director Andrew Park.

Online History

The RSA Animate web series was created by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), a British institution that has hosted public debate events since its founding in 1754. According to the Cognitive Media blog,^[4] illustrator Andrew Park was hired by the RSA Events team in 2010 to create an animated drawing to go along with Norwegian sociologist Stein Ringen’s speech “The economic consequences of Mr. Brown,” which Park filmed himself drawing quickly on paper using a Flip camera (shown below, left). The style was inspired by an animation for the New York Public Library by illustrator Flash Rosenberg, which features a conversation about economics with Felix Rohatyn, Noriel Roubini and Jeffery Sachs (shown below, right).

On YouTube

On March 10th, 2010, the first RSA Animate video was uploaded to YouTube, which featured an animation of RSACEO Matthew Taylor’s lecture on the growing influence of brain research in political debates and civic discourses (shown below). The video gained more than 250,000 views and 160 comments over the next three years.

On April 1st, 2010, an RSA Animate was uploaded featuring a talk by Dan Pink, author of the book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us^[3], illustrating theories about what type of rewards motivate people to be productive (shown below). Within the next three years, the video accumulated over 9.7 million views and 7,000 comments. On June 28th, RSA Animate uploaded a video titled “Crises of Capitalism,” which illustrated a lecture by academic David Harvey about possible future alternatives to a capitalist economy (shown below, right). Within the next three years, the video received more than two million views and 9,300 comments. As of January 2013, RSA has published 18 episodes of the web series on its YouTube channel.

Other Notable Videos

Gates Foundation

On January 28th, 2011, the Gates Foundation charity uploaded a YouTube video titled “Vaccines Save Lives,” which featured an animated presentation by Park about the importance of vaccinations. Within one year, the video received more than 79,000 views and 400 comments.

Reception

The RSA Animate series has been praised by journalists for its animation style and choice of subject matter. On October 21st, 2011, The Guardian^[2] reported on the positive reception of the web series across the world, including large numbers of viewers from Russia, China and Kazakhstan on Vimeo. On October 25th, The Telegraph^[7] published an article titled “RSAAnimated Lectures: How to Open Your Mind,” noting that the US Department of Defense and Macy’s department store had used the RSA Animate videos in training programs. On December 21st, PBS blog POV^[6] lauded the series for doing “some of what the best documentaries do." On October 4th, 2011, the “RSA Animate” Facebook^[5] page was created, which received more than 3,100 likes within the next 15 months. As of January 2013, the RSA YouTube channel has published 18 episodes and accumulated over 38.5 million views and 219,000 subscribers, making it the top nonprofit channel according to RSACEO Matthew Taylor.^[2]

Imitations

Several animated videos inspired by the RSA Animate series have been created, which typically speed up footage of someone drawing on a canvas or whiteboard. On December 26th, 2012, Edublogs published a post with instructions on how to make an RSA Animate-style video, including an example created in a classroom about the Louisiana purchase (shown below, top, left).

Search Interest

External References

About

Winnie the Pooh’s Home Run Derby is a flash game produced by Disney, in which the player controlls Winnie the Poo and tries to hit a home run in various levels. It became viral for its difficulty in 2013.

Origin

This flash game^[1] was released circa 2008. It’s confirmed that the Japanese language version (Japanese: くまのプーさんのホームランダービー) was uploaded to Yahoo! Kids on July 28th of that year.

The notable feature of this game is the extreme hardcore gameplay unimaginable from its innocent looks.

Spread

3 and a half years after, some of internet users in both /livejupiter/ board in 2channel and /may/ (equivalent to 4chan’s /b/) board in Futaba Channel (2chan) found this game in the new year holidays of 2012.^[2] They launched a wiki page for this game on January 2nd, 2012^[3], and spent their holidays to beat that devilish forest animals.

In new year holidays season of 2013, it became to a topic again on both forums. The different point from the last season was that many affiliate blogs reprinting threads in both boards had been launched during the year. “Winnie the Pooh’s Home Run Derby” got a lot of visibility on the web by those blogs. And in that time, it was finally imported to 4chan.

This flash game was posted on a 4chan thread and on reddit afterwards by user Joelsaurus^[4]. The post received 5193 upvotes as of January 4th, 2013. The post had several comments about the game difficulty and poor gameplay. Several reddit comments were featured in NBC Sports’ Off The Bench^[5].

The game was featured on several sites and forums such as With Leather^[6], Kotaku^[7], Hupit Gaming forums^[8], K94.5FM^[9], and news website The Daily Dot^[10].

Artwork

Artwork and photoshops are mainly based on the game’s difficutly in the later levels. Christopher Robin makes a common recurrance in these, as he is the pitches for Winnie the Poo in the final and hardest level.

Search Interest

External References

[w.i.p.]

About

Jimmy Savile Pedophile case, refers to the controversy surrounding the allegations of child abuse against the late Sir Jimmy Savile, a british DJ and charity fundraiser, who had died a year before. The case garnered much attention off both the Britsh media and internet.

Background

On 29 October 2011, Savile was found dead at his home in Roundhay, Leeds. Around a year later on 28 September 2012, the British TV station ITV^[1] stated it was going to air a special documentary titled " Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile"^[2], with claims that it had reports from 10 women who stated they were sexually abused by the late Jimmy Savile. The documentary aired on 3 October, and by the 19 October, police stated they were pursuing 400 lines of inquiry based on 200 testimonies. By 12 December, a total of 450 alleged victims had contacted the police^[3].

Notable Deriatives

Search Interest

External References

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9SctSNQk0c

Lord Denethor is a troll. He was acting very rude from the beginning of his role in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King”, basically due to his son’s death, but he went too far by joining Saruman’s troll army, and later becoming its lord after Saruman’s death. Features Eduard Khil’s song “Indeed, I am Very Glad that I Finally am Returning Home”.

About

Balloon Solid Snake refers to a twisted balloon sculpture of the fictional character Solid Snake^[1] from the Metal Gear^[2] video game franchise. It rose to notoriety in early 2013 after a picture of the effigy was shared on Konami’s Facebook page, where it drew attention for its poor resemblance to the Metal Gear protagonist character, in similar vein to the botched Ecce Homo painting.

Origin

The photo of the balloon sculpture was first posted to Konami’s Facebook fan page on January 3rd, 2013.^[3] According to the image description the sculpture was created by Florida-based balloon artist Bruce Carr^[5] for his friend’s birthday. Within four days, the photo gained 1400 likes and 234 shares.

Spread

Following its featured appearance on Konami’s Facebook page, a screenshot of the post and a transparent exploitable of the sculpture were shared in a thread on 4chan’s /v/ (video games) board^[6], resulting in dozens of image macro commentaries (shown below, left) on the sculpture’s construction as well photoshopped images of Balloon Solid Snake placed to various pop cultural contexts, including scenes from Metal Gear games or promotional materials (shown below, right).

The same day, the transparent cutout of Balloon Solid Snake photo was posted to Tumblr^[13], where it gained more than 4,000 notes within 12 hours, and the full photo was submitted to the Gaming subreddit^[11], earning more than 9,500 upvotes and almost 2,100 points within four days. Also on January 3rd, video game sites Hardcore Gamer^[10] and MTVMultiplayer^[14] featured the original Konami photo. The following day, the balloon character was featured on Dorkly,^[7]Geekologie^[8], the IGN Forums^[4] and Kotaku.^[9] On January 6th, videogame blog Kotaku started a photoshop contest^[12] for the character, which resulted in more than 30 submissions on the first day.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

[Not currently available]

External References

ABOUT
’i’ll pay if you do this for me’ shows a picture of a hand on the leftside corner showing the character in
the picture that they will pay them a couple hundred dollars if they can do something for them depending on what character
is in the picture if the the picture on top shows a nice character then they will do it
if it shows a mean character then the guy will get punch or just give the money back
the bottom picture will show the character doing the offer by showing the character with one or more of their clothes taken off they can also reject it by giving it back or punching the them

Background

On August 22nd, 2012, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, two football players from Steubenville High School in Ohio, were arrested^[5] and charged with alleged rape and kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl from Weirton, West Virginia at a party on August 11th. The kidnapping charge was subsequently dropped^[24], is scheduled for February 13th, 2013. However, as of January 6th, attorneys are attempting to postpone relocate the trial after the backlash caused by the social media attention.^[25]

When her parents went to the Steubenville police on August 14th, they came with a flash drive containing the photographs, screenshots of the tweets and a video in which a former Steubenville baseball player was shown discussing a rape.

Notable Developments

August 2012: Blog Coverage

Following the local news report of the arrests, a few bloggers began discussing the case online, including Ohio-based crime blogger Alexandria Goddard^[2] who began detailing the case on her personal blog on August 24th. Goddard’s posts highlighted tweets^[3] about the events and a YouTube vlog^[4] tagged with “rape” and “drunk girl” that she had found on the social media accounts of the two boys. In October, she was sued for defamation^[6] by the parents of one of the students named on her blog, but as of January 4th, the suit had been dropped.^[23]

December 16th: New York Times Coverage

On December 16th, 2012, the New York Times^[1] brought the case to national attention after publishing an in-depth look at the case, specifically the manner in which the story unfolded on Twitter and Instagram as people began sharing explicit photos of the victim. The piece also detailed the response of Steubenville’s football coach Reno Saccoccia, who defended his players and stated in November that he did not “do the Internet” or see the pictures or comments being shared.

December 23rd: #OpRollRedRoll

In late December, an offshoot group of Anonymous known as KnightSec got involved with the case by hacking into the football team’s website and replacing the page with a video message warning that the group would release personal information for every student and staff member involved in the case unless an apology was issued to the victim.^[7] Operation RollRedRoll was launched on December 23rd, named after the Steubenville High School football fan site RollRedRoll.com.^[11] On January 1st, 2013, Local Leaks^[12] put up a blog post titled “The Steubenville Files,” detailing the people involved in the case including the owner of the fan site, James Parks, whose email was full of pornographic images of young women, and Coach Saccoccia, who allegedly gave drugs and alcohol to athletes who excelled. The post also profiled six students known as “The Rape Crew,” one of which had admitted to raping a girl in a leaked video.

December 29th: Occupy Steubenville

In conjunction with Operation RollRedRoll, hundreds of people^[8] gathered in front of the Jefferson County Court House in support of the victim on December 29th, 2012. Dubbed “Occupy Steubenville,” the event went onto spawn the hashtag #OccupySteubenville^[9] and the official Twitter account for the movement @Oc_Steubenville^[10], which launched on January 3rd, 2013. A second rally was held on January 5th^[26], which had a much tellmewhere2start: Words can not express how proud I am of the 2,200-3,000 people who showed up and spoke out at the #OccupySteubenville Ohio rally AND the 80,000 online.

About
The scout is an offensive class in the online game Team Fortress 2, and is a very important class if making the push. It is notorious for it’s speed and his infamous double jump. The scout seems like a very weak class, but actually can deal a lot of damage, avoiding any retaliations with his speed. His attitude is one of his main weaknesses, due to the fact that he is very arrogant, and believes that he is the toughest, even if he’s not.

Orgin
While playing on an idle server, this scout runs around destroying anybody in his path. Since he is super aggressive and fast, he tends to “taunt” at others trying to catch up. A screenshot was caught of him jumping down a tower, with his neck stretched out, his crit-gun in his hand, and his face with a “snarky” attitude. Team Fortress 2, being a normal first person shooter game, may also have a very glitchy end to it.

(This is a work in progress. Please help expand and develop by requesting editorship and/or adding pictures to the gallery)

About

#CuttingForBieber (Also known as #Cut4Bieber) is an online campaign launched by members of 4chan to create fake Twitter accounts with photos of people cutting themselves with the hashtag #CuttingForBieber.

Origin

On January 7th, 2013, a thread was posted to 4chan’s /b/ (random) board telling users to create a Twitter account and post images of cut wrists in response to Justin Bieber being revealed to have smoked marijuana (shown below)^[1]. The thread got large amounts of positive feedback and soon other threads conveying a similar message appeared.

External References

About

Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character in films noted for being shallow, quirky, feminine and providing inspiration for brooding protagonist male characters.

Origin

TThe term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” was coined by film critic Nathan Rubin in a review of the 2005 comedy-drama film Elizabethtown published on The Onion’s A.V. Club^[1] on January 25th, 2007. In the article, Rubin uses the term to describe the character Claire (played by Kirsten Dunst):

“Dunst embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for another prime example). The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

Spread

On August 4th, 2008, A.V. Club^[6] published a list of 16 films featuring MPDG stock characters, including Claire (Kirsten Dunst) in Elizabethtown, Sam (Natalie Portman) in Garden State and Penny (Kate Hudson) in Almost Famous. On October 21st, 2009, the We Love Media Criticism^[7] group blog published a post on the MPDG character, comparing it to the “Magical Negro” stock character which similarly serves the sole purpose of aiding white protagonists in film. On August 4th, 2010, an MPDG entry was created on the trope database TV Tropes,^[8] connecting the character with the “Loners and Freaks,” “Blithe Spirit” and “Silly Rabbit, Cynicism is For Losers” tropes. On December 5th, 2011, YouTuber KyletheDingbat uploaded a video in which he meets a MPDG while sketching at the park (shown below, left). On March 1st, 2012, YouTuber NaturalDisastronauts uploaded a sketch taking place in a mental health facility for MPDGs (shown below, right).

On July 24th, Flavorwire^[4] published a montage of MPDG characters in films from the past 75 years (shown below, left). On December 4th, YouTuber Adam Sacks uploaded a sketch in which a man hires a prostitute to pretend to be a MPDG (shown below, right). On the following day, Slate^[5] reblogged the video in an article questioning whether or not the MPDG trope was vanishing.

Criticism

The stock character has often been called offensive to women for being one-dimensional and having no interests or desires of her own, similar to the criticisms surrounding Mary Sue, a female stock character that is romantically idealized to be a projection of the author in fanfiction stories. On August 6th, 2008, the women’s interest blog Jezebel^[2] published an article arguing that MPDG characters were the “scourge of modern cinema,” singling out the character Sam (played by Natalie Portman) in the 2004 film Garden State as “the most pernicious of these cinematic sweethearts.” The article went on to refer to the male romantic interests of the MPDGs as “Whimpsters,”^[3] a type of manipulative, selfish and insecure man who appears to be sensitive and vulnerable on the outside. On March 22nd, 2011, YouTuber Anita Sarkeesian uploaded a video criticizing the trope, arguing that it perpetuated offensive stereotypes that women are only useful as creative inspiration for men (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

“Slut shaming” refers to the practice of criticizing a woman for engaging in certain sexual behaviors outside of traditional gender roles, whether it be actual or presumed based on her manner of dress, speech or personality. Online, such practice has been discussed in the context of cyberbullying, as some cases have led to teenage girls committing suicide, and it remains a popular debate topic among social justice bloggers.

Origin

The hyphenated term “slut-shaming” began appearing in feminist blogging circles as early as on November 14th, 2006 in an article about a fight between two female bloggers written by Alon Levy at Abstract Nonsense.^[6] After Skatje found out her former long-distance boyfriend was having cybersex with other women while they were dating, she posted a lengthy response about how terrible sex is without intimacy or love. When Katie rebutted that you do not need to love someone to have good sex with them, Skatje asked “And if I may be blunt, isn’t your lifestyle a perfect definition of the word ‘slut’?.” In response, Katie posted about the problematic nature of women calling other women sluts in a now-deleted blog post. Levy concluded the following:

The precise meaning of “Slut” is not relevant here. Slut-shaming isn’t about the use of the word, but about the implication that if a woman has sex that traditional society disapproves of, she should feel guilty and inferior.

Precursor

While stigmatizing women who appear to be sexually active or promiscuous isn’t a new development by any means, online discussions about this practice have taken place since as early as 1999 on the Straight Dope message board^[1] in a thread debating the double standard between male and female promiscuity presented within language. In the thread, some participants asserted that “slut” has an overall negative connotation, while words to describe men in this manner like “player,” “stud” or “pimp” all tend to carry a positive connotation. In August 2000, author Leora Tanenbaum published the book Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation^[2] which analyzed “slut-bashing” from the author’s autobiographical experiences in high school. Prior to the coinage of “slut shaming,” the term “slut-bashing” had been similarly used by sex ed magazine Sex, Etc.^[3] in 2001 and in the academic paper “Form and Functions of ‘Slut Bashing’ in Male Identity Constructions in 15-Year-Olds”^[4] by Michael Bamberg, which appeared in a 2004 issue of the journal Human Development. In 2006, the term appeared on Alas! A Blog^[5] in reference to a male privilege checklist, asserting that there is no male parallel to “slut bashing.”

Spread

In May 2008, a blogger named Sarah wrote a post on OhYouPrettyThings.net^[7] about the practice within feminist blogging circles as a followup to a column article on feminists who are against sex work. Later that year in September, slut shaming became a hot topic on feminist blogs the Curvature^[9] and Feminocracy^[10] after singer Jordin Sparks derailed from presenting an award at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards to rebut the host Russell Brand’s previous jabs at the Jonas Brothers for wearing the chastity symbols.^[8]

On April 4th, 2010, “slut-shaming” was defined for the first time on Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog^[14], citing Levy’s blog post. The definition looks at both the double standard in gender expectations of sexual behaviors, as well as why women are more often the perpetrators of this type of harassment. That October, “slut shaming” was defined on Urban Dictionary^[15] for the first time, described in a negative light as a way for feminist to excuse their sexual behavior. As of January 2012, this definition has accrued more than 2500 downvotes. A more balanced definition was added to Urban Dictionary in November 2010.

Controversies

SlutWalk Rally

After Toronto Police officer Constable Michael Sanguinetti suggested that young women should avoid “dressing like sluts”^[16] to deter sexual assault at a meeting on crime prevention at York University, a group of women led by Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis organized a march called SlutWalk.^[17] Held on April 3rd, 2011^[18], SlutWalk drew thousands of protestors, asserting that sexual assault is about an extertion of power and not about the victim’s appearance.^[19] The Toronto protest led to SlutWalks in other cities including London^[20], Melbourne^[21], Los Angeles^[22] and New York City^[23] throughout 2011, each drawings dozens of people supporting an end to victim blaming and slut shaming. Many photos and posts discussing the events have appeared on Tumblr with the tag #slutwalk.^[24]

Teen Suicides

In 2009, slut shaming returned as a hot discussion topic after Ohio mother Cynthia Logan came out in public and revealed that her 18-year-old daughter Jesse committed suicide^[11] after an ex-boyfriend shared nude photos of her with classmates who then harassed her by calling her a “slut.” Months later in December, a 13-year-old girl named Hope Witsell^[12] committed suicide after reportedly being shamed by her peers, which led to a lengthy discussion spanning over 150 comments about slut shaming on MetaFilter.^[13] Similar concerns resurfaced in October 2012 when 15-year-old Amanda Todd took her own life after months of name-calling harassment. A month prior to her death, she uploaded a video (shown below) detailing how her peers had been bullying her.

Related Memes

Dear Girls, Don’t Be Insecure

Dear Girls is a photoshopped image featuring model Cole Mohr in outer space holding a sign instructing women to not be insecure. Since its early appearance via Tumblr in August 2011, the photograph has been criticized for being pseudo-feministic and slut-shaming, while inspiring a number of parody re-enactments poking fun at the original message.

When Did This Become Hotter Than This

“When Did This Become Hotter Than This?” is an image macro series comparing two sets of photographs featuring celebrities or famous subjects from two distinct time periods or generations. What began as a commentary on the ever-changing definition of beauty across generations, eventually led to online debates regarding the controversial issue of body images and even expanded across areas outside of celebrities, such as cute animals and inanimate objects.

Hey Girls, Did You Know

Hey Girls, Did You Know… is a multi-pane exploitable series that started in the summer of 2012 with an Instagram post by officialsabrina_xo criticizing the way women on the site often post cleavage-bearing shots of themselves (shown below, left). After it was posted to Tumblr on June 18th, other users on the site began parodying the image with statements asserting that women should be able to dress however they want without implications (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

Beginning shortly after the release of Guitar Hero for the PlayStation 2, a game which players use guitar-shaped controllers to play well-known songs in time with a virtual band, players began to upload videos of themselves playing the songs from the games, usually without flaws and using the games Whammy Bar to achieve more in-game Star Power in order to score more points. There have been many accusations of posters using “bots” to 100% a song many would view as difficult in order to simply look cool to YouTube users. There have been videos in which the poster will show the “bot” or physical device to play the game in the videos. With the release of Guitar Hero II and III and so on (for PS2, Xbox and PS3), more "impossible songs’’, such as Through the Fire and Flames by speed metal band Dragonforce, have been added to the game’s song list, and users typically add videos of said song or other songs near the end of the games due to their high levels of difficulty. Also, videos have been posted of the game Rock Band but may include other “instruments” from the game due to Rock Band featuring drums, bass, and vocals with respectively shaped controllers. Users continue to use the game own version of the Whammy bar and “Overdirve” equivalent of Star Power to achieve the most points, and post their highest ratings, usually five-stars and 100% rating.

About

Who Needs Feminism? is a single topic Tumblr and Facebook page dedicated to posting photos of people explaining why they need feminism, and why feminism is important to them.

Origin

The Tumblr^[1] and Facebook page^[2] were created in April of 2012 by 16 female students participating in a class at Duke University, entitled Women in the Public Sphere, as part of their final project.^[3] The students went around campus asking their peers why they needed feminism, and would take pictures of them holding up a whiteboard with their explanation on it, all of them starting with the phrase “I need feminism because”.^[4] They would print the photos as posters to be hung around campus, and then created a Facebook and Tumblr page to post them on.^[4]

Spread

After a month, their Facebook page had received over 11,000 likes, and their Tumblr had received more than 80,000 visits from 144 countries.^[4] The project also spread to other campuses, such as Iowa State University^[12], University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill^[13], and Ithica University^[14]. It’s popularity was covered by several online news publications such as Buzzfeed^[5], Good Magazine^[6], and Mashable^[7]. The project also won Good Magazine’s “GOOD Goes Viral” challenge for the best social media campaign of the year.^[8] Later that year, the creators of the Facebook and Tumblr pages created a Twitter account^[9] under the name “INeedFeminism”, as well as a separate website to continue their project through.^[10]

Criticism

With it’s popularity, the project also received criticism from men’s rights activists and anti-feminists.^[15] An opposing, anti-feminist website, WhoNeedsFeminism.org, was created in December of 2012.^[11] Similar to the original site, it posts pictures of people holding their explanations, but instead they explain why they’re against feminism, and how feminism has negatively affected them.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Tumblr – Who Needs Feminism?

^[2]Facebook – Who Needs Feminism?

^[3]Who Needs Feminism? – Who Needs Feminism? – About

^[4]WUNC 91.5 – North Carolina Public Radio – Who Needs Feminism?

^[5]Buzzfeed – Who Needs Feminism?

^[6]Good Magazine – Redefining the F-Bomb: Who Needs Feminism?

^[7]Mashable – ‘Who Needs Feminism?’ New Tumblr Promotes Gender Equality

^[8]Good Magazine – GOOD Goes Viral: What’s Your Favorite Social Media Campaign?

^[9]Twitter – INeedFeminism

^[10]Who Needs Feminism? – Who Needs Feminism? – Home

^[11]Who Needs Feminism – Who Needs Feminism – About

^[12]Iowa State Daily – ’Who Needs Feminism campaign comes to ISU

^[13]Safe@UNC – Who Needs Feminism campaign

^[14]The Ithican – Commentary: Who needs feminism campaign comes to campus

^[15]The Chronicle – Feminism campaign sparks widespread dialogue, backlash

About

Parkour, also known as “Freerunning,” is a type of physical training in which practitioners navigate through and clear obstacles by using a variety of methods, including running, climbing, jumping and balancing. Since being popularized in the early 2000s, footage of parkour enthusiasts have been featured in advertisements, films and are often uploaded to video-sharing sites like YouTube.

History

“Parkour” comes from the French word “le parcours,” which was coined by French soldier Raymond Belle in reference to “parcours du combattant,” a type of military obstacle course developed by French physical educator Georges Hébert and inspired by the athleticism of indigenous African tribes. In 1988, Raymond Belle’s son David began turning his father’s physical fitness training into the parkour discipline in Lisses, France.^[1]

According to Wikipedia,^[2] parkour received national recognition after a French television program aired footage of Belle’s parkour group in the late 1990s. In September of 2003, the term “freerunning” was coined by Sébastien Foucan to introduce parkour to the English-speaking world during the filming of the documentary Jump London. Also in 2003, former boxer Paul Corkery founded the UK-based clothing company Urban Freeflow,^[3] which claims to be the “first ever brand of parkour & freerunning.” On September 19th, 2005, the website American Parkour^[4] was launched, which features a community forum, event calendars, parkour directories, a clothing store, instructional resources and media.

Reception

Parkour videos began spreading online in the early 2000s, prior to the launch of the video-sharing site YouTube. One of the earliest was highlighted on MSN, featuring footage of two parkour practitioners climbing walls and jumping across roof tops (shown below, left). The earliest known parkour video on YouTube was uploaded by user mrWoot on September 2nd, 2005, featuring several different men performing parkour tricks outdoors and inside a shopping mall (shown below, right). Within the next seven years, the video received over 40 million views, 168,000 up votes and 89,000 comments.

On February 4th, 2006, YouTuber Kamikazeepanda uploaded a video titled “Evolution – Le parkour,” featuring members of the United Kingdom parkour team 3Run (shown below, left). The video accumulated over 16.6 million views, 11.900 comments and 40,700 up votes within seven years. On June 7th, YouTuber sauloca uploaded footage of several men doing parkour and freerunning (shown below, right). Within the next seven years, the video received over 35.7 million views and 92,800 up votes.

On April 30th, 2010, British stuntman Damien Walters uploaded a montage of freerunning stunts to YouTube (shown below). On May 1st, Redditor Nick4753 submitted the video to the /r/reddit.com^[6] subreddit, where it received over 3,800 up votes and 790 comments prior to being archived. Within the next three years, the video accumulated over 19 million views and 32,000 comments.

As of January 2013, there are over 621,000 search results for the keyword “parkour” on YouTube.

FAIL Videos

A significant portion of parkour videos on YouTube include “FAIL” compilations, which feature clips of parkour practitioners failing to complete their stunts (shown below). As of January 2013, there are over 53,500 search results for the keywords “parkour fail” on YouTube.

Impact

On September 16th, 2007, the Australian television program 60 Minutes^[5] broadcast a segment on parkour, which referred to the training as “skateboarding without skates” (shown below).

Several films have incorporated parkour into action sequences, including the film District B13 released on November 10th, 2005, featuring parkour founder David Belle as the protagonist Leïto (shown below, left). On November 12th, 2008, the action-adventure game Mirror’s Edge was released, which included parkour-inspired gameplay involving jumping off rooftops, negotiating obstacles and climbing walls (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

The Tree Swing Cartoon Parodies, usually called as “What the customer really needed” (Japanese: 顧客が本当に必要だったもの), are a series of photo collages based on a cartoon explaining how projects really work by tree swings. It has become one of the template images to caricature failure in product managements since the middle of 2000s.

Origin

The source of this fad is a cartoon explaining perception gaps in software developing projects by 10 pattern of tree swings. It was posted to the web circa 2003.^[1] And its Japanese translated version, titled as “This is how IT projects really work”, was first posted to Dashi Blog on February 22nd, 2004.^[2]

On the Japanese web, this cartoon is usually dubbed as “What the customer really needed” which is a caption of the last cell.

This cartoon had been often cited in blog posts around 2004-2006. In a reflection of its popularity on the web, a web site dedicated to this cartoon, THEPROJECTCARTOON.com, was launched in the middle of 2006.^[3] This web site provides translated versions of this cartoon in 15 languages and its updated versions added new cells.

Precursor

Tree swing picture, also called as tyre/tire picture, has been sometimes used for explaining or caricaturing discrepancies in managements since 1970s. The oldest instance known in today is an illustration posted to University of London Computer Center Newsletter in March, 1973 (shown below, left). In the academic world, this picture became to be known by being cited in the book The Oregon Experiment^[4] published in 1975 (shown below, right). It was written by Christopher Alexander^[5], an architect known as the founder of “Pattern Language”.

A web site businessballs.com has been searching the origin, and listing variations of Tree Swing Pictures found on old textbooks.^[6]

Spread

Along with the increase of this cartoon’s recognizability by several blog posts, it became to a sort of template for parodies or photo collages in the Japanese web pages or image board sites like Futaba Channel (2chan), which caricature various kind of product managements. A gallery page for those parody photo collages was uploaded on July of 2008.^[7] As of 2012, it has about 130 images. Besides, an article for this cartoon was submitted to niconico Pedia on September of 2010.^[8]

Examples

Most of parody photos are made by just swapping images to editor’s favorites. Meanings of Japanese captions in each cell are the same to the original.

Search Interest

External References

About

In World War Two, there was a Mad Scientist named Dr. Von Richter. To escape being captured and triaaled at the Nuremburg Trials, he fees to South America.
While in South America, he creates various humnoid creations. One of his series was the Cyber series.
One day Von Richter starts kiling all of the Cybers, because they are disobediant. Only two Cybers remain alive: Cybersix, and Cyber29 (whose brain was transplanted into the brain of a pather named Data7, before this genocide began).
Cybersix escapes with a black man she called “Dad”. One day, Von Richters minions go to the fishing village where the two were hiding in. They kill ‘Dad’, because he refused to tell where Cybersix is. Cybersix escapes to the city of Meridiana. She takes the Identity of a boy that died in a car accident, Adrian Seidelman.

Life is good, until, one day Cybersix runs out of Sustenance (a greenish chemical she needs to consume in order to stay alive). She finds a Techno (aother creation of Herr Dokter) prostitute, and steals sustenance fom her. She then takes a black catsuit, cape, heels, and hat from her wardrobe. From then on, she goes out on the proll at night, looking for some sustenance.

Origin

Cybersix was orginally a comic series made in 1993. It was adapted into a live-action series in 1995.

In 1996 an anime series called “Cybersix” was released. Unfortunately, the series was cut after 13 episodes.

Spread
All of the Cybersix episoodes aare available n Youtube as of January 2013.

As for the comcs, no official english translation for the comics has been made, but a blogger (Pharmadan) has been translating the comics. He has currently completed the translation of Volume 1.
Notable Quotes

“Just proves again that brilliance always floats to the surface.” -Von Richter (Cybersix)

“Come back to me, work with me, and I will free you. As a team, we will be unstoppable.” -Von Richter (Cybersix)

“Data7, watch this. That is Cybersix!”
-Von Richter at the beginning of Episode Two: Data7 and Julian

Cybersix: “Where did you come from?”
Elaine: “Von Richter. I was sent to find and destroy you.”

-Episode 10: Full Moon fascination, as Elaine was dying.
 

“You can come after me, but I won’t run.” -Cybersix

Search Interest

External Links  
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL555EADF0228FEC48
http://pharmadan.blogspot.ca/p/cybersix.html
http://cybersix.wikia.com/wiki/Cybersix_Wiki