About

Ken-Sama is a fictional character and copypasta story about an adult American male named Ken who is highly obsessed with the Japanese and Otaku culture. Variations of the copypasta commonly involve different people being obsessed with other cultures and stereotypes in the style of Ken-Sama, with the writing commonly matching to a style associated with it. The original copypasta is commonly combined with a picture of an adult male wearing a Kimono.

Origin

The first archived instance of the Ken-Sama copypasta can be found on a archived /jp/ (otaku culture) thread from July 7th, 2009, that can be found on Archive.Foolz.^[1] The original picture often combined with the copypasta originates from the Nerd Knits blog,^[2] hosted by knitter Marisa Ebers, and was first posted on September 7th, 2005. The person on the photo is the husband of Ebers, Bradon (shown above).

Gomenasai, my name is Ken-Sama.

I’m a 27 year old American Otaku (Anime fan for you gaijins). I draw Anime and Manga on my tablet, and spend my days perfecting my art and playing superior Japanese games. (Disgaea, Final Fantasy, Persona series)

I train with my Katana every day, this superior weapon can cut clean through steel because it is folded over a thousand times, and is vastly superior to any other weapon on earth. I earned my sword license two years ago, and I have been getting better every day.

I speak Japanese fluently, both Kanji and the Osaka dialect, and I write fluently as well. I know everything about Japanese history and their bushido code, which I follow 100%

When I get my Japanese visa, I am moving to Tokyo to attend a prestigious High School to learn more about their magnificent culture. I hope I can become an animator for Studio Ghibli or a game designer!

I own several kimonos, which I wear around town. I want to get used to wearing them before I move to Japan, so I can fit in easier. I bow to my elders and seniors and speak Japanese as often as I can, but rarely does anyone manage to respond.

Spread

Over the course of July 2009, the copypasta was posted numerous times on both the /jp/ (otaku culture) and /a/ (anime & manga) blogs on 4chan and kept being posted after that. As of January 16th, 2013, searching for “Ken-Sama” results in over 200 pages of results on archive.foolz. A blogspot was created for Ken-Sama on October 29th, 2010, but has gone inactive as of November 6th of the same year.^[3] A Facebook page can also be found for Ken-Sama.^[4] Introduction posts for Ken-Sama can also be found on Gametrailers,^[5] Yahoo Answers^[6] and Flashflash Revolution.^[7]

Following the events of the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan,^[12] numerous posters on 4chan gave their condolences to Ken-Sama.^[13] A record sharing the information of Ken-Sama’s death in the event was also posted on the Google Person Finder in the days following the earthquake (shown below).

A 2-part copypasta story describing Ken-Sama’s final moments before the earthquake and tsunami hit was also created, with the first archived instance of it being from August 1st, 2011.^[14]

The wind blows. It is 7 in the morning, Ken-sama woke up to the cold morning. He got up, and went to the bathroom to wash his face. Ken-sama live in a traditional Japanese house, he only rent a room though. The old couple is nice enough to let him stay in their house.

Ken-sama grepped his kimono and wear it like a proper nihonjin, he walk to a window and smell the fresh nihonjin morning. “Ah, konbanwa anatas. What beautiful morning desu.” Ken-sama zoned out looking at the beach from his room. Ken-sama went downstairs to greet the old couple. “Ah, ohayou ojisan and obasan”. The old couple replied him with a warm smile and proceed with their breakfast while inviting Ken-sama.

Although Ken-sama can not understand them, he easily could read what the old couple is trying to say, he is born with this talent. “Arigato.” Ken-sama said, he then went upstairs to take a few things. He took a bokken and a katana, the katana is hidden in his kimono and the bokken is on his obi, this is to avoid being arrested by authorities as he was warned last time. Ken-sama will be going on his usual morning walk to sightseeing the glorious nihonjin country. “Itadakimasu obasan and ojisan”, they gave him a mixed smile and a slightly confused expression.

Ken-sama reached the park near the beach, he like to watch kids playing as it is a something that can warm his pure heart. Suddenly, a sudden tremor. No, it’s more terrifying than that, it’s an earthquake, a huge one. The ground was shaking and beginning to crack, Ken-sama look at the children, they were running away terrified, “minna san! do not run around! Stay in place!”

The kids couldn’t understand what he was saying, he gestured what he was trying to say, he ordered the kids to stay in the middle of the park as it is too dangerous. But that was Ken-sama’s mistake, he look at the beach from afar. It was huge, a tsunami is coming. Ken-sama widened his eyes and look at the children and yelled every Japanese word he knew “Arigatou gozaimasu! Gomenasai! Run away minna-san!”

The children ran away, the wave is coming, it was at least 100ft tall. Ken-sama was ashamed with himself, he should have anticipated this, if he did the children would be far away by now. “sumimasen mina-san, it was my mistake”, he took his hidden katana and dual wield with the bokken and katana. As he ran towards the tsunami trying to stop it, he uttered his last words. “Arigatou obasan, ojisan. For taking care of me” The wave rise even higher. A shout is heard; “Nippon banzai!”.

On June 16th, 2012, a memorial video^[8] for Ken-Sama was taken down from Youtube after a copyright claim by Marisa Ebers, which she later explained on her Twitter^[9] was due to the picture representing Ken-Sama was actually her husband. Archived threads discussing this can be found on both the /v/ (videogames)^[10] and /jp/ (otaku culture)^[11] on 4chan.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Witness from Fryazino (Rus. Свидетель из Фрязино) is a popular Russian internet-meme, based on photo of five unidentified people, standing nearby the registry office after wedding party in Fryazino city. The man on the right probably was a witness (in Russia – friend from bridegroom’s side) on this wedding. Calling by Internet users as “Witness from Fryazino”, he became a character of photoshopped image series.

Origin

This photo first appeared at popular Russian photoshopers’ site named leprosorium.ru in 2006. Images with him soon spread around site, then around Russian Internet. He is used in different situations, like accidents or events. There is a legend that Witness has seen everything in humanity’s history.

Personalty

The man on the photo is unidentified, but there is an unconfirmed information that he’s name is Aleksey, and he knows about his popularity, but not very glad about it.

Gallery

About

Financial Advice Dog is an advice animal image macro series featuring a Golden Retriever wearing eyeglasses and sitting at a desk with an open notebook. The captions juxtapose accounting jargons with canine puns, similar to those found in Lawyer Dog images.

Origin

On January 10th, 2013, Redditor jpbarton1 submitted the photograph in a post^[1] titled “Friend just took this pic of his dog..I think it has potential” to the /r/funny subreddit. In less than a week, it received 18,555 upvotes and 1,712 points overall. Many Redditors immediately replied with captioned images throughout the day, including Redditor hissing_prig^[2] who complemented the character with the “I Should Buy a Boat” Cat as one of his wealthy clients.

Spread

Shortly thereafter, Redditor fuzzysamurai took Redditor hissing_prig’s joke even further with another submission^[3] referencing the cat, which gained more than 20,000 upvotes and 1641 points within six days. Also on that day, Financial Advice Dog reached Tumblr for the first time via Tastefully Offensive.^[4] Throughout the following week, various compilations of Financial Advice Dog images appeared on FunnyJunk^[5], Pleated Jeans^[6], the Huffington Post^[7], Cheezburger^[8], Uproxx^[9] and BroBible.^[10] As of mid-January 2013, there are 185 submissions to the Financial Advice Dog Quickmeme^[11] page and more than 100 of these were submitted to Reddit.^[12]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Axe Cop is a webcomic written by Malachai Nicolle and drawn by his brother Ethan Nicolle. The comic tells the story of a police officer named “Axe Cop” who fights crime and evil with a range of allies. The comic gained notable popularity within days of its beginning due to the quirky stories and child-like style of the comic.

Origin and Growth

[To Be Expanded Upon]

In 2009, Ethan Nicolle began drawing single pages of a story called “Axe Cop” as a parallel to the games he played with his then 5-year-old brother, Malachai. Nicolle at first didn’t intend to upload or publish the comic in any way, but decided to after drawing five “episodes.”

Within four days of upload, the site had been called Entertainment Weekly’s “site of the day”, and had more than 1800 fans on facebook. Within two weeks, the site crashed twice, and saw up to 52,000 views.

About

‘My brand’ is a phrase taken from a 1-800 CONTACTS commercial aired in 2008.
In the video the man exclaims that 1-800 CONTACTS cannot have ‘his brand’ because he has ‘special eyes’

This spawned a popular parody:

On January 15, 2013 traces of horse meat DNA were found in frozen beef burgers at several Irish and British Supermarkets. These supermarkets included Tesco, Asda, Dunnes Stores, Lidl, Aldi and Iceland (supermarket). The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) conducted tests on a selection of beef and salami products with best before dates between June 2012 and March 2014.
Of 27 beef products tested 37% were positive for horse DNA and 85% were positive for pig DNA. Of 31 beef meals products tested 21 were positive for pig DNA but all were negative for horse DNA. 19 salami products were tested but were negative for all foreign DNA.
Of the 37% of beef products tested positive for horse DNA, Tesco Everyday Value Beef Burgers tested at 29.1%. All other reported brands had >0.3% horse DNA. These products originated from Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods in Ireland and Dalepak Hambilton food processing plant in the United Kingdom. Trace amounts of horse DNA was also found in raw ingredients shipped imported from Spain and the Netherlands.
The FSAI had announced that they are working with the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the processing plants to investigate the matter. Tesco, Asda and Aldi have removed all the offending products from stock^[4]. Aldi is conducting their own separate investigation.
Horse meat is not a regular food consumed in Ireland and Britain. According to Professor Reilly, chief executive of the FSAI‘In Ireland it is not our culture to eat horse meat and therefore, we do not expect to find it in a burger’. Silvercrest, a subsidiary of ABP Foods has assured that there is no risk to the public upon eating the foreign meat. However, many of the issues raised surrounding this incident do not stem from an aversion to horse meat or safety concerns.
Religious groups such as the Muslim or Jewish cannot consume certain types of meat, particularly pig. Professor Reilly states ‘for some religious groups or people who abstain from eating pig meat, the presence of traces of pig DNA is unacceptable’. The question of the reliability of Irish food traceability has also been called into question. In Britain the incident has been a catalyst for the discussion of the validity of a self-regulated meat industry. Karen Jenning, UNISON’s assistant general secretary declares that ‘the industry isn’t fit to regulate itself’ Tesco dropped €360million in market value by Wednesday 16th January

Background

In October 2012, Notre Dame football player Manti Te’o^[1] appeared in a YouTube video to speak about the recent losses of his grandmother and his girlfriend, both of whom had passed away from illnesses only six hours apart on September 12th, 2012.^[2]

Notable Developments

Deadspin Article

On January 16th, 2013, Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey of Deadspin^[3] published an investigation into Lennay Kekua’s existence after finding that there was no record of her, let alone her death, anywhere. They also found that the photographs used to identify Kekua in the media belonged to a 22-year-old Californian woman who did not know Te’o. As she was looking at the social media accounts that supposedly belonged to Kekua, she noticed that the image used on Kekua’s Twitter background (shown below) had not been posted anywhere online previously. Taken in December 2012, this specific photo was sent directly to high school acquaintance Ronaiah Tuiasosopo after he had asked her to take a photo holding up a sign that said ’MSMK" to “put in a slideshow” to help boost the morale of his cousin who had been in a serious car accident. After finding the photo, she called Tuiasosopo who acted strangely, but told her not to worry about it. The photo was then removed from the profile.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo was a football player in high school who had not continued on afterwards, unlike many of his NFL-playing family members. After he graduated in 2008, he got involved with his father’s church, going on to lead the band as well as launching his own YouTube music channel.^[4] Te’o and Tuiasosopo were friends, chatting over Twitter, although Tuiasosopo deleted his account^[5] as of January 17th. According to his friends,^[3] Tuiasosopo fabricated the identity of Lennay in 2008 and Te’o was not the first person to have an online relationship with her. Tuiasosopo has been quiet on the matter, however, his father Titus posted a note on his Facebook page^[9] thanking friends and family for their support during a time where their name has been “splattered all over the media.”

<a href="https://twitter.com/iworship">iworship</a> Happy bday bro</p>&mdash; Manti Te'o (MTeo_5) June 27, 2012

The article was subsequently posted to Reddit twice, earning 2374 points in the NFL subreddit^[22] and 1329 points in the News subreddit.^[23]

Media Coverage

Almost immediately after the Deadspin article was published, many other blogs and news sites began to pick up the story. Within 24 hours, the story had been featured on USA Today^[15], CNN^[16], the Huffington Post^[17] and TMZ^[18] among others. Many of these outlets including Hollywood.com^[19], MTV^[20] and TIME^[21] likened the situation to the ones that take place in the 2010 documentary movie Catfish, in which photographer Nev Schulman goes to meet his online girlfriend Megan, only to find out she does not exist and was created by an older woman. On January 17th, Schulman was interviewed byABC News^[10] about the Te’o situation, during which he noted that he had been contacted by people involved in the hoax prior to Deadspin’s expose, alluding that other people may have “dated” Kekua as well. The same day, blogger Justin Megahan^[14] posted a handful of tweets from @jayRahz^[13] claiming that he knew the profile was a fake as early as December 2012. The tweets were later reposted to Mashable.^[12]

My fam & I have an idea who the guy is behind the <a href="https://twitter.com/lennaykay">lennaykay</a> profile &amp; hes up there leading a worship band at his dad's church! SMFH</p>&mdash; jay.R (jayRahz) December 4, 2012

Official Statements

Approximately one hour after the Deadspin story was published, Notre Dame responded via Facebook^[7] claiming that Te’o had been the victim of a cruel hoax and the school would be assisting Te’o and his family in an investigation into the matter. The post was shared more than 1700 times and garnered more than 1780 comments. An hour after this statement was released, Te’o shared his thoughts on the matter^[8] stating that he was incredibly embarrassed by the situation and acknowledged that he had only maintained his relationship with Kekua online, despite his previous argument^[11] that they had met at a game.

#Teoing

On the evening of January 16th, the single topic Tumblr #Teoing^[6] launched, collecting photos of men standing with their arm outstretched as if they were putting it around someone, as well as empty chairs where their “girlfriends” were, similar to Eastwooding. Later, the blog went on to include other styles of image macros and parodies about the event.

Search Interest

External References

Note: Work in progress, researching, request editorship if any valuable info

About

Flying Lawnmower refers to footage of a Green remotely-controlled Lawnmower-model “airplane” flying and performing aerial stunts. The video saw a resurgence in popularity in 2012, inspiring a series of video remixes and animated GIFs with captions that are often time motivational or contain irrelevant quotes.

Origin

The lawnmower shown in the footage is a Sky Cutter flying lawnmower by custom model airplane producer FlyingThingz.^[3] It is unknown when the product was first put up for sale, but threads discussing the product can be found on the RC Universe forums as early as March 28th, 2002.^[4]

On November 15th, 2003, a link to a video of a flying Sky Cutter lawnmower was posted on the tech news website Slashdot.^[5] The video has since been removed. On October 28th, 2004, a video was uploaded to Metacafe^[1] of a Green Sky Cutter .40 V2 Lawnmower flying in the air and performing aerial stunts accompanied by the song “Cotton-Eyed Joe” by the 1990s’ Swedish Techno group Rednex (shown below).

Spread

On December 7th, 2004, the Metacafe video was uploaded to the Internet humor site CollegeHumor^[2]. On February 21st, 2005, Break “Cotton Eyed Joe” by Rednex. YTMND^[9]“Lawnmower Dreams” October 25th, 2005. On February 28, 2006, YouTuber Mike Helton uploaded the flying lawnmower “Cotton-Eyed Joe” video. Within the next seven years, the video received over 500,000 views and over 2,000 comments. On October 20, 2010, a remix of the video (shown below, left), featuring the song “Walking In the Air” by the Metal group Nightwish being used as the background song, was uploaded to Youtube, gaining over 200,000 views. On November 21st, the original video has managed to gain a mention on CNN’s “Viral Video” segment^[5] (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

Origin

the 15th of January, 2013, a train plowed into a home in the outskirts of the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Apparently the train had been stolen by a 22-year-old cleaning lady who had then driven the train from it’s station, a few kilometers away, and without being able to brake, crashed into a suburb building. No one was harmed besides the culprit who survived with injuries, as the rest of the train was empty, and the residents of the building were not present. The news made alot of swedes chuckle and memetic images soon emerged.

Public reaction

Though the accident was obviously initially broadcasted through various swedish news media, it didn’t take long before the shares on facebook and twitter began. Due to other recent national tragedies (among them, a massive car pile-up that shook Sweden), the fact that nobody died in this whole incident is probably what made it so laughable. Some concern has been shown towards the family’s house and their inconvenience, it has been made public that they were provided with hotel accommodations for the time being, until final repairs have been made.

Few spin-off pictures or videos have been made, but one in particular was shared massively on social sites after the accident. The image simply displays the aftermath of the crash, and the slogan from a well known coffee producer and their slogan that can be translated to: “For when you get unexpected visitors”. The usually romantic meaning of this slogan was probably what made the image so bizzarrely funny and thus, shared.

About

Tumblr After Dark refers a series of unitelligent or absurd posts made by Tumblr users during hours they should not actually be scrolling the internet and should be sleeping. Due to their lack of sleep at the time of posting, they are not functioning normally, resulting in posts and quotes that they would normally not post. These posts are often met by replies telling those users they should go to bed.

Background

Presumably (As the internet is open 24 hours) the sleepy bloggers or “Nightbloggers” are from the US. So late or night refers to mainly North America time zones.

Spread

Some users compile these posts in to longer ones using screen caps like so:

The posts tend to be quite long and contain many different screen grabs all from different sources.
More recently though a dedicated Tumblr after Dark account has been activated: http://t-afterdark.tumblr.com/

About

“Circle Jerk” is a slang term referring to the positive feedback loop that can occur when ideas and beliefs are reinforced within a group or subculture’s enclosed space. The phenomenon is typically observed on websites that consists of self-contained forums for specific interests or subcultures.

Origin

The term “circle jerk” was initially used to describe a sexual practice involving a group of men who masturbate themselves or each other while sitting in a circle. On January 22nd, 1999, Online Slang Dictionary^[4] user Audrey M. submitted an entry for “circle jerk,” which provided an alternative definition of the term as “a pointless group endeavor.” On February 12th, 2001, the book Studs, Tools, and the Family Jewels: Metaphors Men Live By^[2] by Peter Francis Murphy was released, defining “circlejerk” as “a boring or time-wasting meeting or other event.” On May 17th, 2003, Urban Dictionary^[7] user “anti-racist” submitted an entry for the term “circlejerk,” which defined the term as both a group sex act and an echo chamber-style discussion.

“To kneel in a circle with others and pleasure oneself. Also refers to a pompous, self-congratulatory discussion where little to no progress is made.”

Echo Chamber Effect

The echo chamber effect^[10] refers to a phenomenon that occurs when people are isolated in social circles that confirm personal biases, beliefs and ideologies. Online, the phenomenon became amplified after transitioning from BBS sites to social networking communities in the late 2000s, where users and algorithms could curate what feeds they followed based on their own interests and biases. The effect has often been criticized for allowing false information to spread without being challenged and creating barrier in communication between those who share differing opinions.

Spread

On July 16th, 2005, The Constructive Curmudgeon^[11] blog posted a review of the film What the Bleep Do We Know?, to which commenter Phil Aldrige referred to the film as a “new age circlejerk.” On October 10th, Straight Dope Forums^[9] member Zebra posted a thread asking other members to define the term “circle jerk,” to which member THespos responded that it was often used in his office to describe time-wasting meetings. On January 3rd, 2006, an entry titled “The LiveJournal Circle Jerk” was created on the Internet culture wiki Encyclopedia Dramatica,^[14] described as “an elitist group of inept trolls who go about ”http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/livejournal">LiveJournal, fellating one another’s egos at every turn." On July 18th, 2007, YouTuber chris3ff uploaded a video referring to YouTube celebrity collaboration videos as a “circle jerk” (shown below).

/r/circlejerk

On December 10th, 2008, the /r/circlejerk^[6] subreddit was created, in which Redditors posted cliche catchphrases, memes and beliefs that are considered to be pervasive among the Reddit community, such as praising the American politician Ron Paul and use of the terms “so brave”, “up votes to the left” and “literally Hitler.” Since then, several other circlejerk subreddits have been created, including /r/fitnesscirclejerk, /r/engineeringcirclejerk and /r/liberalcirclejerk. On August 6th, 2012, Redditor tikatwit submitted the question “What is /r/circlejerk” to the /r/ExplainItLikeImFive^[3] subreddit, to which Redditor -Sam-R responded that it was a subreddit for satirizing common posts and beliefs found on social news aggregating site. On January 1st, 2013, Redditor Khiva submitted an “Anatomy of a circlejerk” to the /r/circlebroke^[5] subreddit, which pointed out several notable quirks about the Reddit “hivemind.” As of January 2013, SubRedditFinder^[8] has over 65 subreddits tagged with the label “circlejerk” and a Facebook^[13] page titled “Reddit Circlejerk” has received over 3,100 likes.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Petter Kverneng is a male from Norway, around the age of 20 years. He gained fame (on the Internet) after posting an image of himself with a friend, in which Kverneng is holding a sign that says

“Cathrine says that if I can get 1M. ‘LIKES’ she will have sex with me. Please share and like!”

followed by a heart sign and an arrow pointing to the female (Cathrine) next to him.

Background

Norwegian teenager Petter Kverneng gained popularity on the Internet after posting a photo of himself and a friend, titled “Please, help me get laid!”, but quickly went viral, gaining over 1 million likes on Facebook within 19 hours.

It reached news websites fairly quickly as well. Kverneng stated to a local news outlet that it started out as a joke, but if it somehow would manage to get the 1 million likes, they would indeed have intercourse.

Notable Developments

(No Google Trend statistics available yet)
The image gained quick popularity on Facebook by users sharing the post.

About

We Came by Bike (Japanese: チャリで来た, Chari de kita) is the superimposed message on a photo of Japanese early teen homeboys. This catchy message and their impressive pose in the picture have been the popular fodder of photoshop, illustrations and re-enactments by Japanese internet users since late 2011.

Origin

The origin of this meme is a print club sticker picture of four Japanese homeboys pretending to be cool with fist pumping and smug look. And, the message written on the picture by themselves is: “We came by bike.” (チャリで来た。).

For Japanese sensibilities, this picture looks so much ridiculous because of these reasons:

• They wear dowdy Japanese juvenile delinquents (Bōsōzoku^[1] or Yanki^[2]) style fashion. Nowadays, it’s considered quite uncool especially on the web.
• All of them is too short in height and baby-faced look to wear that fashion.
• The message isn’t something to brag about at all.

It’s uncertain where this picture came from, although someone says it was leaked from back data in print club sticker by video game arcade staff, or uploaded to a mobile social network service popular among junior high / high school students by themselves. At least, this picture have been occasionally posted to threads on /news4vip/ board in 2channel since late 2009, where people collect ridiculous pictures of Bōsōzoku boys and girls.

Spread

This picture began capturing the attention by itself around the end of 2011. On January 8th, 2012, a thread for collecting parodies of “We came by Bike” succeeded to gather dozens of photo collages.^[3] A Twitter bot posting those photoshop collections was also launched in that month.^[4] From then on, parody illustrations featuring these boys began increasing on both Japanese illustrators community pixiv^[5] and niconico Seiga^[6], the illustration sharing service in Nico Nico Douga (NND). People have created those parodies by rearranging the order of the letters in the title to various humorous statements in rhyme scheme.

In a reflection of this online popularity, Niwango, the company managed NND, added the “We came by bike” photo frame to their original print club sticker in the niconico headquarters shop in Harajuku, Tokyo in the following month.^[7] Besides, a Japanese company YEDOFACTORY released an iphone/ipad application of superimposing “We came by Bike.” style message on photos in October of that year.^[8]

Response Came by Magazine

On April 2012, it made a headline on the web that the three in them appeared as friends of an interviewed girl’s boyfriend on the first issue of Japanese gal fashion magazine egg JK.^[9] This article mentioned their online popularity, introduced them as the famous people on the web and posted their response to the online fame: “Hey 2channel-ers, that’s enough with the jokes.” It was also revealed that they took this picture when they were 13 years old.

And the final sentence in the article was this confession by them: “Today, We Came by Motorbike”.

False Accusation

On July 10th 2012, a Japanese celebrity Dewi Sukarno^[10], the third wife of the previous Indonesian leader Sukarno^[11], posted a message about the Otsu bullying case^[12] to her blog.^[13] In that post, she totally ignored Japanese juvenile laws and aggressively blamed perpetrators with their real names and several pictures that were flowing as their faces on the web. However, one of the pictures in that post was what was captured from “We came by bike”.

Screenshot taken from Dewi Sukarno’s blog post

Shortly after, she replaced their real names to initials and took down all pictures from the article. But her failure was immediately covered by not a few 2channel affiliated blogs and online gosip news sites.^[14]

Notable Examples

Photo Collages

“We Came by Sledge”
(So-Ri-De-Ki-Ta_)

“We Came to Paris”
(Pa-Ri-Ni-Ki-Ta_)

“God Has Decended”
(Ka-Mi-O-Ri-Ta)

“We Came to the Moon”
(Tsu-Ki-Ni-Ki-Ta)

“Spring Has Come”
(Ha-Ru-Ga-Ki-Ta)

“We Came to the North”
(Ki-Ta-Ni-Ki-Ta)

• Compilation

【ニコニコ動画】「チャリで来た。」まとめ

Illustrations

“We Came to London”
K-ON!

“We Have Been Summoned”
Cthulhu

“We Came by Eva”
Neon Genesis Evangelion

“The Shrine Maiden Has Come”
Touhou Project

“We Came to G.I (Greed Island)”
HUNTER x HUNTER

“We Came by Teleport Alpha”
EarthBound

Tributes

Search Interest

External References

Happiness is a shock site that is really hard to find on the internet, a man takes 6 kids into his bedroom, and stretches their anus, he stretches them so hard, blood and poop go all over his face. The man then started to rage, and somehow puts the 6 kids in a blender, and then drinks it. The man then takes a knife to cut off his nipples, his lips, and to cut off his brain. The video stops.

The man who was in the video, was actually possessed, and has been written as “Based on a true story” on a few exorcism films.
The man’s name is unknown, but people refer to him as the “King of Satan”. This used to be a FaceBook app, but FaceBook blocked the app because it’s a malicious app.

Overview

Giovanna Plowman is a teenager that recently has been getting a lot of attention for a video she’s made of her sucking on a used tampon that was uploaded on January 20, 2013. Since the original video’s upload, it’s been flagged and taken down by YouTube for violating its policy on shocking and disgusting content, but it’s been copied and uploaded by other YouTubers and can also be seen on Liveleak.com.

Notable Developments

Giovanna Plowman has been getting a lot of attention on Youtube from reaction videos and other YouTubers simply commenting about the video.

She’s also been getting some attention on Facebook, with some pages posting Image Macros about her.

See more on Know Your Meme

Most recently she’s appeared on the news website, examiner.com, where there is mention of some cyberbullying against her.

See more on Know Your Meme

Note: Further research needed to define a possible origin. Credit to “Pocket Exception” for New Title.

About

X Shuts Up the Queen of Hearts (Also known by its full title X Tells the Queen of Hearts to Shut Up) is an exploitable meme that appeared on Youtube dating back to 2011. It comprises of a short video, normally less than 10 seconds in length, showing the Queen of Hearts from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland shouting “Off With Their Heads!” before a cut-in clip featuring another character “X” saying “Shut Up” at the Queen, making her cower back.

Origin

The origin of the meme is unknown, but the earliest known video to appear on Youtube featuring this meme was uploaded on November 24, 2011 by user “FantasyFilms2011”, where Madagasscar Character King Julian tells the Queen of Hearts to shut up because she’s “so annoying”.

Spread

While the videos aren’t viral (Most of them in the range of 5,000 – 10,000 Views as of January 21, 2013), this exploitable meme has been widespread on Youtube, developing into somewhat of a fad. Simply typing “Tells the Queen of Hearts to Shut Up” turns up 126 video submissions (and counting) on the first seven pages by a large variety of users. There are many deviations to the title and keywords, and so there are a lot more videos than what the initial search results provide.

Format & Examples

The video is usually formatted in the following order:

1. Queen of Hearts Shouting
2. Exploitable Character “X” Speaks/Acts Against the Queen
3. Queen’s Reaction

Examples of this format are shown below:

This is the most common layout of the meme. After the Queen shouts out her commands, Character X gives a violent shout at the Queen, making her cower.

In this derivative of the meme, Character X proceeds to shout at the Queen, but something backfires on X that brings him/her harm or completely knocks him/her out of the scene. The Queen then giggles amusingly at the character’s misfortune.

This derivative follows the same as the common form of the meme, only Character X gives a more mild “Shut Up” and the Queen gives a scowl at X.

This derivative has a more violent reaction from Character X in response to the Queen’s shouts. Character X acts violently against the Queen (Somtimes in accompaniment with their “Shut Up” statement), to which she’s flipped upside down, revealing her heart-dotted undergarments.

About

Anita Sarkeesian is an internet reviewer, and host of Feminist Frequency^[1][2], a feminist web series in which Sarkeesian reviews and analyses different media from a feminist viewpoint. The series has garnered an overall negative reception, especially from those within the video game community.

Online History

Sarkeesian posted her first video on 20 May 2009, titled “Dollhouse Renewed? Why not Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles?”. In the video, she discusses Fox Networks decision to renew the show “Dollhouse”, believing fellow show “Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles” would be much more fitting. The video was poorly received, receiving many dislikes, leading Sarkeesian to disable comments and ratings. Despite this, Sarkeesian continued to release videos.

Feminist Frequency grew in popularity upon the release of the series “Tropes vs. Women”, in which Sarkeesian analyses different tropes and how they present women in a negative stereotype. In her first video, Sarkeesian analysed the trope Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Reputation

Controversy

Sarkeesian has gained strong opposition from web-goers, many criticizing her for her feminist viewpoint, believing it to be extremist. On 23 Octpber 2011, Youtuber TheAmazingAtheist released a video titled “Everyone’s a Crybaby”, in which he discussed how he sees Sarkeesian’s viewpoint as extremist. As well as this, many videos have been created in response to Feminist Frequency, discussing the same topics.

Kickstarter and Harassment

On 4 June 2012, Sarkeesian announced a spin-off series to her original Tropes vs. Women, titled Tropes vs. Women in video games. She also announced a Kickstarter in order to finance her series^[3]. The series instantly gained hate from gamers, with Anita receiving death threats and hate mail from angered members of the video game community. On 5 July 2012, Newgrounds user Bendilin Spurr^[4] posted a flash game titled “Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian”^[5], however the game was taken down the day afterwards. The story was picked up by different news sources, including Destructoid^[6], Kotaku^[7] and 16×9^[8]. Sarkeesian has also been invited to video game studio Bungie^[9], as well as TEDxWomen 2012^[10] in support of her project. Despite hate, the kickstarter was a success, raising $158,917 over the course of a month.

Search Interest

External References

About

The meme represents a macro of a mexican young “cholo” male dressed with La Virgen de Guadalupe de San Juan image, a religious icon very popular on mexican culture. The first line is used to caption a most unpleasant or disagreeing situation in which the second line finishes captioning with “No se quiera pasar de verga”, which roughly has the near meaning as “Do not try to fuck with me”. The “guadalupana” band sometimes is used like in a Scumbag Steve cap fashion.

Origin

The image corresponds to a study made ​​by the photographer Federico Gama http://www.federicogama.com/, reflecting the lives of indigenous youth who migrate to cities through documentary photography, “Mazahuacholoskatopunk”, as a research tool, at IMJ (Mexican Institute of Youth)http://cendoc.imjuventud.gob.mx/clr/libros/centrolibro.php?libro=0310006.swf

Spread

The spread went on in hispanic and latin meme communities such as www.cuantocabron.com, www.memeadictos.org/ or www.memelatino.net/ and went on a major spread through the facebook page “No se quiera pasar de verga” http://www.facebook.com/NoSeQuieraPasarDeVergaMeme

(This article is WIP)

About

“That’s the Joke” is a catchphrase originating from The Simpsons Season 6 episode A Star is Burns.^[3] The catchphrase is often accompanied by an image of Wolfcastle looking serious in front of the brick wall (again, see above), is used to condescendingly explain the punchline of a joke, or is itself the punchline to an otherwise-unfunny remark. Following the popularization of the scene, the meme has expanded to many other phrases referring to a commenter missing the joke.

Origin

The episode A Star is Burns first aired on public television in March 5th, 1995, which was an episode from the 6th Season where, character Rainier Wolfcastle is being interviewed about his new stand-up comedy movie, and a clip is shown (see above). In the clip, Wolfcastle says “Did you ever notice how men always leave the toilet seat up? That’s the joke.”

Spread

The catchphrase spread all over the internet on websites such as 4Chan, Reddit, Tumblr and YTMND^[2]. The original phrase has since spawned multiple other variants of the meme. As a result from the popularization of the ’That’s the Joke’ reaction, multiple other gifs have spawned where the joke is either personified or objectified, and flies over the head of a stationary individual. On Reddit, the phrase Woosh was popularized as onomatopoeia for the sound of a joke flying over a commenter’s head, and is often accompanied with a gif. Likewise, Tumblrers have used a gif to demonstrate one not understanding the joke or point.^[1]

Search Insights

External References

About

A Prank Call (also known as a Crank Call) is a prank and form of trolling where an individual calls or answers to a victim and attempts to humiliate the target for the prankster’s satisfaction, and occasionally in front of the public. Though pranks calls have already been in existence long before the introduction of the internet, the fad has evolved and adapted into the new medium, allowing the pranks to be shared over the internet through websites like YouTube. Prank Calls are now also used as a method of coordinated raids to harass individuals for humor or out of a sense for justice.

Origin

While the origin of Prank Calls has been traced back to sometime in the late 1970’s, the prominence of Prank Calls on the internet began in 1995 when American citizen Michael Biggins (under the alias Blackout) began streaming his prank calls live on the internet, and allowed viewers to give input on his pranks. Since starting the website blackout.com^[1], Biggins has continued to post prank calls to this day for the satisfaction of his viewers.

Two years after blackout.com’s inception, another Prank Call website, prankcallradio.net^[2] an online radio station began broadcasting prank calls. Like blackout.com, parnkcallradio.net is still active today and has archived over 185 000 prank calls and broadcast them online, making them the largest website to do so.

Variants of Prank Calls

Traditional Method

The traditional method of prank calling consists of a sole or group of individuals calling an unsuspecting victim and inquiring them of some sort of topic or subject. At this point, the prank caller can employ the use of gag names, jokes or nonsense to trick, fool, and ultimately humiliate their targets. Often times, the caller will assume a false alias or that of a celebrity to aid them in the prank. With the introduction of caller ID, this method of prank calling is much more complicated and difficult to succeed. Nowadays, Prank Callers will usually use this method on local businesses and call-in radio or television shows.

Prank Calling as the Receiving End

Sometimes, the Prank Caller will receive and answer a call instead and will employ similar methods to toy with the victim. This method is usually used to ward off telemarketers, scammers, or any other unwanted callers. Typically, receiving end Prank Callers will try to prolong the call or use absurdity to make it as awkward for the victim as possible.

Using Soundboards

Like traditional Prank Calling, Prank Callers will typically find and call victims to fool and mess with. The only difference being that they use a tool known as a soundboard, which will contain pre-recorded dialogue of fictional characters and/or celebrities, usually ripped off from a movie, television show or some other form of media. This can potentially limit the extent of what the prank caller can do before the victim realizes the true nature of the call.

Coordinated Raids

With the introduction of the internet, organized raids on a particular target became a popular method of trolling individuals. This method can be employed as a method of making a political statement or making the victim frustrated. This method of prank calling is typically used on radio or television shows where there is a call segment where viewers can voice their opinions. Unlike the above methods of prank calls, individual prank calls part of the raid are usually short and blatantly intended to infuriate the victim. Methods like Bel-Air’ing and Battletoads inquires are often employed.
This method of Prank Calling is especially used by 4Chan sub-forum /b/, as noted by raids on Tom Green LIVE! and True Capitalist Radio.

Negative Impacts of Prank Calling

Harassment

Sometimes Prank Calling can lead to negative consequences. In some cases, the Prank Caller can begin to harass the victim and drive them to emotional distress, crossing the line from an innocent prank to a form of bullying.

Swatting

Prank calls that are often used as a petty act of revenge against targets, sometimes employing the use of SWATing, an act where the caller alerts police to a false emergency at the victim’s residency or present location (usually obtained from doxxing) severe enough to deploy SWAT teams.^[7] This often risks physical harm of the victim, and possibly death. As such, lawmakers have been considering stricter laws against such acts. Recently, Swatting has been used often against celebrities, such as Tom Cruise and Simon Cowell.^[3]

Public Humiliation

Sometimes prank calls will occasionally go wrong and reveal private and personal information, exposing the public to the victim’s infidelities or actions of questionable nature, such as the example above, where a husband had a radio host pretend to be a Human Resources manager and prank call his wife to inform her of a (false) incident where the husband engaged in sexual relations with a staff member. Outraged, the wife revealed a true account of engaging in an extramarital affairs with the husband’s brother as the husband was listening to her reaction.

Suicide

Some victims of Prank Calls can be humiliated to the point of suicide. A notable example of this was the suicide Jacintha Saldanha^[4], one of the victims of a prank conducted by radio hosts Michael Christian and Mel Greig of Australian radio station 2Day FM, who were posing as members of the British Royal Family, which had gained international attention. Saldanha, who had previous instances of attempting suicide^[5], became depressed and being humiliated from her role in the prank call and hung herself as a result. Shortly after, Christian and Greig were subject to public outlash for their prank call and criticized for the ethics of the prank, as well as mention of previous instances where they and the station may have crossed the line.^[6]

Search Interest

External Links

^[1]Blackout – Home Page

^[2][wPCR] PrankCall Radio – Home Page

^[3]The Gaurdian – Swatting: a new kind of prank being played on celebrities / Posted on 12-21-2013

^[4]Daily Mirror – Kate Middleton prank call tragedy: Nurse found dead after hoax ‘left suicide note for family’ / Posted on 12-11-2012

^[5]Daily Mirror – Kate Middleton prank call: Royal hoax nurse Jacintha Saldanha ‘attempted suicide twice before’ / Posted on 12-24-2012

^[6]news.com.au – Controversy follows Austereo as outbursts and prank call dramas plague its stations / Posted on 1-17-13

^[7]Federal Bureau of Investigation – Don’t Make the Call: The New Phenomenon of ‘Swatting’ / Posted on 2-4-2008