About

Dangling Boris is a photoshop meme spawned from a photograph of London Mayor Boris Johnson stuck in the mid-air on a zip line during his public appearance at an event in Victoria Park.

Origin

On August 1st, 2012, London’s Mayor Boris Johnson was scheduled to test out a 320 meter (1050 feet) zip line in Victoria Park, where the Olympic Games were being held. Approximately three quarters of the way across, Johnson lost his momentum and got stuck, dangling 10 meters (33 feet) above the ground while holding on to two Union Jack flags.^[1] As the mayor waited for assistance to arrive, numerous spectators and news reporters snapped photos and video of the trapped mayor, tweeting them with the hashtags #DanglingBoris^[3] and #DangleBoris.^[11]

Spread

Eclipsing with the heightened presence of photographers and journalists who were covering the London Olympics events near Victoria Park, Johnson’s zip line blunder quickly drew attention from the news media outlets, including Reuters^[4], NPR^[5] and The Telegraph^[6] among others.

As the photos began making their rounds on Twitter, @sunny_hundal tweeted^[10] a transparent template of the dangling Mayor Boris, which was retweeted at least 61 times. Other Twitter users followed by sharing their photoshopped images with the #DanglingBoris hashtag and later that day, the single topic blog #dangleboris^[13]was launched.

A compilation of the photoshopped images were posted on the Huffington Post^[7] three hours after their first report^[8] on the incident. Additional compilations appeared on the Mirror, Londonist^[17], News.com.au^[12], Liberal Conspiracy blog^[9], the GlobalPost^[14], NBC New York^[15] and Uproxx.^[16] The music blog NME^[18] posted their own series as well, adding Boris into famous album covers (shown below, bottom row).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

[not yet available]

External References

Background

On March 19th, 2012, MTV News^[12] published an article titled “Snoop Dogg’s Next Album Will Show His ‘Loving Caring’ Side”, which quoted the rapper Calvin Broadus discussing his new album who revealed “it’s a real special project to me because it’s like the reincarnation and the birth of me becoming who I really am.” On July 20th, 2012, Broadus released a reggae track titled “La La La” under the new moniker “Snoop Lion” on the music sharing website SoundCloud.^[1] The release coincided with the launch of the Tumblr blog SnoopLion.com^[6], featuring pictures, video and news related to the artist.

Notable Developments

Media Coverage

The same day the reggae song was released, the music blogs Hip Hop Wired^[10] and Idolator^[11] published article about Broadus’ new stage name and highlighted the SoundCloud audio track. On July 21st, the music news blog Pitchfork^[18] published an article titled “Snoop Dogg Announces Reggae LP as Snoop Lion, Shares Major Lazer-Produced Track”, reporting that the music producer Diplo collaborated with Broadus on the new album. On July 23rd, the new album was reported by the music news publications Spin^[13], Rolling Stone^[14] and Billboard^[17], as well as The Guardian^[15] and The Huffington Post.^[16]

Documentary

On July 30th, 2012, the arts and culture publication Vice^[19] released a trailer for the documentary Reincarnated (shown below, left), a film that follows Broadus during his trip in Jamaica recording the album Reincarnated with the music producer Diplo. On August 2nd, the Vice music website Noisey^[20] released a video titled “We Got High With Snoop Lion” (shown below, right), which featured an interview with Broadus explaining how his trip to Jamaica influenced his decision to change his stage name.

Online Reaction

On Twitter

On July 31st, 2012, the tech news blog International Digital Times^[3] published an article reporting that Broadus’ new stage name had inspired the Twitter hashtag “#UpgradedRapperNames” and highlighted several tweets parodying the names of various hip hop artists.

On Reddit

On August 2nd, 2012, Redditor NuclearThane submitted a post titled “My father drew this in response to Snoop’s recent name change”, which included an illustration of Broadus as the cowardly lion in the film The Wizard of Oz (shown below, left). The same day, Redditor PhiladelphiaIrish submitted a picture of Broadus’ superimposed on to a screen capture from the film The Lion King (shown below, right) to the /r/funny^[4] subreddit, which received over 13,000 up votes and 135 comments within 24 hours.

On YouTube

Several notable YouTubers uploaded commentary about the new moniker, many of whom mocked and criticized the artist for the sudden name change.

Notable Examples

Image macros and photoshopped images of the artist began appearing on sites like Memebase^[7] and Tumblr^[8] under the tag “#snoop lion.”

The Artist

Calvin Broadus, Jr. is a rapper, record producer and actor best known by his former stage name Snoop Dogg. He began rapping in 1992 when he collaborated with the hip hop producer Dr. Dre on his solo debut album The Chronic. The following year, Broadus released the album Doggystyle, which sold nearly one million copies in the first week. Broadus is known to have re-popularized “-izzle”^[5] speech, a style of speaking in which variations of the suffix “izzle” are added to words.

Search Interest

External References

About

Squeakers are kids who talk in a high pitched squeaky voice on online consoles and/or PC games. Squeakers are often a target for trolls because most of them will get mad at the slightest of insults. They’re also known for using profanity to insult a player when they’re upset or angry, and sometimes spontaneously. They are most popularly known for playing games from the Call of Duty franchise.

Origin

[Still researching]

Spread

[Still researching]

Examples

Jaunikis Jonas sako teip is a lithuania-based meme, that began after a video of a “Jonas the Groom” went viral on youtube. “Teip” is a dialect pronunciation of lithuanian “taip” = “yes”. Unusual appearance of a village macho “that is such a hot guy, that he doesn’t heat his shack during the coldest times” that asked a tv show to find him “not one, but two wifes”, combined with almost one-word dictionary immediately pushed Jonas into Lithuanian stardom.

With almost a million views (over a million, if counting duplicates), video is one of the most viewed of lithuanian origin. Video spawned a number of photoshoped images, usually based on groom’s appearance or the word “Teip”, making it one if the most prominent lithuanian memes.

A single-topic blog.

About

X Sliding In (Japanese: すべりこむ○○シリーズ, Suberikomu Marumaru Series) refers to a series of hand drawn animated videos of characters sliding into a cardboard box like Maru the Cat, while playing the Kyu! Kyu! Kyu! Nya~! dance song in background.

Many amatuer illustrators inspired by both of two memes have posted their cute animations to Nico Nico Douga (NND) since the middle of 2009.

Origin

This fad began in the first half of 2009 when Maru’s videos on YouTube were getting explosive popularity on the web. The first instance introducing Maru’s famous movement, sliding into a cardboard box, into hand drawn animations was a derivative of Touhou fandom. The video titled “Chen Sliding in” (すべりこむちぇん) featured Chen, a well-known catgirl character in Touhou Project, and was made by importing the basic editing style with music from another hand drawn animation meme “Kyu! Kyu! Kyu! Nya~! dance”.

It was posted to NND on July 21st in that year.^[1]
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Spread

Its cute animation and quite convenient editing style, required only four illustrations, soon began being mimicked by other amatuer illustrators.

Their works have been posted to NND with the phrasal template “X silding in” (すべりこむ○○). As of July 2012, the amount of those videos on NND is more than 350.^[2]

Notable Examples

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

Search Interest

[Not Available]

External References

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

About

“I didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose me” is a catchphrase used to give a reason for living the thug lifestyle, a concept typically referenced in hip hop music, especially in the gangsta rap subgenre. On the Internet, the phrase is often used to caption images of people wearing odd attire or stereotypical “thug” clothing as a way of mocking their desperate attempts for attention. It is also used as a snowclone.

Origin

The phrase has been attributed to American rapper Tupac Shakur.^[1] The original quote may originate from a 1996 Shakur interview with the California radio station KMEL.

I didn’t choose the thug life, the thug life chose me. All I’m trying to do is survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty unbelievable lifestyle that they gave me.

Several 2Pac songs, including “Livin’ the Thug Life” and “Thug 4 Life”, as well as the album Thug Life: Volume 1 by Shakur’s group Thug Life, acknowledge the concept of the “thug life”.

Merriam-Webster defines a thug as “a brutal ruffian or assassin”, listing “gangster” as a synonym.^[2] An Urban Dictionary entry for the word mentions Shakur himself, and mentions a distinct difference between a thug and a gangster:^[3]

As Tupac defined it, a thug is someone who is going through struggles, has gone through struggles, and continues to live day by day with nothing for them. That person is a thug. and the life they are living is the thug life. A thug is NOT a gangster. Look up gangster and gangsta. Not even CLOSE, my friend.

Spread

A Facebook fan page for the phrase was created in January 2011, and has received over 31,600 likes as of August 5, 2012.^[4] An image of a high school yearbook featuring a teen’s picture accompanied by the phrase (shown below) was posted to the /r/funny subreddit in May 2012, receiving 1,501 upvotes.^[5] In mid-2012, an influx of images featuring the phrase were uploaded to the website Meme Generator.

Notable Examples

External References

Kyle Lamar Myers is a YouTube User and Internet Celebrity. He is mostly known for his character “Dimitri Potapoff” better known by his screen name FPSRussia, who shoots targets with various weapons in his family farm in Georgia.

Origin

Kyle originally ran a YouTube Channel named “klm5986” in which he did commentaries while playing first person shooters, usually Call of Duty, under the screen name FPSKyle. Later, he wanted to demonstrate how guns work too and how they compare to the video games, movies, TV shows, and other media. He got the idea of a Russian accent from a Russian co-worker while he was working at a car dealership. He used the accent to create the character we all now know as Dimitri who shoots at targets(being zombie mannequins, sodas, or pictures of Justin Bieber) with various guns on his family farm. Eventually he starts another YouTube account called FPSRussia in which he even makes more videos on the series, as well as some FPSKyle videos and even some FPSRussia commentaries. His first video with this account, “THE RETURN OF FPSRussia,” shows the Dimitri character at some of his best. The video has almost 2 million views and over 44,000 likes.

Now

FPSRussia reached the 1 million subscriber mark in June 2011. As of August 5, 2012 he has over 2.5 million subscribes and has over 446 million video views. Kyle’s second FPSRussia channel, MoreFPSRussia, has over 289 thousand subscribers and over 4.5 million video views. One of his trademark videos, “AA-12 Fully Automatic Shotgun!!!” has over 26 million views and over 230 thousand likes.

FPSRussia has also guest starred in EpicMealTime 3 times. The first, “Russian Meal Time” has over 5 million views and over 156 thousand likes.

FPSRussia is also in social media
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FPSRUSSIA
Twitter: http://twitter.com/thefpshow

He even has his own line of T-Shirts!: http://fpsrussia.spreadshirt.com/

Examples of fan videos

FPSRussia has also been in many other people’s channels, either being interviewed or just hanging out with the people!

FPSRussia has also been parodied countless times!

In the anime series ‘Katekyo Hitman Reborn!!’, a boy called Sawada Tsunayoshi becomes a mafia boss and he’s the tenth (Basically “Judaime” is japanese for “tenth”.) in order.

In school he meets Gokudera Hayato, a guy who comes from Italy and is involved in the whole mafia situation. Soon Gokudera and Tsuna (short for Tsunayoshi) fight. Tsuna wins and Gokudera swears him eternal loyalty. Also Gokudera calls Tsuna ‘Judaime’ and treats him like better than anyone else (basically is Tsuna his god).

About

“When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die” is a line from the 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises, uttered by the film’s primary antagonist, Bane. Shortly after the film’s release, the line became a snowclone, with variations such as “You have my permission to X” or “When Y, you have my permission to die.”

Origin

The line was first heard in the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises that showed before IMAX screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.^[1] Some claimed it was difficult to hear Bane’s dialogue because of the face mask actor Tom Hardy was wearing during filming.^[2] The film was released globally on July 19-20, 2012. In spite of the horrific shooting that unfolded in Aurora, Colorado during a midnight screening of the film, it was an international success, and the internet was soon flooded with media relating to the film, focused on sites such as Reddit and Tumblr.

Spread

The character of Bane proved to be especially popular, with several lines of his becoming well known within a few days of the film’s release.

References

^[1] Wikipedia – The Dark Knight Rises

^[2] Whatculture – The Dark Knight Rises Prologue Reaction

[work in progress. suggest editorship if you are a proper editor and/or proper yognaught]

The Yogscast (real YouTube usernamn BlueXephos) is the name of the most subscribed gaming channel on YouTube with over 2,000,000 subscribers. It is created and by Lewis ‘Xephos’ Brindly, Simon ‘Honeydew’ Lane, and a whole bunch of other people. They are mainly playing Minecraft (which led to the creation of their gaming series Shadow of Israphel), but also WoW, Guild Wars, Diablo III and a couple of other trending games.

History

Reception

On October 8th, 2011, BlueXephos hit 1,000,000 million subscribers on YouTube. On July 9th, 2012, the number reached 2,000,000.
h4. Notable Fan Art

Search Intrest

Notable Derivatives

Shadow of Israphel

Diggy Diggy Hole

Official Links

• Main YoutTube Channel
• Secondary YoutTube Channel
• Official website

External References

This article is under construction. If you like to help edit this article, please let me know.

About

Tara Strong is a longtime and famous Canadian actress, voice actress, and singer, who is best known for a lot of her voice work in animated films, television series, and video games.

Origin

Tara Strong^[1] was born as Tara Lyn Charendoff on February 12, 1973 to her parents Lucy Charendoff (1936-2004) and Syd Charendoff who are Jewish Canadians that ran a convenience/toy/candy store called The Wiz. She was raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her career all begin when she was 4 years old and volunteered to be a soloist in the school production. From there, it was obvious that she had the talent to be an actress. Soon, she began her acting in the Yiddish Theater; though she did not know any Yiddish, she memorized her lines phonetically, which presented some problems when the older women wanted to tell her how much they loved her. During this time, she also performed at the Toronto Jewish Theater, where she acted in A Night of Stars, and was featured in an audiotape for “Lay Down Your Arms” with the Habonim Youth Choir, where she sang the lyrics in both English and Hebrew.

When Tara was 13, she was accepted into a school of the performing arts in Toronto. Her first professional role was “Gracie” in the Limelight Theater’s production of “The Music Man.” That same year, she booked a guest-starring role on Mr. T’s series called “TNT.” His first words to her were: “Well, ain’t you somethin’ else!” Soon after, Tara got the title role of “Hello Kitty” on “Hello Kitty’s Furry Tale Theater,” which led to the opportunity of working in more than 20 animated series. Before she moved from Canada to Los Angeles, she starred in her own CBC sitcom, “Mosquito Lake.” Her character’s name? Tara.

Appearances

Her voice is behind a multitude of North American animated characters (Bubbles of The Powerpuff Girls, Harley Quinn of Batman: The Animated Series, Princess Clara and Toot Braunstein of Drawn Together, Raven of Teen Titans) , English dubbed Japanese anime (Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke), and video game characters (Rikku from Final Fantasy X/Final Fantasy X-2/Kingdom Hearts 2, Juliet Starling from Lollipop Chainsaw). That also includes main characters in main roles.

Twilightlicious

On March 7, 2012, Tara Strong, voice actress of Twilight Sparkle of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, posted a tweet on her Twitter^[2] page with a link to her VocalTwit, acting as Twilight Sparkle performing a short free-style rap, which included the phrase “Twilightlicious”.

See more on Know Your Meme

Two days later, she posted another VocalTwit of herself acting as Twilight Sparkle again, singing the lyrics from the previous tweet, as well as singing versions for some of her other past acting roles such as Raven^[4] of Teen Titans, Bubbles^[5] of The Powerpuff Girls, and Omi^[6] of Xiaolin Showdown. Her VocalTwit recordings also includes a shoutout to the bronies^[7] and talk about bronies with her other past acting roles like Bubbles^[8] of The Powerpuff Girls and Raven^[9] of Teen Titans

External References

^[1] Tara Strong – Official Tara Strong Website

^[2] Twitter – Tara Strong’s Twitter

^[3] VocalTwit – Twilightlicious Recording

^[4] VocalTwit – Ravenlicious

^[5] VocalTwit – Bubblicious

^[6] VocalTwit – Omilicious

^[7] VocalTwit – Bronylicious

^[8] VocalTwit – Bubbles on Bronies

^[9] VocalTwit – Raven on Bronies

Related Know Your Meme Links

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Twilightlicious
Wingboner-Clopping
Twitter
Bronyspeak
Bronies

Work in progress. Feel free to request editorship

About

Usain Bolt is an Olympic gold medalist and the fastest man alive. His signature victory pose known as “To Di World” has became photo fad.

Search Insights

About

NASA Mohawk Guy is the nickname given to Bobak Ferdowsi, a NASA engineer and flight director of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity mission, who was seen sporting a stylish mohawk at the mission control center during the live coverage of the Mars landing of the Curiosity in August 2012.

Origin

At around 1:30 a.m. (ET) on August 6th, 2012, NASA’s first nuclear-powered Mars rover The Curiosity successfully made its landing on Aeolis Palus in Gale Crater after more than nine months of journey since its launch in November 2011. Described as the most technologically advanced mission to Mars yet, the landing event was broadcast in real-time via television and livestream, garnering much attention from the news media as well as online communities and the tech news blogosphere.

While the tension remained high in NASA’s Mission Control center during the last minutes leading up to the safe landing of the Curiosity, one youthful staffer sporting a star-decorated mohawk cut captivated the attention of viewers at home.

Spread

The man wearing the mohawk was soon dubbed the “NASA Mohawk Guy” by the viewers, quickly leading to the creation of an image macro series on Memegenerator^[10], various chatters about the man on Twitter^[11] and a dedicated single topic blog on Tumblr called NASA Needs More Mohawks.^[5] The man was later identified as Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Bobak Ferdowsi, whose Twitter follower count^[9] skyrocketed from 200 followers prior to the landing to nearly 20,000 followers in less than 12 hours after the broadcast. Meanwhile, Redditor submitted an image post of Ferdowsi’s screen capture from the livestream to the /r/ladyboner subreddit, where it gained more than 1,600 upvotes in less than 24 hours.

Notable Examples

Ferdowsi’s Response

Ferdowsi became aware of his memetic status soon after it was gained, and has since released several statements online about himself and his Mohawk.

About

Scumbag Fat Girl (also known as “Fat Girl”) is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a blonde woman wearing the scumbag hat with a purple and blue color wheel background. The captions typically portray the character as the smug and judgemental female counterpart to the Butthurt Dweller advice animal series.

Origin

According to Google cached results, a page titled “Fat Girl” was created on the image macro website Meme Generator^[1] as early as February 24th, 2010, with the first instance containing the caption “She told me I was fat / so I ate her” (shown below, left). The original image macro template featured a photo of a blonde woman with a purple and blue color wheel without the Scumbag Hat exploitable added on. On March 31st, 2011, FunnyJunk^[3] user shadythomas uploaded a compilation of notable examples in a post titled “Scumbag fatgirl”, which included a new version of the template with the superimposed scumbag hat (shown below, right).

Spread

On January 3rd, 2012, 9gag^[2] user r31m0 published an image macro titled “Scumbag Fat Girl”, which featured the caption “Made you a sandwich / ate it” (shown below, left). On January 31st, the “Scumbag Fat Girl” Quickmeme^[8] page was created. On May 3rd, Redditor Black_Unicorn submitted an example with the caption “Goes to the grocery story / takes the last handicap scooter” (shown below, right) to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[4] subreddit, which received over 3,500 up votes and 340 comments within three months.

On August 5th, Redditor jlo47 submitted an image macro with the caption “’Don’t judge me for who I am on the outisde’ / ‘OMFG I hate those skinny bitches’”^[6] (shown below, left). On the same day, Redditor unhOLINess submitted a post titled “Reddit, this ‘scumbag fat girl’ fest seems a little one sided. I present: scumbag fat guy”^[7], which included a male version of the meme with the caption “Wants a girl who sees him for his personality / if she’s hot” (shown below, right). Within 24 hours, the post received over 19,000 up votes and 1000 comments.

On August 6th, Body Building Forums^[10] member RichStrong posted a compilation of image macros from the series in a post titled “Misc, this scumbag fat girl meme is too ****iing hilarious.” As of August 6th, 2012, the “Fat Girl” Meme Generator page has received over 13,000 submissions and the “Scumbag Fat Girl” Quickmeme page has accumulated over 700 submissions.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

(This is my first entry, so feel free to help me out and edit it as much as you want. :D)

That post gave me cancer is a common image macro response/reaction face to nonsensical, ridiculous posts created by the OP or other users in a thread.

Origin

On an episode of the 1967 Spider-Man TV series called “To Cage a Spider”, Spider-Man is tracking down two thieves who had robbed a bank. They escape in their car, as one of them throws a vibrator at Spider-Man as he tries to swing down and catch them. Unfortunately for him, he gets hit by it, and plummets to the ground. A mob quickly crowds around him while unconscious. One of the spectators there, Captain Stacy, takes him to a hospital to heal. Part of this scene shows a moment where Spider-Man regains consciousness and is holding his chest in pain and confusion.

(Look around 7:14-7:15.)

See more on 60’s Spider-Man here.

Spread

(Work in progress)

Notable Examples

(Work in progress)

Search Interest

(Work in progress; Help wanted) Work is in alpha stage..

About

When They Cry is a series of highly acclaimed murder mystery/horror sound novels written by Ryuukishi 07. The series is in four installments: Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni Kai, Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni Chiru.

Story

Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni (When the Cicadas Cry)

Higurashi is about cycles of madness and death that occur in June 1983 in a villiage called Hinimizawa (based on a real villiage called Shirakawa). It is divided into question arcs and answer arcs (Kai).

Onikakushi-hen (Spirited Away by the Demon Chapter): Keiichi moves into Hinimizawa and suspects Rena and Mion of the murders. Asks the questions about who or what is responsible for the chain of murders called Oyashiro’s Curse and what is the true nature of Oyashiro.

Watanagashi-hen (Cotton Drifting Chapter): Introduces Shion Sonozaki. Raises the possibility of demonic possession being involved and asks the question of what is going on with Takano’s body.

Tatarigoroshi-hen (Curse Killing Chapter): Satako’s abusive uncle causes trouble. A grisly discovery is found in the Furude Shrine.

Himatsubushi-hen (Time Wasting Chapter): Akasaka investigates events five years ago. Reveals the possibility of a time loop being involved and the idea that a “Villain Prime” is involved in the murder of Rika. Presents the theory that the Sonozakis are behind the chain of murders. Who is Villain Prime?

Meakashi-hen (Eye Opening Chapter): Solution to Cotton Drifiting Chapter. Goes into detail regarding Shion’s past and the events of 1982. Asks the question of what caused Satoshi to disappear. Infamous for being one of the darkest, nastiest arcs in When They Cry. It is a polite act to warn new fans about this arc.

Tsumihoroboshi-hen (Atonement Chapter): Solution to Spiritied Away by the Demon chapter. Reveals multiple theories about the events. Rena becomes more and more paranoid, starting with events that threaten her father. This is the first arc that indicates that the cycles of death and madness are defeatable. It is possible to figure out who Villain Prime is and the cause of the 5 years murders is at this point.

Minagoroshi-hen (Massacre Chapter): Solution to Curse Killing Chapter. Reveals who Villain Prime is.

Matsuribayashi-hen (Festival Music Chapter): Explains the dark and tragic past of Villain Prime, explains what is the true cause of the 5 year murders, and reveals the true nature of Oyashiro.

Umineko No Naku Koro Ni (When the Seagulls Cry)

Umineko is about a mass murder that occurs on an island called Rokinjima. The murders are suspected to be caused by a witch, but it is Battler’s mission to disprove such a thing. Known for being much more violent/gruesome than Higurashi. Nick named “Sea Cats”.

Legend of the Golden Witch: An introduction to the legends of Rokkenjima and to the Ushiromiya family. Functions like the Spiritied Away by the Demon chapter above. The first twilight is but a mere warning as to the horrors contained in this series.

Banquet of the Golden Witch: The family is revealed to have a dark history relating to black magic. Focuses on the cousins and their interactions with various characters. Introduces the Red Truth.

Turn of the Golden Witch: Focuses on Eva and some of the past regarding Beatrice. introduces Eva-Beatrice, a psychotic witch symbolic of the outside world (in universe) believing that Eva was the culprit.

Alliance of the Golden Witch: Focuses on Ange, with much of the arc being 12 years after the mass murders. Introduces the Blue Truth. Bernkastel starts showing her true colors, thus beginning “Trollkastel”

End of the Golden Witch: Focuses on Natsui and introduces Erika Furudo. Lambadelta is the new game master.

Dawn of the Golden Witch: Introduces The Gold Truth. Focuses on Shannon and Kanon.

Requiem of the Golden Witch: Features solutions to many of the scenarios in the previous games. Intentionally worded to have multiple meanings.

Twilight of the Golden Witch: The final chapter that attempts to show Ange the truth.

In Popular culture

The series is very well known in Japan and has a decent following among western audiences (considerably less so with Umineko as of this time). Both series have anime and manga adaptations. As of 7/30/2012, Nis America announced that the anime for Umineko would be localized (not dubbed) for an American release in 12/2012. On a side note, there is a considerable movement to localize the visual novel, which interestingly enough, has its origins in the Nippon Ichi fandom.

The popularity of Higurashi caused a sizable surge in tourism to Shirakawa, the village that Hinimizawa is a near perfect replica of. The shrine there had to replace their shrine wall after the previous one was loaded to the brim with Higurashi related things.

Sub-memes

Uso da.

See the entry on this site. The phrase (translates to “That’s a lie” or “Liar” is a phrase of doom as it means that the world is about to go to hell as Hinimizawa syndrome takes effect.

Best Mom Ever.

Reference to Rosa’s parenting of Maria. This abuse comes to a head in Alliance of the Golden Witch in one of Umineko’s most memorable scenes. Also used sarcastically to describe abusive parents.

Small Bombs

Reference to an absurd solution Battler had for the 1st twilight of Banquet of the Golden Witch.

Nipah!

Verbal tic for Rika Furude. See entry.

OH DESIRE/ Kinzo Shop.

See entry for more details.

Umineko Screen Generator

See entry for more details.

Characters (canon)

• Rena Ryugu (Nick named Cleaver Girl for her trademark weapon, actually a bill hook. Origin of Uso Da and I’m taking it home with me.)
• Shion Sonozaki (Twin sister of Mion. Nick named That Psycho Yandere Chick Who Tortured Everyone to Death for her infamous/horrific actions in Watanagashi and Meakashi hen)
• Bernkastel (Witch of Miracles. Cruelest Witch in The World. Nick named “Trollkastel” for being one of the most infamous, malicious trolls in all of fiction. Only Terumi Yuuki from Blaz Blue is comparable to her in this regard. Is actually a splinter persona of Rika Furude, symbolic of all the bitterness and rage of the Rikas that did not survive. released from Rika’s subconscience after breaking free of the June 1983 cycle. )
• Rosa Ushiromiya (“Best Mom Ever” due to her very abusive treatment of her daughter Maria. Strong evidence in favor of her having Split Personality Disorder. There is a popular alternate theory going round that she is the culprit of the mass murders.
• Rika Furude (Main character of Higurashi in the last two arcs. Is the origin of the Nipah meme. Voted most moe character in 2007.)
• Kinzo Ushiromiya (Origins of the OH Desire/ Kinzo Shop meme. Is already dead.)

Other phrases

• Trolls Trolling Trolls Trolling Trolls. (Nic name for Umineko due to the LARGE number of trolls in the cast i.e. virtually all the witches, whose trolling varies wildly in terms of maliciousness. Best explemlified by “Trollkastel”.)
• Repeat it in red. insert phrase in red text (A request to confirm that something is true by writing the response in red. Red statements are a language of truth in Umineko.)
• Multi-colored text debates. (Spawned as the result of the addition of “blue truth” and eventually “Gold Truth”
• DEEEEEENNNNNNN! (Based on Studio DEEN’s reputation for bad adaptations. Especially holds true for Umineko, which was voted “Worst Anime of 2009” by 2 chan.)
• Umineko ruined Christmas (Phrase that refers to the December 24 release of the final episode of the Umineko anime.
• I’m taking it home with me (Catch phrase of Rena whenever she sees something “cute”. She seems to gain super strength upon this trigger and is known to kidnap people if they’re the target as Hanyuu found out. In the Atonement chapter, this quirk is revealed to have dark origins i.e. essentially “marking her territory” which developed after a betrayal of her trust by her mother.)

Relations to other works./fandoms.

Nippon Ichi:

The When They Cry and Nippon Ichi fandoms tend to get along very well, with much intersect (there are a reasonably decent amount of Nippon Ichi fans that are also fans of When They Cry). One of the influencing factors in the localization of the Umineko anime state side was a movement within the Nippon Ichi fandom.

Puella Madoka Magi Magica.

Due to the work being very dark and copious amounts of tears being shed by the cast, the show is jokingly given the nick name “Shouen Magica No Naku Koro Ni”. Due to the many common circumstances between Homura Akemi and Rika Furude, Homura is given the nick name, “Homurika” as a joke.

School Days.

The same events that triggered “Nice Boat” also affected Higurashi, resulting in episodes of the Higurashi Kai anime to be temporarially pulled. There is speculation that the Nice Boat incident may of actually been out of fear towards Higurashi, since the murder weapon in question is very similar to Rena’s weapon of choice.

The “You didn’t fact check that” meme was created as a response to the right wing propaganda images on that litter facebook and the web.

Its inception was created by the unwillingness of the political right to simply fact check “You didn’t build that” meme and catchphrase were by they would have realized that the statement was taken completely out of context and if they watched or “FACT CHECKED” the whole clip they would have not have to embarrassed themselves.

This is where the where the Obama "YOU DIDN’T FACT CHECK THAT meme was created to combat these images, to fight for truth, justice and the logical way. To be the Bane of all them stupid images on facebook and across the world wide web.

All you need is a picture of Obama, looking angry or cool you’re choice add: “you didn’t fact check that” and hey presto you got yourself a meme or ammunition against misuse of information for political gains. There are also examples of the Doctor or Picard being used aswell.

The meme is still in its infancy but has started to appear on Facebook, and on comment sections across multiple websites.

Overview
Rejected UPCAT Essay Questions (hashtag: #RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions) are questions that were supposedly rejected to be included in the 2012 University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT). The fictitious exam questions are comical references to popular Filipino culture.

Background
The University of the Philippines College Admission Test (commonly known as UPCAT) is part of the admission requirements of the University of the Philippines (UP), administered once yearly to incoming graduates of Philippine and foreign high schools. UPCAT questions can be in English or Filipino (Philippines’ national language), and is usually held on a Saturday and Sunday in early August with two batches of examinations per day in the morning and in the afternoon. With UP being the country’s premier state university, UPCAT yields the most number of examinees for a college entrance exam in the country; close to 70,000 applicants take the UPCAT every year with only 10,000 of them qualifying.

The 2012 UPCAT, held last August 4 and 5, had an estimated 75,000 applicants, which is expected to be a record high. Usually, the five hour exam covers language proficiency, reading comprehension, mathematics, and science. But for the first time, the exam that year featured a 15-minute essay part. Examples of the questions to be answered in the essay part were: “Narrate the conversation when you encounter an alien”, “If your crush says that he/she loves you, will you say you love him/her, too?”, “What is your favorite study tool?”, and “Tell a lie about yourself and prove it,” according to some students who took the exam. A local news network reported that “the essay questions were included to show the applicant’s leadership competency, an important part of the UP system’s original mission for its graduates.” There was mixed reactions among examinees regarding the essay part, ranging from hilarious to dissapointed.

Immediately after the first batch of examinees finished, the essay part of the UPCAT already became a popular topic of discussion in social networking sites, mainly Facebook and Twitter, among students and alumni of the university. Many of them created their own version of funny essay questions (mostly in Filipino, but there are also English) and tweeted it under the hashtag #RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions, which implies that the said questions were supposedly ‘a pool of rejected questions’ for the 2012 UPCAT. By morning of August 5 (even before the last batch of the 2012 UPCAT has took place), #RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions was already one of the trending topics in Twitter.

Notable Examples
Have you read the terms and conditions?

Why are the birds angry? Explain your answer briefly.

Why will Rick Astley never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down?

What is Victoria’s Secret? Enumerate.

Why does it melt in your mouth and not in your hand?

Is this the real life or is this just fantasy?

Ano ang mas malaki bagpack ni Dora? O bulsa ni Doraemon? Justify your answer. (Which is bigger, Dora’s backpack or Doraemon’s pocket? Justify your answer.)

Twitter
http://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=RejectedUPCATEssayQuestions
https://twitter.com/upsystem/status/231833729159544832/photo/1

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_Philippines_College_Admission_Test
http://upcat.up.edu.ph/htmls/aboutupcat.html
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/268387/news/specialreports/weird-essay-questions-surprise-upcat-takers

[Researching]

About

“Aww Yiss” is an expression that comes from a series of comics by the Hark a Vagrant! webcomic artist Kate Beaton.

Origin

The original Beaton comic was uploaded to her website Hark a Vagrant!^[1]

Spread

[Researching]

External References

Editor’s Note: This entry is to chronicle online reception to Mars Exploration from 2000 on.

About

Mars Exploration is a scientific research mission undertaken by various national space exploration programs to learn more about the environment and possible life on planet Mars, as well as to prepare for any possible human mission in the future. The ongoing efforts led by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration has been chronicled online since the inception of the Mars Exploration Rover program^[1] on July 28th, 2000.

History

Pre-Rover Mission: Pathfinder

The Mars Pathfinder was an exploration probe launched on December 4th, 1996. On July 4th, 1997, the probe landed on the planet’s Chryse Planitia region to conduct experiments on the surface. MSNBC^[61] published an article titled “Internet Users Follow Mars Missions”, which reported that NASA was struggling to cope with Internet traffic after the Pathfinder reached the surface of Mars on July 4th. The NASA Pathfinder website received several awards^[60], including 1998 Best of the Net, Los Angeles Times 1997 Pick, Cool Site of the Day and Family Site of the Day. On July 14th, the Los Angeles Times^[62] published an article titled “Millions Visit Mars -- on the Internet”, which reported that the network of mirror sites hosting information about the probe average about 40 to 45 million hits a day.

Spirit and Opportunity

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration’s (NASA)^[2] Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced the Mars Exploration Rover mission on July 28th, 2000 after losing two Mars probes in 1999.^[3] On June 8th, 2003, the two rovers were given the names Spirit^[8] and Opportunity^[9] by 9-year-old Sofi Collis in an essay contest.^[4]Spirit was launched two days later on the 10th from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Just short of a month later, on July 7th, Opportunity went on its way. The rovers did not land until January 2004

The rovers made significant discoveries while on Mars; within the first month of its landing, Opportunity found mineral spheres dubbed “blueberries”^[5] that alluded to water possibly existing on the planet. In May 2007, Spirit uncovered a patch of soil composed of 90% silica^[6], which scientists concluded was concentrated by a water source. Though the two rovers only had a 90 Sol (Martian Days, 92.5 Earth days) mission, Opportunity continues its research as of August 2012. Spirit was active until March 20th, 2010, after it had been stuck on flat ground for 10 months.

Curiosity

A third rover, Curiosity^[10], was launched on November 26, 2011, landing on the planet on August 6th, 2012. Its name was chosen on May 27th, 2009 by sixth grader Clara Ma^[16] who won a Twitter-launched NASA essay contest.^[29] During its landing, the rover live-tweeted the event from its official Twitter account.^[44]

I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL

— Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) August 6, 2012

Online Presence

The Mars Science Laboratory maintains an active mission page^[14], highlighting news from Curiosity and a vast image gallery^[59] with thousands of photos from the rovers. There is also an Image of the Day^[56] feature, highlighting one of those photos with a blurb about its context.. NASA created a Facebook^[7] page for the Mars Exploration Rovers in January 2008, transitioning it from a personal profile to a fan page on May 8th, 2009. As of August 2012, this page has 24,103 likes. _Curiosity_’s Facebook fan page^[15] was created on July 6th, 2010, and has 260,000 likes as of August 2012. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory joined YouTube^[17] on January 17th, 2007 and began posting videos from its rovers that day. However, the channel only receives 4705 views a day. They also maintain a Ustream account^[18] for streaming events.

On Twitter, NASA’s main account^[11] has nearly 2.7 million followers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory^[12] has more than 335,000 followers, Spirit and Opportunity^[19] have 161,000 followers and Curiosity^[13] has nearly 821,000 followers.

Reception

Spirit & Opportunity (2004)

[Please request editorship to contribute additional information about the online reception of Spirit & Opportunity landings]

Phoenix (2008)

[Please request editorship to contribute additional information about the online reception of Phoenix landing]

Curiosity (2012)

After _Curiosity_’s landing on Monday, August 6th, 2012, the hashtags #MSL^[25] (short for Mars Science Laboratory), #Mars^[28] and #Curiosity^[26] each began to trend, with #MSL^[27] trending on Google+. The offical Oreo Twitter account tweeted^[57] a photo of an open Oreo cookie with red cream with rover tracks going across it as part of their Daily Twist^[58] news commentary series to commemorate the event. Additionally, the rover was given a part in that day’s Google Doodle, which was mainly focused on the 2012 Olympics.

NASA live streamed the landing, which involved a sequence never attempted previously, with a sky crane and an automated program which would cause the rover to land itself. Streaming was covered by Mediaite^[45], Mashable^[46], Wired^[47] and the Huffington Post.^[48] While British newspaper the Telegraph^[49] did not host the live stream, they provided a play by play of the landing as it was happening.

Outside of official NASA feeds, other feeds and watch parties for the Curiosity landing were provided by PBS Newshour^[50], nonprofit organization Explore Mars^[51], the YouTube channel Universe Today^[52] and San Francisco Museum the Exploratorium.^[53] On Tumblr, viewers and fans began posting images of _Curiosity_’s landing as well as images the rover has taken on Mars with the hashtags #curiosity^[54] and #mars.^[55]

Impact

Curiosity: Bobak Ferdowski

Bobak Ferdowski, a NASA engineer and flight director of the Curiosity mission, was given the nickname NASA Mohawk Guy during the live coverage of the rover’s landing. His mohawk haircut with stars shaved into the side of his head drew the attention of Twitter^[36], Reddit^[34] and Tumblr^[35] users, who began sharing his photo and making fan art and image macros featuring the engineer. Ferdowski’s unexpected popularity was reported by Cnet^[38], the Daily Dot^[39], the Huffington Post^[40], the Atlantic^[41], Buzzfeed^[42] and Jezebel.^[43]

Curiosity: Parody Twitter Accounts

Within 72 hours of the rover’s landing, Curiosity inspired four parody Twitter accounts. While three of them, @MarsRoverSwag^[24], @MarsCuroisity^[20] and @SarcasticRover^[23] focused on a sardonic approach to _Curiosity_’s normal tweets, @BiCuriousRover^[22]‘s humor focuses on gay culture. These accounts were featured on the Huffington Post^[29], George Takei’s Facebook^[30], the New Zealand Listener^[31], WebProNews^[32] and the Daily Dot.^[33]

HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. I AM ON MARS.

— Curoisity Rover (MarsCuroisity) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarsCuroisity/status/232366626543116289">August 6, 2012</a></blockquote> <br> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center"><p>Just analyzed a rock… it was hard. Can I come home now?</p>&mdash; SarcasticRover (SarcasticRover) August 6, 2012

Search Interest

External References