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Internet Meme




An Internet phenomenon (sometimes called an '''Internet users may participate in spreading the phenomenon more than others. Most of the internet phenomena have begun from certain websites, which include EBaum's World , 4chan , Albino Blacksheep , Fark , GameFAQS , Newgrounds , Slashdot , Something Awful , Tribalwar and YTMND . Some people point to these sort of Internet phenomena as good examples of Meme s. In William Gibson 's Novel '' Pattern Recognition '' an interesting kind of Internet phenomenon—"the footage"—plays an important role.

Internet phenomena include:


PEOPLE


Celebrities

  • Andy Milonakis — Before he got His Own Show on MTV , he uploaded a lot of short films on the Internet, including guitar songs like "The Superbowl is Gay" and Freestyle s like "Crispy". Those songs were famous for their very bizarre, obscene and unrealistic lyrics.


  • Chuck Norris — every major accomplishment of mankind is attributed to the actor, as well as fake "facts" , which originated as an offshoot of the "Vin Diesel Facts" meme.



  • Howard Dean — 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and current chairman of the DNC . His famous 2004 "scream" after polling third in the Iowa caucuses has been widely parodied. {Link without Title}



  • Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf — Iraqi Minister of Information, who became popular from making outlandish comments during the 2003 Iraq War.


  • Mr. T — The popular 80s actor has become the protagonist of a series of websites featuring him, via photo editing programs, battling other celebrities, fictional characters, politicians, and others.



  • Sean Connery — Actor who is most known for his role as James Bond in the James Bond series of movies. A website was created honoring a moment in the film Finding Forrester where he says "You're the man now dog". This quote was made into a website which eventually became YTMND .


  • Tila Nguyen — She was discovered by Playboy scouts, but became popular as being the most-viewed profile on MySpace . Her song "Straight Up" is included in the MySpace compilation record.


  • Vin Diesel — the actor was the subject of the original version of the humorous "Facts" phenomenon, where often ludicrous "facts" about Vin Diesel's supposed "abilities" are invented for humorous purposes.



Non-celebrities

  • Anton Maiden — Known for his MIDI and vocal renditions of Iron Maiden songs.

  • Brent Simon — Keyboard/Synth player best known for his videos The Bittorrent Song and Space Camp , he achieved popularity due to his unique melodies and lyrics. There is a documentary titled '' Brentumentary '' about a day in his life. On April 19th, 2006, nerdpunk.com was launched as Brent's official website. By popular demand, Brent is recording a CD and will be selling other merchandise off his official site.

  • David Firth — An unconventional animator, he is the man behind animations such as '' Salad Fingers '' and '' Burnt Face Man ''. His different, surrealistic style is often what draws people to his animation. {Link without Title}

  • David Wills — A Professional Wrestling fan from Atlanta, Georgia who proclaimed, "It's still real to me, dammit!" then proceeded to cry during a question-and-answer segment at a Spartanburg, South Carolina wrestling convention. The video clip was later featured on Jimmy Kimmel Live . He has since became a regular guest on wrestling radio shows and podcasts and also writes on occasion for World Wrestling Insanity.com as guest columnist. Wills' personal website can be found [http://www.itsstillrealtome.com here .

  • Doug Mirabelli - Backup catcher for the Boston Red Sox . "Dougie's Going Deep Tonight"

  • Ellen Feiss — A teenage girl featured in an Apple Computer advertisement, whose slurred speech and disoriented eyes provoked speculation that she was under the influence of illicit drugs.

  • Elena Filatova — Under the nickname ''KiddOfSpeed'' posted photographs of her alleged motorcycle trips in the area around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant .

  • Henry Earl — A Homeless African-American man from Kentucky , Earl became famous primarily because of his extensive police record, mostly for non-violent alcohol-related offenses, and the subsequent often humorous and widely varied mug shots. Henry has made numerous talk show appearances and has been featured in national and international media venues, including MSNBC , the UK Sunday Mail , and Jimmy Kimmel Live .

  • John Titor — A man claiming to be a time traveler from the year 2036 who made many strange statements about future events.

  • Katilce Miranda — a Brazilian girl who received a kiss from Bono during a U2 show. People watching the show on TV quickly discovered her Orkut profile and in less then 48 hours she received more than 1,500,000 scraps on the relationship site.

  • Kimbo Slice — a 32 year-old Miami, FL based underground boxer and street fighter. He has appeared in three full-length bare-knuckle fights available through the internet and P2P file-sharing networks.

  • Brian J. Peppers — A registered sex offender with a facial malformity; his picture became widely circulated after its posting on eSORN and became the subject of a Fad On YTMND . {Link without Title}

  • Lee Hotti — A young adult who was a frequent poster on Sherdog.com who received wide criticism on the forums while posting pictures of himself, family, and friends for all having long straight spiked hair, overly tanned skin, a flipped up shirt collar, and headband. Subsequent videos and pictures were created using the original pictures. The original and edited pictures spread across the Internet in a matter of weeks. A website, {Link without Title} was created within a month.

  • Maddox — Claiming to be a "pirate", Maddox is the online pseudonym of George Ouzounian, author of the popular website, The Best Page In The Universe , with over 100,000,000 visits. The individual articles from this site often spread Memetically .

  • Marguerite Perrin — A woman on the FOX program Trading Spouses whose obesity, maniacal rants about gargoyles and psychics, and proclamations of religious superiority quickly made her an overnight punch line.

  • Old Grandma Hardcore — A Grandmother noted for her interest in Video Games and her excessive preoccupation with them, even at the age of 70.

  • Star Wars Kid — A Quebecois teen named Ghyslain Raza filmed himself acting like the '' Star Wars '' character Darth Maul . The video was subsequently placed on the Internet by classmates. It became widely parodied on the Internet and on TV shows such as Arrested Development and American Dad . He also appeared in a secret place in the Tony Hawk's Underground 2 video game.

  • Tron Guy — A slightly overweight computer consultant who made a costume inspired by the programs in the movie '' TRON '', Jay Maynard's website showing the costume's creation in detail quickly became a parody fixture. Maynard appeared on numerous episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2004. {Link without Title}

  • Tom — Creator of MySpace , who automatically adds himself as a friend to everyone who joins, he has become the subject of numerous parodies based on his well-known default photo. {Link without Title}

  • William Hung — A Civil Engineering student from Hong Kong and failed American Idol contestant who became famous for his poor singing and dancing abilities. His talent (or lack thereof) ironically led to a record deal and CD titled ''Inspiration'', in which he butchers more songs by Ricky Martin, among others. Hung has done numerous performanes at football games as well as a guest appearance on Arrested Development .



BANDS

  • Beatallica — A Satire band that played music combined from songs written by the Beatles and Metallica . The band received most of its initial fame (and its name) from Milwaukee resident David Dixon who created a web page about them in 2001.

  • Dschinghis Khan — A late-70s to mid-80s group that was practically unknown in the US until the " Moskau " fad. Besides being a short video with crazy dancing and happy German music, the Dschinghis Khan clip is also included in some Flash files.

  • Electric Six — A disco-rock band that became infamous after a video for their song "Gay Bar" surfaced on the Internet featuring dubbed vocals with George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

  • Gröûp X — Makers of the songs "Bang Bang Bang", "SchfiftyFive", "Too Many Guys", and "Mario Twins," the latter of which is a parody of the Super Mario Bros. theme song. Many of their songs have been adapted into Flash videos.

  • Hurra Torpedo — A Norwegian band that appeared in a video where they cover a Bonnie Tyler song using kitchen appliances, later being sponsored by Ford for a mock U.S. tour.

  • Lemon Demon — A one-man band by Neil Cicierega , music videos were animated, particularly by Andrew Kepple and Shawn Vulliez . Famous moment at Vulliez's " Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny "

  • O-Zone — Became famous in part due to the Numa Numa Dance meme.



VIDEOS



ANIMATION-BASED

  • All Your Base Are Belong To Us — A Flash animation with a montage of images depicting the famous '' Zero Wing '' quote, "All your base are belong to us" in various images. This quote is more familiar with the video gaming world since ''Zero Wing'' is a game that received its infamy from its poorly translated dialogue. The phrase is an example of Engrish .

  • Animutation s — Simple Flash animations usually containing foreign music and pop-culture references, such as " We Drink Ritalin ". The fad first gained widespread popularity with " Hyakugojyuuichi ".

  • Badger Badger Badger — An animation to a repetitive song about dancing Badgers , a mushroom, and a snake produced several variations.

  • Bananaphone — Various animations with the song "Bananaphone" by Raffi Cavoukian have been created, the first and most widespread featuring Osaka with a "Gundam Bananaphone".

  • ''''' in which Dante and Randal find themselves in a car driven by a bear, just one of the surreal events that occurs after The Episode is handed over to Korean animators.

  • BT Pipeskater — A repetitive game, loosely based on BT Broadband, hosted on the BT website as an advertisement for their wholesale broadband product. The game has become phenomenally popular with schools in England in which Safety Filters block out most games sites. BT PipeSkater

  • Dancing Baby — A 3D-rendered dancing baby first appeared in 1997 and became something of a late '90s Cultural Icon .

  • Dancing Banana — An animated icon that became famous after being adapted in an animation with the song " Peanut Butter Jelly Time ".

  • The Demented Cartoon Movie — A very long, minimalist Flash animation full of silliness (about 30 minutes long). {Link without Title}

  • Troubled Windows — The opening theme to a hypothetical anime starring the OS-Tans

  • Drew Pickles — A series of Flash animations made by the "Barney Bunch" about the notorious Rugrats character.

  • The End Of The World — A Flash animation using Group X -style voices. {Link without Title}

  • The Evil Strawberry - A Flash animation about a strawberry and a baby. {Link without Title}

  • Hampster Dance — A page filled with animated GIF s of hamsters dancing, linking to other animated pages. It now has its own CD.

  • Happy Tree Friends — A series featuring cute animals that meet violent ends.

  • Hatten är Din (The hat is yours) — A Swedish animation featuring an assortment of bizarre imagery (centered around a floating hat) and Swedish phonetic "subtitles" to Middle Eastern music.

  • Homestar Runner — An online series that features cartoons of varying lengths, games, and the popular " Strong Bad Emails", in which viewers can email one of the main characters, to which he wittily responds. The site is updated on a weekly basis; thus, it is more of an Internet fixture rather than a short-lived phenomenon.

  • How To Kill A Mockingbird — AwesomeFunny.com is best known for this video, which is a parody of the novel '' To Kill A Mockingbird '' that quickly deviates into a fantasy about pirates, dinosaurs, robots, and ninja.

  • '''.

  • The Juggernaut Bitch — An episode of the Marvel television series was dubbed over by two amateur filmmakers; the recreated episode features comedy based upon the series' characters, as well as a gangster version of the Juggernaut infamously yelling "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" Interestingly, the Wikipedia page about this particular phenomenon has become very popular by association, appearing high on search engine results for the film.

  • Kenya — This Weebl cartoon extolls the virtues of a holiday in Kenya : "We've got the lions/tigers, Only in Kenya! Come to Kenya, we've got lions/tigers..."

  • Kitty Cat Dance — Flash-based video featuring a dancing cat saying "Cat, I'm a kitty-cat, and I dance, dance, dance, and I dance, dance, dance."

  • '''.

  • Madness Combat — A highly violent series.

  • Magical Trevor — A Flash cartoon about a magician.

  • Neurotically Yours — A series featuring a Goth and her pet Squirrel .

  • Potter Puppet Pals — This spoof of the '' Harry Potter '' series created by Neil Cicierega uses animated puppets to tell comical stories. Its storyline, limited movements of the puppets and the character's mindlessness contribute to the humor. {Link without Title}

  • Prank Flash es — Flash animations that tend to catch people off guard. They can be heart jumping "screamers" or just simply flashes such as " You Are An Idiot ".

  • '' Red Vs Blue '' — A popular and commercially successful Machinima series using the Microsoft ''Halo'' And ''Halo 2'' video game engines. A popular, fan-created outgrowth is '' Sponsors Vs Freeloaders ''.

  • Rejected — A story of an animator and the effects of rejection, created by Don Hertzfeldt .

  • Retarded Animal Babies — An obscene Flash series about the vice-filled lives of various pet animals.

  • Star Wars Gangsta Rap — Featuring Star Wars characters rapping through '' A New Hope '' and '' Empire Strikes Back '', this was one of the first popular Flash movies.

  • There She Is!! — A Korean series about a girl rabbit that fell in love with a cat.

  • Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny — A fight to the death from various pop culture icons and other characters. Animated by AltF4 and audio by Lemon Demon

  • Weebl And Bob — A series about two egg shaped friends.

  • Weeeeee! (Gonads And Strife) Another wacky Flash song/animation.

  • Xiao Xiao — A series of stick-figure action animations. "Xiao Xiao #3" was particularly popular.



IMAGES



FILMS

  • Snakes On A Plane — This 2006 film starring Samuel L. Jackson became an Internet meme due to its ridiculous title and premise a year before its planned release, and before any promotional material was released. Producers of the films responded to the wide Internet buzz by adding several scenes to the film which catered to the fans. {Link without Title}



THINGS



WEBSITES



General

  • The Show — 6 guys set out with a camera to produce a collection of short movies about random things.[http://www.the-show.tk/ The show homepage.]

  • B3TA — A website with an extremely popular humorous link-based newsletter and plenty of Photoshopped user-submitted images. {Link without Title}

  • Emotion Eric — A person makes various emotional expressions by request.

  • Million Dollar Homepage — Alex Tew sells one million pixels for $1 each. This spawned the craze for pixel advertising.

  • MySpace - The popular Social Networking website, now an increasing part of Teenage Culture . {Link without Title}

  • The Ivory Tower - A recent development which has a modest collection of humorous rants about things the two authors find irritating. {Link without Title}

  • Newgrounds — The web's largest Flash video/game archive.

  • Neurocam — This mysterious art project/social experiment/life role play website was initially advertised with no information other than its slogan, "get out of your mind".

  • Ninja Burger — A humorous cartoon about a ninja who delivers fast food. Later published as a book, ''Ninja Burger: Honorable Employee Handbook''.

  • Overheard In New York — This and many similar sites represent a trend in posting funny overheard snippets online. Overheardin.net

  • Save Toby — A rabbit was found and scheduled to be eaten unless money was donated. Several copycat pages followed.

  • Unusual EBay auctions — Examples include a 10-year-old Grilled Cheese sandwich with a supposed semblance to the Virgin Mary .

  • Shock Sites — As the name suggests, these websites are constructed primarily to shock the visitor. Sites such as ''' Goatse.cx ''', ''' Lemonparty ''' & ''' Tubgirl ''' (now offline), are Shock Sites frequently linked from Internet forums and IRC channels, while ''' Rotten.com ''', which is still running as of April 2006, contains various images and news.

  • Songs To Wear Pants To - A person named Andrew Pants writes humorous songs based on ideas and requests sent to him by email.

  • Urban Dictionary — A site where users can contribute and define their own words. {Link without Title}

  • Webcomics — Various comics and their characters have gained large followings. They come in multiple formats ranging from hand-drawn illustrations to Sprite Comic s submitted images.

  • Zombo.com {Link without Title} — Parodies the dot-com boom.

  • Conga Line s - websites set to generate chain referrals for freebies.



Personal sites




Political sites



Fan sites



Blogs

  • Blogebrity

  • Furong JieJie — A freespirit Chinese blogger.

  • Mu Zimei — A Chinese woman that wrote about her sexual encounters. She is credited as starting a new sexual revolution in an otherwise suppressed China .

  • PostSecret — An ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on homemade postcards. {Link without Title}

  • Rachelle Waterman — The blog of a teenage girl who wrote "just to let everyone know, my mother was murdered," and was arrested shortly thereafter. Her LiveJournal blog received over 5,000 comments, before it was deleted. Mirrors still exist.

  • Tard Blog — Stories written by various Special Education teachers, notably a woman assuming the identity "Riti Sped."

  • Ted's Caving Page — The log of a caver who supposedly makes a strange discovery while caving. Also known as "Ted the Caver". {Link without Title}

  • Tucker Max — Millions of hits as well as a cult following to a "man's man," whose skill with alcohol, women, and witty insults are unmatched.



Scams

  • Poetry.com — Beguiled by promises of an easy way to publish poetry on-line and, later, with letters announcing that their poem is in the semi-finals of a poetry writing contest, poets from all parts of the world were scammed into giving money to The International Library Of Poetry so that they can get a book with their poem on it, and more money to attend "poetry reading" conventions.

  • Nigerian Scam — Scams by Nigerians that steal people's credit card numbers. Some intended victims have documented their experiences in reversing the scam onto the person who tried to scam them.




AUDIO




TEXT-BASED

  • A Winner Is You — Originating from the Pro Wrestling game for NES, this phrase is an example of Engrish .

  • Bash.org — A collection of online IRC Chat Log s at {Link without Title} .

  • Densha Otoko — Online postings about a man who meets someone by saving her on a train, which was later adapted into a comic book and TV-movie.

  • First Post — Participants strive to be the first person to add a comment (post) to a new article or discussion thread.

  • Leet Speak & ''' AOL Speak ''' — These may also be considered forms of memetic Internet phenomenon.

  • LUEshi ASCII Art originating on the GameFAQs message board, LUE .

  • Snowclone — Exchanging words of famous phrases. See List Of Snowclones for examples.

  • There Is No Cabal — A phrase used on Usenet .

  • Trolling — Inflammatory messages in order to provoke others. Slashdot is particularly known for this.

  • This Is Bunny — A simple ASCII Art bunny is often posted on web forums, accompanied by the text: "This is bunny. Copy and Paste bunny into your signature/webpage and help him on his way to world domination."

  • "Shallow and pedantic" — A pretentious criticism or insult that sprang to popularity after its use by Peter Griffin in a 2005 episode of Family Guy .




ADVERTISING



SEE ALSO

  • Fad

  • Shock Site - Often become internet memes due to the immense volume of unwitting visitors they recieve.



EXTERNAL LINKS