About

“On All Levels Except Physical, I am a Wolf” is a memorable quote from a documentary about otherkin in which a teenage boy explains how he identifies as a wolf animal. The scene subsequently inspired a two-pane exploitable series, with various superimposed characters expressing aspects of their identity with the phrasal template“On all levels except physical, I am X.”

Origin

On April 23rd, 2013, the television network Logo TV broadcast the documentary What? I Think I’m an Animal, featuring interviews with teenagers who believe their physical human bodies do not reflect their spiritual animal identifies. In the film, teenager Shiro Ulv (born Matthew Schimmel) states that “On all levels except physical, I am a wolf”, followed by a scene in which he is shown barking while looking over a body of water. On May 3rd, 2013, the documentary was posted on the Cringe Channel Forums^[3] by user Ahlstrom, who highlighted Ulv’s quote.

Spread

On August 20th, 2014, Redditor SpeedyCZ submited a two-pane image of Ulv’s scene from the film to /r/payday,^[2] featuring the mask of the character Wolf from the first person shooter game Payday (shown below).

On December 14th, YouTuber Alfred84 uploaded a clip of Ulv’s scene from the documentary, gaining over 600,000 under four months. On December 19th, the video was highlighted on /r/videos,^[4] where it received more than 3,000 votes (89% upvoted) and 1,000 comments in three months.

On January 18th, 2015, FunnyJunk^[7] user applecooler posted a two-pane exploitable featuring the Tunnel Snakes gang member from the 2008 role-playing video game Fallout 3, gaining over 1,400 upvotes in the next three months (shown below). On January 27th, FunnyJunk user britbong submitted several two-pane exploitable examples in a post titled “On All Level Except Physical.”

Various Examples

Images

Vines

Search Interest

External Links

About

Vine is a mobile video-recording application developed by Twitter that allows its users to create, upload and share short video clips spanning up to six seconds in length.

History

Acquisition

Originally developed by Dom Hofmann and Rus Yusupov in June 2012, the New York City-based company was acquired by Twitter in October 2012 and introduced to the public in January 2013.

Release

Within the first week of its launch, pornographic video clips reportedly began appearing on the service, prompting Gawker to label the app “America’s Hottest New Porn Search Engine” in an article published on January 27th. On the following day, a sexually explicit video clip titled “DildoPlay” was accidentally featured as an “Editor’s Pick” on every Vine user’s newsfeed page, further drawing criticisms and mockeries from the tech news blogosphere. Later that same day, a Twitter spokesperson issued an apology, explaining that:

“a human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in Editor’s Picks, and upon realizing this mistake we removed the video immediately.”

While uploading pornography is not prohibited by Twitter’s guidelines, several tags containing sexually explicit terms were blocked as a result and the minimum age limit for the iPhone app was raised from 12 to 17 to comply with Apple’s iTunes terms of service.

Features

Users can create short video clips with audio that are up to six seconds long. The camera only records while the screen is being tapped by the photographer, thus allowing users to easily jump cut from one scene to another or to create a stop motion animation in similar vein of GIF moving images. The finished image can then be shared on Vine or Twitter. As of March 2013, the app is only available on Apple iOS.

Highlights

Kitten Kicking Vine Controversy

In July 2013, South Carolinian teenager Walter Easley uploaded a Vine video of himself punting a small orange kitten off of a porch into the yard (shown below). The video soon went viral in early August after it was posted to 4chan and Reddit, where many angry users began posting Easley’s personally identifiable information. The controversy eventually came to an end with Easley arrested on charges of animal cruelty.

Air B&B’s Vine Film Project

In August 2013, vacation rental website Airbnb announced a hashtag campaign in an attempt to make the first crowd-sourced film shot entirely on Vine. According to the official site Hollywood & Vines, Airbnb’s creative team will tweet “shot instructions” from August 22nd to August 27th, during which participants may pick an instruction, shoot a Vine video and share it using the hashtag #airbnbhv. The best of the submissions will be then edited into a longer film to be aired on the Sundance Channel and the finalists will receive a $100 coupon for an Airbnb stay.

Related Memes

#EverybodySpurts

In February 2013, artist Marlo Meekins shared a vine clip of herself turning her head towards the camera and drooling liquid from the mouth, while listening to “Everybody Hurts” by R.E.M. In the following days, numerous other viners shared their own versions with the hashtag #everybodyspurts.

Will Sasso’s Lemon Vines

In February 2013, MAD TV comedian Will Sasso uploaded Vine videos of himself seemingly doing everyday things before suddenly spewing out water and a lemon.

Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal

In April 2013, Vine user Ryan McHenry began uploading a series of videos titled “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal,” pairing various screen projections of Gosling’s intense acting scenes with a slowly approaching spoon full of cereal.

Smack Cam

In June 2013, Vine user Max Jerry tweeted a video clip titled “Smack Cam,” in which he slaps a man laying on a couch in the face. The video spawned many other Vine users to share videos of themselves hitting unsuspecting friends in the head.

Search Interest

External References

About

Forum Weapons refers to a loose series of online videos clips and edits, posted to forums, image boards, and comment threads. The videos, usually short in length, are meant to portraying a specific emotion in response to something that has been said, similar to that of Reaction Images. These videos are often labelled with the name Forum Weapon in their titles.

Origin

While the exact origin of the practice is uncertain, the practice became regular as video upload services like YouTube became available, along with their provided simplified embed codes. One of the earliest popular examples of a forum video was Shut The Fuck Up which was uploaded by Youtube user Jetsetlemming on August 18th, 2007. Within 7 years, the video has gathered more than 1.4 million views.

One of the earliest known videos labeled with the title “Forum Weapon” was uploaded by Youtube user Bound4Earth titled Ultimate Insult (Academic Decathlon)[Forum Weapon] (the title was later changed to “You’re going to get raped (Trigger Warning)” on November 26th, 2009. Within 5 years, the video has gathered over 5.9 million views.

Spread

Over the years, many variations of forum weapon videos were uploaded to Youtube^[1]. On March 1st, 2011, Youtube user Conflagrated uploaded a forum weapon video which depicts an alternate variation of Lol, internet. Within 4 years, the video received more than 35,000 views. On August 1st, 2011, Youtube user This is the Vid zone uploaded a Forum Weapon video which depicts an animated variation of Tony Kornheiser’s ‘Why’. As of May 2015, the video has gathered over 47,000 views.

Various Examples

Labelled

Non Labelled

Related Memes

Shut the Fuck up!

Shut The Fuck Up! refers to a clip taken from Penn and Teller’s ‘Bullshit! documentary series where Penn yells out. The clip has since spawn remixes.

Ultimate Insult Man

Ultimate Insult Man refers to a video clip featuring a game show host viciously berating a contestant for answering a question incorrectly. The scene was taken from the 1995 movie Billy Madison.

The Answer to Every Question in the Universe

The Answer to Every Question in the Universe refers to a clip from the British TV series Mr. Bean where Mr. Bean would reply by saying “Magic” followed by a couple of snorts.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Clickbait” is an Internet slang term for online media or news content with sensationalist headlines that are produced by websites for the sole purpose of accumulating page views to generate advertising revenue. It is typically used as a pejorative for viral media and stories that spread through social networking sites despite their perceived lack of depth, quality, authenticity or accuracy.

Origin

The earliest known use of the term was in a blog post by corporate systems advisor Jay Geiger on December 1st, 2006. In the post, he defined clickbait as:

“Any content or feature within a website that “baits” a viewer to click. “Anything interesting enough to catch a person’s attention”. More often than not, click bait uses “highly alternative text/phrasing”, ”controversial slogans/ideas” or “culturally inspirational descriptions/events”. Click bait is similar to link bait but is generally seen as less effective, more shortsighted and more shortlived.”

Precursor

“Linkbait” is a term referring to web content produced to encourage links from other websites for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. In January 2006, Google employee Matt Cutts^[3] published a blog post outlining various linkbait techniques.

Spread

On October 30th, 2012, Urban Dictionary^[6] user John Prior submitted an entry for “click bait,” defining it as web content designed to encourage clicks for advertising revenue. On October 15th, 2013, CollegeHumor^[1] published a compilation of book covers photoshopped with clickbait titles (shown below).

In August 2014, “clickbait” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.^[11] On October 3rd, the Epic News YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “This Video Will Change Your Life,” which cited several examples of clickbait in online media and mocked sites like UpWorthy for using cheap tricks to generate pageviews (shown below). In the first three months, the video gained over 900,000 views and 420 comments.

On September 22nd, Redditor bigsnakejake submitted a screenshot of a Yahoo News article as an example of clickbait to the /r/mildlyinfuriating^[8] subreddit (shown below, left). In two months, the post garnered upwards of 3,200 votes (95% upvoted) and 60 comments. On November 4th, Redditor HistoryOfGamerHatred submitted an “ask me anything” (AMA) post about a Chrome extension that would “obliterate the profitability of clickbait” to the /r/KotakuInAction^[5] subreddit. On November 17th, Redditor MiG-15 submitted a link to a clickbait headline generator^[13] to the /r/InternetIsBeautiful^[12] subreddit. On December 8th, Redditor StopSquashandRoll submitted a screenshot titled “This is probably some of the best clickbait I’ve seen,” featuring an article titled “Celebs You Didn’t Know Are Black” (shown below, right). In the first two weeks, the post received more than 900 votes (89% upvoted) on the /r/funny^[7] subreddit.

Notable Examples

Several major online news sites and aggregation sites have been criticized for employing clickbait tactics, including Upworthy, The Huffington Post, Gawker and BuzzFeed, among many others.

Clickhole

ClickHole is a parody website created by the satirical news site The Onion to mock clickbait content featured on blogs like UpWorthy and BuzzFeed.

Upworthy Headlines

Upworthy Headlines are parody titles that mock those used for content highlighted on the viral media site Upworthy,^[1] which are often criticized for using the clickbait techniques to grab the viewer’s attention and increase pageviews.

Search Interest

External References

About

“El Risitas” Interview Parodies refers to a video remix series based on a TV interview with the Spanish comedian and actor Juan Joya Borja, better known by his nickname “El Risitas” (“The Giggles”) stemming from his signature laughter, and a variety of parody subtitles depicting Borja as an employee of a well-known consumer tech or media company who openly mocks his customers, bearing much resemblance to the “And Then I Said…” image macros in tone and the “Hitler Reacts” videos in style of presentation. Videos using the interview are commonly titled “Shocking Interview…”.

Origin

In June 2007, Borja was interviewed by host Jesus Quintero on the Spanish-language television program Ratones Coloraos, where he burst into laughter after telling a humorous anecdote about throwing kitchen pans into the sea while working at a beach restaurant as a young man (shown below). On June 21st, the Jesus Quintero YouTube channel uploaded the interview segment, which gained over 1.1 million views over the next eight years (shown below).

Spread

On March 28th, 2014, the Thursday Comics YouTube channel uploaded a falsely subtitled version of the interview released by the Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian Islamist movement, which portrays Borja as a man commenting on the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (shown below). Over the next year, the video received upwards of 850,000 views and 920 comments. In October, a group of Egyptian students released a subtitled version of a different interview with Borjas, with captions mocking the private security used to contain protests at Egyptian universities.^[6]

On January 30th, 2015, YouTuber ClukosGaming uploaded a subtitled version of the interview depicting Borja as a designer for the GTX 970, graphic card, claiming that the hardware was deliberately sabotaged (shown below, left). On February 1st, Reditor brighterside submitted the video to the /r/gaming^[3] subreddit. Within one month, the video garnered more than 780,000 views on YouTube and 2,700 votes (85% upvoted) on Reddit. The same day, YouTuber chicane486 uploaded a video portraying Borja as a Team Fortress 2 employee, who jokes about the various unpopular changes made to the first-person shooter game (shown below, right). On February 2nd, Redditor Reniva posted the video on the /r/tf2^[4] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 1,000 votes (88% upvoted) in the next three weeks.

On the following day, YouTuber Dota 420 posted a video titled “Shocking interview with Valve Dota 2 employee,” in which Borja is translated as a Valve employee poking fun at Defense of the Ancients 2 players (shown below, left). On February 4th, YouTuber DirtyNoona uploaded a subtitled video titled “Interview with an OC Transpo employee,” in which Borja is depicted as an uncaring employee for the bus transit service OC Transpo in Ottawa and Carleton, Canada (shown below, right).

Search Interest

Not available.

External Links

About

Ctrl+Alt+Del (abbreviated CAD) is a gaming-related webcomic and animated series written by Tim Buckley. The name of the comic refers to the Windows command Control-Alt-Delete. Premiering on October 23, 2002, the comic’s focus has gradually shifted away from single strip gags towards longer story arcs and greater continuity through the use of video game references.

History

Comic Strip Series

The original version of the comic originated on October 23, 2002, starring the main characters: Ethan, an obsessed video gaming fan, and Lucas, his sarcastic roommate.^[25] Aside from the original cast of main characters, the series would also contain comics in which the main characters are either monotone stereotypical gamers (referred to as “Players #1, #2, #3 and #4”) or fictional characters from video games.

On November 23, 2012, Tim Buckley announced that the original cast would cease to appear in the comics after a story arc in which the comic’s universe is restored and Ethan is killed. Buckley announced that the main characters would return for a short period later with improved artwork, which he referred to as a “Hollywood Reboot”. ^[28] From October 29 to November 25, 2014 and from May 4 to May 27, 2015, the CAD website published pages from the digital comic book “Analog and D-Pad” starring Ethan and Jacob, who are displayed as superheroes. ^[26][27]

Animated Series

Due to successful animated adaptations of other webcomics such as Cyanide & Happiness, Tim Buckley, with the help of Blind Ferret Entertainment released Ctrl+Alt+Del: The Animated Series, which was made exclusive to CAD Premium subscribers, on February 1st, 2006. The end result received a very negative response among subscribers, with similar complaints concerning the terrible dialogue, poor animation, bad voice acting and a price far too high for the end product ($30 for 12 3 minute episodes). Despite financial loss and poor reception, Blind Ferret made a second season of the series with the same length. The negative reaction to the videos led to a number of parodies, including an entire annotated series.

Winter-een-mas

Winter-een-mas is a holiday created by the comic’s character Ethan. The event served to celebrate gamers and the “gaming spirit” during the month of January. Although the event is celebrated all month, the official holiday occurs the last week of the month (January 25-31) with each day celebrating a different genre of gaming.^[29]

Though the event is celebrated by followers of the comic, gaming retailers Ubisoft and GameStop have participated in the holiday with special discounts and sales for games.^[30] The event was also featured on a single-serving sitewintereenmas.com (now defunct) which described the event and how to participate in it.^[31]

Reception

Ctrl+Alt+Del was negatively received due to relatively poor artwork and reused art assets. Before the revamping of the cartoon in early 2008, the cartoon’s aesthetics relied mostly on copying and pasting techniques, leading many characters to appear nearly identical with a limited range of expressions. The emoticon B^U soon became associated with CAD characters as it resembled their facial expression when turned at a 90 degree angle. It quickly gained traction among the comic’s detractors and anti-fans, earning the creator of comics the nickname “Tim B^Uckley”^[18].

Another large criticism of Buckley’s comic was the density of dialogues and set-up for the punchline. In mocking the verbose nature of the webcomic, some anti-fans created parodies with all the original text replaced to “WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDS.”

Aside from the comic itself, Tim Buckley’s often irrational behavior and lack of tolerance for criticism also contributed to the growth of CAD anti-fandom In the past, the artist has placed himself in the center of online drama such as lashing out at his fans^[19][20], deleting entire discussion threads^[21] and defacing the Encyclopedia Dramatica article written about him^[21].In some of the user-generated artworks, the main character “Ethan” is often portrayed as Tim Buckley the cartoonist, allowing anti-fans to create parodies directly targeted at the artist, rather than his comics. In addition to the bouts of dramas, he has also been entangled in numerous controversies unrelated to his online presence, including alleged accusations of pedophilia^[21], racism^[22] and plagiarism^[19].

Related Memes

CADbortion / “Loss” Parodies

CADbortion refers to a series of edits of the episode “Loss”, in which the main character Ethan visits a hospital, where he finds his girlfriend who recently had a miscarriage. The comic was resented by readers for its failure at presenting a dramatic story, leading to much ridicule.

Search Insights

External References

About

Crying Michael Jordan is a photoshop meme featuring a cutout image of former professional basketball player Michael Jordan crying during his 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech superimposed into other base images of various contexts.

Origin

On September 11th, 2009, Jordan gave a speech during his Basketball Hall of Fame induction in Springfield, Massachusetts. Throughout the speech, Jordan repeatedly cried while retelling various anecdotes about his career (shown below).

Spread

On April 23rd, 2012, an image macro titled “Sad Michael Jordan” was submitted to MemeCrunch,^[5] featuring a still image of Jordan crying with the caption “Why / Did I buy the Bobcats?” (shown below).

On November 7th, 2014, The Coli Forums^[6] member At30wecashout submitted a post featuring various Michael Jordan crying examples. On February 3rd, 2015, Nike Forums^[7] member Nelson999 submitted a thread titled “Official MJcry GIF& Img thread.” On March 4th, the MJSadFaces Tumblr^[1] blog was launched, which highlights notable examples of the photoshop meme. On March 23rd, the pop culture blog Complex^[2] published an article about the crying face images. The same day, the news and entertainment site TeaBreakfast published a compilation of crying Michael Jordan animated GIFs (shown below).

On March 27th, Vice Sports published an article highlighting professional photographs of Jordan with the crying face superimposed on his head (shown below).^[4]

On October 16th, the Huffington Post^[3] released a printable paper mask of the Jordan crying face (shown below).

Examples

Michael Jordan’s Response

On January 24th, 2016, Michael Jordan’s sons, Marcus^[8] and Jeffrey^[9], tweeted their delighted reaction to the meme (shown below).

On February 9th, TMZ^[10] reported that Michael Jordan is aware of the popularity of the meme and he is okay with people using his image for fun, as long as it doesn’t get repurposed for commercial interests. On the following day, The Chicago Tribune^[11] also reported that the legendary NBA athlete “has taken notice of the viral trend,” citing an email statement from Jordan’s spokesperson Estee Portnoy.

“I don’t recall when we first started noticing it -- everything explodes so quickly on the Internet, and suddenly it was everywhere. Everyone seems to be having fun with the meme, and it just keeps going. We haven’t seen anyone using it to promote their commercial interests, which is something that we’re monitoring.”

Search Interest

External References

About

“Real Nigga Hours” is an Internet slang term referring to the early morning hours of the day, which is most prominently used on Black Twitter. On popular social media platforms, it is typically invoked when soliciting positive feedback, such as likes or favorites, on a late-night blog post or status update, often accompanied by poorly compressed image macros with heavy artifacts and emojis.

Origin

The exact origin of the expression is currently unknown. The earliest known mention online is in a Facebook^[7] page titled “Real Nigga Hours From 1am-5am Check In #103,” which was launched on April 8th, 2011.

Spread

On February 27th, 2014, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Joselaw submitted an entry for “real nigga hours,” defining it as “the time in the day between 2:30 a.m. and 5 a.m” (shown below, left). On March 14th, 2015, the Sounds So Good Entertainment YouTube channel uploaded a music video for the hiphop song “Real Nigga Hours” by KiddFinesse (shown below, right).

On April 25th, the “Niggaz Still WILIN” Facebook^[2] page was launched, which since then frequently uploaded photos related to the phrase “click like”, a phrase often associated with real nigga hours. On August 18th, the “Real Nigga Hours Who Up” Facebook^[4] page was launched. As of Ocotober 2015, the pages have gathered respectively over 32,000 and 1,500 likes. Niggaz Still WILIN’s popularity and activity is believed to have had significant influence in the of real nigga hours. On September 25th, Redditor Ahseyo submitted an image macro featuring a picture of the Spongebob Squarepants character Squidward with the caption “When ur in a coma but it’s real nigga hours” to /r/BlackPeopleTwitter^[5] (shown below).

On September 26th, YouTuber Frogman uploaded a montage parody titled “Real Nigga Hours,” featuring clips from WorldStarHipHop videos, Vines and various image macros (shown below, left). On September 29th, Redditor RD_Is_Best_Pony posted an image macro titled “Real Nigga Hours Smash Dat Upvote If You Up Tbh Fam” to the /r/BraveryJerk^[6] subreddit, which contained references to The Barber, Unexpected John Cena, Why the fuck you lyin and Deez Nuts memes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Many image macros in the series pose the question “Who up?” followed by requests for likes with phrases like “click like” and “smash the like” (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Why The F**k You Lyin’ is a Vine video of a man named Nicholas Fraser performing a short homemade song about liars in his backyard to the tune of R&B band Next’s song “Too Close”. The video immediately went viral on Vine, leading to many parodies and remixes.

Origin

On August 29th, 2015, Vine user Nicholas Fraser uploaded a short clip titled “That one person that’s sways lying on what they own”^[1], featuring himself listening to another person telling a lie. The clip then cut to Fraser, dancing in a backyard while singing “Why the f*ck you lyin’?” to the tune of 1997 single “Too Close” from American R&B band Next. Fraser also uploaded the clip simultaneously to his YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.^[3] As of September 7th, 2015, the Vine has been looped over 1 million times and gained over 31,000 likes. The slightly longer YouTube clip has acquired more than 53,000 views, and the Instagram videos has acquired 8,377 likes.

Lyrics

Why the fuck you lyin’?
Why you always lyin’?
Hmmmmm Oh my god
Stop fucking lying!

Spread

The following day, on August 30th, Fraser re-posted the music portion of the clip to Vine^[2], titled “When she say [sic] she got a cute friend for you”, which has been looped over 21 million times and gained over 344,000 likes as of September 7th, 2015. Its further upload on YouTube has garnered more than 1 million views in the following week.
As early as August 31st, Complex Magazine staff writer Angel Diaz published an article about the clip^[3], stating that the musical portion was also uploaded to Fraser’s Instagram account on August 31st, where it gained about 30,000 likes and 11,000 comments as of September 7th, 2015.^[4]
Other articles were written about Fraser as well, including on Buzzfeed on September 3rd^[5] and The Guardian on September 4th.^[6] Complex made a followup article on September 3rd featuring an interview with the Vine star.^[7]

Various parodies soon emerged mixing the clip with various other clips featuring common lie archetypes (YouTube compilation shown below left). They began to spread on Vine with the hashtags #WhyTheFuckYouLying, which has 328 associated videos, and its derivatives #WhyTheFuckYouLyin, which has 36 posts, and #WhyYouAlwaysLyin, which has 181 posts.^[8] In addition, many of these Vines have been reposted on YouTube and Instagram, where #WhytheFuckYouLyin has 991 associated posts. It has also become common to post a freeze frame from Fraser’s original video accompanied by text (below right).

Notable Examples

External References

About

Shia LaBeouf is an American actor best known for his role as Louis Stevens in Disney’s children’s comedy show Even Stevens and Sam Witwicky in Michael Bay’s Transformers film adaptations. In 2013, the actor gained much notoriety after being accused of plagiarizing American cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ 2007 comic Justin M. Damiano in his 2013 short film Howard Cantour.com.

Acting Career

Shia LaBeouf began his career in the late ‘90s with guest roles on TV series such as Caroline in the City and Suddenly Susan. In 2000, he was given his first lead role opportunity as class clown teenager Louis Stevens on the Disney children’s comedy TV series Even Stevens, for which he was awarded a Daytime Emmy Award. In 2003, LaBeouf made his Hollywood lead role debut as the protagonist Stanley Yelnats in Disney’s comedy adventure film Holes (2003), followed by another lead role as Kale Brecht in the teen trhiller slasher film Disturbia (2007), before landing his breakout lead role in 2007 as Sam Witwicky in Michael Bay’s feature film adaptations of Transformers. In 2013, LeBeouf starred in Nymphomaniac: Vol. I and Nymphomaniac: Vol. II.

Online History

Howard Cantour.com

On May 18th, 2012, LaBeouf’s short film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received critical acclaims and positive reviews, followed by its online premiere on Vimeo on December 16th, 2013.

#IAMSORRY

On February 11th, 2014, LaBeouf opened an art exhibit titled “#IAMSORRY,” in which participants were told to choose an object off a table containing a whip, a copy of the novel The Death-Ray by Daniel Clowes, a bottle of cologne, a bowl of Hershey’s Kisses, a ukulele, a bottle of whiskey, a bowl of containing angry tweets directed at LaBeouf, a pair of pliers and an Optimus Prime action figure (shown below).

Visitors were then led into a room with LaBeouf seated at a table wearing a suit and a paper bag over his head with the words “I am not famous anymore” written on the front. That day, several Twitter users posted photographs outside the building, along with their reactions to the exhibit itself.

Also on February 11th, The Daily Beast^[10] published an article about the art project, which highlighted a photograph of LaBeouf crying at a table in front of the bowl containing tweets written on slips of paper (shown below). In the coming days, several other news sites published articles about the art exhibit, including Vice,^[11] The Daily Dot,^[12] UpRoxx,^[13] BuzzFeed,^[14] Time,^[15] NY Daily News^[16] and TMZ.^[17]

#ALLMYMOVIES

At noon on November 10th, 2015, Labeouf began a 72-hour nonstop marathon viewing of every movie he has starred in at the Angelika Film Center in New York City. Dubbed #ALLMYMOVIES^[16] and curated in collaboration with artists Luke Turner and Nastja Sade Rönkkö, who have previously worked with Labeouf on his #IAMSORRY performance in 2014, the project is livestreamed in real-time on the media-sharing platform Newhive.^[17]

Controversies

Orphans Dispute with Alec Baldwin

On December 15th, 2012, LaBeouf tweeted a poster for the play Orphans, which showed he would star in the upcoming Broadway production with actor Alec Baldwin.

On February 18th, 2013, he sent out a series of tweets,^[12] which have been since deleted, which included e-mails between LaBeouf, playwright Lyle Kessler, Alec Baldwin, and actor Tom Sturridge that seemed to portray a conflict between Baldwin and LaBeouf. He continued to tweet out the e-mails through February 21st. On February 20th, the plays producers announced^[13] LeBeouf would be leaving the show, citing “creative differences.”

Howard Cantour.com Plagiarism

Shia LaBeouf’s Plagiarism Controversy refers to the online backlash surrounding Howard Cantour.com, a short film about an internet film critic who faces an internal conflict as he contemplates whether to write a positive or negative review for an upcoming film. Upon its online premiere in December 2013, the actor-turned-director was met with accusations of plagiarizing American cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ 2007 comic Justin M. Damiano, including direct quotes, dialogues and the narrative structure.

Arrest in New York City

On June 26th, 2014, LaBeouf was arrested^[8] outside New York’s Studio 54 theater for being disruptive and disorderly, with his disruptive actions including smoking and yelling, during a performance of the musical Cabaret. The same day composer Benj Pasek^[10] sent out a tweet,^[9] which has since been deleted, describing LaBeouf’s arrest.

Also on June 27th, LaBeouf was charged with disorderly conduct, harassment and criminal trespass before being released on his own recognizance, with a court date set for July 24th. The same day TMZ^[11] published a post which alleged LaBeouf had chased and fought with a homeless man hours before his arrest.

Freestyle Rap Video

On June 28th, 2015, Facebook^[14] user Corey James uploaded a video of Labeouf performing a freestyle rap in a circle of people standing outdoors. The same day, the Everday Instrumentals YouTube channel reuploaded the video (shown below).

Also on June 28th, MC Pri the Honeydark submitted a post to Instagram^[15] claiming LaBeouf had stolen lines from the 1999 hip hop song “Perfectionist” by the group Anomolies (shown below). Several rhymes uttered by LaBeouf can be heard at 49 seconds into the song.

“I reckon you want more of that rare commodity / the quality is what it’s gotta be / and my philosophy is much farther than what your eyes can see.”

Fandom

As of June 2014, LaBeouf’s Facebook page^[3] has gained over 250,000 likes and his Twitter account^[4] has gained over 160,000 followers. Fan run Tumblr blogs dedicated to the actor include fuck-yeah-shia-labeouf^[5], mrlabeouf^[6] and shialabeoufworld.^[7] As of June 2014, there are over 1,000 fan art submissions tagged Shia LaBeouf on DeviantArt.^[2]

Related Memes

Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf

Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf is a comedy song portraying LaBeouf as a cannibal. The song inspired several photoshopped images and animated GIFs of LeBeouf after it began circulating on the microblogging site Tumblr in April 2012.

On March 3rd, 2012, musician Rob Cantor^[11], a member of the indie rock group Tally Hall^[19], uploaded a song titled “Shia LaBeouf” to his SoundCloud^[1] page named after the actor. The song detailed a terrifying encounter with a blood-soaked cannibal LaBeouf in the woods in the manner of in an early 1900s radio drama.

Shia LaBeouf’s Intense Motivational Speech

Shia LaBeouf’s Intense Motivational Speech is a video in which LaBeouf is shown intensely shouting inspirational messages to the camera while gesturing bizarrely. The clip, filmed in front of a green screen, inspired numerous parodies, remixes and reaction videos.

Personal Life

Shia LaBeouf was born on June 11th, 1986, in Los Angeles, California. He attended two high schools, Alexander Hamilton High School and 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Nice Meme” is an ironic expression often used as a dismissive response to poorly received content posted in circle jerk communities online in a similar vein to the phrases “dank memes” and “well meme’d”.

Origin

The exact origin of the ironic usage of the phrase “nice meme” is unknown. On February 9th, 2013, the earliest archived instance on 4chan was posted to a thread in the /mu/ (music) board (shown below).^[2]

Spread

On December 24th, 2013, a 4chan user replied to a post featuring a poorly-drawn trollface with “nice meme” followed by the dorito face emoticon (shown below).

On February 4th, YouTuber Reddit Circlejerk uploaded a video titled “Nice Meme,” featuring an animated illustration of Barack Obama singing the phrase (shown below, left). On February 9th, Reddit Circlejerk uploaded footage of a Flappy Bird parody titled “Flappy Fedora,” which plays an audio clip of a man saying “nice meme” after successfully passing a flying fedora between cans of Mountain Dew (shown below, right).

On March 9th, the single serving website Niceme.me^[1] was launched, which displays the message “Nice meme!” accompanied by the same audio clip from the “Flappy Fedora” parody. On May 22nd, a Facebook^[6] page titled “Nice Memes” was launched. On August 7th, YouTuber Keith Smerbeck uploaded a video titled “real nice,” in which he plays the Niceme.me audio recording repeatedly while saying “nice meme” (shown below).

On September 17th, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott posted a photograph of himself posing with two young aboriginal children in Arnhem Land, Australia to his official Facebook^[3] page. That day, Redditor OrangeMemes_2 linked to the photo in a post titled “Everybody let Tony Abbott know how nice his meme is by commenting ‘nice meme’ on this post” to the /r/braveryjerk^[4] subreddit. The Facebook photo was subsequently flooded with users commenting “nice meme,” gathering upwards of 2,500 comments in the next six months. That day, BuzzFeed^[5] posted an article about the incident.

Search Interest

External References

[Warning, content in this entry may be unsafe for you and can create a similar effect as gore or shock images. Please view with caution.]

About

Trypophobia is a pathological fear or revulsion of patterns containing clusters of holes, including bee hives, lotus seed pods and corals.

Origin

Breast Rash Photo

According to Snopes,^[1] a photograph of a woman’s breast with photoshopped lotus seed pod clusters began circulating via email as early as 2003. The image was accompanied by a a copypasta story about an anthropologist whose breast was infected with larva during an expedition in South America.

Trypophobia

On May 5th, 2005, SocialPhobiaWorld^[4] user holephobia submitted a post titled “Phobia of Holes,” in which he invited others to share information about the phobia and linked to his now defunct Geocities^[3] webpage Holephobia. On May 23rd, 2005, Margot Charlton of the Oxford English Dictionary’s “Ask Oxford” service replied to a letter from Hole Phobia’s webmaster suggesting that the phobia be named “trypophobia” rather than “trypaphobia.”^[2]

“I should perhaps point out that the “a” of trypa represents the ending of a Greek feminine noun, and would normally be replaced by “o” in a combination (‘trypophobia’)."

Spread

On March 7th, 2008, Urban Dictionary^[7] user Tropphbiac submitted an entry for “trypophobia,” defining it as “an intense, irrational fear of holes.” On January 28th, 2010, YouTuber Stings2pee uploaded a video titled “Do You Have Trypophobia?”, featuring video of a Surinam toad giving birth through holes in its back along with a slideshow of trypophobia images (shown below). In the first five years, the video received over 1.5 million views and 11,200 comments.

On July 25th, 2011, Popular Science^[5] published an article titled “Is Trypophobia a Real Phobia?”, which documented the history of the irrational fear noting that it is not included in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. On September 12th, the /r/trypophobia^[6] subreddit was launched for posts linking to trypophobia-triggering images. On September 13th, 2013, the DNews YouTube channel uploaded a video about the potential evolutionary origins of trypophobia (shown below). On September 24th, BuzzFeed released a video containing several examples of trypophobia-triggering images (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References

About

FrankerZ is a dog face emoticon used to convey sarcasm or playfulness in chat rooms on the video game broadcasting site TwitchTV.^[13] The image is sometimes spammed in forums and chat rooms during raids, in a similar vein to both “desu” and “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” .

Origin

According to the now-defunct website TwitchTVFaces,^[8] the TwitchTV streamer Ernest Le^[6] would sometimes speak in a different voice while referring to himself as “Frankerz,” which led a TwitchTV staff member to add the FrankerZ emoticon using a photograph of Le’s dog.^[7][9] The earliest known mention of the dog face icon was featured in a blog post about TwitchTV emoticons by gamer Ashe Soriano^[10] on January 31st, 2012.

Spread

On October 11th, 2012, a Facebook^[4] page titled “FrankerZ” was launched. On October 30th, the domain for the website FrankerZ^[2] was registered, which displays a page announcing that the website will launch sometime in 2013 (shown below).

On November 28th, Soundcloud user MarkSoupial uploaded "Marathon Anthem 2012 (Apocalypse 2012 Edit),” which featured an electronic dance song accompanied by a vocal track repeating the phrase “FrankerZ” (shown below).

On January 5th, 2013, the /r/FrankerZ^[3] subreddit was created. On January 8th, a Pastebin^[14] page was created with an ASCII art rendition of the FrankerZ dog face (shown below).

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On January 31st, YTMND user devanwolf submitted a page titled “FrankerZ,” which featured a tiled photograph of the FrankerZ dog accompanied by the “Marathon Anthem 2012” track. On March 15th, Redditor gamecubes submitted a screen capture^[11] from the Nintendo 64 game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with FrankerZ’s face superimposed at the end of a tunnel (shown below).

On May 20th, League of Legends Forums^[12] member Darthdanimal started a thread titled “FrankerZ,” which linked to a page on the flash website TehUrn^[5] featuring two photographs of the FrankerZ dog accompanied by the “Marathon Anthem 2012” audio track. On March 24th, Urban Dictionary^[1] user MHFsilver submitted an entry for “FrankerZ,” pointing to its widespread usage on TwitchTV.

Notable Examples

On Tumblr, photoshopped images featuring the FrankerZ dog’s head are often posted under the tag “#frankerz.”^[15]

Search Interest

External References

About

“Turn Down for What” is a trap song by artists DJ Snake and Lil Jon which celebrates being “turnt up,” an excited state of being typically used in the context of partying.

Origin

On October 14th, 2013, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Blair Waldourf submitted an entry for “turn down for what,” defining it as a “rhetorical question” used to indicate a desire to continue partying. On December 18th, 2013, the track “Turn Down for What” was released as a single by DJ Snake and Lil Jon. By the last week of that month, the song made the top 10 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic chart.

Music Video

On March 13th, 2014, the DJSnakeVEVO YouTube channel uploaded the music video for the track, in which several residents in an apartment building burst through the floors below them while performing violently sexual dance moves. Within three months, the video gained over 55.5 million views and 45,800 comments.

Spread

On April 23rd, 2014, YouTuber TDFWFail uploaded a video of several people falling down in a speedboat accompanied by “Turn Down for What?” playing in the background (shown below, left). Within six weeks, the video gathered upwards of 2.1 million views and 650 comments. On April 25th, YouTuber Laina Morris (a.k.a. Overly Attached Girlfriend) uploaded a vlog in which she confesses to several minor transgressions followed by clips of Lil Jon yelling “Turn Down for What” (shown below, right).

On March 22nd, Redditor Wonderbotz submitted the “Turn Down for What” music video to the /r/videos^[3] subreddit, where it garnered over 16,200 upvotes and 900 comments in two months. On May 4th, TheFineBros YouTube channel uploaded a video in their Teens React web series featuring several teenagers responding to the “Turn Down for What” music video (shown below, left). In the next month, the video accumulated more than 4.2 million views and 17,500 comments. On May 29th, YouTuber Katz uploaded a video of two kittens bobbing their heads in sync to the beat of “Turn Down for What” (shown below, right). On June 5th, Redditor Bpods submitted the video to the /r/videos^[4] subreddit, where it gained over 3,500 upvotes and 110 comments in the first five hours.

Notable Examples

TD4W Button

The single serving site TD4WButton features a clickable blue button that plays the chorus from “Turn Down for What” (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

OTP is an acronym for “one true pairing,” a term used to describe a favorite couple consisting of characters from various fandoms as part of a practice known as “shipping”.

Origin

According to the Fanlore Wiki,^[7] the earliest known use of the term “one true pairing” was featured in a 1984 summary of the zine Alternaties #2, which discussed various Star Trek pairings.

“This zine has something for everybody…The stories are mostly Spock-centric, so if you love a certain Vulcan, this one’s for you!…And boy, does he get around -- we have Kirk/Spock, Spock/McCoy, Spock/Chapel, Spock/and various others, including T’Pring…And of course, more Kirk/Spock, because we all know that’s our one true pairing!!!…Variety is the spice of life -- and this zine is extremely spicy.”

Spread

On October 14th, 2002, the acronym was used in a LiveJournal post discussing the concept of “pairings.”^[2] On September 27th, 2003, Urban Dictionary^[1] user Erin submitted an entry for OTP, defining it a romantic pairing of characters that have been shipped. On September 29th, 2008, a page for “One True Pairing” was created on the Fanlore Wiki.^[7] On December 29th, 2012, YouTuber Troye Sivan uploaded a music video titled “We’re My OTP” about the practice of shipping and writing fanfiction on the Internet (shown below). Within three years, the video gained over 2.3 million views and 20,700 comments.

On May 5th, 2013, the Tumblr^[6] blog OTP Prompts was launched. On July 5th, a page for “One True Pairing” was created on TV Tropes.^[3] On April 29th, 2014, YouTuber Tyler Oakley uploaded a video titled “Who is My OTP,” in which he revealed that two Twitter users engaging in an argument were his OTP (shown below).

Related Terms

One True Threesome

“One true threesome” or “3TP” is a label used in reference to a person’s favorite trio group in a fandom.^[4]

BrOTP

“BrOTP,” a portmanteau of “Bro” and “OTP,” is a term used to label a person’s favorite non-romantic fandom pairing.^[5]

Search Interest

External References

About

Daquan is a fictional character featured in jokes circulated primarily by the Black Twitter community, which are paired with stock photographs of young white children being scolded by an adult. The character is typically portrayed as an African American inner city youth who serves as a bad influence to impressionable young white women.

Origin

On July 2nd, 2014, Twitter user @RealRaymondJ^[7] posted a tweet featuring a stock photograph of a young girl making a dismissive hand gesture to her mother with the caption “Mom I don’t want a David, I want a Daquan” (shown below). In the first week, the tweet gained over 14,500 retweets and 11,000 favorites.

Spread

On July 7th, 2014, the @YahBoyDaquan^[2] Twitter feed was launched, gathering more than 45,000 followers in the next 24 hours.

The same day, Redditor Loelin submitted a post to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[1] subreddit asking for an explanation of the Daquan jokes. Also on July 7th, notable examples from the series were highlighted on the hip hop news site Hip Hop Wired^[5] and the Internet news blog UpRoxx.^[3] Meanwhile, a Daquan post was submitted to the Twitter trends site What the Trend.^[4] On July 8th, the International Business Times^[6] reported that the keyword “Daquan” had been tweeted over 100,000 times in 24 hours.

Notable Examples

The Danquan Saga

On September 17th, 2014, Imgur^[8] user AnthonyCapo submitted a post claiming that his 16-year-old sister announced she was moving out of her parents’ home with her boyfriend Dan, whom he nicknamed “Daquan” (shown below).

In the comments section of the post, AnthonyCapo followed up with a series of updates as the drama continued to unfold, which further revealed that his sister was pregnant and the teen couple’s parents had to convene for a late night meeting to discuss the future course of actions in the light of the pregnancy news. In the first 48 hours, the post gained over 24,400 points and 2,600 comments.

On the following day, AnthonyCapo posted a new gallery^[9] on Imgur with more details surrounding the story, which culminated in his sister agreeing to take the pregnancy to term and give the child up for adoption. In the following 24 hours, the gallery received more than 19,800 points and 4,300 comments.

Meanwhile, many Imgur users following the story began uploading reaction images as commentaries, many of which were subsequently chronicled in a gallery titled “The Danquan Saga” (shown below).^[10] On September 19th, the gallery was submitted to the /r/funny^[11] subreddit. In the coming days, the story was reposted on the IGN Forums,^[12]FunnyJunk^[13] and the Internet humor site Brobible.^[14]

Search Interest

External References

About

Jenny Death When is a phrase used by fans of the band Death Grips when talking about the delayed release date of the second part of their final double album, The Powers That B. Jenny Death refers to the second portion of the record, which was released March 31st, 2015.

Origin

The first post with the phrase was made by an anonymous user on June 24th, 2014 of The Powers That B in the 4chan board /mu/^[1]. The user was responding to another anonymous post indicating “the ultimate comeback” of one of the favorite bands of the /mu/ forum.

Spread

The phrase spread as an forum response throughout r/DeathGrips^[2], /mu/, and elsewhere the group’s work is actively discussed, including by theneedledrop music critic Anthony Fantano^[3], as well as popular music publications like Stereogum^[4] and ConsequenceOfSound^[5].

Fashion Week is an instrumental album released by Death Grips^[6] January 4th, 2015. Each song title on Fashion Week ends in a letter, acrostically spelling JENNYDEATHWHEN. Forum fans interpreted this message to mean that Jenny Death would be released during the New York Fashion Week of winter 2015^[7], however no album appeared. It was announced on March 12th, 2015 that the Jenny Death record would be released the following Tuesday.

A track from Jenny Death, titled “On GP” was released via the band’s Facebook page^[8] on March 13th, 2015. The album was finally leaked onto /mu/ on March 19, 2015.^[9] The album received generally favorable reviews from critics, gaining a 73 on Metacritic.^[10]

Search Trends

Note: The December 2012 spike in search popularity is due to the sudden death of Mexican pop star Jenni Rivera, and is unrelated to Jenny Death.

External References

About

/mu/ is a forum dedicated to discussing music on the imageboard 4chan. Since its creation, it has become one of the largest music discussion boards on the English-speaking Internet.

History

In 2004, the /mu/ board was introduced on 4chan^[1], along with several other additional new forums including /k/ (weapons), /o/ (automobile) and /v/ (video games). On January 1st, 2013, a wiki^[2] site dedicated to /mu/ was created.

Highlights

Recurring topics on the /mu/ board include share threads, where users post links to albums they recommend; chart threads, which are used to show what albums a user has been listening to, often sharing via Last.fm; and threads for showing off user’s pages on Bandcamp and Soundcloud; alongside other, more specific general threads around themes such as classical music, music production and Korean pop music.^[3] /mu/ is sometimes notoriously known for praising only certain artists that have become dubbed as “/mu/-core”.

/mu/-core

/mu/ is known for its cultivating online fandom around select recording artists from a wide range of musical genres, including Radiohead, Death Grips, King Crimson, Animal Collective, Grimes, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Kanye West, Varg Vikernes and Lil B.

The board’s users have generated numerous charts of /mu/-core, divided by genre and artist, allowing newcomers to listen to essential albums. Various amounts of these charts can be found on both the /mu/ Wikia^[4] and the website /mu/essentials.^[5] Several bands and albums which have grown to icon status on the board are referred to as /mu/-core.

Related Artists & Albums

Death Grips Death Grips was an experimental hip-hop group from Sacramento, California. As the notability of the group amongst the board grew, several of the band’s albums, such as Exmilitary and The Money Store, became considered essential listening material. Because of their popularity, several board in-jokes have been linked to the group, such as Jenny Death When.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea In The Aeroplane Over the Sea is an album by the indie rock group Neutral Milk Hotel. The album is an earlier example of a “/mu/-core” album and has become heavily associated with the board, with the album’s cover gaining significant notability and generating numerous parodies.

Satirical Hip Hop / Meme Rap

Satirical Hip Hop (often referred to as Ironic rap or Meme Rap) refers to a sub genre of hip hop that is created with the intention of becoming viral, normally as a joke and/or a parody of prominent genres such as Gangsta rap and trap music. The satirical nature of an ironic rap song is often intentionally left out of its title, cover image, and description, in order to catch listeners by surprise. Meme rap typically features lo-fi cloudy production, simplistic music videos, lazy rhymes, and intentionally stereotypical lyrics, with humor as the goal.

Traffic

While there is no publicly available analytics data that pertain to the usage of the board, the daily user statistics can be found at Catalog.neet.tv.^[6] In addition, there are at least two websites devoted to hosting archived /mu/ discussion threads, Rebecca Black Tech^[7] and rbt.asia,^[8] both of which are named after the 2011 internet pop sensation Rebecca Black.

Related Memes

Le Wrong Generation

Le Wrong Generation is a sarcastic term applied to examples of people asserting that music of the past is objectively superior to music of the present, often mocking the perceived pretentiousness and narrow-mindedness of such beliefs. It is often heavily associated with appreciation for controversial popular artists such as Kanye West.

Today I Will Listen To Some X

Today I Will Listen to Some X is a series of four-pane comics centered around a stick-figure character who reacts in a certain way after listening to a song by band (X). Yet another spin-off of the Rageguy comics, this series illustrates a wide range of audience receptions (depending on each illustrator’s music preferences), as well as humorous observations on various subcultures and dress codes commonly associated with certain bands and genres.

That Girl Is So Cute, I Wonder What She’s Listening To…

That Girl Is So Cute, I Wonder What She’s Listening To… is an exploitable comic depicting a young girl on the bus listening to music, while a man wonders what she is listening to from a distance. The comic usually ends with crude or violent lyrics. The comic gained notoriety on 4chan’s/mu/ board as an exploitable comic, in which the poster replaces the final panel with a different set of lyrics, very often with lyrics from the band Death Grips.

Anthony Fantano

Anthony Fantano is a music critic known mostly from his YouTube channel The Needle Drop. His videos have gained a popular following on the board. In return, Fantano has acknowledged his following there on several occasions.

Piero Scaruffi Beatles Copypasta

The Piero Scaruffi Beatles Copypasta is a /mu/-specific copypasta taken from a paper written about the seminal rock group The Beatles written by Italian music critic Piero Scaruffi. The copypasta is infamous for its pretentious writing style and controversial opinion.

Caveman SpongeBob

Caveman SpongeBob is a reaction image primarily used on /mu/ to show disgust towards a certain aspect of music. The image is taken from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “SB-129”, in which the character Squidward travels back in time and encounter’s SpongeBob’s ancient ancestor Primitive Sponge.^[9] The image is usually used in conjunction with greentext comments to point out musical pet peeves such as “>band has two drummers”.

Search Interest

External References

About

Politically Incorrect, abbreviated as /pol/, is a board dedicated to current events and political discussion on the imageboard 4chan. It is one of the most popular boards on the internet dedicated to politics, and has gained a reputation as a hotbed for fringe beliefs.

History

The board was originally created in 2011 as a replacement for /new/, which was 4chan’s primary board for the distribution and discussion of news. The reasoning behind this decision was primarily based around moot’s belief that /new/ had strayed from its intended purpose and become a gathering place for racists.^[1]

Board Culture

The reputation of the board across the internet in general is typically linked to endorsement of extremist politics, and the board is thus often cited as one of the defining aspects of 4chan’s reputation, alongside /b/.^[2] Frequent users of the board are typically referred to as /pol/acks. Due to 4chan’s nature as an imageboard, /pol/ has spawned several image-based memes.

Happy Merchant

Happy Merchant refers to a cartoon caricature of a Jewish man that is popular as an exploitable and reaction image, particularly on /pol/, where it is frequently used to insulting imply the relevancy of Jews to a particular discussion, or to criticize or dismiss others as being scheming, untrustworthy, or greedy.

Doom Paul

Doom Paul refers to images of the American politician and physician Ron Paul photoshopped into alarming or even apocalyptic settings, usually with the accompanying phrase “It’s Happening”.

Into The Trash It Goes

Into The Trash It Goes, also known as Opinion Discarded, is a popular remark on /pol/ used to dismiss people who are perceived to have said or done something grievously damaging to their credibility. It is typically paired with images of Penn Jillette with a disdainful look on his face.

Ben Garrison

Ben Garrisonis a libertarian political cartoon artist known for creating illustrations commenting on United States political corruption, who has been the subject of a troll campaign by users of 4chan’s /pol/ (politics) board who have attempted to frame him as a radical anti-semite.

/pol/ Was Right Again

“/pol/ Was Right Again” is a catchphrase associated with the conspiracy theories on /pol/, used both ironically and unironically

/pol/ Harbor / 2014 Exodus

On December 7th, 2014, the administration of 4chan trolled the /pol/ board by altering its settings and directing the users of other boards to raid it under the guise of testing new features.^[3] Among the notable occurrences was the disabling of the board’s CAPTCHA system and the filtering of several popular words and phrases, such as the replacement of “free” with “hot pockets”. The board was also renamed “The 8 steps of cuckolding”, and each post was marked with horizontally scrolling text reading [trigger warning]. Although 4chan’s /pol/ was soon restored to its original state, the event triggered a mass exodus of users to the /pol/ board of 8chan, a popular alternative to 4chan.

Search Interest

External References

About

Fire Emblem is a turn-based strategy RPG video game series developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The games in general revolve around a lord, who forms a small army of soldiers to protect the main continent from an aggressive nation. The series is notable for its use of permadeath, where if a unit falls in battle, the player can never use them again for the rest of the game.

History

NES/Famicom Era

The first entry in the series, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi (shown below left), was released only in Japan on April 20th, 1990 for the Famicom (known outside of Japan as the NES). The game stars Marth, who is the prince of the island kingdom Altea. The next game to be released was Fire Emblem Gaiden (shown below right) on March 14th, 1992. The second game is a side story to the first game, set in a different continent called Valentia and features Alm and Celica as the game’s protagonists.

SNES/Super Famicom Era

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem was released in Japan on January 21st, 1994 for the Super Famicom (known outside of Japan as the SNES). It is the first Fire Emblem title to be released for the Super Famicom and the third overall game in the series. Marth returns as the game’s protagonist and the game is divided into two stories. Book One is a remake of the first game, _ Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi_ (shown below left) while Book Two is a continuation of the first game (shown below right). Although never released outside of Japan, Marth would gain recognition for his appearance as a playable character in Super Smash Bros.

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War was released on Japan for the Super Famicom on May 14th, 1996. The game is set in the continent of Jugdral and stars Sigurd as the main protagonist for the first half of the game and Seliph as the main protagonist for the second half of the game (shown below left). Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is the first entry in the series to introduce a Weapon Triangle and skills that would later be incorporated in all Fire Emblem titles released after, and the second generation that would later make a return in Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Fates.

The last Fire Emblem title to be released for the Super Famicom was Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 on September 1st, 1999. The game serves as an interquel for the previous game and stars Leif, who previously appeared as a playable character in the second half of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (shown below right).

GBA Era

The first Fire Emblem title to be released for the GBA and the last title to be released exclusively in Japan was Fire Emblem: Binding Blade. The game is set on the continent of Elibe and stars Roy as the game’s protagonist (shown below). Roy is notable for making his video game debut as a playable character in the Nintendo Fighting game Super Smash Bros. Melee months before his game is released in Japan on March 29th, 2002.

Although Fire Emblem: Binding Blade was never released outside of Japan, the popularity of Marth and Roy’s appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee led to the first international release of the next title in the series, Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword (or simply Fire Emblem outside of Japan). Fire Emblem was released in Japan on April 25th, 2003 and November 3rd, 2003 in North America. The game serves as a prequel to Fire Emblem: Binding Blade and stars three protagonists: Lyn, who is the main protagonist of the prologue portion of Fire Emblem (shown below left), Eliwood, the father of Roy, and Hector, both whom are the main protagonists of their respective tales after the end of the prologue (shown below right).

The last GBA title and the eighth entry in the Fire Emblem series is Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (shown below), which was released in Japan on October 7th, 2004 and in North America on May 23rd, 2005. The game stars two protagonists, Eirika and Ephraim, whom are siblings and the princess and prince respectively of the kingdom of Renais situated in the continent of Magvel.

Gamecube and Wii Era

The ninth Fire Emblem title in the series, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was released in Japan on April 20th, 2005 and in North America on October 17th, 2005 for the Nintendo Gamecube (shown below left). Set on the continent of Tellius, the game stars Ike, who is notably the first “lord” in the series to not be born from nobility. He is instead, the leader of the Greil Mercenaries, a group of soldiers who fight off against brigands and protect villages. Ike and his band of mercenaries would later find themselves serving Elincia, the princess of Crimea. A sequel to Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was released for the Nintendo Wii on February 22nd, 2007 in Japan and on November 11th, 2007 in North America titled Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (shown below right). Set three years after the events of the previous game, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn features the return of Ike as a protagonist along with the introduction of a new protagonist, Micaiah, the Silver-Haired Maiden. The game’s story is divided into four separate parts, each part following a specific faction and with its own story arc.

Nintendo DS Era

The eleventh and twelfth entries of the Fire Emblem series, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, (shown below left) and Fire Emblem New Mystery of the Emblem, Heroes of Light and Shadow (shown below right) are remakes of Marth’s games, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi and Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem released for the Nintendo DS. These games feature the return to the continent of Akaneia and Marth’s role as a main protagonist in almost twenty years. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon was released on August 7th, 2008 in Japan, and on February 16th, 2009 in North America.

Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Heroes of Light and Shadow on the other hand, was released only in Japan on July 15th, 2010. The game introduces new features that later be incorporated into future entries in the series such as the inclusion of a Casual Mode, where fallen units return to battle at the start of the next chapter. Previous Fire Emblem titles made it so the lost of a player’s unit is permanent for the remainder of the game. The game also introduced an Avatar Creation, where players can customize their character’s appearance, gender and class, etc. The Avatar in Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Heroes of Light and Shadow serves as the personal bodyguard of Marth.

Nintendo 3DS Era

The thirteenth Fire Emblem title in the series and the first Fire Emblem title to be released for the Nintendo 3DS is Fire Emblem: Awakening. (shown below) Released in Japan on April 19th, 2012 and February 4th, 2013 in North America, Fire Emblem: Awakening is set thousand of years in the continent of Akaneia, renamed Ylisse. Fire Emblem: Awakening stars three main protagonists: Chrom, the prince of Ylisse, an Avatar (default name Robin) who serves as the tactician of Chrom’s army, and Lucina, who traveled from the future to the present under the alias “Marth.” The game features the return of a Casual Mode and an Avatar Creation from Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem, Heroes of Light and Shadow and the second generation from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.

Fire Emblem: Fates (known in Japan as Fire Emblem: if) was revealed on January 14th, 2015 during a Nintendo Direct presentation (shown below left). A second trailer was released during a different Nintendo Direct presentation on April 1st, 2015 (shown below right). In Fire Emblem: Fates, the Avatar returns once again and serves as the main protagonist of the story. The Avatar was born in the Kingdom of Hoshido but for most of their life, was raised in the Kingdom of Nohr. A war breaks out between the Kingdoms of Hoshido and Nohr. The Avatar, now a young adult, must now choose to side with either their biological family in Hoshido or return to their adoptive family in Nohr. A third trailer was released during the Nintendo Digital Event at E3 2015 (shown below bottom). The game was released in Japan on June 25th, 2015 and is scheduled to be release in North America on February 19th, 2016.

In an interview with 4Gamer, assistant manager Masahiro Higuchi revealed that Fire Emblem: Fates would be released in Japan as two separate versions. ^[1] In the Hoshido route, gameplay would be similar to that from Fire Emblem: Awakening where as in the Nohr route, the gameplay would be based on the older Fire Emblem titles with limited experience and gold, more complex mission objectives than those found in the Hoshido route. During the interview, it was revealed that there would be a third route where the player does not side with Hoshido or Nohr. ^[2]

On May 31st, 2015, Nintendo of Japan’s official Youtube channel uploaded an introduction video for My Castle, one of the newest features to be included in Fire Emblem: Fates (shown below left). On June 9th, 2015, an introduction video was uploaded to the Youtube channel (shown below right).

Reception

In an interview with Spanish magazine Hobby Consola, Fire Emblem: Awakening co-producer Hitoshi Yamagami revealed that the series was in danger of coming to an end due to declining sales. Had Fire Emblem: Awakening not sold at least 250,000 copies, it would have been the final game in the series. ^[3] During the first week of its release in Japan, the game had sold 242,600 units. ^[4] By the beginning of 2013 in Japan, the game had sold 455.268 units. ^[5] At its first month sales since its launch on February 4th, 2013 in North America, Fire Emblem: Awakening had sold 183,000 units, with 63,000 sales coming from the digital version. ^[6] By September 2013, North American sales had reached 390,000 units. ^[7] As of December 2014, lifetime sales of Fire Emblem: Awakening had reached 1.79 million copies worldwide. ^[8]

Online Presence

SerenesForest.net was created on February 1, 2005. ^[9] In addition to the fan-site, two dedicated Fire Emblem wikis were created. ^[10][11] The Fire Emblem series also has a presence in Reddit ^[12], Tumblr, Twitter, DeviantArt, and 4chan’s /v/ and /vg/ boards.

Related Memes

3-13 Archer

The 3-13 Archer is a generic AI ally sniper who appears on chapter 3-13 of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. He is famous for being static for most of Chapter 3-13 but blocking enemy reinforcements that would normally cause players to quickly lose the map, and often living in the process.

“Are Marth and Roy in this game?”

A phrase often uttered by FE newcomers on the internet following the release of Fire Emblem to western audiences, often mocked by veteran FE fans, similar to how SSB fans mock anti-tier players. Has since subsided following Ike’s SSB debut in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

“OMFGMARCUS IS AN EXPTHIEF!!!1!”

Uttered on the internet by a newcomer to FE in response to Fire Emblem character Marcus, who veteran FE players know not to use due to being the game’s obvious Jeigan archetype, but is a beginner’s trap to anyone else. (A Jeigan is often an old character obtained at the beginning of the game who is overpowered at that point of the game, but is pre-promoted and has terrible stat growths, causing him to be an experience vacuum and useless later in the game) Has often been repeated in reference to the Jeigan archetype.

Lobster Lord

Lobster Lord is the fan nickname of Ryoma, the Prince of Hoshido and the Avatar’s elder brother. The term was coined by Tumblr user plerndraws after making a post wondering what was the name of the samurai that appeared at the end of the Fire Emblem Teaser Trailer.^[13] Ryoma has been depicted as a literal lobster, or as someone that has a kinship with lobsters.

Search Interest

External References