Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Chuck Norris Facts
Chuck Norris Facts
Team Member: Tone Helgesen
Chuck Norris facts originally started appearing on the Internet in early 2005. The jokes are normally about Norris` toughness, virility, masculinity, sophistication and attitude. Chuck Norris facts are satirical factoids about the famous actor and martial artist Chuck Norris.
Every night the boogeyman checks under his bed for Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
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This is only 3 of many jokes about Chuck Norris. And it`s so popular that it`s not only about him anymore, but also other celebrities and the facts are also translated into many languages.
The joke started first with “Post Your Vin Diesel Facts” after Vin Diesel was actor in the movie “The Pacifier” as a Navy SEAL-turned-babysitter. A guy, Mr. Ian Spector made a website so people could share and submit new jokes. That was a great hit. People send in so much, and the first day he had received 20,000 hits.
The joke started first with “Post Your Vin Diesel Facts” after Vin Diesel was actor in the movie “The Pacifier” as a Navy SEAL-turned-babysitter. A guy, Mr. Ian Spector made a website so people could share and submit new jokes. That was a great hit. People send in so much, and the first day he had received 20,000 hits.
The fact about Vin Diesel lost it`s luster after a while, so Mr. Spector asked people to find a new name for the next fact generator. He had 12 candidates, but people picked Chuck Norris although he was not on the list.
The Chuck Norris fact is still going on, but not even close to how popular it was in 2006.
Chuck Norris think this was funny, so also videos of him reading the jokes about himself.
I think these jokes became so popular because he was a hero in the movies. He fights in the movies and he was an epic character. So I think people found it so funny to make fun out of the character and pretend like it is Chuck Norris in person. But it`s not so funny jokes, but it`s maybe because of that they are so popular.
I think it became popular because people pretended like it was real and not jokes. They maybe pictured the jokes in their head and make it funny in their own way.
Thing around internet becomes popular all the time, and it`s hard to really know why it become that popular. For me it`s like that with Chuck Norris facts. If you have seen some movies with him, maybe it`s funny, but for me it`s hard to understand why it became so funny.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Planking
Planking
Team Member: Areli Espinoza
Team Member: Areli Espinoza
When
did this begin to become popular/famous on the Internet and why?
Planking became
popular in social networks, like Facebook, around 2009. It is not clear exactly
where it started and when, majority of individuals are fixated with Australia
or England being the locations of the first sightings of the planking meme.
This meme goes to the extremes with its disregard of safety of the individual.
Planking is probably popular because of the ridicule, attention they get from
spectators, and adrenaline individuals seek and adore, which is what most
teenagers consider as “cool.”
The
details/description of the "meme"
Planking consists of laying face down, putting one’s
hands to the sides, and having one’s toes touching the ground. A photo must be
taken of the event and shared on an online social network. The larger the group
and the more public the planking the popular the meme and individuals will get.
How
popular did it become and over what time span?
In 2009 planking was getting momentum and by 2011 it
reached its highest peak. Thanks to social networks like Facebook and YouTube
planking became a worldwide phenomenon. Every country had its own name for the
game like “Playing Dead” in South Korean and “The Lying Down Game” for the
United Kingdom.
Other memes that have emerged from this or have been influenced by this.
Some memes that are affiliated with planking are:
Teapotting (2011)- which consist of bending the arms into the shape of a teapot.
Batmanning (2011)-
which consists of hanging upside down by one’s feet.
Owling (2011)- which
consist of an individual squatting like an owl and owl impressions usually
follow with the act.
Horsemanning (2011)-
which consists of two individuals creating the illusion that they are a single
body with a detached head.
The Results of Planking:
Nyan Cat
NYAN CAT
Team Member: Julianne
Dragseth
Nyan Cat, also known as
Pop Tart Cat, is an animated character that was first seen on the daily comic
site LOL-COMICS on April 2nd, 2011. The Nyan Cat is an 8-bit animation that
portrays a cat with a body consisting of a cherry pop tart that is flying
through outer space. The illustrator is Chris Torres (also known as
prguitarman), which found the inspiration for the Pop Tart Cat from his own
Russian Blue cat, and the idea of the Pop Tart came during a Red Cross charity drawing event on
Livestream.
Prior to the Pop Tart
Cat/Nyan Cat Chris Torres aka prguitarman had already received some attention
for his comics, and hence gained a relatively large audience. This might be why
this specific GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) got so popular. The existing
audience was big enough to circulate the GIF enough so it would receive
attention. The GIF was reblogged via Tumblr on April 2nd, 2011, which resulted
in over 3,000 likes or reblogs during the first two weeks.
Also, in addition to
this previous audience, and the reblogging, one other person helped give
attention to the Pop Tart Cat. On April 5th 2011, Youtube saraj00n posted a
video titled "Nyan Cat" with the Pop Tart Cat animation set to the
Japanese Vocaloid song Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya by Japanese artist Daniwell-P
looping in the background. This video accumulated over one million views in its
first two weeks on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QH2-TGUlwu4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QH2-TGUlwu4
Nyan Cat has also been
spread onto different platforms and to different social networking sites. This
mainly started happening on April 10th when the Nyan Cat video was making its
appearance on Facebook, Memebase, Tumblr, Buzzfeed and other blogs and social
networking sites.
After a short period of time, there was created several spin offs and remixes of the video, with either alternative background music or characters. Here are some examples:
After a short period of time, there was created several spin offs and remixes of the video, with either alternative background music or characters. Here are some examples:
Hello Kitty Nyan Cat
Tac Nayn
In addition to these
spin offs there has been created games, single-serving sites, a Nyan Cat
progress bar among other things. In addition there has also been made a dubbed
version of a Slipknot song, where the video is played with the song, which is
now associated with the Nyan Cat, in the background.
Nyan Cat had its peak
in June 2011, but thereafter the interest has been decreasing according to the
Google Trends table.
What might have caused the Meme's publicity might be because the animator had a known blog that had loyal followers. This might make them more accessible to sharing the meme and hence contributing to the spread and popularity of the meme. Also the amounts of spin offs that have been created might have made this meme even more popular.
Paula Deen Riding Things
Paula Deen Riding Things
Team Member: Jennifer Hansen
 |
| The First Paula Deen Riding Things Meme |
Most of the meme's images are of Deen riding food, particularly butter and bacon, as the chef is known to love these unhealthy ingredients.
Also popular is placing Paula Deen upon the shoulders of celebrities, movie characters, or otherwise well-known people.
The meme originated after an appearance by Paula Deen at the South Beach Wine and Food Festival on February 27, 2011. At one point during a tasting event Deen was hosting, her co-host Robert Irvine, a fellow celebrity chef, got down on all fours and Paula climbed onto his back and pretended to be a horse jockey. (Of course copious amounts of wine were involved).
Here's a video of the incident: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeaUA1Dt-mM
The following day, February 28, two college students, known to the Internet as Nick and Robbie, created a Tumblr blog called "Paula Deen Riding Things." They posted 13 photoshopped images of Paula Deen's riding pose, including the gif above. The tumblr also provided two templates which enabled others to participate more easily in the production of the meme. The meme did not take off in popularity until the next day,March 1, after comedian and talk show host Jimmy Fallon tweeted a link to the blog. The meme spread quickly and was featured on numerous websites and even shown to Deen herself during a television appearance on March 16. The meme's popularity was highest during the month of March 2011 and decreased significantly once the "buzz" had passed (see the Google Trends graph below).The Paula Deen Riding Things website (http://pauladeenridingthings.com/) had 212 posts during March 2011, 106 more over the next three months, and only 91 in the 22 months since August 2011, including three submissions in 2013. Additionally, the popularity of this meme was restricted to the United States (according to Google trends), which would suggest the meme's humor is cultural specific.
The Paula Deen Riding Things Google Trends graph:
The popularity of Paula Deen Riding Things is, like many memes, a strange phenomena. One possible factor in its proliferation is the joy of participatory humor. By providing an easily accessible template on their blog, Nick and Robbie encouraged others to modify the already funny situation of Paula Deen riding a man's back along with them. In addition, America's celebrity fixation, as well as emulation, may be a factor. Paula Deen's actions only garner so much attention if people are watching and interested in what she is doing, which is only the case because of a tv show and media attention. Media attention also helped spread the meme in their coverage of both the original incident and the meme's creation. The role that Jimmy Fallon's tweet had in the spread of this meme indicates the desire of Americans to emulate their stars, to be interested in what interests or amuses them. Finally, the meme is popular because it is funny. It is humor of the reducto ad absurdum type. Taking a picture of Paula Deen and placing her on a killer whale (http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/369/290/5fb.png) expands her behavior from its original playfulness to absurd. Also, Paula Dean herself is an exaggeration of a Southern identity, from her accent to her love of butter. The Internet meme allows people a disinhibited space to poke fun at her identity. All of these factors help explain why Paula Dean Riding Things rose quickly in popularity.
Although the Paula Deen Riding Things did not spawn other memes, a common practice is to incorporate Paula Deen into other memes.
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| Paula Deen Rides Ridiculously Photogenic Guy |
 |
| Paula Rides Nyan Cat |
In October 2011, a blog was created devoted entirely to the mash-up of the Paula Dean Riding Things meme with another meme known as Kim Jong Il Looking At Things.
In conclusion, Paula Deen Riding Things is a Photoshop meme that arose in March 2011 and has largely died out today, but not before providing us with unforgettable images such as...
Gingers Do Have Souls
GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS
Team Member: Sara Hareide Wagland
The phenomenon with “Gingers do
have souls”, started out with a South Park episode from the 9th
November 2005 called “Ginger Kids”. In that episode one of the main characters,
Eric Cartman, gives a speech to the class about how ginger kids are born with a
special disease. The disease is called “gingervitus” and occurs because ginger
kids apparently have no soul.
South Park – “Ginger Kids”
South Park is a very popular, animated sit-com show for
adults. The show is known for mocking and satirizing social and political issues,
and in this particular episode they focus on ginger kids and ginger
discrimination. It was almost like everyone was waiting for a ginger kid to
come along and confront this.
And it happened. On the 14th of January 2010 an
18-year-old boy called Michael Copper (alias “CopperCab”) uploaded a video on
YouTube called “GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!!” In this video he is angry at South Park
and everyone else who makes fun of redheads. With highly exploitable quotes “CopperCab”
shares his frustrations about ginger discrimination; “my feelings are really
hurt”, and “I am a Christian, and I do have a soul!” At the same time he
screams and makes a lot of strange faces.
The real video, “GINGERS DO
HAVE SOULS!!”
The monologue made the video a popular target for further
remixes and mash-ups, and it became really popular in a short time. The first month
after the video was uploaded on YouTube, it reached 3.1 million views and over
600 response videos. According to Google Insight Interests (look at the graph
below), its top peak was in April 2010. But it is still a really popular video, with
32,683,342 views as of the 25th of February 2013.
The video led to a lot of other video responses, and even
South Park responded in March 2010. The promo for their 14th season
was a spoof of “CopperCab”´s video; a ginger-haired Eric Cartman impersonating
“CopperCab”:
Chocolate Rain
Chocolate rain
Team Member: Anniken Boye
Team Member: Anniken Boye
The meme
chocolate rain started with Tay Zondays song and music video “Chocolate rain”. The
song became quickly popular after being posted on youtube on April, 22, 2007.
Zonday was a grad student from Minneapolis, Minnesota when he uploaded the
video Chocolate rain. He is singing in a condenser microphone in a recording
studio where he is wearing a white T-shirt. “I move away from the mic to breath
in” is a caption which appears early in the video, and after it´s appearance it
has been parodied many times. Many viewers tried to figure out what Zonday
meant with his strange lyrics like “chocolate rain, some stay dry while other
feel the pain”. Zonday claim that the song was meant to be about institutional
racism.
This is the original video:
After Zondan´s
first appearance on 4chan, parodies began appearing on youtube of his video:
“Vanilla
snow”
Chocolate
rain by Chad Vader
Why did
this meme become so popular? I think some may say because of how random the
song is and the strange lyrics. The song is also catchy and the sheer base in
Zonday´s voice might be one of the reasons that the song becomes so popular. People
love it and at one point the video was among the
top 50 most viewed YouTube videos of all time. The video had 65 million views of
April 21st, 2011 and it is ranked #96 of all time. Chocolate rain has 88 million
views of January 26, 2013.
The interest for chocolate rain was
highest of August 2007.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Kim Jong Un Looking at Things
Team Member: Angela Liu
“looking at a red ribbon”
“looking at fossils”
“looking at a workbench”
Who is Kim Jong Un?
Kim Jong Un is the current supreme leader of North Korea and
the youngest son of Kim Jong Il. There is little information about the personal
life of Kim Jong Un, but his birthdate is believed to be either in 1983 or
1984. He was seen as the heir apparent from late 2010 on, and was formally
declared the supreme leader after the funeral for his father, Kim Jong Il, on
December 28th, 2011. Prior to 2010, Kim Jong Un’s eldest brother Kim
Jong –nam had been the favorite to succeed their father, but quickly fell out
of favor in 2001 when he was caught using a fake passport to attempt to enter
Tokyo, Japan to visit Disneyland. Kim Jong Un has been described to be exactly
like his father, while his elder brother was said to be too feminine for the
role. Under these circumstances, Kim Jong Un became the apparent favorite of
their father. Since the succession, Kim Jong Un has been featured widely in
North Korean publications as a great and powerful leader. There are currently
reports that Kim Jong Un is continuing his father’s policies in operating
political prison camps and general human rights violations. However, there have
been rumors that Kim Jong Un has loosened his grip in the strictness of
censorship.
Kim Jong Un Looking
at Things
Kim Jong Un Looking at Things first launched on December 18th
2012 as a parody of the original blog Kim Jong Il Looking at Things, which
launched in October 2010. Most of the photographs used in the blog are taken
off of propaganda photos issued by the North Korean press to bring greater
presence of Kim Jong Un into North Korean society after his succession. The
photos were originally meant to showcase how great and powerful he is.
According to Google Trends, the first appearance of searches for Kim Jong Un
Looking at Things took place in early 2011, though the searches were quite
small. The number of searches shot up to its peak in late 2011 to early 2012
and declined since then, with a few spikes in searches in late 2012. The vast
majority of the searches were done in the United States (including Alaska),
Germany, and the United Kingdom, with the highest number of searches coming
from Germany. The popularity and prevalence of the meme and sudden interest in
early 2012 is most likely due to the launch date of the blog in conjunction to
the death of Kim Jong Il and subsequent succession by Kim Jong Un. This
critical time frame provided the most material in terms of photos released by
the North Korean press. The decreasing interest in the meme was most likely due
to a decline in exposure from the North Korean press as more time passed after
the succession and the novelty started to wear off. The slight rises in search
throughout late 2012 and early 2013 is most likely caused by international news
regarding North Korea (which links to Kim Jong Un) in the popular media; one
such example is the current nuclear missile threat made by the North Korean
government towards the United States, accounting for the increased interest in
early 2013.
“looking at children’s socks”
The Origin – Kim Jong
Il Looking at Things
The meme Kim Jong Un Looking at Things came about as a
parody of Kim Jong Il Looking at Things, which launched on October 28th,
2010 on Tumblr. The blog had received attention and traction from a Reddit
thread featuring it, though the thread itself only received a few dozen
upvotes. A second thread featuring the blog was posted on December 2nd,
2010 and received over 2000 upvotes. Soon after, major mainstream media outlets
picked up on the blog and contributed to the rapid spread to other news sites
and humor blogs. The photos that stocked the blog came about from a North
Korean propaganda campaign to promote his public image. The height of searches
for Kim Jong Il Looking at Things was at the same time that the Reddit posts
came out featuring the blog. Kim Jong Un
Looking at Things had surfaced mere hours after the official announcement of
Kim Jong Il’s death.
The Spin-offs –
Hungry Kim Jong Un
A day after the launch of Kim Jong Un Looking at Things, a
redditor submitted a photo of Kim Jong Un pointing at something with the
caption “Ok so…can I eat this?” onto the Funny subreddit. On the same day, a
quickmeme was established for Hungry Kim Jong Un, and as of November 2012, it
has over 220 submissions. A few days after the first Reddit post, a Tumblr blog
entitled Kim Jong Un is Hungry was launched, using similar photos of Kim Jong
Un with food related subtitles.
The Spin-Offs – 2012
Person of the Year Campaign
On November 26th, 2012 4chan users on the random
message board began to organize a way to make Kim Jong Un the number one voted
person in Time Magazine’s annual Person of the Year event. Over the next few
hours, multiple message boards posted the link for the voting event and got
people to vote for Kim Jong Un en masse. The campaign was also related to a
second campaign with the name #OpFuckMorsy to take down Egyptian President
Mohamed Morsi as the top voted person of the year. The Kim Jong Un campaign
gained traction as it was posted in threads on multiple sites including
BetaBeat and Reddit. The campaign was a success as Kim Jong Un raked in over 3
million votes as compared to the second place Mohamed Morsi with just under
400,000 votes.
The Spin-Offs – Sexiest
Man Alive
On November 4th, 2012 The Onion (a satirical news
outlet) posted an article naming Kim Jong Un as the Sexiest Man Alive for the
2012 calendar year. A few days later, the Korean Times published an article on
The Onion piece, but left out the fact that the piece was meant to be
satirical. A few days later, a Chinese newspaper (People’s Daily) published a
story on the Onion piece complete with a slideshow deck of the North Korean
leader. The Chinese story was then featured on prominent news outlets throughout
the world such as the Los Angeles Times, BBC News, and others. The internet
community picked up on the article and had multiple threads posted, and began
to label Kim Jong Un as the Sexiest Man Alive as a parody, often accompanied by
photos of him released by North Korean media.
The Cinnamon Challenge
The Cinnamon Challenge
Team Member: Camilla Bryne
The Cinnamon Challenge is still actively going
on today, though it has drop rapidly since its peak in 2011.
The reason why this
Internet meme has become so popular is probably because people want to prove
that they can do this crazy challenge, and their adventurous mind sets them up
to it. It also might have spread due to people’s curiosity, because they want
to figure out how difficult it actually is. The Cinnamon Challenge has resulted
in other memes that has been influenced and emerged from this dares game. For
instance we can find a lot of images of people’s faces and their hilarious reactions
immediately after they have swallowed a spoon of cinnamon.
Team Member: Camilla Bryne
The Cinnamon Challenge is a popular dares
game, and a form of competitive eating. The game involves trying to swallow a
tablespoon of pure, ground cinnamon without inhaling or vomiting the powder.
You are not allowed to drink anything, and you have to finish the challenge
within 60 seconds. Afterwards you upload the video online. The challenge is
very difficult and dangerous, and can even be life-threatening. Swallowing the
cinnamon usually results in coughing, gagging or vomiting, and it can also
cause serious damage to the lungs.
The stunt has its origin in 2001, when the first challenge took place. The
first video of the challenge, titled “Pipe Attempts the Cinnamon Challenge”,
was uploaded at YouTube April 2nd 2006.
After this first video was uploaded several different videos was posted
in 2006, and it increased in popularity in 2007. A lot of people had posted
videos of themselves attempting the Cinnamon Challenge by 2010. However, the
challenge first became really popular in 2011 due to a video Anna Diaz recorded
of herself attempting to do the stunt. During the two first months the video
received 3.9 million views. It was also covered by a lot of Internet culture
blogs and imitated by other YouTubers. Today the video has over 9.3 million
views.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Leeroy Jenkins
Leeroy Jenkins
Team Member: Lars Loftaas
Leeroy Jenkins (LJ) is the name of Ben Schulz’s World of
Warcraft (WOW) character. The name became a meme in 2005 after Ben Schulz
ignored his companions’ battle strategy during a game, and ran into a battle by
himself screaming out his own name; “Leeeroy Jenkins”. Schulz’s teammates
follow him into the battle and everyone gets killed. In the end of the video Schulz says, “at least
I got chicken”.
The LJ video was first published on a WOW website in May
2005, and two months later the video got uploaded at YouTube. According to Google Insight the search
“Leeroy Jenkins” was most popular between June 2005 and November 2005. After
its peak in November 2005 the video’s popularity has fallen gradually (see illustration). In total (as of February 2013), the video has
over 33 million views at YouTube.
The main reason why I think the
video became so popular is the context where it first was published. The WOW
website is a place where players ask for help regarding their strategy, and
people take their job quite serious. The video shows a group seriously
discussing their battle strategy, preparing themselves for a battle against a large
group of dragonspawns. At this point, people probably analyze the video
seriously. Suddenly, one of the players
runs into the battle, ignoring his team’s strategy. His teammates do not know
how to react to this unexpected event and everyone just runs into the battle,
ending up getting everyone killed. This is an unexpected element
is in contrast to the serious and boring character of the rest of the video and
the website, and this action ruins everything that has been discussed for
minutes.
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