About

The Graphics Interchange Format (always shortened as GIF) is a bitmap image format widely used on the Internet for its flexible web support and portability. The format, which supports up to 8 bits per pixel and a palette of up to 256 distinct colors for each frame, is well-suited for handling simpler images like graphics and logos with solid color areas, while it doesn’t fare as well in reproduction of color photographs with continuous colors. GIF was one of the first two image formats commonly used on the web and the first image format to support color display until the arrival of JPEG in 1992.

Online History

GIF format was introduced by the first major U.S. commercial online service Compuserve in 1987 to provide a more robust format for the purpose of uploading and downloading color images, which replaced its earlier run-length encoding (RLE) format in black and white only. The original version of the GIF format was labeled “87a” and released on June 15th, 1987, soon followed by the 1989 release of its enhanced successor “89a,” which featured support for animation delays, transparent background colors and storage of application-specific metadata. The very first GIF depicting an airplane was presented by CompuServe in 1987, according to the inventor Steve Wilhite’s interview with the Daily Dot in 2012.

Browser Compatibility

In 1991, Tim Berners Lee opened the web to the public with the launch of the World Wide Web project. Soon after that in January 1993, one of the first popular web browsers Mosaic (shown below, left) was unveiled with capability to embed images into an HTML page. Mosaic browser then evolved into the foundation for Netscape Navigator (shown below, right), which was released in December 1994. The 2.0 version of Netscape Navigator is widely credited with pioneering the technology of Application Extension Blocks, enabling the automatic looping of animated GIFs displayed in webpages. This feature was soon adapted by other browsers in the following years, thus paving the road for the ubiquity of animated GIFs in the years to come.

Reception

Being one of the first universally supported image formats with color display and looped animation features, the presence of GIF skyrocketed in the early 1990s as Internet users began experimenting with the image format for decorating their personal webpages. However, the use of GIF for still images began to diminish with the subsequent arrival of Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) formats.

Early Internet Usage

Web administrators began using GIF files mainly for its support of color display in 256 colors. One of the first notable projects to utilize this format was GIF News, an online newsletter that was distributed every 60 days or so through BBSes between 1988 and 1993.

Following the launch of personal web hosting services and basic HTML-editing platforms like Geocities and Tripod in 1995, use of GIF files in website design became nearly ubiquitous and even over-saturated. Animated GIF banners with specific functions also became popular, the most notable examples being dancing flames, flashing “new” signs and waving American flags for decorations, constantly opening-and-closing mailboxes for linking to e-mail address and contact pages, as well “under construction” roadsigns used to notify visitors that the webpage is unavailable at the moment.

GIF Oversaturation

Meanwhile, the indiscriminate usage of animated GIFs eventually led to its negative associations with tacky web design and poor sense of aesthetics, not to mention the constant reloading of bright, high contrast-colored animations posed distraction for the readers. Some Internet users became so annoyed by the overwhelming presence of GIFs on webpages that they coined the phenomenon “banner blindness.”

By the late 1990s, GIF format began to lose its glow of fashionable connotation with the growing criticisms against its inefficiency for displaying still images and indiscriminate usage that led to “banner blindness,” not to mention that advertisers began to prefer text-based or flash-based banners over flashy, distractive animations. Furthermore, the arrival of newer and more efficient compression technologies like Adobe Flash, JPEG and PNG image formats also contributed to the diminishing influence of GIFs.

Pre-YouTube Era

While GIF was no longer considered the staple image format in web design at the dawn of the new century, its unique auto-play and auto-loop features gave rise to another widespread use, this time, in the rapidly growing world of Internet culture. In fact, some of the earliest known Internet memes and viral media took the form of GIF animations, such as the Dancing Baby and the Hampster Dance and Bunchie.

Several years later, GIF format demonstrated its potential use in web entertainment and Internet humor in 2001 when Max Goldberg launched a single serving site called “You’re the Man Now, Dog,” which eventually became known as YTMND, an online community centered on the creation of web pages featuring a still image or short GIF animation along with large caption text and a looping audio file. At the peak of its popularity between 2004 to 2007, the website became considered a major hubsite of Internet memes. However, the growth of GIF-based YTMND sites began to wane circa 2008 with the arrival of instant video-streaming sites like YouTube.

Resurgence in Web 2.0

Despite the advents of high quality video-streaming services and video-sharing communities in the late 2000s and early 2010s, GIFs didn’t fade away into oblivion. Instead, the seemingly outdated image format became embraced by many users on photo-sharing platforms and social networking sites like Tumblr, Imgur and Google Plus that supported GIF animation, giving rise to its second renaissance.

Impact

The reinvigorated online interest in GIFs may be also attributed to the availability of generator applications that require little efforts and skills to create one, compounded by massive increase in volume of online videos in circulation, which in turn serves as the repository for GIF-makers.

YTMND

For more information, head over to KYMdb – YTMND.

In Photography

In Pixel Art

For more information, head over to KYMdb – Pixel Art.

In Reaction Faces

For more information, head over to KYMdb – Reaction Faces.

Search Interest

External References

About

>Implying, sometimes referred to as Implying Implications, is a type of greentext comment usually found throughout 4chan image boards that is used to mock another user’s comment or challenge the validity of its underlying argument or logic.

Origin

The earliest archived use of >implying comments was posted to 4chan’s /v/ (video games) board on March 5th, 2009.^[1] The thread began as a textual game of Pong (shown below, left) played via spoiler tags, with two capital “I” and lowercase os that show up only when the user hovers over them. In the thread, a user attempted to make spoiler volleyball game (show below, right), using (|) to represent the ball going over the net. Another user responded to the spoiler volleyball by saying “>implying that from a birds eye view you would be able to see the net through the ball when it passes over it.”

Spread

Throughout 2009, variations of “>implying” comments appeared on 4chan imageboards including /a/ (anime)^[2], /r9k/ (ROBOT9000)^[3], /fit/ (fitness)^[4] and /fa/ (fashion).^[5] By October 2009, the sarcastic practice of >implying comments had spread outside of 4chan to other communities such as the Gametrailers forums^[7], the Adult Swim Boards^[6] and the official forum for the game Heroes of Newerth.^[8] The comment has also appeared on LurkerFAQs^[16], FAILblog^[17] and Yahoo! Answers.^[18]

“Implying Implications” has also been adapted as guild names in EVE Online^[9] and in World of Warcraft.^[10] In March 2010, two Facebook fan pages^[12][13] were launched under the name “>Implying,” which have gained 2,057 combined likes. As of July 2012, a search query for “implying” yields more than 72,900 related threads on Chanarchive. Additional images and posts can be found on Tumblr^[14] with the “implying” tag.

Notable Images

In addition to the text posts, >implying can be found in the form of reaction face images or rage comics. The reaction faces often show a person making air quotes^[15] with their fingers.

Search Interest

Since Google Insights does not count the “>” (greater than) operator in its search results, the interest for “implying” does not give accurate results for this usage.

External References

About

Meh is an interjection used to express feelings of ambivalence or indifference, though it is generally regarded as an indication of mild disapproval.

Origin

The earliest known use of the expression on the web can be found in a Usenet discussion about the TV sitcom series Melrose Place posted by John Dorrance on July 9th, 1992:

Meh… far too Ken-doll for me…
One last bitch about the show: exactly how frequently can we expect to
see people being tossed into the pool for warm-comedic effect? I’m
gagging…

Later that same year, it was quoted in a scene from The Simpsons episode “Homer’s Triple Bypass” that aired on December 17th, 1992, by Lisa while lamenting about her generation’s utter lack of sympthy towards others’ misfortunes. According to Wikipedia, there are two theories behind the etymology of “meh”: the more credible explanation of the two credits the animated TV series The Simpsons as the origin of its colloquial usage, while another theory suggests it is rooted in Yiddish language because of its similarity to the interjection “feh,” which made its earliest known appearance in the 1936 classic film Yidl Mitn Fidl as the transliteration of the sound a goat makes.

Spread

The expression made additional appearances in subsequent episodes of The Simpsons, perhaps most prominently in the the 2001 episode “Hungry, Hungry Homer” in which Lisa spells out the word for emphasis (“M – E – H”) when Homer tries to convince Lisa and Bart into going to the amusement park “Blockoland.”

The earliest known Urban Dictionary definition of the term was submitted by Harold Lauder on November 16th, 2002:

Indifference; to be used when one simply does not care.

In the following decade, more than 280 additional entries for “Meh” have been submitted to Urban Dictionary and it was eventually chosen as the Urban Word of the Day on May 22nd, 2007. The earliest known record of the term in print media can be attributed to an article titled “Ryan Opray got voted off Survivor. Meh” published by the Canadian newspaper The Edmonton Sun in 2003.

Inclusion in English Dictionary

In November 2008, the word was formally recognized as a word by Collins English Dictionary. The news of its admission was covered in the following days by numerous high profile publications, including SkyNews, BBC and New York Times among others.

The news of its admission even drew some controversy in the mainstream media, when The Daily Telegraph writer Sam Leith described its inclusion in an English dictionary as a “gimmick.” Meanwhile, some Canadians reportedly took offense in the choice of example of conversational usage, which read “As in ‘the Canadian election was so meh.’” In response to the objections, the senior editor for Collins dictionaries Cormac McKeown said:

“This is a new interjection from the US that seems to have inveigled its way into common speech over here.”

Usage in Journalism

In December 2009, “Meh” was included in the list of 20 words which ‘defined the decade’ published by BBC News Online. There are a number of personal blogs referencing the word “meh”^[9][10][11] and Memegenerator has a middle-range tier called “Meh.” In 2011, it was also used as the title of several New York Times articles, including “Meh -- And I Mean That” published on September 22nd, 2011, and “The Meh List” published on December 14th, 2011.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Stop Posting” is an online expression commonly used on discussion forums and imageboards in response to another participant’s spam or post that is deemed uninteresting or irrelevant to the thread topic. The phrase has since evolved into a reaction GIF series featuring various subjects grimacing in frustration or pleading out of desperation.

Origin

“Stop posting” is a commonly used phrase that has its root in Usenet newsgroups and discussion forum, where a participant may spam or flood the same post repeatedly and derail conversations. The earliest known instance of “Stop Posting” image macro appeared on October 21st, 2005 via Subchat Forum^[1] where forum member Flatbush41 told another user AIM:

Spread

The same image has been since re-used on popular imageboards like 4chan^[5] and other forums including FARK^[2], Newgrounds^[3] and eBaumsworld^[4], as well as several non-English language forums. The Google Insights data indicates that the meme began to see significant spike in popularity with the circulation of this particular animated GIF file beginning sometime in late 2008:

In October 2009, a Facebook Page^[6] called “Stop Posting Crap Every 2 Seconds” was launched. Another notable derivative emerged sometime in 2009, featuring a kitten’s paw placed over a person’s hand and the caption that read: “it’s time to stop posting.” The image also spawned a spin-off instance featuring Pinkie Pie following the emergence of of Bronies and My Little Pony fandom on 4chan imageboards in late 2010.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Star Wars is an American space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25th, 1977, under the title Star Wars and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year intervals, in 1980 and 1983. Three other movies, the prequels, were released in 1999, 2002 and 2005 respectively.

History

The original Star Wars trilogy contained only the latter three parts of the saga. The first three movies were a prequel trilogy which lead towards the start of the original trilogy. The episodes are placed in a chronological order to follow the time line of the saga, but the order of release starts with part IV, V and VI, to be followed by part I, II and III.

Reception

As of June 2008, the overall box office revenue generated by the six Star Wars films has totalled approximately $4.49 billion,^[1] making it the third-highest-grossing film series behind only the Harry Potter and James Bond films. Aside from the box office revenue, the franchise has generated about $33 billion, nearly half of which comes from the Star Wars toy lines.

The Star Wars film series has spawned a media franchise including books, television series, video games, and comic books. These supplements to the film trilogies comprise the Star Wars Expanded Universe and have resulted in significant development of the series’ fictional universe, in addition to keeping the franchise going in the interim between the film trilogies.

In 2008, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was released in theaters as the first-ever worldwide theatrical Star Wars film outside of the main trilogies. The first animated film in the franchise, it was intended as an introduction to the Expanded Universe series of the same name, a 3D CGI animated series based on a previous 2D-animated series of a similar name.

Expanded Universe

The term Expanded Universe (EU) is an umbrella term for officially licensed Star Wars material outside of the six feature films. The material expands the stories told in the films, taking place anywhere from 25,000 years before The Phantom Menace to 140 years after Return of the Jedi. This included various other films^[2], animated series^[3], books^[4], games^[5] and action figures.

Most importantly, The Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own non-canon material set in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan-fiction to creating fan films. The fan-driven expansion of the original canon also encouraged by Lucasfilm when, in 2002, it sponsored the first annual Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan-fiction films set in the Star Wars universe were initially ineligible for competition, but in 2007 Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries.^[6]

While many fan films have used elements from the licensed Expanded Universe to tell their story, they are not considered an official part of the Star Wars canon. However, the lead character from the Pink Five series was incorporated into Timothy Zahn’s 2007 novel Allegiance, marking the first time a fan-created Star Wars character has ever crossed into the official canon.^[7] Lucasfilm, for the most part, has allowed but not endorsed the creation of these derivative fan-fiction works, so long as no such work attempts to make a profit from or tarnish the Star Wars franchise in any way.^[8]

Impact

The franchise is crammed with cult one-liners that are still abused as pop culture references up to these days. It also found its place on Internet as a generator of many famous memes. These pop culture impacts have shown up on commercials as well as forums and television. It is one of the primary sources for parody reference when referring to cliches in the television and movie landscape. The other impact that it has had is the expanded universe which has spawned multiple fan novella.

Related Memes

It’s a Trap!

Originally quoted by Admiral Ackbar in The Return of the Jedi, “It’s a Trap” is often used as a reaction to photos of people or things that have a deceptive appearance. The snowclone “It’s a X!” is also used to caption image macros (sometimes accompanied by a picture of Admiral Ackar ) in which the name of subject rhymes with “trap.”

Red Leader Standing By

A popular game on forums and image-boards coming from a scene in Episode IV: A New Hope. it involves relay-posting images that are explicitly red, or more ambiguous items associated with the word “red”. It comes from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope where the rebel alliance is launching their assault on the Death Star.

Star Wars Kid

Star Wars Kid is a viral video featuring Ghyslain Razaa, a Canadian teenager who filmed himself fighting against imaginary sentries with a golf-ball retriever, as though it were a double-sided light saber such as the one Darth Maul uses in Star Wars: Episode I.

Darth Vader’s Nooooooo / Do Not Want

A scene from Episode III: Revenge of the Siths where Darth Vader finds out that his wife, Padme, has been killed has become a widespread phenomenon both for its anti-climactic shout and because of a Chinese mistranslation.

Do Not Want and Do Want are catchphrases typically used in image macros to express ones displeasure, or yearning. It spawned from a poorly translated copy of Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith blogger Jeremy Winterson purchased in Shanghai. The scene where Darth Vader shouts “Nooo!” has been translated in the subtitles as “Do Not Want”. In addition, Darth Vader’s Noooo! is used to emphasize a situation where other cries of regret or distaste.

I Am Your Father

I Am Your Father (Often misquoted as “Luke, I Am Your Father”) is quote from Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader Informs Luke that he is his son. The quote is subject to much parody and use in 4panes.

I Find Your Lack Of Faith Disturbing

I find your lack of faith disturbing is a response phrase originally used by Darth Vader, in Star Wars: A New Hope, to denote disapproval, with a sinister edge and implications.

Lightsaber Duels

The first lightsaber duel ever made appeared on Star Wars (a new hope, 1977) between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi and fans of Star Wars have been creating their own ever since. Many of these fan duels use video effects to achieve the visuals needed to resemble the originals found in the movies.

Search Interest

External References

About

WTF is a shorthand expression for “what the fuck?” which is commonly used in a wide range of contexts in online conversations, most prominently as an intensive (i.e. “WTF?!”) or an interrogative (i.e. "WTF do you mean?).

Origin

The expression “what the fuck” has its roots in colloquial American English, with the earliest known iteration in print found in the 1983 fiction Handling Sin by American author Michael Malone.

Gates hopped out of the cab. “What the fuck…” He looked at the teenager.
“Shit a brick. It’s the kid from the department store! Kure Beach, right?”

Various English word reference sites have cited U.S. military slang as the origin of the acronym, sometimes euphemized in NATO phonetic alphabet as “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” although it remains unattributed. According to Google Books, the phrase “what the fuck” began appearing in print publications at the beginning of the 1960s while its acronym “WTF” saw a notable increase in number of mentions starting in 1975, the year that marked the end of the Vietnam War.

Meanwhile, the online usage of its acronym WTF can be traced to Usenet newsgroups in the 1980s, with the earliest iteration in a discussion thread about The Grateful Dead, which was posted via net.music.gdead by Dick Dunn on October 31st, 1985:

BUT, can anyone shed even a little light on the lyrics of China Cat Sunflower? I’ve READ them; I know what all the words are. I still say, “WTF, over?” Someone’s playing with our heads on this one, but what’s all the word stew?

Spread

Throughout the 1990s, the usage of phrase became increasingly commonplace in Usenet newsgroups and internet chatrooms with the emergence of word filters and censorship of expletives in highly-trafficked chatrooms and message boards. The earliest Urban Dictionary definition of “WTF” was submitted by an anonymous user on December 10th, 1999:

What the fuck? Use it in place of expletives, a more polite alternative.

As of July 2012, there are more than 175 Urban Dictionary entries for the acronym, although the top voted definition refers to the World Taekwondo Federation, which is also abbreviated as “WTF.”

Usage in Domain Names

Usage in News Media

Many online publications in the news media and blogosphere have adopted “WTF” as a genre of news stories or a category tag, similar to offbeat news sections in print publications. Some of the most prominent sites with a dedicated WTF category range from Gawker Media blogs like Jezebel and Gizmodo, as well as BoingBoing and TechCrunch among others. In addition, most well-known photo and video sharing community platforms such as Tumblr, Reddit, Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram, as well as music streaming sites Last.fm and Spotify.

Notable Derivatives

• Wat: A variant of the English word “what” that is often used to express confusion or disgust, much like its better known acronym “WTF,” short for “what the fuck.” Although the term “wat” is most frequently used as an interjection without a question mark, it is sometimes used to caption reaction face images or peculiar images that would evoke similar responses.

• LOLWUT: A popular image macro and catchphrase used in online conversations to indicate feelings of confusion or amusement over a piece of media posted by someone else. Commonly pronounced “lol what,” the phrase is typically associated with the following picture.

• OMGWTFBBQ: Stands for “Oh My God What The Fuck Barbecue.” Little more than a meaningless jumble of acronyms, the phrase can be seen as a parody of popular internet acronyms in usage. To some extent, it has been also used to express confusion or lack of understanding, especially in the midst of incoherency.

• WTF H4X Short for “What The Fuck, Hacks.” It is used to express suprise and to accuse someone of hacking or cheating in an online game.

• Dafuq An interjection typically used in reaction to that which makes no sense or provokes severe confusion. It is short for the colloquial phrase “[what] the fuck?” and written without capital letters, spaces and punctuation.

• WTF Boom: A dubbed audio meme in which a normal video clip gets interrupted by a loud voice screaming “WHAT THE F-” cut off by an extremely loud explosion, followed by a sinister laugh.

• FTW: The anagram of “WTF” and an acronym that stands for “For the Win,” this expression is used to compliment or celebrate something that is considered praiseworthy.

Search Interest

External References

About

Desiree Jennings Dystonia Hoax refers to an Inside Edition segment in which Ashburn, Virginia cheerleader Desiree Jennings claims to have contracted a crippling illness after receiving an influenza vaccination. The news report inspired a video remix series with different music tracks dubbed over footage of Jennings shaking erratically.

Origin

According to Rational Wiki^[1], Jennings received a flu shot on August 23rd, 2009 and developed flu-like symptoms shortly after. On September 7th, she visited a hospital claiming she was suffering from fainting spells and convulsions but no doctors could find any evidence of a serious illness. Soon after, Jennings began complaining that she would move erratically if she were not running or walking backwards. Her physical therapist diagnosed her with dystonia, a neurological disorder which causes body jerks or repetitive movements due to muscle contractions. On October 16th, the television news program Inside Edition aired a report about Jennings, featuring footage of Jennings performing spasms and talking with a speech impediment. As of July 16th, 2012, the original upload has accumulated over 1.3 million views.

Spread

On October 16th, Jennings launched the website desireejennings.com, featuring updates about the status of her condition. On October 21st, YouTuber qwreck1 uploaded a video titled “Walk It Out Dystonia Remix” (shown below), featuring the Inside Edition footage accompanied by the rap song “Walk It Out” by Unk. The same day, the video was featured on the viral content site BuzzFeed.^[5]

On October 29th, Jennings recorded a video of herself sitting in a chair in which she revealed that her condition had improved and that several of her online accounts had been hacked (shown below, left). On November 6th, 2009, Redditor prionattack submitted the video in a post to the /r/science^[4] subreddit. On February 4th, 2010, Inside Edition aired a follow-up report with secretly taped footage of Jennings driving and shopping unimpaired (shown below, right). After being confronted in a parking lot, Jennings spoke in a strange accent and began walking sideways. On April 2nd, 2011, the Internet humor site Cracked^[3] published an article titled “The 6 Most Bizarre Medical Hoaxes People Actually Believed”, which listed the Jennings video as the #1 hoax.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

JK Wedding Entrance Dance refers to a homemade movie of the then-newlyweds Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz dancing down the aisle with ushers, groomsmen and bridesmaids during their wedding ceremony in July 2009. The video went viral almost immediately after it was uploaded onto YouTube and gained over 16 million views in the first month, as well as inspiring many other choreographed wedding entrance videos.

Origin

The wedding ceremony of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz took place at Christ Lutheran Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota on June 2nd, 2009. The video opens with ushers closing the church door to mark the beginning of the ceremony, then Chris Brown’s 2009 single “Forever” suddenly begins to play. To the pleasant surprise of the audience, what follows is a charming parade of the ushers, groomsmen and bridesmaid dancing down the aisle, which gradually builds up to the entrance and union of the groom Kevin Heinz and the bride Jill Peterson.

According to the bride, the group practiced the choreography for an hour and a half before the wedding. The video was recorded by Tommy Alsop and uploaded via YouTube more than a month later on July 19th, at the request of the bride’s father who wanted to share the video with relatives who couldn’t come to the wedding. Within the first 48 hours of upload, the video accrued more than 3.5 million views and quickly spread across the blogosphere and mainstream news outlets. As of July 2012, the video has accumulated more than 76 million views.

Spread

The JK Wedding Entrance Dance video--including its 100 duplicate uploads--amassed more than 10 million views in its first week and the news of the latest mega-viral video quickly spread across the blogosphere, as well as mainstream news outlets. In the following week, the couple made guest appearances on morning time network programs NBC’s Today Show and ABC’s Good Morning America to discuss the viral fame of their wedding video.

On July 30th, the couple launched the official website for their viral wedding video at JKWeddingDance.com. That same day, YouTube’s Technical Account Manager Chris LaRosa released an analysis report of the wedding video on Google’s official blog, which explained how the video’s popularity has influenced the records sale and YouTube channel views of the R&B artist Chris Brown, whose song “Forever” was used for the choreography.

The click-through rate (CTR) on the “JK Wedding Entrance” video is 2x the average of other Click-to-Buy overlays on the site. And this newfound interest in downloading “Forever” goes beyond the viral video itself: “JK Wedding Entrance” also appears to have influenced the official “Forever” music video, which saw its Click-to-Buy CTR increase by 2.5x in the last week.

In addition, LaRosa also noted the significance of Chris Brown’s 2008 single “Forever” soaring up to #4 on the iTunes singles chart and #3 on Amazon’s best selling MP3 list nearly a year after its release. The monetization of JK Wedding Dance video’s viral success was subsequently covered by various tech news blogs like BoingBoing and Wired, as well as business news sites Wall Street Journal and International Business Times. In 2010, TIME magazine ranked the video at number fifteen on its list of the fifty greatest YouTube videos.

Notable Examples

The JK Wedding Entrance dance has since inspired dozens of parody videos, some of the most notable examples being JK Divorce Entrance Dance (shown below, top left) and T-Mobile’s re-enactment of the original entrance dance (shown below, top right) with look-a-likes of the British royal family to commemorate the marriage of Prince William and Princess Kate in April 2011.

Search Interest

Although the original video has continued to accrue tens of millions of views, search query volume for the terms “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” and “Wedding Entrance Dance” have largely subsided.

External References

About

Goodtimes Virus is an Internet e-mail hoax about a computer virus named “Goodtimes,” which cautioned its readers not to open or delete any e-mail containing the phrase “Good Times” in the subject line or else their computers will be infected with the non-existent virus. The virus scare began to circulate online via chain e-mails in 1994, and despite its non-existence, the warnings themselves continued to spread in a virus-like manner for many years.

Origin

According to the Good Times FAQ^[1] page, the first claim of its sighting dates as far back as April or May 1994, but the earliest known version of the e-mail was posted to the TECH-LAW mailing list by Rich Lavoie on November 15th, 1994. From there, it caught the attention of Rodney Knight, who forwarded the warning to the POSTCARD mailing list. The original message read:

FYI, a file, going under the name “Good Times” is being sent to some Internet users who subscribe to on-line services (Compuserve, Prodigy and America On Line). If you should receive this file, do not download it! Delete it immediately. I understand that there is a virus included in that file, which if downloaded to your personal computer, will ruin all of your files.

In 1997, the hacker collective Cult of the Dead Cow claimed responsibility for the propagation of the “Good Times” virus scare, which was apparently conceived as a social experiment to "prove the gullibility of self-proclaimed “experts” on the Internet."

Spread

As the e-mail warning continued to spread across the web in 1994, numerous derivative versions of the message began to emerge, the details of which became increasingly elaborate with each iteration. Some of the most widespread versions like the “Infinite loop” and “ASCII buffer” editions were much longer and persuasive, containing descriptions of its alleged effect on the computer upon infection, such as complete erasure of the hard drive data, irreversible damage to the processor or buffer overflow. In addition, other versions relied on meaningless technical jargons and empty references to governmental agencies like the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in order to convince the reader of the threat.

U.S. Department of Energy’s Response

On December 6th, 1994, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) issued an official statement addressing the virus scare, which dismissed the Good Times virus as non-existent and debunked its warnings as a hoax.

THIS IS A HOAX. Upon investigation, CIAC has determined that this message originated from both a user of America Online and a student at a university at approximately the same time, and it was meant to be a hoax. CIAC has also seen other variations of this hoax, the main one is that any electronic mail message with the subject line of “xxx-1” will infect your computer.

Debunking Efforts

Sometime after the viral spread of the Goodtimes virus scare, an anti-hoax e-mail spoofing the virus was spread around to inform internet users of the true nature of the virus.

Goodtimes will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but
it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It
will recalibrate your refrigerator’s coolness setting so all your ice
cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit
cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field
harmonics to scratch any CD’s you try to play.

Despite various efforts and initiatives to debunk the hoax, the virus scare continued to prevail across the web for most of the 1990s, particularly among unexperienced Internet users around major holidays when e-mail and letter mail usage reaches their highest points. The viral spread of warnings against the non-existent virus soon led the well-known cyber security firm Symantec to include an entry on the “Good Times virus,” which simply dismissed the rumors of its existence as a hoax.

In Popular Culture

One of the demo videos included with the Windows 95 CDs was the music video “Good Times” by American songwriter Edie Brickell, which became falsely associated with the virus on some occasions. In 2006, American singer-songwriter and parodist Weird Al Yankovic composed and produced a parody song of the Goodtimes virus titled “Virus Alert,” which was included in his 12th studio album Straight Outta Lynwood.

Notable Examples

Happy Chanukah Version

Here is some important information. Beware of a file called Goodtimes.

Happy Chanukah everyone, and be careful out there.There is a virus on America Online being sent by E-Mail. If you get anything called “Good Times”, DON’T read it or download it. It is a virus that will erase your hard drive. Forward this to all your friends. It may help them a lot.

ASCII Version

Thought you might like to know…

Apparently , a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of America Online that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other, more well-known viruses such as Stoned, Airwolf, and Michaelangelo pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality.

FCC Version

The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of major importance to any regular user of the InterNet. Apparently, a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of America Online that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other, more well-known viruses such as Stoned, Airwolf, and Michaelangelo pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality.

What makes this virus so terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing e-mail systems of the InterNet. Once a computer is infected, one of several things can happen. If the computer contains a hard drive, that will most likely be destroyed. If the program is not stopped, the computer’s processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop – which can severely damage the processor if left running that way too long. Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not realize what is happening until it is far too late.

Usage in Computer Virus

In 1995, shortly after the onset of the hoax, a group of virus programmers known as the VLAD (Virus Labs and Distribution) wrote an actual MS-DOS virus and named it “Good Times” although it did not act in any way resembling the original hoax. However, self-executing computer viruses via e-mail eventually became a reality with rapid developments in e-mail systems and client applications like Microsoft Outlook, giving rise to advanced computer worms like ILOVEYOU, Melissa and Anna Kournikova viruses at the dawn of the 20th century.

Derivative Hoaxes

Once the dissemination of the hoax began to subside in the 2000s, a number of other computer virus scares began to appear in the wake of Good Times, many of which similarly warned its readers not to open messages containing specific subject lines. Some of the most notable examples include “Penpal Greetings,” “Free Money,” “Deeyenda,” “Invitation,” "Win a Holiday and “Bad Times,” which is a direct reference to the original Good Times hoax.

External References

About

Mother of God… is a rage comic character of a man staring intently at something as he takes his sunglasses off. It can be also used outside of rage comics to express astonishment or disbelief in response to a shocking image or a video. Similar to the colloquial usage of the phrase, the reaction face can be used to either indicate approval or disapproval, depending on the context. When used in the context of rage comics, it is usually preceded by a stick-figure drawing of the same man humming and walking with sunglasses still on.

Origin

The rage face originally came from a panel of KC Green’s web comic titled “Euclids on the Block” featuring the famous Greek mathematician (shown below, left). The comic was initially posted on his Livejournal sometime in August 2008 and later included in his Blog Comix (Blomix) series.^[1] KC Green is also aware that his comic has been adapted into this meme^[2].

Meanwhile, the earliest known instance of the comic to date was submitted by FunnyJunk user TehEman in a post titled “mother of god”^[3] (shown above, right) on May 26th, 2010. According to Know Your Meme user petoulachi, an unspecified instance of the comic has been seen on 4chan as early as on June 17th, 2010.

Etymology & Precursor

According to Wikipedia^[12], “Mother of God” is an imprecise translation of the Theotokos, the Greek title of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which is often used in Eastern Orthodox churches and misinterpreted in Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Prior to its rage comic adaptation, the phrase “mother of god” had been iterated in popular films and TV shows, most notably in the opening scene of the 2001 comedy film Super Troopers (shown below) and alternatively as the title or filename of images, videos or threads depicting sights of absolute WIN or FAIL.

Spread

On July 29th, 2010, the reaction face image was uploaded onto Flickr^[11] by user RocketsToVenus.Throughout the latter half of the year, the “Mother of God” rage comic series gradually caught on with FunnyJunk users. In the following year, the comics spread to other image-sharing platforms like Tumblr^[5] and Reddit^[4], as well as internet humor blogs like Memebase^[13], ZipMeme^[8] and MemeCenter^[9] among others. As of July 2012, a keyword search for “Mother of God” on FunnyJunk^[14] yields more than 1,050 image results. In addition, the reaction face has been adapted into an image macro series on Quickmeme^[6] and Memegenerator^[7], while the expression has also spawned various derivatives based on the snowclone “Mother of X.”

Notable Examples

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“I hope you step on a LEGO” is a phrase often used as a retort in rage comics and reaction images to express one’s resentment towards someone who has done something unpleasant as to deserve punishment or ill-fortune, such as accidentally stepping on a LEGO brick.

Origin

The humorous association of stepping on a small lego brick in barefoot with severe pain began as early as in 2007 with various parenting blog posts and discussions, as mentioned in I am Mama^[4], Frugal Village^[17], Huffington Post^[1] and Yahoo Voice articles.^[18] It has been also reported as a commonly shared experience among parents with children or in childhood memories, according to various Yahoo Answer threads.^[6] The earliest known iteration of the phrase in rage comics can be found in a FFFFFUUUUUUUU rage comic posted via 4chan sometime in late 2009.

Spread

Its colloquial usage in the comments section of blog articles, videos and image posts became noticeable in 2011, after a screenshot of the phrase was posted by Tumblr blogger suriikufu^[2] on February 6th, 2011, receiving more than 60,000 notes. That same day, a Facebook^[3] fan page titled “I Hope You Step on a LEGO Brick, Barefoot” was launched, which has accumulated over 44,000 likes as of July 2012.

Throughout the latter half of 2011, a colorful variety of image macros, reaction images and tribute artworks featuring the phrase surfaced on Tumblr^[5] under the tag “I hope you step on a lego.”

In Rage Comics

The phrase also became closely associated with various rage comics as a reaction image conveying bitter resentment towards another character(s) portrayed in the same comic, examples of which can be found on a wide range of websites and image-sharing communities, from rage comic specialty blogs like Best Rage Comics^[13], RageGenerator^[14] and RageStache^[15] to general internet humor sites Memebase^[10], FunnyJunk^[11] and 9gag.^[12]

Notable Examples

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Mother is a role-playing videogame series created by Shigesato Itoi and published by Nintendo, consisting of three games released between 1989 and 2006. The game follows the story of a young boy who embarks on a journey around the world to save the Earth from an evil race of mind-controlling aliens.The series is most notable for its unconventional premise set in modern day American suburbs and quirky characters like child protagonists and extraterrestrial monsters.

History

The first game of the series, Mother (マザー Mazā), was released for the Family Computer console exclusively in Japan.^[1] In 1995, Mother 2 was released in North America as Earthbound.^[2] Despite having poor commercial reception, Mother 2 eventually gained a large cult following on the Internet. A compilation title, Mother 1+2 was released in 2003 for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance system in Japan only.^[4] In 2006, after a cancelled Nintentendo 64 title, Mother 3 was published for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance system in Japan only.

In 1999, Nintendo released the meele fighting game Super Smash Brothers, which featured Ness, the protagonist of Mother 2 (Earthbound), as a playable character, retaining his PSI abilities and his trademark weapon: a bat.^[6] Lucas, the protagonist of Mother 3, was also featured as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.^[7] Thanks to the Super Smash Bros. series, many people were introduced to Earthbound and the game’s popularity rised on Western audiences.

Gameplay

The Mother / Earthbound titles are role-playing games with mechanics similar to the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. However, in a bold departure from the traditional elements of previous Japanese role-playing games inspired by medieval fantasy themes, the Mother series takes place in modern day American-like suburbs under attack by the aliens. The games also feature quirky and unconventional weapons that consist of household items like yo-yos and frying pans.

Unlike the latter titles, enemy encounters aren’t randomly chosen in Mother 2 (Earthbound) and Mother 3, as they can be seen on the map and thus confrontation can be avoided. Throughout the game, the protagonist’s party acquires special abilities like PSI powers and gadgets as experience points are gained through defeating enemies in turn-based battles.^[5]

Fandom

Starmen.net

In February of 1999, Tomato and reidman launched Earthbound.net as a central website for North-American EarthBound fans; in 2000, they changed their domain to Starmen.net. Since its origin, Starmen.net managed to be noticed by the gaming media and eventually Nintendo of America as well. This was only possible thanks to the devoted fanbase that organized different projects, contests, petitions and original content as well.

Petitions

Starmen.net has organized numerous fan petitions for the release of additional titles in the series. In 1999, the Mother on Game Boy Color Petition that collected 1,850 signatures. In 2000, the EarthBound 64 Petition collected 10,013 signatures.^[8] Afterwards, in 2003, the Mother 3 Petition collected 31,338 signatures.^[9] Despite the high number of turnout, these petitions didn’t elicit any official response of Nintendo of America; although they proved that EarthBound fans were extremely devoted.

Funfests

Besides promoting fanart, the site would start making holiday themed contests called Funfests since 1999. One would be celebrated around Halloween, and the other around December holidays. The prizes included limited edition fan-made figures and DVDs. These contests were held from 1999 until 2009. On later years, the Funfests would be succeeded by the Fanfests, which consisted on LiveStreams of different events and contests held by Fangamer.^[10]

Fan Translations

When Mother 3 was released, many fans still hoped that Nintendo of America would localize the title. When it became aparent that Nintendo wasn’t interested in releasing the title, Tomato and a group of fans started working on a translation for the game by the end of 2006, making their progress publin in August of 2007. Finally, on October 17th of 2008, the translation patch was released with fan praise.

After finishing the Mother 3 translation Tomato took another task, retranslate from scratch Mother 1 for the Game Boy Advance. The project started by the end of 2008 and it was released on April 30th of 2011. Unlike the NES translation of the game known as EarthBound Zero, this version was more faithful to the original script and graphics (without censoring).

Fan Game: Mother 4

Despite Shigesato Itoi insisted that there wouldn’t be a Mother 4, that didn’t discourage a group of fans that have been designing and programming their own sequel since 2008. This project isn’t part of Starmen.net, but most of the members of the team are members of the Starmen.net forums.

Related Memes

Due to the nature of the series, it was able to spread different memes and parodies based on the characters, music and events of the games.

Giygas

Giygas is the source of the alien invasion and the notorious final boss of the second Mother title, or known as Earthbound in North America. In the game’s storyline, the protagonists Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo travel back in time to fight an undefinable version of Giygas. This battle has created a separate meme: You Cannot Grasp The True Form of X.

The Wess Dance

During the second chapter of the third Mother title, one of the protagonists Duster goes into the Osohe Castle with his father Wess in order to steal a mysterious treasure. In the middle of his search, they find a locked door and Wess must do an odd dance in order to open it. This strange and embarassing dance was accompanied by catchy music.

Being one of the funnier parts of the game, Wess’ dance became memorable and some parodies started appearing online. Starmen.net decided to do a contest where users could submit videos of then doing the dance called The Funky Monkey Dance Contest:

Colin’s Bear Animation

In 2007, UOIT student Colin Sanders made an animated demo reel of a bear walking, dancing and floating in space as his final assignment. Some time later, one friend of his wanted to upload the video on YouTube and it became popular with many people making homages and remixes of his original animation. The background music used is in fact the Funky Monkey Dance theme from the Mother 3 soundtrack. Colin also used an EarthBound picture as a background, making the video even more catchy and bizarre at the same time.

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Who’s That Pokemon? is a series of exploitable images and video clips parodying the bumper segment that was featured in the animated TV series Pokemon. The parodies often play on humorous juxtaposition between the silhouette of an unknown Pokemon creature and its actual identity after unveiling, which may range anywhere from an unexpected Pokemon to an entirely unrelated character outside of the franchise.

Origin

Who’s That Pokemon?^[4] was originally introduced as an eyecatch^[1] bumper segment in the animated TV series which began airing in 1997. They came on immediately before and after each commercial break during the broadcast as to keep the audience engaged by giving a mini-quiz based on the silhouette of a Pokemon character.

YTMND

The phrase “who’s that pokemon?” was used on YTMND as early as May 6th, 2004^[6], but the first edited version of the bumpers did not appear until over a month later on June 24th, 2004.^[5] Instead of an actual Pokemon character, the image featured a silhouette of a drawn penis and was paired with a sound clip of “Who’s that Pokemon?”

Spread

On September 22nd, 2007, YouTuber gameboy659^[2] uploaded a video of a boy yelling “Pikachu” at a silhouette which is later revealed to be Koffing. Though the original video was removed on a copyright claim from license holder ShoPro^[3], it has been mirrored on YouTube by several different accounts.

Image macro versions of “Who’s That Pokemon?” gained more popularity after they began appearing in the webcomic Super Effective, a side project of VG Cats^[8], in July 2008.^[7] That September, a flash animation was posted to Newgrounds^[9] which shows the silhouette of a Jigglypuff but turns out to be a contorted Kadabra. In 2009, a blank template for a 4-pane comic using the Pokemon background was posted on SheezyArt.^[10] Additional instances have appeared on Tumblr^[13], FunnyJunk^[14], deviantArt^[15] and 4chan.^[16]

On April 26th, 2012, YouTube channel NinBuzz launched a web video series titled “Who’s That Pokemon,”^[12] a minute-long video quiz in which the viewer must guess the name of the Pokemon based on three clues about its characteristics and abilities, rather than the silhouette of the characters. As of July 2012, at least eight episodes have been released.

Notable Examples

As of July 2012, a keyword search for “who’s that pokemon” on YouTube^[11] yields 4960 videos.

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About

Team Fortress 2 Character Voice Remixes are a series of YouTube remix videos infusing audio samples from the Valve first person shooter Team Fortress 2. Initially starting as Bonk Songs, using the Scout character’s catchphrase to recreate songs, they evolved to include pitch-shifted or auto-tuned clips from all TF2 characters.

Origin

The idea of pairing popular songs with audio samples of Team Fortress 2 characters was discussed on the Team Fortress 2 Fort forums^[9] as early as October 23rd, 2007. Months later in early 2008, this idea was executed for the first time with a YouTube video titled “Bonk Song,” featuring the TF2 character Scout’s voice and the NFL on FOX theme song. Although the video was taken down after allegedly receiving a DMCA notice, it went onto inspire hundreds of other remixes bearing the same title and the audio sample. Meanwhile, similar audio-splicing techniques had been demonstrated prior to the creation of “Bonk Song,” most notably through YouTube Poop Music Videos as early as 2005.

Spread

Throughout the first half of 2008, “Bonk Song” remixes continued to surface on YouTube, pairing the TF2 character’s voice sample with popular songs by Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, as well as video game theme songs. On February 26th, 2008, one of the most notable “Bonk” remixes featuring the Mortal Kombat theme song was uploaded by YouTuber cyber046, which has received more than 2 million views as of July 2012.

The prolific creation of Bonk remixes eventually led to spin-off videos featuring other TF2 characters’ audio samples, one of the earliest instances being “Heavy Yells TF2 Theme”^[2] uploaded by YouTuber SlaughterDog on August 5th, 2008. The video paired various in-game voice samples of TF2 character Heavy with the the game’s main theme song, which made it sound as if Heavy is singing the song. As of July 2012, the video has 432,711 views and has been shared on Facebook 423 times.

Outside of YouTube, videos of TF2 songs have appeared on WN.com^[6], PC Gamer^[7] and humor site Jest.^[8] Discussion about these types of videos have taken place on GameFAQs^[10], GameSpot^[11][13], the forums for the Divinity-X gaming community^[12], the Escapist^[14] and GameTrailers.^[15] In August 2009, a mod for TF2 was uploaded to ModDB^[5] containing an auto-tuned voice pack for the game, making it easier for video remix artists to manipulate the characters into singing. In April 2012, YouTuber CombatBlackful^[3] started a series titled “Team Fortress Revolution,” using TF2 source material to recreate songs from the Dance Dance Revolution series. By July, the user composed four of these videos but none broke 1000 views.

Notable Examples

As of July 2012, a YouTube search lists 2870 results for Bonk Songs^[16] and 2070 results for “Team Fortress 2 Sings.”^[1] However some of these videos in the latter search are lip dub-style, just using source material from the game instead of the sounds and voices.

Notable Examples

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About

WikiLeaks is an online publication most well-known for its disclosure of confidential and classified documents issued by public or private organizations and submitted by anonymous news sources, including the United States diplomatic cables leak in November 2010.

History

The website was launched in December 2006 as a non-profit project of The Sunshine Press and the directorship of Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and hacker. The site claims to have been “founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.” Within the first year of launch, the site claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents.

Organization

According to the site, WikiLeaks team consists of four staff employees and hundreds of volunteer supporters from around the world. Its only revenue stream is donations provided by the supporters and media organizations such as the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and the National Newspaper Publishers Association. The Sunshine Press, it’s parent company, is an Iceland-based company operated by the Board of Directors which consists of Julian Assange as the chairman, Kristinn Hrafnsson, Ingi Ragnar Ingason and Gavin Hall Macfadyen as the directors.

Funding

WikiLeaks is a non-profit organization and largely supported by volunteers and dependent on public donations. In a January 2010 interview with Stefan May, Julian Assange stated that the annual budget of WikiLeaks may range from a conservative estimate of £200,000 and up to £600,000 a year including the wages of full-time employees. Since the suspension of WikiLeaks’ accounts with Visam MasterCard and PayPal in December 2010, the whistleblower organization has been reportedly struggling with financial burdens and often resorting to the reserve. In June 2011, WikiLeaks began accepting donations in Bitcoin, a type of electronic currency that can be used for transactions without the centralized payment processors. In September 2011, WikiLeaks began to sell items on the online auction site eBay as part of its fundraising campaign.

Publishing Operations Suspended

On October 24th, 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an hour-long press conference that the financial blockade imposed by major American e-commerce companies has made it impossible for the organization to continue operating on donations provided by its supporters. Streamed in real-time via UStream, Assange also revealed during the conference that WikiLeaks has been running on cash reserves for the last 11 months due to the increasing problems with means to receive donations.

“The blockade has cost the organization tens of millions of dollars of lost donations at a time of unprecedented costs resulting from publishing alliances in over 50 countries with over 90 media and human rights organizations.”

Features

• WikiLeaks publishes publicly unavailable information or media submitted through anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. The publication offers a high security anonymous drop box fortified by cutting-edge cryptographic information technologies, providing maximum protection to our sources.

• Once information has been submitted and secured in the database, it undergoes a detailed examination procedure to determine its authenticity, including forensic analysis of document as well as traditional practices of fact-checking.

• WikiLeaks does not generally censor its published materials, but it has adopted a policy of removing or significantly delaying the publication of some identifying details from original documents to protect life of innocent people.

• Due to its banned status in a number of countries, WikiLeaks maintains its content on more than twenty servers around the world and offers numerous cover domains and mirror sites for internet users unable to access the information from their locations.

Reception

Wikileaks has been met by both praises and criticisms from journalists and public officials across the world. While its unique mission to “bring important news and information to the public” with original source material has been praised as a milestone in investigative journalism, its practice of disclosing largely unfiltered classified information has raised concerns of compromising national security and international diplomacy.

Praises

Since its launch in 2006, Wikileaks has received numerous awards and accolades for its achievements, including The economist’s New Media Award at the Index on Censorship Awards in 2008, Amnesty International’s UK Media Award in 2009 and the Readers’ Choice for TIME’s Person of the Year in 2010. Some of the most vocal supporters of Wikileaks include:

• A number of high-profile government officials and representatives in Brazil, Ecuador, Russia, Venezuela have expressed their solidarity with Julian Assange and Wikileaks following the group’s release of U.S. diplomatic cables in 2010.

• Daniel Ellsberg, the journalist who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has frequently defended the organization’s activities, including its November 2010 release of U.S. diplomatic cables.

• The advisory board of the Walkley Foundation, which includes editors of major Australian newspapers and news directors of TV networks, has signed a letter to Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, in support of Wikileaks.

• Republican congressman Ron Paul has spoken out in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, stating that “in a free society we’re supposed to know the truth.”

• Editor-in-chief of Wired.com Evan Hughes has expressed his support of Wikileaks in an online editorial titled “Why WikiLeaks is Good for America,” describing its purpose as “to improve our democracy, not weaken it.”

Criticisms

Several human rights organisations including Amnesty International have requested with respect to earlier document releases that WikiLeaks redact the names of civilians working with international forces, in order to prevent repercussions. Wikileaks has been condemned by many governments and organizations whose files have been leaked by the whislteblower group, including the United States, Australia, France, Iran, Libya and the Philippines among others.

Traffic

The site traffic of WikiLeaks experienced its highest peak with the leak of U.S. Diplomatic Cables in November 2010.

Highlights

Somali Assassination Order

In December 2006 ,WikiLeaks posted its first secret document apparently signed by the Somali rebel leader for the Islamic Courts Union Hassan Dahir Aweys, who called for the execution of Somali government officials by hiring criminals as hit men. Due to the remaining uncertainty of the document’s authenticity, WikiLeaks published the information with a lengthy commentary asking the readers: “Is it a bold manifesto by a flamboyant Islamic militant with links to Bin Laden? Or is it a clever smear by US intelligence, designed to discredit the Union, fracture Somali alliances and manipulate China?”

U.S. Military Procedure in Guantanamo

On November 7th, 2007, WikiLeaks released a copy of Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures, the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Titled “gitmo-sop.pdf”, the 238-page document revealed some of the restrictions placed over detainees at the camp, including the designation of some prisoners as off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Camp Delta document (.pdf) includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what “comfort items” such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes.

Scientology Documents

In March 2008, WikiLeaks published what they referred to as “the collected secret ‘bibles’ of Scientology,” including the entire set of the Church’s “Operating Thetan Level” documents and several other papers related to the Office of Special Affairs.

Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account

In September 2008, a Yahoo! e-mail account associated with the then Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was hacked by members of Anonymous and its contents were published via WikiLeaks. Even though WikiLeaks was able to withhold the identity of the tipster, the hacker was eventually revealed as David Kernell, a college student and the son of Democratic Tennessee State Representative Mike Kernell. According to the testimonial, Kernell obtained access to Pailn’s account by looking up her biographical details and using them for account recovery passwords. Kernell then posted several pages of Palin’s email as well as her changed account information on 4chan’s /b/ board, where it quickly spread to other forums.

Department of Defense Report on WikiLeaks

In March 2010, WikiLeaks released a 32-page report entitled the U.S. Department of Defense Counterintelligence Analysis Report. The document described a number of prominent reports leaked through the website which related to U.S. security interests and furthermore, potential methods of marginalizing the organization like termination of employment and criminal prosecution of any existing or former WikiLeaks affiliates.

U.S. Military Attack on Civilians

On April 5th, 2010, WikiLeaks released classified U.S. military footage from a series of attacks on 12 July 2007 in Baghdad by a U.S. helicopter that killed 12-18 people, including two Reuters news staff, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, on a website called “Collateral Murder.”

The Afghan War Documents

In July 2010, WikiLeaks disclosed and published a large collection of internal U.S. military logs that were originally compiled between January 2004 and December 2009. The log consisted of 91,731 documents many of which were classified Secret and as a result, only 75,000 of the collection has been released to the public on accounts of protecting the safety of innocent individuals.

Iraq War Documents

In October 2010, it was reported that WikiLeaks was planning to release up to 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq War. Also known as the Iraq War Logs, the U.S. Army field reports filed from 2004 to 2009 contained a wide range of information regarding the military operations in the region, such as the record of 66,081 civilian deaths out of 109,000 recorded deaths. The leak of estimated casualties ultimately resulted in the launch of the Iraq Body Count Project. It is the biggest leak in the military history of the United States, surpassing the Afghan War documents leak in volume.

U.S. Diplomatic Cables

Between November 28th and December 5th in 2010, excerpts from the U.S. diplomatic cables were published through a number of renowned news publications including El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and The New York Times. The released information consisted of 251,287 documents issued by the US State Department’s 300 diplomatic missions around the world, dated between 1966 and 2010. In the week following the release, “WikiLeaks” remained the top search term in United States as measured by Google Insights.

Stratfor E-Mails

On February 27th, 2012, Wikileaks began publishing more than 5 million e-mails from the U.S.-based global security think tank group Strategic Forecasting Inc. (commonly known as Stratfor), which were apparently obtained by Antisec-affiliated hackers back in December 2011. Prior to the release of information by Wikileaks, Anonymous has announced in early 2012 that they had obtained e-mail correspondence of the firm’s employees with intent to publish the materials some day.

External References

About

Cebu Dancing Inmates Videos are a series of dance performances by a group of prisoners held at the maximum security Cebu Provinicial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC)^[1] in Cebu Province, Philippines. Produced and uploaded by the institute’s security advisor Byron F. Garcia, the inmates’ dance videos garnered worldwide attention in July 2007 after their performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” went viral on YouTube.

Origin

Byron Garcia first introduced choreography in March 2005 as an alternative to morning exercises and a form of inmate rehabilitation at the CPDRC.^[6] Garcia uploaded the first CPDRC video to YouTube on October 1st, 2006, featuring inmates doing the Algorithm March^[3] (shown below, left), a Japanese dance fad based on the educational children’s television program PythagoraSwitch.^[4] He uploaded several more videos to his channel^[5] but they all went relatively unwatched until July 17th, 2007, when he uploaded the inmates’ choreographed version of Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit “Thriller” (shown below, right). As of August 2012, the Thriller video has 51.1 million views.

Spread

The Thriller video was first shared on Gawker^[7] on July 20th, 2007, three days after it was uploaded. A week later, BBC News^[8] and NBC News^[9] both shared the video, which led to the prisoners earning a World Record title^[10] for the most inmates simultaneously dancing. Over the next seven months, the video was shared on Fox News^[11], ABC News^[12], GigaOm^[13], CNN^[14] and the New York Times.^[15] The inmates were invited to perform at several occasions outside of the jail including a show at the Cebu Capitol.^[16] By April 2008, an overhead platform was built around the exercise ground where tourists could watch the monthly performances.^[17]

Notable Examples

Appearance in This Is It

Following Michael Jackson’s death on June 25th, 2009, CPDRC inmates worked with Travis Payne, associate director of the documentary This Is It, on a dance specifically choreographed for the group’s tribute to Jackson’s 1996 song “They Don’t Care About Us.” After two days of training and practice in January 2010, CPDRC prisoners, along with Payne and two other dancers from the cancelled This Is It tour, performed the dance and January 19th. The choreography was later featured in the This Is It DVD and the footage was uploaded onto YouTube on January 22nd.

Program Suspension

In February 2010, the program was put on hold and Garcia’s contract was not renewed, a decision that was met by a public outcry demanding the resumption of the dancing program for the inmates. In response, Cebu Capitol consultant Rory Jon Sepulveda explained that the dancing program will remain an option for exercise, but the public viewing will be discontinued. According to Cebu Daily News, nearly 50 of the prisoners said that they would not take part since the suspension of public performances. During the run of Garcia’s program, it was reported that violent crimes within the prison lessent and inmates overall health had improved.^[15]

Musical

In April 2010, an interactive web musical titled Prison Dancer was announced, combining a 12 episode webseries with a stage musical. Their official Facebook page^[18] launched that month, with their YouTube channel^[19] going up two months later. Written by Romeo Candido and Carmen de Jesus, the show focuses on the lives of six fictional inmates at CPDRC who are coping with their videos becoming viral sensations. The first episode of the web series^[20] was uploaded on March 6th, 2012, featuring choice points making the show into an interactive game.

On July 20th 2012, the first of six live Prison Dancer performances was held as part of the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival.^[21] The live performances won three awards^[22] as part of the festival, including Excellence in Choreography, Outstanding Ensemble Performance and Oustanding Individual Performance for actor Jeigh Madjus^[23], who played the prisoners’ choreographer, a crossdresser named Ruperto “Lola” Poblador.

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About

Download More RAM is a phrase associated with the technologically impaired, as RAM is computer hardware and cannot be downloaded. The phrase is often used on tech or gaming forums to troll other posters, similar to the usage of Delete System32 and Gold Membership schemes.
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Origin

On January 20th, 2004, Apple Insider user SpcMs^[2] started a thread^[1] asking where he could download RAM for his computer. He claimed his computer was low on memory and he wanted to illegally acquire more. Within three minutes, another user responded saying that it cannot be downloaded as RAM is a physical thing, providing two links to retail websites to purchase additional RAM.

Spread

The phrase was not used online again until July 10th, 2005 when a user named lucasp started a similar thread^[3] to the original on the Overclockers community. Fifteen days later, a thread directly copied from Overclockers was posted on the eBaum’s World Forum.^[4] Over the next two years, dubious questions about how or where to download RAM continued to surface on a wide range of computer and gaming-related forums including Tech Support Forum^[5], Tom’s Hardware^[6] and GameSpot.^[7] By July 2007, the domain DownloadMoreRam.com^[8] was registered, which claims that users can download memory from their site. The download pages do not actually contain files.

The first Yahoo! Answers question^[9] on the possibility of downloading additional RAM was asked on December 26th, 2007. Since then, more than 4800 similar questions have been asked.^[10] Other forums that have had threads where users discuss the possibility of downloading RAM include PC World New Zealand^[11], Tech Power Up! Forums^[12], PC Help Forum^[13] and the EVGA Forums.^[14]

Notable Videos

A handful of video “tutorials” have appeared on YouTube^[15] instructing people how to download additional RAM.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

The Nike ID Sweatshop E-mail Controversy refers to a series of culture jamming^[19] correspondence that took place in 2001 between Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti^[1] and Nike customer service over a pair of shoes he had ordered with the word “sweatshop” embroidered on them.

Background

In 1999, Nike launched the Nike ID^[2] shop, an online footwear shop that allowed consumers to customize their footwear in details, from choosing the colors to picking out its fabric composition. In 2001, Jonah Peretti, then a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, ordered a pair of the customized shoes with the word “sweatshop” embroidered on them. Upon receiving Peretti’s order, Nike cancelled his order, which resulted in a series of six emails back and forth between Peretti and an unknown Nike representative who stated that the company reserves the right to cancel any order they deem as containing “material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products.”

Nike’s Sweatshop Labor Controversy

Footwear brand Nike has been accused of using sweatshop labor to produce their merchandise since as early as the 1970s.^[3] In 1998, consumer activist Marc Kasky filed a lawsuit^[4] against Nike asserting that the company’s distribution of products with the statement that it does not use sweatshop labor contained false advertising and misinformation. As of 2010, Nike is still accused of using sweatshop labor in their overseas factory, according to the court testimonies^[5] of two female workers from Honduras representing 1700 workers who were laid off in 2009 without notice or severance pay.

Notable Developments

The emails were originally intended to be published in Harpers magazine, but they chose not to run them at the last minute. Peretti then forwarded the email to ten people, including Timothy Shey, who hosted them on his personal website^[6] on January 17th, 2001. Peretti’s correspondence continued to spread via emails and within 24 hours, it reached the inbox of one of the engineers at Customatix, a now defunct mail-to-order footwear shop, who sent Peretti an email informing him there is a seven character limit on their embroidery designs.

News Media Coverage

On January 24th, 2001, now-defunct tech blog Lot 49^[8] reported on the viral e-mail correspondence, receiving its first recognition outside of Peretti’s circle of friends. Several days later, the San Jose Mercury News became the first traditional media outlet to share the emails. In the following months, Peretti’s exchange with Nike was covered by a diverse range of news media outlets, from well-known publications like TIME, The Village Voice^[12], Guardian^[14] and The Independent^[15] to online news communities and blogs including Metafilter^[9], Slashdot, Salon^[10] and Adbusters.^[18] The news coverage eventually led Nike to issue a ban against several words from being embroidered onto their products, including Sweatshop, Sweat Shop, Child Labor, ChildLabor, Exploit and Swetshop.

TV Appearance

On February 28th, 2001, Peretti made an appearance on NBC’s Today Show, facing Nike’s spokeperson and Director of Global Issues Management Vada Manager^[21] in a debate moderated by Katie Couric. The debate was also covered by Sports Business Daily^[22] and the Ludwig von Mises Institute blog.^[23] Following the broadcast of the debate, Manager released a statement reporting that custom shoe sales on the Nike iD site reached their third-highest in a single day on Wednesday.

Statistical Analysis

In March 2001, Peretti wrote about his experience in an op-ed piece for the Nation^[20] as well as in an online essay titled “Culture Jamming, Memes, Social Networks, and the Emerging Media Ecology.”^[24] He also released a statistical report graphing the 3655 emails he received between January 15th and April 5th, 2001 (below, left) and the influx of traffic to Shey’s archive page (below, right) breaking down the amount of attention the emails were getting during that time period. According to Peretti, he received more than 500 emails a day at the peak of circulation.

Search Interest

[not available]

External References

Overview

Justin Bieber to North Korea (also known as “Project North Korea is Best Korea”) is an Internet prank orchestrated by users of the imageboard 4chan in early 2010, which aimed to rig an online poll to select North Korea as a destination in Justin Bieber’s “My World” tour.

Background

On May 3rd, 2010, a fan voting page was launched on the website Faxo^[6], which allowed users to select a country for Justin Bieber to visit and perform during his “My World” tour.

The My World Tour is an upcoming concert tour by Justin Bieber. It is his first official headlining tour, and is promoted by AEG Live, and Live Nation. The tour is anticipated to have multiple legs, and the supporting acts for the first will be Sean Kingston and Jessica Jarrell. Pop girl group The Stunners will also serve as an opening act for the first twenty dates. The tour is set to support his first release, My World, and its follow-up, My World 2.0. Who wants Justin the most? Decide now…

Notable Developments

Discussions on 4chan

On June 29th, threads began appearing on the /b/ (random) board on 4chan, calling for users to spam the page with votes for North Korea, the southeast Asian country that was ruled by the now deceased dictator Kim Jong-il.

Media Coverage

On June 30th, 2012, the Internet news blog Urlesque^[8] published an article by writer Cole Stryker titled “4chan Tries to Send Justin Bieber to North Korea”, which reported that North Korea had already received over 100,000 votes on the Faxo poll page. The same day, the Urlesque article was submitted in a post on the /r/wtf^[14] subreddit, receiving over 3,000 up votes and 460 comments prior to being archived. On July 1st, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[7] published a post titled “Justin Bieber: Project North Korea is Best Korea”, which included an infographic on how to participate in the online prank (shown below).

On the same day, Gawker^[9] published a post titled “The Plot to Send Justin Bieber to North Korea”, reporting that North Korea had reached second place in the online poll tailing behind Israel. On July 2nd, The Independent^[15] published an article about the prank, which noted that it would not be possible for Bieber to perform in North Korea due to the country’s ban on western music. On July 5th, the BBC^[2] published an article titled “Prank leaves Justin Bieber facing tour of North Korea”, which reported that the voting site had not been officially endorsed by Beiber’s record label. The same day, the Internet news blog BoingBoing^[13] published a post titled “4chan prank means Justin Bieber must tour North Korea”, which mocked the BBC news coverage of the prank.

On July 6th, MSNBC^[4] published an article by writer Helen A.S. Popkin titled “Web prank sends Justin Bieber to North Korea”, which compared the voting scheme to other online pranks including the “Shaved Bieber” Firefox extension created by the Free Art and Technology Lab^[10] member Greg Leuch. The same day, the tech news publication Wired^[11] posted an article titled “4chan Has Nearly Voted Justin Bieber to North Korea.”

Aftermath

On July 7th, 2010, the voting contest officially came to an end with North Korea topping the poll with 659,488 votes. The results were immediately posted in a screenshot to 4chan’s /b/^[12] (random) board (shown below), which received over 180 replies. The same day, MTV News^[3] published an article titled “Justin Bieber is Not Going to North Korea, Rep Confirms”, which quoted a Bieber spokesperson who revealed that the voting page was “not a legitimate contest.”

On YouTube

Several YouTubers uploaded videos providing commentary on the prank, many of whom celebrated the operation’s apparent success.

Search Interest

External References

About

Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (born September 8th, 1941) is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representative from 1991 to 2007 and currently serves as the junior United States Senator since being elected to the office in 2007. After over two decades of public service as an independent legislator for the state of Vermont, Sanders rose to national prominence with the launch of his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination in the 2016 presidential election on May 26th, 2015.^[1] During his campaign, Sanders firmly established himself as a dark horse for the Democratic Party with primary and caucus victories in 22 states. In July 2016, Sanders officially endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate after she secured the number of delegates required for the party’s nomination.

History

Political Career

Bernie Sanders was motivated to enter politics at an early age because his father’s family was killed during the Holocaust.^[42] Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. A self-described democratic socialist, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. Sanders served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to succeed the retiring Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords in the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected by a large margin, capturing almost 71% of the popular vote.^[1]

2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign

Sanders announced his intentions to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for President on April 30th, 2015. Unlike other presidential candidates, Sanders did not pursue funding through a Super PAC, instead focusing on small individual donations.^[1] He would be the first non-millionaire president since Harry Truman from 1945.^[39] Notably, much of his support comes from online, where so far he has received $15,000,000 in donations in his first quarter as a candidate as of July 2nd, 2015.^[8] On September 30th, 2015, Bernie Sanders stated his goal of 1,000,000 individual online contributions had been met and later that day it was revealed he had raised an additional $24,000,000 in donations in this third quarter as candidate, well surpassing Obama’s pace at this time in 2008.^[28][29] The individual online contributions have doubled to 2,000,000 with 800,000 of the donors donating a second or third time as of December 17th, 2015.^[37] This amount increased to 3,000,000 individual online contributions as of January 30th, 2016.^[41]

Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

On July 11th, 2016, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns announced that the pair would be joining each other at a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the following day. On July 12th, Sanders and Clinton appeared together at the Portsmouth High School, where Sanders officially conceded the presidential race to Clinton and endorsed her for the next President of the United States (shown below).

That day, several threads about the event reached the front page of the /r/politics,^[74] /r/The_Donald,^[75] /r/SandersForPresident^[76] and /r/PoliticalDiscussion^[77] subreddits. Meanwhile, Donald Trump posted a series of tweets condemning the endorsement and urging Sanders supporters to join his campaign (shown below).^[78]

Also on July 12th, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein released a statement about the endorsement, where she condemned Clinton’s voting record and urged Sanders supporters to throw their support behind the Green Party.^[79]

“I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton’s campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy.”

On Twitter, critics of the endorsement expressed their disapproval in tweets using the hashtags #SelloutSanders,^[80] claiming that Sanders had compromised his integrity by supporting his former rival (shown below).

Bernie Campaign Election Response

Following the election of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders’ campaign was asked for comment. A tweet by @freddoso^[81] claimed that per a CNN source, the Sanders campaign said “We have nothing polite to say right now.”

The tweet caused speculation that Bernie may have been referring to the results of the Democratic Primary, during which he consistently polled far better than Hillary Clinton in head-to-head matchups with Trump. The idea was a major topic of conversation on Twitter^[83] the next day, and The Independent^[82] published an article claiming Bernie would have won the election had he been the nominee.

Online Presence

The Sanders campaign maintains an official website, berniesanders.com, where supporters can contribute, learn about campaign events, and “join the revolution.”^[4] As of February 1st, 2016 the campaign’s Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,540,000 likes, the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,950,000 likes, the SenSanders account on Twitter has 1,305,000 followers, the BernieSanders account on Twitter has 1,264,000 followers, and the berniesanders profile on Instagram has 656,000 followers.^{[5][6][7][20][21]} The Bernie Sanders channel on Youtube has had notable success, gaining 91,000 subscribers and his five most popular videos all having over 250,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

On March 12th, 2014, Bernie Sanders posted a video on his youtube channel titled “Health Care: U.S. vs. Canada,” in which he and others debated the health care systems of the United States and Canada (shown below). This video garnered 1,383,000 views with 5,900 likes and 181 dislikes as of February 1st, 2016. It is the 9th most viewed result under the youtube search ‘Bernie Sanders’ as of February 1st, 2016.

On August 17th, 2015, the All In with Chris Hayes account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders: “Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you”" in which Bernie Sanders states (paraphrased) no matter who is elected, due to the power of Wall Street, corporations, and campaign donors, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing working families within the United States (shown below). As of August 19th, 2015, the video has 5,000,000 views with 62,000 likes and 91,000 shares.

On October 13th, 2015, the Occupy Democrats account on Facebook posted a video titled “Bernie Sanders Explains Why He Should Be President” in which Bernie Sanders delivers his introduction in the first debate of the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary in the Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas (shown below). The video quickly vent viral and has 10.8 million views with 160,000 likes and 234,000 shares as of October 15th, 2015.

Reddit

Even though Bernie Sanders early in the election had not been covered as strongly in the news as other candidates like Hilary Clinton, the popular online site Reddit was continuously showing a large amount of commentary and support for him. As of February 1st, 2016, the top 420 results for ‘Bernie Sanders’ on Reddit all have 2,000 upvotes, the top 25 results have 6,000 upvotes, and the top result has 12,000 upvotes.^[2] Notably, all the top 420 results for Bernie Sanders on Reddit are overwhelmingly supportive of him and his policies. The top 2 most commented results for the search ‘Bernie Sanders’ both have 20,000 comments and the top 5 each have 10,000 comments as of December 18th, 2015. In addition, the Bernie Sanders subreddit, /r/sandersforpresident, has 164,000 readers as of February 1st, 2015. Reddit was reported to have raised $750,000 for Bernie Sanders’s Campaign as of January 10th, 2016.^[38] That amount has since increased to $1,000,000 as of January 26th, 2016.^[40]

On May 19th, 2015, Bernie Sanders participated in an AMA on Reddit on the subreddit /r/IAmA under the account name bernie-sanders. Bernie Sanders had overwhelmingly positive reception, receiving 54,000 upvotes on his IAmA comments alone. There were 7,300 upvotes and 13,000 comments on his IAmA link as of February 1st, 2016.^[3]

On September 14th, the official Bernie Sanders Reddit account bernie-sanders posted to /r/SandersForPresident “Let’s talk about one issue that won’t get a lot of discussion in the media: income and wealth inequality. Reddit, I would very much appreciate your help in getting this video out to your friends and family, especially the Republican ones. -B,” which linked to a video posted by the Bernie Sanders Facebook account titled “Bernie Sanders: In-Depth Explanation of Income Inequality” (shown below). The Reddit post has garnered 5,300 upvotes and the video has garnered 6,080,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash

Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group page devoted to creating and distributing memes, generally image macros and exploitables in support of Bernie Sanders during his campaign for the nomination during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The group is well-known for producing memes about Sanders at a high rate of mutation.

Facebook Groups Removal Controversy

On April 25th, 2016, several Bernie Sanders-related Facebook groups were purportedly removed from Facebook after being flooded with sexually explicit content, including Bernie Sanders For President 2016,^[65] Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome,^[66] Bernie Sanders Activists,^[67] Bernie Believers^[68] and Bernie Sanders is my Hero.^[69] That day, Redditor jbher315 submitted a post about the removals to the /r/SandersForPresident^[70] subreddit, where it received upwards of 9,300 votes (75% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in 48 hours. In the comments section, Redditor BernieTron2000 speculated that the pages were removed due to “Hillary trolls mass-reporting” to take down the pages temporarily. Meanwhile, Facebook user Bee Jay submitted several screenshots to the Bernie Sanders for President 2016 Facebook group,^[71] which appeared to show a Facebook user bragging about reporting the Bernie Sanders Activists group for “containing a credible threat of violence” (shown below).

Also on April 25th, the Internet news site Heavy^[72] published an article about the controversy, which reported that members of the Facebook group Bros4Hillary were behind attacks aimed at inundating Bernie Sanders Facebook pages with false complaints and explicit content. Additionally, the article included a statement by Bros4Hillary Political Director Alex Mohajer, who disavowed any connection to the Facebook page raids. Additionally, Mohajer claimed the Facebook user connected to the harassment had been removed from the Bros4Hillary group.

“Bros4Hillary was created as a way to provide a positive and supportive community for supporters of Hillary Clinton to gather, and as a direct response to the hateful and divisive rhetoric used by other campaigns during this election cycle,” he said. “We have not and do not approve of or condone harmful or offensive rhetoric or harassing behavior targeting supporters of any other candidate in the race…”

By the end of the day, all the Facebook groups had been reinstated. The following day, the Sanders campaign Social Media Manager Aiden King responded to concerns about the closing, claiming that the pages may have been temporarily shut down due to a Facebook bug. Also on April 26th, Snopes^[73] published an article about the Facebook group controversy.

Support

Berniebros

“Berniebro” is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactic aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.

Rally Turnouts

Numerous news outlets and Reddit have reported Bernie Sanders drawing significantly large crowds for his rallies. “I am surprised by the size of the crowds. In Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday, we had close to a thousand people,” Sanders told reporters on June 11th, 2015, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C.^[15] These numbers were however dwarfed by another rally he had on June 21st, 2015, in the University of Denver, which had at least 5,500 Coloradans listening to him speak inside the gymnasium.^[16] Another rally Bernie Sanders had on July 19th, 2015, drew another larger amount of supporters, having over 11,000 people listening to him speak in downtown Pheonix, Arizona.^[17] On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders hosted a rally which gained over 15,000 people, after having been blocked from speaking at Westlake Center due to #BlackLivesMatter protestors disrupting him.^[18] A day later on August 9th, 2015, nearly double this number appeared at a Portland rally, with over 19,000 people inside the Moda Center and over 9,000 people outside it. On September 3rd, 2015, people filled the 26,000 person capacity inside the Boston Convention Center for a Bernie Sanders Boston rally, with a large quantity of people also outside the center.^[30] On March 21st, 2016, Bernie Sanders hosted 3 rallies across Washington which attracted a combined total of over 30,000 people.^[63]

Deez Nuts’ Endorsement

On August 23rd, 2015, the presidential candidate Deez Nuts (aka Brady Olson) endorsed Bernie Sanders. Brady Olson posted on Facebook “just gonna throw this out there now. This is not for the general election. My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.” In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Deez Nuts wrote that he didn’t want to “see Clinton, Bush, or Trump in the White House, so I guess I’m just trying to put up a fight.”^[23]

Reputation

Bernie Sanders has established a reputation for having highly progressive views and being consistent with his voting and political views throughout his lifetime. He is notably far left and has gained a reputation for garnering large crowds at his rallies.

Progressivism

Since his election to the Senate, Sanders has emerged as a leading progressive voice on issues like income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform. He rose to national prominence on the heels of his 2010 filibuster of the proposed extension of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy. Sanders is also outspoken on civil liberties issues, and has been particularly critical of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act.^[1]

Criticism

Bernie Sanders has faced two primary criticisms: his appeal to African Americans, and for his stance on gun control -the latter criticism often pointed out by Hillary Clinton. Sanders had blamed some of his issues with minority voters on the fact that he represents a state, Vermont, that is 95% white, and had planned to begin campaigning in the American South with an event in Charleston, South Caroline on the day after the 2015 Charleston Church Shootings, which he was forced to cancel due to the violence.^[12] He has a D-minus voting rating by the NRA and often points this out when defending from attacks on his moderate gun control stance. ^[62]

Black Lives Matter Protests

Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement have disrupted multiple Bernie Sanders rallies. On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders was supposed to give a speech, but was blocked by Black Lives Matter protesters in a fashion similar to the Black Lives Matter disruption he dealt with three weeks prior (shown below). Conspirists on Reddit have claimed Billionaire George Soros is influencing this behavior by giving millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously being a Hillary Clinton supporter. A likely motivation for this would be the fact Bernie Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.^[19]

Related Memes

Barnie Sandlers

@BarnieSandlers, a Twitter parody account of Bernie Sanders, posts a series of political advertisement parodies featuring fake quotes attributed to Bernie Sanders. The first example of the modern template used for “Barnie Sandlers” Quotes was posted via Bernie Sander’s official Twitter account on May 20th, 2015 (shown below).^[24]

The image has been frequently exploited for parodies online, especially on the @BarnieSandlers^[25] account on Twitter which has about 150 followers as of July 29th, 2015, and on the Barnie Sandlers profile on Facebook^[26] which has over 9,000 likes as of July 29th, 2015. The “Barnie Sandlers” quotes typically contain the words “dank” or “meme” or have a reference to weed. Oftentimes, the image used in the background is replaced with an image of Bernie Sanders having obnoxious hair or have memetic items photoshopped onto him. The name “Barnie Sandlers” is likely a pun made from combining the name Bernie Sanders with the names Barney (the Purple dinosaur) and Adam Sandler.

Feel The Bern

Feel The Bern is a heavily spread phrase and chant of Bernie Sanders supporters. The phrase’s origin is presently unknown but has strong roots in Reddit.^[43] This phrase has been heavily applied by the Bernie Sanders campaign for marketing purposes.^[44] The twitter hashtag #feelthebern has received a massive amount of retweets. An alternate hashtag, #feelthebarn, was inspired by the Barnie Sandlers meme. Numerous news outlets have been reporting on various important people and states feeling the bern.^{[46][47][48][49][50][51][52]} A notorious example of the phrase was displayed by Bernie Sanders himself on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show, where Bernie Sanders briefly spoke about a ‘Feel the Bern’ mug.^[53] Another reference was made to the phrase when Bernie Sanders was shown dancing onto the stage of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to the song ‘Disco Inferno’ to the lyrics ‘burn baby burn’. His dancing from that appearance has since spread on the internet for being funny and cringe-worthy.^[54]

Bernie Sanders’ Hair

While discussion of his policy stances in the mainstream media has been comparably sparse, there have been several news media mentions of Senator Sanders’ hair, which often becomes unkempt during campaign events. On April 29th, 2015, the day before Sanders’ official campaign announcement, the Washington Post published an article titled “Great Moments in Bernie Sanders’ hair”, featuring photographs of his hair waving about accompanied by humorous captions.^[9] On May 15th, 2015, New York Magazine collected media quotes about the Senator’s hair, saying that the press had been obsessed with his physical appearance in a way that wasn’t present for any other candidate.^[10] On August 17th, 2015, Bernie Sanders berated a reporter for asking about his hair, stating “O.K., Ana, I don’t mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?”^[22]

#BernieSoBlack

#BernieSoBlack is a satirical hashtag created by social progressives in response to Bernie Sanders’ perceived excessive focus on economic issues to the detriment of social issues. It was created by Roderick Morrow, a podcaster and comedian, after an altercation between Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter protesters at a Netroots Nation conference (a convention for left-leaning political activists). Sanders’s supporters promptly defended his record on social issues online, pointing out in particular that he participated in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with Vox,^[14] Morrow explained the reasoning behind his creation of the hashtag.

Whenever he’s asked a question, he goes into a spiel on economics -- which is fine, obviously, people do want wage and class equality. But certain issues are race issues, and they do need to be talked about, at least from a candidate that I would like to vote for. […] And it seems like any time black people bring this up on Twitter, there’s all these people who, I don’t know, they’re just sitting around searching his name on Twitter or something, they just come and get in your mentions and start harassing you, they start saying the same things over and over to you, like, “He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King” […] I’m not denigrating that work, but it’s almost as if they’re trying to say, “You shouldn’t expect him to continue this” or, “Because he’s done stuff in the past, you shouldn’t question him now.”

The hashtag quickly began trending, spawning several notable examples.

#DamnEmails

During the first debate for the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary held on October 13th, 2015, Sanders addressed Hillary Clinton to comment on a political scandal regarding sensitive government emails sent via her personal email account, saying “the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails” (shown below).

Immediately after, Twitter users began tweeting about the statement along with the hashtag “#DamnEmails,”^[32] gathering upwards of 1,800 mentions in the first 24 hours according to Topsy.^[31] Additionally, the @damnemails^[33] Twitter feed was launched, featuring tweets about the debate exchange. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Sanders comment, including Wired,^[34] Yahoo^[35] and NY Daily News.^[36]

Bernie or Hillary?

Bernie or Hillary? refers to a series of fake campaign posters supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary against Hillary Clinton in which Sanders is depicted as being more knowledgable than Clinton on a series of popular but apolitical topics.

“Bernie Sandwiches” and “Bernie Sandals”

Following Sanders’ victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary on February 9th, 2016, he was mistakenly referred to as “Bernie Sandwiches” by MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes and “Bernie Sandals” by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Immediately after, the Mashable News Vine feed posted clips of the gaffes (shown below).

That evening, Twitter user @jennychawla_^[55] posted a photoshopped picture of a pair of sandals with a Sanders campaign promotional image printed on the top (shown below, left). Meanwhile, other Twitter users posted photoshops and jokes about Bernie Sanders sandwhiches (shown below, right).^[56][60][61] In the coming days, several news sites reported on the online reactions to the gaffes, including The Daily Dot,^[57] UpRoxx^[58] and NPR.^[59]

Birdie Sanders

Birdie Sanders is the nickname given to a bird that flew onto the podium in front of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his speech at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon in late March 2016.

#BernieMadeMeWhite

#BernieMadeMeWhite is a hashtag used to joke about the media’s representation of Bernie Sanders supporters as Caucasian during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The hashtag became popular after media reports of Sanders victories depicted diverse states, including Hawaii, as being “white and rural.”

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks Hoax

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks is a viral hoax image aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks.

#BernieLostMe

#BernieLostMe is a hashtag used by supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to share their reasons as to why the rival candidate Bernie Sanders is the less suitable nominee for the Democratic National Convention, which began trending after Sanders refused to denounce some of his supporters who behaved violently at the Nevada Democratic Convention in May 2016.

Search Interest

External References