About

The NO face is a rage comic character that is used to dismiss or disapprove of another person’s idea. In comments, it is sometimes used as a standalone reaction image in similar vein to other negative rage faces like “Are You Serious” face, Yao Ming face and “Are You F**king Kidding Me” face.

Origin

The drawing was created for use on the forums for Cheat Engine, an open source game modifying system. Chris Farral, better known by his handle Up2Admin^[1], uploaded the image on August 10th, 2010^[2] to the site’s Art subforum. One of the earliest comics utilizing the face was shared on Memebase^[4] on December 5th, 2010.

Spread

The face was allegedly used throughout the Cheat Engine forum before it began appearing on Reddit^[12], 4chan’s /b/ (random) and on Facebook. It was added to the rage comic character repository All The Rage Faces^[11] on August 6th, 2011. It was used on humor blog Me Gusta Memes^[5] for the first time on September 17th, 2011, followed by an appearance on Funny Pictures Blog^[6] five days later. On September 23rd, 2011, Farral reuploaded the image to deviantArt^[3], noting that he had seen the face begin to spread and wanted to repost it outside of the forums before someone else tried to take credit it.

In December 2011, it was included in a rage face post on the IGN forums^[7] A Facebook fan page^[8] was created for the face in November 2011, which has 133 likes as of June 2012. Comics with No. are shared on Tumblr under the tags “no rage face”^[9] and “no meme.”^[10]

Notable Examples

Rage Comics

Reaction Face

Search Insights

External References

About

The Rake is a creepypasta story featuring a humanoid creature that stalks and attacks people in a manner similar to Slender Man. Since 2006, pictures, fan-art and video blogs have been made of the monster, including numerous allusions in the Slenderverse YouTube series EverymanHYBRID.

Origin

One of the earliest appearances of the story was posted to the personal blog^[1] of Something Awful user Brian Somerville^[15] on July 20th, 2006. It was the first story in a series entitled “Horror Theater,” but Somerville does not indicate if the text was taken from another website or if it was written specifically for that blog post. According to the mythology, firsthand accounts of The Rake has been described as early as in the 12th century and documented for the first time in 1691. The story also alleges that strange events in the northeastern U.S. involving the creature led to brief local media interest in the summer of 2003, but most written accounts of the creature have been mysteriously destroyed since.

Primarily focused in rural New York state, self proclaimed witnesses told stories of their encounters with a creature of unknown origin. Emotions ranged from extremely traumatic levels of fright and discomfort, to an almost childlike sense of playfulness and curiosity. While their published versions are no longer on record, the memories remained powerful. Several of the involved parties began looking for answers that year.

In early 2006, the collaboration had accumulated nearly two dozen documents dating between the 12th century and present day, spanning 4 continents. In almost all cases, the stories were identical. I’ve been in contact with a member of this group and was able to get some excerpts from their upcoming book.

Spread

Reposts of The Rake copypasta began appearing on LiveJournal^[2] as early as December 2008. The story made its way to 4chan’s /x/ (paranormal) board by April 2009^[3] and to SomethingAwful^[14] by June of that year. In August 2010, the story was first posted to the Paranormal subreddit.^[17] The Rake was eventually added to horror story databases including Creepypasta.com^[4], Creepypasta Wikia^[5] and Creepypasta Index.^[6] It was also featured on several paranormal-related websites, including Unexplained Mysteries^[7] and The Slender Nation.^[8]

In December 2010, single topic blog Fuck Yeah The Rake^[10] was launched on Tumblr providing a centralized site for the copypastas, “sightings” and fanart about the myth. That month, a picture of a monster character from the first-person shooter game Resistance 3 known as a Grim^[18] appeared on a local news station in Louisiana, with the reporter stating a viewer took the photo at a local hunting ground. Due to the Grim’s similar build and features as the one described in the Rake story, many YouTube commenters interpreted it as this monster.

Fan Art

Fan art and photoshopped images of The Rake’s creature depict it as a white/gray crawling humanoid stalking and mauling in the night. There are nearly 8000 images on deviantArt^[9] as well as a Tumblr^[16] tag with these photos.

EverymanHYBRID Crossover

Slender Man universe YouTube series EverymanHYBRID^[11] incorporated the monster from The Rake into the fictional web series beginning in September 2010. In an episode entitled Cops Checked, No Body^[12], the main cast encounter the monster running through the woods.

Search Interest

External References

About

“Yes, This is Dog” (also known as “Hello, This is Dog”) is an image macro series featuring a black Labrador anthropomorphized with the caption as if it is answering the telephone. The phrase and image have been remixed into a variety of different photographs often including other animals in anthropomorphic situations.

Origin

The trope of anthropomorphizing domesticated pets has been seen prior to this series, most notably with LOLcat image macros in 2005, Dogfort comics in 2010 and “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing” images in 2011. The earliest known instance of the image macro featuring the caption “Yes, This is Dog” was posted by Tumblr blogger VivaDixies^[8] on October 2nd, 2011.

The photograph of the black Labrador originated from the 1984 Serbian film Pejzaži u magli (“Landscape in the Mist”), directed by Croatian director Rade Šerbedžija.^[7] The scene is shown at 2:15 in the film:

Spread

On October 4th, 2011, the image was re-posted in a Reddit thread titled “It’s for you, boy”^[1], reaching the front page of the /r/funny subreddit with over 20,000 up votes. On October 30th, Redditor^[3] shivs4kids submitted an image of Duane “Dog” Chapman, the star of the reality series Bounty Hunter, with the caption “Hello? Yes, This is Dog” that received over 6,000 up votes within 6 weeks.

In early November 2011, another variation based on the same image was posted by Canvas user idontlikewords in a #Funny thread^[9], which spawned several dozens of derivatives.

On November 24th, YouTuber MrWeebl uploaded a video titled “Telephone Dog” animated by Something Awful goon Shmorky:

On December 12th, the humor blog Smosh^[2] published a compilation of “Hello, this is dog” images. Additional derivatives have spread to Tumblr^[5], FunnyJunk^[6] and A Facebook^[4] fan page has accumulated 753 “likes” as of December 14th, 2011.

Notable Examples

Derivatives

Search Interest

Search queries for “this is dog” “yes this is dog” and “hello this is dog” increased dramatically in October of 2011.

External References

About

“Huh?” Guy is the nickname given to Nate Dern, a commercial actor in an AT&T Wireless commercial in which his only line is a surprised “Huh?” in replying to the character of his boss. Along with the video, the actor rose to the status of an overnight celebrity after he posted a link to the video on Reddit in November of 2011.

Origin

On November 7th, 2011, Redditor natedern^[7] submitted a link to an AT&T commercial titled "Hi Reddit. After three years of auditioning, I booked my first commercial. I say “Huh?” in this AT&T spot. Just wanted to share."^[1] The thread quickly reached the front page of Reddit and accumulated over 31,000 upvotes and 2,800 comments in the first 24 hours. The commercial video gained more than 500,000 views in the first 72 hours of upload on YouTube.

Manager: “Matt, ignore me and continue updating your fantasy team.”
Matt: “Huh?”

Spread

Upon reaching the frontpage, the post was met by skeptic members in the Reddit community who began debating whether or not Nate was an actual Redditor or if it was a viral marketing ploy planned by an advertising agency. Meanwhile, several variations and parodies of the original advert began popping up on Reddit^[2][3][4], including cinemagraphs and image macros based on the commercial footage. On the following day, Redditor Jjiinx^[5] posted a “Huh?” Guy rage comic face, which was subsequently adapted into a rage comic by Redditor fenalphthalein.^[8] A search query for the term “Huh Guy” on Reddit yields more than 130 posts (as of April 2012).

Later that day, the actor behind the commercial revealed a timestamped photograph of himself in the comments section of the thread:

On November 9th, Internet news blog Mashable^[6] published an article about the commercial, explaining that “there’s something inherently funny about brutal honesty delivered as if it was plain vanilla management speak.” However, the article initially failed to mention anything about Reddit being involved in the spread of the video. The next day, Dern released a follow-up post^[9] on Reddit with a link to another YouTube video of outtake reels from the AT&T Wireless commercial.

In the following week, the story of Dern’s overnight stardom resonated throughout the advertising and business news sites, many of which praised the commercial as an “unexpected hit” for BlackBerry, citing the view stats of previous BlackBerry commercials on YouTube.

Interview

On November 14th, Know Your Meme interviewed Nate Dern about his career, his reaction to the rage face, and how he ended up in the commercial to begin with. For the full transcript of the e-mail interview, please visit KYM Blog – Q&A Interview with Nate Dern.

Q: How did you land the part?

A: I’ve been going out on commercial auditions in New York City for about three years. Some weeks I’ll have a few auditions, some none at all. I have a commercial agent who sends me out. Occasionally there are open casting calls for commercials, but most of the time you need to have been sent out by an agent or casting director. I didn’t do anything special on this one that I haven’t done before. Just got lucky this time.

Q: Did you think the internet would respond with this magnitude?

A: No way. I have self promoted on Reddit before (if you go back through my posts, I think I have a few videos and other things I’ve created that I’ve submitted). I had no idea that I would get upvoted significantly, and obviously had no idea that rallying behind the “Huh?” guy would become an inside joke / show of solidarity.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Neil deGrasse Tyson Reaction is a rage comic character and reaction face of astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson making a defensive gesture. The character image is sometimes associated with the catchphrase “Watch out guys, we’re dealing with a badass over here” that is used to mock arrogant and boastful statements that people proclaim on the Internet.

Origin

The outline drawing was taken from an interview with the online knowledge forum Big Think^[4] on living and longevity that was uploaded to YouTube on June 3rd, 2011. The non-plussed reaction can be seen at 1:32 in the following video when Tyson explains how Sir Isaac Newton invented calculus before his 26th birthday:

An animated GIF version was submitted to the marijuana enthusiast r/trees subreddit in a post titled “when asked if i smoke weed often”^[5] on August 25th, 2011. User Hippopoptimus_Prime replied to the thread with a rage comic version of the face.

Spread

On October 23rd, 2011, Redditor Onlyhereforthelaughs submitted a rage comic titled “You don’t ask this, even if the answer is yes”^[6] using the Neil deGrasse Tyson rage face to the f7u12 subreddit. On October 25th, Redditor GiggleAtTheGoatse uploaded a screen capture of a Facebook status update that read “Smokin Weed” accompanied by the Tyson rage face and the caption “Watch out guys, we’re dealing with a badass over here.” An updated rage face with the “Watch out, we got a badass over here” caption was uploaded by Redditor fairlydeadfellow^[3] on November 7th.

Notable Examples

Most examples of Neil deGrasse reaction comics are intended to poke fun at self-gratuitous comments, status updates or photos found on social networking sites.

Search Interest

External Links

About

Lazy College Senior is an advice animal image macro series featuring a young male with short disheveled brown hair drinking a pint of beer. It is typically captioned with unmotivated statements or behaviors that are associated with burnt out college students during their final year of school, a phenomenon commonly known as “senioritis.”^[5] The series can be seen as the antithesis of College Freshman.

Origin

The original image comes from a stock photo which can be found on Photos.com^[2] titled “Young Man Drinking Beer At Outdoor Pub.” On November 7th, 2011, Redditor ikfotsur submitted an image titled “Lazy college senior”^[3] with the caption “5 minutes late to class / skip entire day” which subsequently reached the front page of the r/adviceanimals subreddit.

Spread

The same instance on the advice animals subreddit was front paged on Memebase two days later on November 9th, 2011. On November 10th, compilations of Lazy College Senior images were posted to the Internet humor sites #1 Meme^[6] and The Bigster.^[7] BuzzFeed^[14] followed suit two days later on November 12th. The “Fuck Yeah Lazy College Senior” Tumblr^[10] blog was created on November 14th. The same day, the Internet humor site UpRoxx^[15] published a post about the series, including a slideshow of derivatives.

Additional derivatives can be found on FunnyJunk^[12], and Tumblr^[9] under the tage “#lazy college senior.” There are over 1,000 related threads on Reddit^[4], the Quickmeme^[1] page has 15,573 submissions and a Facebook^[13] page has received 2,078 likes as of March 5th, 2012.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search query volume for “lazy college senior” rose rapidly in November of 2011 after the first image macro was posted on Reddit.

External References

Warning: this entry contains spoilers for the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

About

“Fus Ro Dah” are the words used in a dragon shout that summons a powerful force from the speaker’s throat in the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. (See also: Shoop Da Whoop, Force Push)

Origin

“Fus Ro Dah” are the words for the “unrelenting force”^[2] thu’um shout in the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. After reaching the first town of Whiterun, the player must defeat a dragon that poses a threat to the town. Once the dragon has been killed, the player absorbs its soul and discovers he is a rare chosen hero known as a “Dragon-Born” who is blessed with the ability to perform various powerful shouts. “Fus” is the first shout the player learns of the 24 that can be discovered in the game. It fires a shock-wave of force energy that stuns and pushes enemies. After visiting the Gray Beards at High Hrothgar, the player learns the more powerful shout “Fus Ro Dah” that can be translated as “force balance push.”

An Urban Dictionary^[8] definition was created on August 23rd, 2011. The earliest known parody video was uploaded to YouTube by user atatadadada on September 15th, 2011, nearly one month prior to release of the game. It used footage from the official trailer paired with a FAIL video of a woman falling off a chair.

Spread

A video showing gameplay footage of a player using the shout to push their companion off a cliff was uploaded to YouTube by user SparkyXX on November 11th, 2011, the same day the game was released. A compilation of Fus Ro Dah videos was posted to FAILblog^[6] on November 16th.

A “Fus Ro DAH” button on InstantButton.me^[5] plays a shout clip from the game trailer. Derivatives can be found on Tumblr^[4], FunnyJunk.^[3] A Meme Generator^[1] page has 37 submissions and a Facebook^[7] fan page has 155 likes as of November 16th, 2011.

Notable Examples

Search

Search queries for “fus ro dah” rose dramatically in November of 2011, the same month Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released.

External References

About

“Now Kiss!” is the caption associated with a web comic character holding two dolls as if he is forcing them to kiss each other. The image features the same face that would later be used for the Fap Guy often found in rage comics.

Origin

On February 16th, 2010, FunnyJunk user KingGawjuss posted a MS Paint comic titled “Principal Creepy”^[6] with the “now kiss” image in the bottom panel. In the post, KingGawjuss claims to have drawn the comic himself.

Precursor

The character references the way children play with dolls and attempt to form romantic relationships between the toys. This type of game was used as a plot device in the cartoon series Adventure Time in an episode titled “Storytelling” in which the character Finn tells a goose and a fox he will do anything, even eat dirt, to see them kiss. After eating dirt, he grabs them both and forces them together saying “Ok, now you guys kiss!”

Spread

On June 6th, 2011, the Let’s Go Weird Tumblr blog posted a picture of Emma Watson and Emma Stone with the “now kiss” character pasted underneath. The Tumblr post reached the front page of Reddit^[9] the same day and accumulated 4,115 up votes prior to being archived. On October 8th, a photo of Starcraft gamers Rachel Quirico and Anna Prosser with the “now kiss” character pasted underneath was posted to the r/starcraft subreddit and received over 900 up votes within a month.

Additional derivatives can be found on the image gallery site We Heart It^[1], Reddit^[2] and Tumblr.^[7] A Facebook^[10] fan page has accumulated 467 likes as of December 5th, 2011.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for “now kiss meme” picked up in July of 2011, one month after the Emma Stone / Emma Watson derivative was posted to Reddit.

External Links

About

Conspiracy Keanu is an advice animal image macro series featuring a still photo of the Canadian actor Keanu Reeves wearing a frightened expression from the 1989 comedy film Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The images are typically captioned with paranoid conjectures and shallow philosophical questions that show similarities to the Paranoid Parrot, Philosoraptor and Stoner Dog advice animal series.

Origin

On December 11th, 2008, New York Magazine’s Vulture Blog^[3] published a slideshow titled “Vulture’s Complete Field Guide to the Facial Expressions of Keanu Reeves” that consisted of screen captures of Reeves from various films. The 22nd slide featured an image of Ted (played by Keanu Reeves) taken from the 1989 comedy film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in a scene where Ted is being chased by medieval knights.

The image was subsequently used as a reaction face with the earliest known instance occuring on the Fark^[1] forums (shown left) on September 17th, 2010. The first image macro (shown right) was posted to the r/funny subreddit^[2] with the caption “What if we CAN breathe in space / and they just don’t want us to escape” on June 2nd, 2011, which accumulated 6,847 up votes prior to being archived.

Spread

An instance with the caption “What if all the specs we see in the light / are all miniature universes?” was submitted to the humor site FunnyJunk^[11] on September 24th, 2011.

In November of 2011, Conspiracy Keanu image macros began to spread on a larger scale with the launch of a Facebook fan page^[10] on November 19th and compilations were posted to various sites including BuzzFeed^[13], Pleated Jeans^[14] and the web culture blog UpRoxx^[5] within the next few days. On December 15th, the web culture blog Smosh^[16] published a “Best of Conspiracy Keanu” post. The domain for the single topic blog ConspiracyKeanu.com^[12] was registered on December 18th. Additionally, derivatives have been posted to FunnyJunk^[6], Tumblr^[7], Troll.me^[9] and Reddit.^[8] A Quickmeme^[4] page has 23,294 submissions and a Facebook^[15] page has 1,221 likes as of Febraury 28th, 2012.

Notable Examples

Template

Search Interest

External Links

About

Pepper Spray Cop (also known as “Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop”) is a photoshop meme based on a photograph of a police officer offhandedly pepper spraying a group of Occupy protesters at the University of California Davis.

Origin

UC Davis Occupy Protest

On November 18th, 2011, a group of students at the University of California Davis campus gathered on campus for an Occupy protest, during which they formed a human chain by linking their arms together. When they refused to comply with the police request to leave, UC Davis Police officer Lieutenant John Pike and another officer walked across the the group, administering orange pepper spray straight down the line of unmoving students.^[17]

The original photo of Lieutenant John Pike pepper spraying seated students at the UC Davis protest was taken by Louise Macabitas and posted to Reddit^[1] on November 19th, 2011.

Photoshop Meme

Two photoshopped versions of the photo surfaced on Reddit on November 20th. The first featured Strutting Leo photoshopped over the Pepper Spray Cop^[2] in the original image. The second^[3] placed Lt. Pike in the 1819 painting Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull.^[4] The same afternoon, Lt. Pike was placed in Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte^[5] (1884) by Tumblr blog It Makes No Sense^[6] where it received over 2400 notes in a day.

Spread

Compounded by previous episodes involving the police use of pepper spray against Occupy protesters, the story was quickly picked up by nearly all major U.S. news media outlets, reaching its peak on November 22nd in terms of Google News volume. The clip probably will be the defining imagery of the Occupy movement, rivaling in symbolic power, if not in actual violence, images from the Kent State shootings more than 40 years ago.

Compilations of the images began appearing on Facebook community Occupy Lulz^[15] and BoingBoing^[16] on November 20th. The next day, additional compilations were posted on Washington Post^[11], ABC News^[23], the Metro^[24], Gawker^[12], and Buzzfeed.^[13][14] Four separate single topic Tumblrs were also created that day.^{[7][8][9][25]} Redditor andresmh created an interactive Pepper Spray Cop^[10] where users can take the exploitable cop and shoot pepper spray throughout the Trumbull painting.

Notable Examples

Throughout the week, hundreds of photoshopped images were shared online, many of them placing Lieutenant Pike into various historical events and milestones in civil rights, ranging from the signing of the U.S. constitution to Picasso’s famous anti-war painting Guernica.

Official Response

The UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza later told the Sacramento Bee^[19] that they decided to pepper spray the students because they were obstructing the path of police officers:

“There was no way out of that circle. They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.”

However, over a dozen videos of the incident from different angles^[18] were uploaded to YouTube within the first 24 hours of the incident, showing the officers clearly walking around the area. As these photos and videos continued to circulate online, police Chief Spicuzza placed two unnamed officers on paid leave on Sunday.^[20][21]

On November 21st, University of California President Mark Yudof placed Chief Spicuzza on leave as well.^[22] The school officials also announced that the charges against 10 students have been dropped and it will compensate for the medical expenses of students who were pepper sprayed at the protest.

Fox News Commentary

On November 21st, 2011, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly appeared on political commentator Bill O’Reilly’s talk show The O’Reilly Factor to discuss the UC Davis pepper spray incident. In discussing the effects of pepper spray, Kelly described pepper spray as a food product:

Bill O’Reilly: “First of all, pepper spray -- that just burns your eyes, right?”
Megyn Kelly: “It’s like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.”

Bill O’Reilly went on to defend the officer saying, “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police. Particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.”

A YouTube upload was subsequently posted to Gawker^[27] the same day. On November 22nd, the video was posted to BuzzFeed^[26], The Daily What^[28] and The Examiner.^[29] A petition for Kelly to “drink a full dose of pepper spray on national televsion” on change.org by Slactory^[34] editor Nick Douglas.

The same day, an advice animal image macro series featuring Megyn Kelly and the phrasal template X, Essentially appeared on Reddit^[30], captioned with dismissive statements downplaying the effects of various human rights abuse, including use of chemical weapons, war crimes and torture tactics.

Customer Reviews on Amazon

On November 21st, 2011, Amazon reviewers and users began posting spoof reviews for the specific brand of peper spray canister that was purportedly used by Lt. John Pike.^[36] The customer review parodies were first prompted by online petition community Change.org via Twitter.^[35] Amazon reviewer D-bag of Liberty wrote:

“Whenever I need to breezily inflict discipline on unruly citizens, I know I can trust Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray to get the job done! The power of reason is no match for Defense Technology’s superior repression power.”

Additionally, reviewers uploaded Pepper Spray Cop photos as customer images of the product.^[37]

@PepperSprayingCop

Meanwhile, a fake Pepper Spraying Cop Twitter account was launched to provide satirical commentaries on the development of the photoshop meme. Since its launch on November 21st, the account has gained over 130 followers in the first three days:

@PepperSprayingCop: The UC Davis undergrad application deadline is Wed, Nov 30. But if you’d like to get pepper sprayed before then, let me know.

Songs & Videos

On November 21st, YouTube musician Andrew Lusk uploaded a pop punk rock tribute song titled “Pepper Spray Cop’s Lament,” which was featured on CNN the following day:

On November 22nd, a Downfall parody of Hitler reacting to the viral rise of Pepper Spray Cop meme was uploaded by YouTuber Sarahharbin:

On November 26th, YouTube musician Jimmy Wong posted an acoustic tribute to Lt. John Pike titled “Dear John (The Pepper Spray Song)”:

On November 29th, Harry Shearer, the voice actor behind Mr. Burns from The Simpsons, released a song titled “Ballad of Pepper Spray Cop” via Soundcloud:

Ballad of the Pepper Spray Cop by harryshearer

Search Interest

Search for “pepper spray cop” began in September 2011, coinciding with Occupy protests:

External References

About

“You Don’t Say?” is a rage comic face based on a contour drawing of Nicolas Cage that is that is used as a sarcastic response to an obvious observation or statement, in similar vein to “O RLY” image macros.

Origin

The phrase “you don’t say” is an idiomatic expression used to convey surprise or astonishment but it can be also used sarcastically in response to an obvious statement.^[8] The image of Nicolas Cage was taken from a scene in the 1988 black comedy film Vampire’s Kiss, which revolves around a troubled literary agent’s descent into madness after convincing himself that he is turning into a vampire. His unique facial expression was taken from a particular scene in which Cage’s character Peter Loew torments his secretary in a disturbing manner.

The scene from Vampire Kiss was featured in a video titled “Nicholas Cage Freaking Out,” uploaded by YouTuber twoworldsfreak01 on July 27th, 2009. A still from the scene was also used as a reaction face in a in a demotivational image captioned with “Nicolas Cage / Available in Stoic and Batshit Crazy” uploaded to Roflrazzi^[13] on August 15th, 2009. The contour drawing of Nicolas Cage first appeared in a rage comic uploaded to Reddit^[1] by user LeechHax on October 1st, 2011. It had been vectorized by Redditor Aveilleux^[10] for LeechHax to use specifically in his comic.

Spread

On the same day, LeechHax’s comic was reposted to FunnyJunk^[9] where it received 4,211 up votes in the span of a month, and again posted onto image-sharing site Lowbird^[5] on October 3rd, 2011. Another instance was submitted to the r/funny subreddit^[3] on November 25th, 2011, with the vectorized face placed next to a bag of carrots that only listed “carrots” as its ingredient. The image reached the front page, accumulating over 4,000 up votes in 5 days.

On November 27th, 2011, a Facebook screenshot with the face was posted to the r/trees subreddit.^[4] Additional derivatives can be found on FunnyJunk^[7], Reddit^[11] and with the tag “#you don’t say” on Tumblr.^[6] A Facebook fan page^[12] for the face has over 9000 likes as of March 2012.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Megyn Kelly Essentially, also known as “Euphemism Megyn Kelly”, is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly accompanied by captions with dismissive statements about a variety of violent acts, likening them to something harmless.

Origin

On November 21st, 2011, Megyn Kelly appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s talk show The O’Reilly Factor to discuss the UC Davis pepper spray incident. In discussing the medical effects of pepper spray, Kelly described the volatile substance as a “food product.” Shortly after it aired, a YouTube version of the interview was shared on Gawker.^[2]

Bill O’Reilly: “First of all, pepper spray -- that just burns your eyes, right?”
Megyn Kelly: “It’s like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.”
Bill O’Reilly went on to defend the officer saying, “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police. Particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.”

The first image macro created from Kelly’s appearance was posted to Reddit^[7] on November 22nd, 2011 and was captioned with “Pepper spray? / it’s a food product, essentially.”

Spread

On November 22nd, 2011, the original video was reshared on BuzzFeed^[1], The Daily What^[3] and The Examiner.^[4] Additionally, a petition for Kelly to “drink a full dose of pepper spray on national televsion” was submitted to change.org^[14] by Slacktory editor Nick Douglas. Compilations of Megyn Kelly image macros have been shared on Geekosystem^[10], Uproxx^[11] and BuzzFeed.^[9] The series was also covered by New York radio station WNYC^[15] and the Bigster.^[16]

Additional instances have been posted to Tumblr^[8] and the advice animals subreddit.^[13] A Quickmeme^[6] page has accumulated 1517 submissions and a Facebook^[12] community page has 113 likes as of May 2012.

Notable Examples

External References

About

“You must be new here” is a phrase used to call attention to incoming noobs in discussion forums or social networking sites. The expression has been also commonly associated with a still image of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka from the 1971 film “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.”

Origin

The colloquial usage of “must be new here” has been noted in popular films and TV comedy series for many years, with the earliest mentions found in an episode of the 1967 British TV series The Prisoner and more recently in an episode of the FOX sitcom series “Titus”^[3] that aired in 2000.

Number 6: [referring to the chess game] Why do you use people?
Chessmaster: Some psychiatrists say it satisfies the desire for power. The only opportunity one gets here.
Number 6: That depends what side you’re on.
Chessmaster: [quickly] I’m on my side.
Number 6: [quickly] Aren’t we all.
Chessmaster: You must be new here. In time, most of us join the enemy – against ourselves.

- The Prisoner, Checkmate

On the web, the phrase has been used in the comments of numerous blogs and news sites as a response to stereotypical newbie questions or as the title of forum threads addressed to the newcomers, as seen in a Badminton Central forum thread^[11] in October 2002 and a Geek Culture forum thread^[12] in July 2004.

Spread

Throughout the 2000s, the phrase became widely used in the discussion forums and chatrooms in mocking redundant or obvious comments, most notably on Slashdot and 4chan where cultural elitism is more tolerated. The earliest archived threads^[9][10] on 4chan were posted in 2007.

Acronym

“You must be new here” can be also shortened in the form of acronym “YMBNH,” according to the Urban Dictionary entry^[14] submitted on July 21st, 2006.

YMBNH: Shorthand for You Must Be New Here; used in internet chat forums to slightly mock posters of redundant/obvious comments.

Reaction Image

Similar reaction images stemmed out of an exploitable macro series titled “Condescending Wonka”] which features a still shot of Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka accompanied by patronizing captions like “You must be new to this.”

The Willie Wonka instance initially spread through Gizmodo forums^[4] and Tumblr^[5] in January 2011 and the image has since become a common response to new member who may not be fully aware of the rules or social cues of the site they are interacting with.^[6][7][8]

Notable Derivatives

Search Interest

Search for “You must be new here” began in August 2010 and has been increasing, with popularity spiking in February and November 2011.

External References

About

5ever (sometimes spelled 5eva or 5evur) is a slang term meaning “more than forever" and the superlative form of its SMS shorthand “4ever.” Believed to have originated from a copypasta story that began circulating in early 2011, the term is used ironically to mimic the non-standard grammar or syntax often found in online conversations.

Origin

The earliest definition of “five-ever”^[2] was submitted to Urban Dictionary in April 2006. A second entry for its shorthand “5 ever”^[1] was submitted in August 2010. Its earliest known use as the superlative of “4ever” was introduced in a copypasta image resembling a handwritten note posted by Tumblr user Deathray-Deathray^[13] on March 10th, 2011. The image contained a short teenage romance story written in Comic Sans with a side note encouraging readers to reblog or like if they “crey.”

The post quickly spread on Tumblr and gained nearly 44,000 likes and reblogs as of May 2012. The same day, this image was reshared on a Threadless user profile page^[18] where it received more than 80 comments.

Usage of 4ever

The term “4ever,” short for forever, has been used since the early 1990s, with the earliest reference found in the title of the play Servy-n-Bernice 4Ever^[21] which premiered in October 1991. Over the next decade, 4ever became more commonplace with the advents of short message service mobile (SMS) technology. An Urban Dictionary^[16] definition was submitted in 2007.

Spread

Throughout March 2011, similar variations of the copypasta surfaced on other blogs and social networking platforms including Blogspot^[3], 4chan, Reddit^[14] and YouTube. One of the earliest archived instances of the copypasta on 4chan was posted to the /v/ (video games)^[4] board on July 13th, 2011. The same day, it showed up in a thread on OperatorChan^[5]’s /cp/ (Copypasta) board.

On August 17th, 2011, YouTuber Unsterblich856 posted the identical copypasta as a comment^[15] in the YouTube clip titled “THE BEST GAMERS – League of Legends Review (PC) [HD]”, receiving additional exposure after being highlighted as the most voted user comment.

The screenshot of Unsterblich856’s YouTube comment was posted to the Bodybuilding^[6] forum, NeoGAF forum^[17] and Reddit^[14], further boosting its notoriety. On August 23rd, an audioBoo^[9] user named Duke posted a sound clip of himself reading the story aloud, which was later featured in several different video interpretations of the story.^[10][11]

On December 12th, 2011, a Reddit circlejerk thread^[28] appeared as an Ask Me Anything thread for the male character in the original copypasta story. As of May 2012, there are nearly 400 archived 4chan threads^[25], more than 900 Reddit posts^[26] and more than 700 deviantArt works^[27] that contain the word “5ever.” Both the original copypasta and related image macros have continued to spread on Tumblr and the tag #5ever^[8] has become linked with blog posts playing off of the original story and containing the “reblog if you X” prompt (below left) or self-confessional posts declaring one’s affection for someone or something. (below right).

Search Interest

External References

About

“I Took an Arrow in the Knee” is a catchphrase from the role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim which inspired the snowclone phrasal template “I used to X, then I took an arrow to the knee.”

Origin

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the town guard non-player characters (NPCs) have several stock lines they will repeat when the player walks near them, including a bewildered statement about “curved swords”, a patronizing statement about “sweetroll” theft, and the melancholy confession “I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow in the knee.” The restating of such a specific story over and over again by so many different guards caused it to be noticed by players, who then proceeded to post about it in gaming forums and image boards. Along with the game itself, the video below helps give the idea that almost every guard in Skyrim became a guard due to the life altering results of receiving an arrow to the knee.

On November 11th, 2011, the same day Skyrim was released, the phrase was referenced on the site GameFAQs^[1] in a Skyrim forum thread titled “I used to be an adventurer like you.”^[1]

Spread

On November 18th, 2011, a thread reached the frontpage of the r/skyrim^[7] subreddit, titled “‘I was an adventurer too, until I took an arrow to the knee.’ Pfft, pussies.” The earliest known image macro using the phrase was uploaded to FunnyJunk^[3] on November 26th. On November 30th, Memebase^[2] published a Y U NO Guy derivative with the caption “Skyrim soldiers / Y U NO get better knee armor?!” Posted November 25th, 2011, Urban Dictionary gives a definition of the term “Knee-arrow”, which is “The affliction of taking an arrow in the knee”.^[10]

The phrase even developed it’s own website, “www.arrowtotheknee.com”.^[11] The page is currently under development, therefore it only contains a single image providing information on the progress of the site. According to said image, a fan made podcast is currently in the works, and will be launched this holiday season along with the complete fansite.

Notable Examples

Several fan arts referencing the phrase have been submitted to art sharing community deviantArt.^[4] Additional derivatives using the phrase, and various snowclone variations, can be found on Reddit^[6] and FunnyJunk.^[5] A related Facebook^[8] fan page has 413 likes as of December 2nd, 2011. A SoundCloud user named Eledium posted a track entitled “Arrow To The Knee” on December 3rd, 2011.^[11]

Images

“Arrow In The Knee” on Youtube

The quickly spreading phrase is most prevalent on YouTube, where it receives highest rated comment often, and is parodied constantly.^[9] Just a small selection of the videos across YouTube covering this line are available below. A far more extensive list of videos on this topic can be found by simply searching.^[9]

Opposition

Due to the unusually quick spreading of the “I Took An Arrow To The Knee”, a fairly strong opposition to to the joke has been formed. Those who oppose it believe that the joke is overused, causing it to lose it’s comical value. These people claim that the joke is used in any or all situations, not when the time is right. Similar oppositions have formed for memes such as The Cake Is A Lie, due to fans of the game the meme is based on getting frustrated when non-fans use it. Images and videos have surfaced over the month following the rise of “I Took An Arrow To The Knee” that express such views on the joke.

Search Interest

External References

About

Third World Success is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a dancing tribal child with captions about overcoming hardships that are associated with life in underdeveloped countries. The series can be seen as a derivative of Success Kid and the anti-thesis of First World Problems.

Origin

The First World Problems image macro series started with a Buzzfeed^[13] post in March 2011 that juxtaposed stories from the First World Problems subreddit^[14] with the items in question. Later that year, a Quickmeme^[15] page was created featuring a stock photo of a woman crying. As of March 2012, it has over 91,000 instances.

On November 11th, 2011, Slacktory published a compilation of photos entitled “Third World Perks: A Photo Meme”^[8] as a alternative to First World Problems. The images consisted of people living in impoverished conditions accompanied by optimistic captions.

Approximately two and a half weeks later on November 27th, the first Third World Success image macro was created on Quickmeme^[1], featuring a photo of a group of dancing children with the caption “Found water / wasn’t contaminated.” It was subsequently posted to Reddit^[12] by user somename2222 and accumulated over 12,000 up votes within 4 days.

Previous to the photo’s association with Third World Success, it has been seen on Twitter^[18] as early as June 2011 and paired with the phrase “It’s Friday Niggas”^[16] as early as October 14th, 2011.^[17]

Spread

On November 28th, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[4] posted a round-up of instances titled “The Third World Success Kid Meme.” Within 24 hours, there were 230 Reddit threads related to the meme and 972 Quickmeme^[3] submissions. On November 29th, the culture blog Molempire published another compilation of derivatives. The meme has since spread to Tumblr^[5], the Body Building forums^[6] and Meme Generator.^[11] As of March 2012, there are over 8000 instances on Quickmeme and over 630 on Reddit.^[19]

Notable Examples

Derivatives

Two weeks later, a Second World Success^[20] image macro appeared, using a photo of a smiling child waving a Chinese flag. Instances of this were posted on Memebase^[21], FunnyJunk^[22], and #1 Meme Universal Trend.^[23]

Classifications

The Third World^[24] is a term coined in 1952 by French anthropologist Alfred Sauvy to define countries that did not take part in either capitalism (the First World) or communism (the Second World). Over the years, it gradually gained a negative connotation, being associated with poverty and a country being underdeveloped.^[25]

In contrast, the phrase First World^[26] is associated with already developed countries. First World Problems are meant to criticize the fact that people who live in countries considered the First World will probably not have to encounter problems their Third World counterparts will: not owning a computer, starvation, and combat.^[27]

Search Interest

External References

About

Tilt Shift Effect is a photography technique that involves using a tilt-shift capable lens with a large aperture to create a very shallow depth of field in the picture, which produces a “toy-like” scenery out of an otherwise ordinary landscape photograph. Although the technique has been in practice since the beginning of film photography, tilt-shift effect became widespread in the late 2000s with the advents of mobile camera applications and online photo-sharing communities.

Origin

In Photography

Tilt shift photography^[1] traditionally refers to the use of lens movements on small and medium-format cameras to manipulate the depth of field or the focus in images. The term “tilt-shift” refers to two different types of movements: rotation of the lens plane relative to the image plane, called tilt, and movement of the lens parallel to the image plane, called shift. The original shift lens was introduced by Nikon for its 35mm SLR cameras in the mid 1960s and the full “tilt-shift” lens was introduced by Canon in 1973.

The earliest known hubsite of simulated tilt-shift photographs^[2] was launched by Flickr users Grahamtastic and Bluewave via group pool “Tilt Shift Fakes”^[3] on February 1st, 2006. The group continued to grow in size throughout the years, gaining over 59,000 images and 19,000 members in its five years of existence.

In Cinematography

The earliest use of diorama effect in a commercial motion picture can be found in the 2006 music video for “Harrowdown Hill” by Jim L. Clark, using a process dubbed Smallgantics. The project was produced at Bent Image Lab in July 2006 and directed by filmmaker Chel White.

Spread

Beginning in 2007, both professional and amateur photographers released a wide range of works featuring the use of tilt for selective focus and similar dioramic, miniature effects, including Walter Iooss Jr. of Sports Illustrated, Vincent Laforet and Ben Thomas among others. In December 2007, New York Times Magazine published an article titled “Fake Tilt-Shift Photography”^[4], introducing the concept of simulated tilt-shift effect which became popular through the Flickr group “Tilt Shift Fakes.”

Beginning circa September 2008, a number of Vimeo artists like Keith Loutit^[15] and Mockmoon^[14] (shown below, left & right respectively) began posting short films featuring a wide range of urban and rural sceneries that were processed through “tilt shift” filter in post-production. Mockmoon’s videos, dubbed the “Miniature City” series, were positively received and even emulated by other videographers in the Vimeo community. Loutit’s works also came under the news media spotlight in 2008 and 2009, as “tilt shift effect” continued to grow in demand through mobile camera applications.

Tilt Shift Simulators

Beginning in late 2008, the trend of tilt-shift photographs was picked up by various graphic design and photography blogs like Photography Concentrate^[7] and Lightroom Secrets^[13], many of whom provided step-by-step tutorials and instructions on how to simulate the effect using image editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop’s Lens Blur filter and depth-maps. In May 2010, several consumer-grade cameras enabled with tilt-shift filter were introduced by Olympus and Canon^[16], thus allowing instant application of the effect onto the image.

Notable Examples

Images

Videos

Search Interest

External References

About

Scumbag Brain is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of a brain that is sometimes seen wearing the Scumbag Steve hat, with captions that describe self-conflicting psychological experiences like sudden realizations, awkward dreams and persistent memories. The situations presented are similar to Oh God Why rage comics.

Origin

The earliest known Scumbag Brain image macro was posted to the suicide support r/suicidewatch subreddit in a thread titled “Fucking Scumbag Brain”^[1] by Redditor Jackist on March 24th, 2011, received only 198 upvotes prior to being archived.

Spread

Compilations of the series were posted to the humor blog Pleated Jeans^[8] on July 21st, 2011 and to the viral content site BuzzFeed^[7] on August 9th, 2011. On October 10th, 2011, the web comic site The Oatmeal^[9] published a comic titled “If my brain were an imaginary friend” that featured an annoying brain that is able to remember complex information from several years ago, but cannot remember where it put a set of car keys. A single-topic blog, ScumbagBrain.org^[10] was created in March 2012. The same month a series of instances was featured on PopHangover.^[12]

Additional derivatives can be found on Memebase^[5], Tumblr^[4] and Reddit^[11], where there are more than 3800 instances. A Memegenerator^[3] page has received 280 submissions, the Quickmeme^[2] page has received more than 20,000 submissions and a Facebook^[6] fan page has accumulated 203 likes as of May 2012.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for “scumbag brain” began rising in July of 2011, the same month the Quickmeme page was created.

External References

About

[10] Guy (also known as “Really High Guy” and “Stoner Stanley”) is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of a young man who appears to be under the influence of marijuana. The captions typically portray stereotypical stoner behavior, similar to Stoner Dog, such as giving invalid answers to misunderstood questions and craving junk food.

Origin

On November 25th, 2011, Redditor randomdave posted a photo of a red-faced young man (shown left) to the marijuana enthusiast r/trees subreddit titled “Being at a [10] is not always pretty.”^[10] The same day, the picture was submitted by redditor Ahahaha__10 with the caption “Texts the person next to them / ‘I want hopsital’” (shown right) in a post titled “The happened to a friend of mine on his first ever bong rip.”^[1]

Etymology of [10]

The name is derived from the scoring system used by members of the r/trees^[16] subreddit, also known as “ents”, that indicates the relative level of intoxication with ^[1] being the lowest and ^[10] being the highest.

Spread

Shortly after Redditor Ahahaha__10 submitted the first image macro, Redditor vivalocaaa created a Quickmeme^[3] page using the photo called “[10] Guy.” On November 30th, 2011, a post titled “10 Guy ordering a cheeseburger” reached the front page of Reddit, accumulating over 3,000 up votes within 6 days.

On December 2nd, compilations of “Really High Guy” examples were posted to the Body Building^[6] forums and the Internet humor site BuzzFeed.^[7] On December 5th, a slideshow of 10 Guy image macros was posted to the media hosting site Sharenator^[8] titled “High High Schooler.” On March 31st, 2012, additional photos of 10 Guy surfaced on the “Stoner Comics”^[12] Tumblr blog.

On April 6th, 2012, several examples were posted to the Internet humor site Ebaumsworld^[11] by user yzman87.

The meme continued to spread on sites like FunnyJunk^[13], Memebase^[15] and Tumblr under the tags “10 guy”^[4] and “really high guy.”^[9] As of April 20th, 2012, the Quickmeme page has over 10,400 submissions and a Facebook^[14] page for “10 Guy” has 133 likes.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search query volume for “10 guy” rose in November of 2011, the same month the images began circulating on Reddit.

External References

About

Unimpressed Astronaut is an advice animal image macro series depicting an astronaut walking on the moon. Delivered in a patronizing tone similar to that of Condescending Wonka, the captions juxtapose typical stories or grievances about long-distance traveling with the modern scientific milestone of the Moon landing.

Origin

Stemming from the Advantages of Science series on Reddit, the Unimpressed Astronaut is solely centered around the 1972 photograph of NASA astronaut John Young saluting the American flag during his Apollo 16 mission^[1] in 1972. Following his journey to the Moon, Young went on to command the Space Shuttle Columbia’s maiden flight as well as the first Spacelab mission, STS-9, and spent 835 total hours in space.

The first instance of the image macro was posted to Reddit^[3] on December 1st, 2011, linking to a Quickmeme^[4] page for the macro. The original caption “Oh, you spent 6 weeks abroad in Europe? That’s nice.” is derived from a stand-up skit by comedian Brian Regan. At the end of his monologue, he talks about how he wished he was an astronaut so when friends recount their stories, he could respond, “that’s nice, I walked on the moon.”

Spread

In the span of a few days in early December, several more threads^[5] were submitted to both the Advice Animals and Atheism subreddits. It was submitted to FunnyJunk on December 3rd, 2011^[2], the same day instances began to be shared on Tumblr.^[6] In the following days, various compilations of Unimpressed Astronaut images were posted on humor blogs and news sites like The Atlantic, Pleated Jeans and The Chive. On December 8th, the single topic blog Unimpressed Astronaut was launched to curate notable examples of the image macro series. Additional images can be found on Memebase, BuzzFeed and 9gag among others, as well as under the Tumblr hashtag “Unimpressed Astronaut.” As of July 2012, the Quickmeme page hosts more than 2,500 instances of the meme.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References