“Christmas is Cancelled. Santa was arrested on the charge of trespassing.”

About

Christmas Cancellation Announcement (Japanese: クリスマス中止のお知らせ, Christmas Chuushi no Oshirase) is a series of copypastas typically used as a spoof news announcement during holiday seasons that Christmas “has been cancelled” due to a variety of unforeseen events. The concept of “canceling Christmas” can be seen as a self-deprecative joke among single-status Japanese Internet users who remain little affected by the secular and mostly romantic holiday of Christmas in Japan.

Origin

Background: Christmas in Japan

For the majority of non-Christian population in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia, Christmas is often celebrated as a secular, romantic and commercial-driven holiday. Due to its heavy association with couple-oriented events and special dates, Christmas is also regarded as a source of nuisance by those who are left without any plans for special events or romantic dates, which makes the holiday ripe for tongue-in-cheek comedy and self-deprecative humor on the web.

On 2channel

The text-only announcements were seen as early as 2002 on the Japanese imageboard site 2channel.^[2] The oldest known image of such announcement can be traced to this instance shown below, which was initially uploaded via Japanese web in December 2003.^[1]

Transcript


******Important******


Christmas Cancellation Announcement

Christmas in December 25th, 2003 is canceled for various reasons. This decision also brings a cancel of Christmas Eve. Sorry for the cancellation, and late announcement.


We sincerely apologize to the people looking forward to Christmas and all persons concerned to us.

Spread

In 2003, the hoax of “Christmas cancellation” initially spread across 2channel and other affiliated imageboards as a cruel joke about Santa Clause’s accidental death; however, it was soon accepted by the broader online population around 2005 with the emergence of “Himote” (非モテ, non-popular), a resistance movement against popular idols and mainstream values, as an influential concept of humor on the Japanese web. After establishing base support with those identifying with “Himote,” copypasta announcements of Christmas cancellation continued to grow and became generally associated with idle, lonely singles during the holiday seasons. In addition, it also inspired derivative announcements suited for other similar romantic holidays such as Valentine’s Day and White Day. A comprehensive list of parodies and spin-off hoaxes are listed in a web page.^[4]

Similar online communions of lonely singles during holiday seasons have been observed elsewhere, such as South Korea’s Solo Regiment, China’s Loneliness Party and to a lesser extent, Forever Alone on the English-speaking web.

Announcement Examples

Although reasons cited for cancellation of Christmas vary from copy pasta to copy pasta, many early versions included stories about odd misfortunes or accidents that had supposedly struck in the way of Santa Clause. Meanwhile, some of the newer versions incorporate actual news events like the Avian Flu and Fukushima Nuclear Meltdown as the purported reasons behind the announcement.

Military Draft of Santa Clause (2007)

Disclosure of False Report on TV show (2008)

Union Strike by Nippon Santa Association (2008)

Public Health Concerns of Avian Flu (2009)

Notable Media

In addition to the announcements, participants of the annual event on Nico Nico Douga^[5] and Pixiv have created various songs and illustrations in propagating the hoax of Christmas cancellation, drawing influences from Vocaloid songs and MAD videos.

Hyadain‘s "Xmas? I don’t know such a thing!!" クリスマス？なにそれ美味しいの？

Miku Hatsune’s Vocaloid Song on Christmas Cancellation^[6]

Spoof Newspaper Edition ^[7] of Christmas Cancellation in Tokyo

Search Interest

As Google Insights graph reveals, search queries for ‘クリスマス中止のお知らせ’ or “Christmas Cancellation Announcement” yields consistent spikes towards the end of each year.

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.

About

College Liberal (also known as “Female College Liberal” and “Bad Argument Hippie”) is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of a young Caucasian female with dreadlocks underneath a knitted cap. The captions typically portray the character as a naive and hypocrtical left-wing political activist and reference various clichés associated with the “hippie” subculture.

Origin

The earliest known use of the original image was in a Blogspot^[1] post where she is described as a “stupid hippie feminist grunge chick” on March 9th, 2007. The first Quickmeme^[2] submission was uploaded with the caption “’I’m against discrimination of any type’ / listens to rap music with lyrics about abusing women”^[3] on December 23rd, 2011.

College Republican

College Liberal may have been in response to the “College Republican” series which began on December 2nd, 2011, one day before the first College Liberal image macro was submitted to Quickmeme. The advice animal featured a photo of a young white male with braces dressed in a suit accompanied by captions that expressed hypocritical conservative positions and selfish attitudes.

Spread

On December 23rd, 2011, post was submitted to the /r/adviceanimals^[4] subreddit with the caption “‘We need to love and respect all cultures and religions’ / except Christianity” and reached the front page accumulating over 7,000 up votes in less than a week.

The same day, several derivatives were posted to the skeptic blog Playing The Devil’s Advocate,^[6] as well as in threads on the Body Building Forums^[7] and Gaia Online.^[9] On December 24th, a College Liberal thread was started on the media remixing site Canvas^[8] which included several photoshopped variations of the image.

On December 25th, the meme made its way to the conservative political board Free Republic^[10] where many forum members remarked how accurate the captions were. On January 3rd, 2012, a compilation of notable examples were posted to the Internet humor site BuzzFeed^[12] with the caption “she’s a dreadlocked, political, independent woman who believes in freedom of speech. Unless of course she disagrees with your speech.” On February 13th, the web culture blog Ned Hardy^[13] published several derivatives of the series.
As of March 9th, 2012, the Quickmeme page has accumulated over 2,900 submissions. Derivatives have since spread to FunnyJunk^[14], Memebase^[15] under the category “Bad Argument Hippie” and Tumblr^[5] under the tag" #college liberal."

Notable Examples

Harry Potter Lookalike

Many people took notice that the face of the woman in the photo resembled actor Daniel Radcliffe, the main protagonist in the Harry Potter film series.

Search Interest

Search queries for “college liberal meme” rose dramatically in December of 2011 immediately after the Quickmeme page was created.

External References

About

“Wikipedia Donation Banner Captions” refer to screenshot images based on Wikipedia’s 2011 end-of-year fundraising campaign, featuring various combinations of banner ad images and Wikipedia article titles for comedic effect. The screenshots typically juxtapose pictures of Wikipedia staff members or supporters with oddly fitting article titles that bring sexual or inappropriate implications to the reader’s mind.

Origin

Wikipedia’s “personal plea” banner ads were first introduced in November 2010 to promote its annual fundraising campaign^[1], featuring a variety of founder Jimmy Wales’ portrait images along with his personal appeal for donations. Due to its omnipresent display across the site on every article page, Wikipedia visitors began poking fun at the campaign by taking screenshots of awkward image-word associations. In addition, the slogan “Please Read: A Personal Appeal from Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales” was also turned into a phrasal template.

When the ad campaign returned in November 2011, this time featuring portraits of other Wikipedia staff members and supporters, the awkward screenshot fad also resurged and gave way to a slew of humorous and often suggestive captioned images.

Spread

In October 2011, images of Wikipedia banner captions appeared as reaction images to various 4chan threads. Soon after, threads appeared on /b/ (random) board asking for users’ best Wikipedia banner captions. From there, the meme spread across other 4chan boards and other image-posting websites, as well as The Oatmeal.^[2]

Notable Examples

Derivative

Another derivation stems from Jimmy Wales himself pleading for money, often with a “puppy dog” face or a Scumbag Steve-type attitude.

2011 Fundraiser Turnout

On January 2nd, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation released an official statement^[5] regarding the success of 2011 end-of-year fundraiser campaign. According to the blog post, Wikipedia reached a record-breaking turnout of $20 million from more than one million donors:

Our annual fundraising campaign reached a successful conclusion today having raised a record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million donors in nearly every country in the world. It is our most successful campaign ever, continuing an unbroken streak in which donations have risen every year since the campaigns began in 2003.

Search Interest

External References

About

Shit Girls Say is a single topic blog and a web series showcasing various cliches and verbal mannerisms that are commonly associated with teenage girls and young women. Since its YouTube debut in December 2011, the series has inspired dozens of parodies exploring social gender stereotypes using the phrasal template “Shit X says.”

Origin

The Twitter account @ShitGirlsSay^[1] was launched by Toronto-based comics Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey on April 7th, 2011. In similar vein to its unaffiliated predecessors @ShitMyDadSays^[3] and @ShitThatSiriSays, the microblog quickly became notable for its caricaturization of an average, airheaded girl vaguely familiar to many others. According to the analytics data provided by Twitaholics^[2], @ShitGirlsSay gained over 6,879 followers with its prolific output of 339 tweets in the first three months of launch.

In an interview with The Onion’s A.V. Club^[9] in December 2011, co-creator Sheppard revealed the story behind the concept:

We were sitting around one day watching TV, and one of us said, “Can you pass me that blanket?” It immediately struck us as a “girl” thing to say. I know that sounds terrible. But we immediately started thinking about what that means, to have a saying attributed to a sex, and then we started going back and forth.

Spread

The Twitter blog was initially picked up by a few personal blogs like It’s Not Too Bad^[4] and Eat It For Lunch^[6] and BuzzFeed^[5] posted a compilation of related tweets in an article titled “Shit Girls Say” in late April. @ShitGirlsSay updates were frequently retweeted by the readers and the blog continued to expand its readership throughout the first half of 2011. By December 2011, the Twitter account had grown exponentially with 62,918 followers according to Twitaholics, yielding an increase of over 80,000 followers in approximately 5 months.

YouTube Series

The series was eventually introduced to a broader group of audience in December 2011, when Sheppard and Humphrey adapted the joke into a web video series via YouTube channel ShitGirlsSay.^[7] The pilot episode starring Sheppard as “the girl” and a cameo appearance by actress Juliette Lewis was posted on December 12th, 2011. Some of the most notable lines in the video included: “Listen to this e-mail,” “Could you do me a huge favor?” and “I’m not even joking right now.”

Upon release, the video clip was simultaneously picked up through social networking sites Twitter and Facebook as well as internet humor communities Reddit and 9gag, racking in over 4 million views in the first week of upload. The viral status of the first episode was soon covered by an array of influential blogs including Wired^[10], The Onion^[9] and Huffington Post.^[8] In less than three weeks since its launch, YouTube channel ShitGirlsSay gained nearly 60,000 subscribers and over 11 million total upload views. In May 2012, Juliette Lewis and Graydon Sheppard were named best actors by the 16th Webby Awards^[17] for their YouTube series.

Controversy

Within days of the video’s release, several bloggers and columnists responded to the viral web series with varying perspectives. In an article for The Globe and Mail, Canadian columnist Lynn Crosbie^[11] stressed the potentially offensive nature of the joke by saying that women “are already sexualized to the maximum.”

Toronto Star’s Navneet Alang^[12] chimed in on the discussion by raising concern that many people may be laughing at rather than with the video series.

On January 4th, 2012, comedian Francesca Ramsey wrote a featured post on Huffington Post^[15] with her own parody video “Shit White Girls say to Black Girls.”

On January 9th, Associate Editor for Campus Progress Naima Ramos-Chapman^[16] wrote an editorial article on the site, asserting that “Shit Girls Say” meme is sexist and racist, therefore should end."

In a related effort, the single topic blog “Shit Girls Say”^[14] was launched to showcase inspiring quotes attributed to famous women.

"":http://shit-girls-say.tumblr.com/

Notable Examples

Numerous parodies and spin-off versions of the original series quickly emerged within days of the pilot episode, many of them starring actors and actresses dressed as opposite genders they’re portraying. The scope of the parodies also expanded across LGBT, ethnic and cultural stereotypes.

Viral Video Chart

Search Interest

Search volume comparison of “Shit My Dad Says,” Shit That Siri Says" and “Shit Girls Say” indicates that Sheppard and Humphrey’s project became the most searched keyword following the launch of the YouTube video series in early December 2011.

External References

About

Indestructible Nokia 3310 is the nickname given to Nokia’s 3000 series mobile phones and customer review parodies poking fun at their durability and heavy weight. The joke typically manifests itself in image macros, in which the Nokia phone is shown to be an incredibly powerful or destructive force.

Origin

On December 4th, 2011, a thread titled “The Terminator of cellphones”^[3] was submitted to the /r/geek subreddit that featured an image of a Nokia 1100 phone with a caption claiming it could only be destroyed in the fires of Mordor, a fictional volcano in the fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings. In the thread, Redditor TheBasilisk^[4] replied with a link to a photo of a Nokia 3310 naming it “the Witch King,” the chief of the Nazgûl (Ringwraiths).

Nokia 3310

The Nokia 3310 mobile phone was released in the fourth quarter of 2000. It is considered one of the best selling phones of all time, selling 136 million units according to Nokia’s press release^[11] from 2005:

If all the Nokia 3310/3330 phones sold were laid end-to-end, the line would stretch from Helsinki, Finland to Santiago, Chile – over 13,500 kilometers.

Spread

On December 27th, 2011, Redditor Naysar submitted a thread titled “Nostalgia”^[1] that contained an image of an iPhone with the caption “Falls to the floor / Break the screen” and a Nokia 3310 with the caption “Falls to the floor / Break the floor.” The thread reached the front page of Reddit and accumulated over 26,000 up votes in 2 weeks.

On December 29th, 9gag user Evan90 submitted an image titled “Scumbag Smartphones”^[2] featuring a photo of an iPhone next to a Nokia 3310 with a caption comparing the battery life of the two devices.

On January 10th, 2012, the web culture blog Slacktory^[7] published an article about the meme and included some original photoshop creations:

Throughout the month, Nokia 3310-related jokes have spread across other sites including FunnyJunk^[6], Memebase^[12] and Tumblr^[5] under the tag “#nokia” and a Facebook fan page^[8] for “Nokia phones are indestructible” was created. The Finnish newspaper Iltalehti^[13] published an article about the online sensation surrounding the mobile phone on January 25th. In addition, search results for the keyword “Nokia” on YouTube reveal humorous videos about the phone in various languages like Russian, Slovakian, Macedonian and Chinese, suggesting the international status of the meme.

Notable Examples

Most image jokes about Nokia 3310 make fun of the phone’s signature features that are often overlooked in the age of smartphones: durability, long-lasting battery life and heavy weight.

Crash Test Videos

Following the upsurge of Nokia 3310-related discussions, people around the world began posting “crash test” footage to demonstrate the actual durability of the phone.

Search Interest

Search queries for “indestructible Nokia” rose rapidly in December of 2011, the same month the first image was posted to Reddit.

External References

About

How To Wear a Men’s Shirt is a photo fad that involves taking photos of oneself wearing men’s button-up shirts in a way that resembles a women’s dress. Though first introduced on YouTube as a fashion & beauty tip for female users, the fad has been since adopted by male Tumblr bloggers to ridicule the off-kilter usage of a men’s shirt.

Origin

The fashionable practice of wearing a men’s button up shirt as a tube dress has been circulating on YouTube as early as in 2008, with the earliest known upload “Be Creative With: Men’s Shirt”^[1] dating back to November 10th, 2008. Dozens of similar “how-to” videos^[2][3] were subsequently uploaded by other YouTubers from 2009 to 2011, which were picked up by fashion blogs across Tumblr and Blogspot. However, the most viewed instance on YouTube wasn’t uploaded until August 25th, 2011, titled “How a Girl Should Put a Man’s Shirt”^[4]:

The DIY-fashion tip was adapted into an ironic photo fad among male bloggers in early December 2011, when an image titled “How to wear men’s shirts” was posted via 9gag^[9], featuring a step-by-step instruction on how to wear a men’s dress shirt as a tube dress.

Spread

The first contribution to the photo fad was posted onto Tumblr by Tumblr blogger Drn007^[8] on December 26th, 2011, which gained over 210,000 likes within its first week and drew participation from dozens of other male Tumblr bloggers. Additional examples of the series can be found under the Tumblr hashtag #how to wear a men’s shirt.

Notable Examples

2012 Calendar Edition

Some of the most reblogged instances were compiled into a calendar by Tumblr user neo-maxizoomdweebie^[10].

Search Interest

External References

About

Katawa Shoujo (かたわ少女 or “crippled girls”), is a combination visual novel and dating sim game independently released by a group that formed out of 4chan named Four Leaf Studios.^[2] The game takes place in Yamaku High School, a fictional school for children with disabilities, with each of the five possible love interests having a disability of some kind.

History

Precursor – Scarred

Previous to Katawa Shoujo, 4chan users came together to publish the visual novel Scarred^[13], released in 2007. This game was based on a story told by a poster dubbed Nurse-kun^[14], an anonymous poster who claimed to be a registered nurse taking care of a seven year old orphan who lost both of her legs, her right arm, and right eye in a car crash. He began posting in December 2006 making fun of the girl, but over the course of the next six months, he built a relationship with his patient. Users gave them the honorific names Nurse-kun and ampu-tan, posting fan art of the two. He ceased posting until September 2008^[15] when he stated he had a new job and the young girl was living with him.

RAITA’s artwork

The idea for the game stemmed from a bonus page of a hentai doujin^[7] based on the manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind^[8], titled Schuppen Harnische.^[1] The doujin, released in 2000 by a member of the Zettai Shoujo circle named RAITA. One of these pages included designs and preliminary ideas for a visual novel set in a disabled school.

In January 2007, the /a/ (anime) board on 4chan stickied a thread about this art to its front page. Interest gradually grew, and after three months of discussion, a group of 21 developers from various internet communities came together to make this game a reality.

Four Leaf Studios

Four Leaf Studios^[5] is a volunteer group formed in 2007 of twenty-one developers from around the world. Their sole purpose was the creation and release of Katawa Shoujo, with the intent of it being free to download. Following the game’s release, Four Leaf Studios announced it had no plans for its members to collaborate on any new projects.^[6]

“With that, the story of Four Leaf Studios is finished. As a single entity, we will not be producing another game. But even though our story has ended, you will now be able to experience a new story; the story that Four Leaf Studios existed to create.”

Release

On April 29th, 2009, Four Leaf Studios released Act 1 of the game as a preview, introducing the main characters and providing both good and bad endings for each of the paths. This version lacked any sexual content. The preview has since been translated into 7 other languages: French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and both simplified and traditional Chinese. After the initial release of Act 1 Four Leaf Studios accepted one new member, Mike Inel. Mike handled all of the animations for each character along with the reworking of the opening sequence and all of the act title cards.

On January 4th, 2012, five years after the project’s initial conception on the 4chan board, the full length game was finally released for download.^[3]

Reception

After the demo was released, several Japanese culture sites including Kotaku^[11] and Japanator^[16] reviewed it, asking questions about the motivations behind the game and ultimately concluding that the game handled the girls’ disabilities tastefully, calling the game “surprisingly compassionate.”^[11]

After the game’s proper release in 2012, an in-depth piece was published on Kotaku^[20], featuring an interview with the game’s lead writer, Aura. In the interview, Aura stated the game “was designed to make a genuine and honest story, rather than fuel for fetishes.” Reviews of the game appeared on the Escapist^[18], ScrewAttack^[21], and the Daily Dot^[22] and a TVTropes^[19] entry was also created for it. There was some controversy, however, after several users^[10] on the Japanese image board 2chan pointed out that the word Katawa is often used as a slur in Japan for “cripple”^[17] and were offended by the game’s title.

Gameplay

The game is a visual novel^[9], similar to the Ace Attorney series, with two dimensional characters that appear over static backgrounds. The game progresses through text at the bottom and intermittent choices that allow the user to determine how the storyline will end.

Characters

You play as Hisao, a boy with a heart condition, arrhythmia who has just arrived to the school. You can choose between five possible love interests^[23]:

• Lilly: Lilly is a blind girl who enjoys drinking tea and hanging out with her best friend, Hanako. She is the representative for class 3-2.

• Emi: Both of Emi’s legs are amputated below the knee from an accident. She has made the best out of the situation by joining the school’s track team.

• Hanako: When she was young, Hanako was left scarred after a fire that burned her house down and killed her father. She is a recluse and does not like being around others, with the exception of her best friend, Lilly.

• Rin: Due to a birth defect, Rin is missing both of her arms. She uses her feet and her mouth to complete tasks and wears a boy’s uniform to allow her greater use of her legs. She is passionate about philosophy and painting.

• Shizune: Shizune is deaf and mute, but is a leader and the class representative for 3-3, the one Hisao is in. She likes to take charge of situations and is very competitive. She is rarely seen without her interpreter and best friend, Misha.

Fan Art

Notable Sub-Memes

Heart Attack / HHNNNGGG!

In the opening scene of the game, Hisao is meeting with his original love interest, Iwanako, in the woods. When she asks him to go out with her, he has a heart attack, setting the course for him to attend the Yamaku High and the game to progress. The onomatopoeia for the sound of a heart attack, HHNNNGGGG is thus used in fan comics to illustrate Hisao’s response to situations that would potentially be too cute for him to handle, in a similar fashion to that scene. It was popularized by a series of 4komas by the artist Pimmy.^[24]

The use of HHNNNGGG was so popular in the comments on Mishimmie^[4], the official Katawa Shoujo image board, that the staff informed users that anyone commenting with “a certain onomatopoeia” would have their IP banned. Users then proceded to comment on moe themed images with the phrase “A CERTAIN ONOMATOPOEIA” instead.

Wahaha~

The catchphrase of Shizune’s interpreter Misha, “Wahaha~”, is used when she is being particularly enthusiastic. This phrase is often associated with her and featured in various fan works, often being combined with the smile she often shows during conversations in-game.

Search Interest

External Links

About

Friendzone Johnny is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of teenage boy holding a bouquet of roses accompanied by captions related to unrequited love and romantic rejection.

Origin

On January 8th, 2012, Redditor shakee submitted a post titled “Friendzone level 99” to the /r/funny^[1] subreddit and FunnyJunk^[7] containing a screenshot of a Facebook photo page depicting a teenager with a flower bouquet and the following description:

This is how you do it. He comes to my house at midnight to wish me a happy birthday(: I am so blessed to have such great friends. Thank you sososoo much Jonathon!

The first Quickmeme^[4] submission was created the same day with the caption “Plans for weeks / humiliated for a lifetime.” It was subsequently posted to Reddit^[3] and reached the front page accumulating 11,328 up votes within 2 days.

Friend Zone

The term “friend zone” refers to an interpersonal relationship in which one member wishes to become romantically involved while the other would rather remain friends only. The earliest known instance has been attributed to a 1994 episode of television sitcom Friends in which the character Ross is labeled “mayor of the Friend Zone.” The earliest Urban Dictionary^[9] definition was submitted on December 15th, 2003.

Friend Zone: What you attain after you fail to impress a woman you’re attracted to. Usually initiated by the woman saying, “You’re such a good friend”. Usually associated with long days of suffering and watching your love interest hop from one bad relationship to another. Verb tense is “Friend-ed”.

The concept has been previously iterated on Reddit in other advice animal series including Friend Zone Fiona and Friend Zoned Phil.

Spread

On January 9th, an “ask me anything” (AMA) request for Friendzone Johnny was submitted to the /r/IAmA subreddit.^[6] A Redditor named “FriendZoneJohnny” commented in the thread identifying himself as Johnny Solis and explained his side of the story:

The same day, Johnny started a Q&A thread on the Bodybuilding Forums^[11] and verified himself with a spoon picture and a Facebook status update.

On January 10th, a thread titled “Friendzone Johnny no longer friendzoned”^[8] that included a screenshot of Johnny Solis’ Facebook page showing his relationship status as “married” was submitted to the /r/adviceanimals subreddit. The same day, a thread titled “Friendzone Johnny got the girl!” that included a photo of Johnny with his arm around a teenage girl was submitted by Redditor bezerk86.

The same day, Johnny replied to the Body Building forums thread admitting that he was not in a relationship with Lizz and that “she put we are married to try to get people off our backs.” Body Building forums user Curlingrack replied claiming this move would only push him deeper into the friend zone.

The Quickmeme^[2] page accumulated over 580 submissions in less than two days. Derivatives have since spread to Tumblr under the tag “#friendzone johnny.”^[5]

Notable Examples

Related Concept: The Nice Guy

The Friendzone Johnny character is often associated with the “nice guy”^[12] stereotype, a popular culture term used to describe an adult or teenage male that lacks assertive personality traits in relationships with women. Researchers Herold and Milhausen^[13] found that the “nice guy” label means different things to different women, with some finding it a positive label and others finding it boring and unattractive.

The Geek Feminism Wiki^[13] describes the “nice guy” as a manipulative male with ulterior motives:

He is prone to behaviors like “giving-to-get” (with strings attached) as well as patterns of idealizing and devaluing women. The terms Nice Guy™ and nice guy syndrome are used to describe men who view themselves as prototypical “nice guys,” but whose “nice deeds” are in reality only motivated by attempts to passively please women into a relationship and/or sex.

On May 27th, 2010, Wired^[17] published an article titled “The Nice Guy’s Guide to Realizing You’re Not That Nice” which criticized the idea that women reject men simply because they are friendly or kind.

On Reddit, threads are often created debating the effectiveness and legitimacy of the “nice guy” approach to women. On September 19th, 2011, Redditor UnattractiveNiceGuy posted a thread to the women’s issues subreddit /r/TwoXChromosomes questioning why there was so much hatred for “nice guys.” On October 23rd, 2011, Redditor abadgaem reposted an archived Something Awful^[14] forums thread to the /r/seduction^[15] subreddit on why the “nice guy” approach should be avoided as a tactic to court women.

Search Interest

Search queries for “friendzone johnny” rose dramatically in January of 2012, the same month the first threads were submitted to Reddit.

External References

About

That Awkward Moment is a hashtag often used as a preface when sharing stories about socially uncomfortable experiences on Twitter and other social networking sites.

Origin

While the English adjective “awkward” traditionally means “socially inept, or with a lack of dexterity,” its broader, colloquial usage of the word in describing simply weird or mildly uncomfortable social situations has drastically increased since the late 2000s.

One of the earliest examples of awkward humor can be attributed to the advice animal series Socially Awkward Penguin, which first surfaced through places like 4chan’s r9K board and MemeGenerator in June 2009. The oldest example of a text-based platform for sharing “awkward” stories can be found in the Tumblr blog ThatAwkardMoment^[7], which was launched on October 23rd, 2010.

Spread

Awkward stories quickly grew into a staple genre of internet humor at the dawn of a new decade, largely aided by the advents of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, as well as widespread usage of greentext stories on 4chan’s R9K (experimental / original content) imageboard.

On Twitter

Single topic blog TheAwkwardMoment.com^[14] and its Twitter account @awkwardmoment10 were launched on December 1st, 2010 and similar Twitter blogs @TheAwkwardTweet^[9] and @AwkMoment^[11] were set up days later on December 5th. As a result, Twitter hashtag #thatawkwardmomentwhen was subsequently listed as a globally trending topic in late December 2010. Numerous other blogs continued to spring up via Twitter in 2011, such as @ThatMomentTweet^[13], @MyAwkwardTweet^[12], @ThatAwkMmtWhen^[8] and @SoVeryAwkward.^[10]

On Tumblr

Meanwhile, #thatawkwardmomentwhen jokes were quickly adapted into image macros and featured on various single topic blogs on Tumblr, including Awk Momentz^[5], Fuck Yeah That Awkward Moment^[6] and FY Awkward.^[2]

On Facebook

On Facebook, there are dozens of fan pages and groups with hundreds of thousands likes and followers, including “That awkward moment when you glance at someone staring at you,” which has over 1.6 million likes, “That Awkward Moment When Someone Says You Guys Should Go Out,” which has over 1 million likes and “That awkward moment when u throw something at your friend & hit some1 else,” which has over 650,000 likes as of January 2012. The first Urban Dictionary^[3] entry was submitted on September 15th 2011, which describes it as a popular Facebook fad.

Blog Statistics

@TheAwkwardTweet December 5th, 2010 / 2,392 Tweets / 598,016 Followers
@AwkMoment – December 5th, 2010 / 1,303 Tweets / 2,253 Followers
@That Moment Tweet – February 18th 2011 / 964 Tweets / 51,279 Followers
@MyAwkwardTweet – May 18th, 2011 / 3,129 Tweets / 110,909 Followers
@ThatAwkMmtWhen – June 20th, 2011 / 1,522 Tweets / 174,272 Followers
@SoVeryAwkward – July 5th, 2011 / 1,652 Tweets / 158,070 Followers

Search Interest

External References

About

Condescending Wonka is an advice animals image macro series featuring a screen capture of actor Gene Wilder in the 1971 musical Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. As its name suggests, the captions can be characterized as patronizing and sarcastic.

Origin

The image comes from a scene in the 1971 musical Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in which Willy Wonka, played by Gene Wilder, asks the children if they would like to see a new candy he is working on called “The Everlasting Gobstopper.” On the web, Wilder’s picture from the film was introduced in January 2011 through an instance of the “You Must Be New Here” reaction face.

The image soon became associated with other captions, from which emerged the advice animal series “Creepy Wonka” featuring various double entendres with allusions to candies or confectioneries. The earliest known image macro (shown below, left) was submitted to Quickmeme^[3] with the caption “Close the door / I’ll show my my fudge packing unit” on March 2nd, 2011. It was subsequently posted to the /r/pics subreddit^[6] the same day, where it was marked as spam for breaking the “no comics/macros” rule.

The series was renamed “Condescending Wonka” for the first time in October 2011 after it was paired with the caption “Oh, you just graduated? / you must know everything” in an instance submitted to Quickmeme.^[7] The image was posted to Reddit^[8] the same day and reached the front page of the /r/pics subreddit prior to being marked as spam for breaking the “no comics/macros” rule as well.

Spread

On October 12th, 2011, the web culture blog The Bigster^[9] posted a compilation of Creepy Wonka derivatives. On November 27th, 2011, Redditor chicagowillbeours posted a thread titled “Let’s all agree to change his name to ‘Condescending Wonka’” that reached the front page of the Advice Animals subreddit. A Quickmeme^[2] page for “Condescending Wonka” was created on November 28th, 2011 and it has accumulated more than 127,217 submissions as of June 2012.

On January 8th, 2012, Redditor hannibl posted a photo of a Weimaraner dog with the caption “Oh, you run a chocolate lab? / I am a chocolate lab.” The thread reached the front page and accumulated over 8,500 up votes within 5 days.

Creepy Wonka macros have since spread to FunnyJunk^[5] and the Condescending Wonka macros can be found on Tumblr^[4] under the “#condescending wonka” tag. The original Creepy Wonka Quickmeme^[1] page had accumulated over 6,500 images in 9 months.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for “creepy wonka” and “condescending wonka” picked up in October of 2011, the same month the first Condescending Wonka macro was submitted to Quickmeme.

External References

About

“I’m in that weird part of YouTube” is an expression used in response to a video post that may be deemed disturbing or eccentric in content. Commonly seen in the comments section of YouTube, it can be read as a viewer’s lament upon watching an unrelated video that had been arbitrarily suggested as similar or relevant content, similar to what the f**k am I watching? or “I’m twelve and what is this.”

Origin

While the phrase first surfaced in YouTube’s comments section sometime in 2011, users’ complaints surrounding the relevancy of suggested videos on Google’s YouTube Help forum^[8] dates back to 2009. YouTube’s “related videos” recommendation feature was first introduced in June 2007, which is designed to suggest videos based on metadata indexed from several sources, including tags, titles, description text, playlists and your viewing history. As of January 2012, comments like “I’m in that weird part of YouTube again” can be found in over 24,700 YouTube video pages.^[7]

Spread

The Urban Dictionary definition^[1] for the phrase “That Weird Part of YouTube” was first submitted on November 8th, 2011:

That Weird Part of YouTube: “an area full of video irrelevant to what you were originally watching.”

According to numerous Yahoo Answer^[3] threads on the topic, the expression became closely associated with the common experience of watching unrelated content that had been arbitrarily suggested at the end of YouTube videos. When used in proper context, the comment will often rise to the top as more viewers arrive through the same route of “related videos” that turns out to be completely unrelated or irrelevant. The phrase can be also followed by concurrent responses like “how did I get here?” and “what did I just watch?”

Throughout the latter half of 2011, similar types of comments spread across number of other major online communities like Reddit^[2], Facebook^[5] and Tumblr^[6], most notably as “I’m in that weird part of the Internet” and “I’m in that weird part of Tumblr.” Particularly on Twitter and Facebook, the expression has been adopted by the users as an introductory statement when sharing a video link.

On October 29th, 2011, FunnyJunk user sadfacemcgee^[9] posted a multi-pane comic with the Computer Reaction Guy, illustrating how one can easily end up in the weird part of YouTube by watching the videos described as related content:

Notable Examples

In addition, there are numerous YouTube videos and playlists titled “that weird part of the Internet,”^[4] which are mostly tied to to gross-out videos, Japanese comedy skits and YouTube Poop videos among others.

On Twitter

On YouTube

Search Interest

Search queries for the phrase “that weird part of YouTube” began to rise in volume as early as in September 2011.

External References

About

Skeptical Baby is an advice animal image macro series featuring a baby with a cocked eyebrow. The captions usually begin with the rhetorical setup “You mean to tell me…” out of disbelief and describe various realizations about life that one acquires upon entering preadolescence, including basic social responsibilities and “white lies” that are told by parents.

Origin

The original photo was taken by North Carolina family photographer and Redditor Jarod Knoten^[1][5] and published to his blog^[2] on November 15th, 2011. It was part of a family album set for Dave, whose Redditor handle is dcthomas82^[4], his wife Rhiannon and their son Mason at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Dave submitted the picture of his son via Reddit^[3] on January 11th, 2012, where it landed on (or just "hit) the front page with 1133 upvotes. The first instance of the image macro was posted on the same day in the comments section with a Most Interesting Man in the World type caption. Later that day, a second thread^[12] was started in the Advice Animals subreddit deeming the photo “Skeptical Baby,” pairing it with a caption of disbelief. It received 6513 upvotes and a score of 991.

Spread

Within eight days of creation, the Quickmeme^[6] page accumulated 1146 upcoming instances, over 60 instances of which have been posted to the Advice Animals subreddit.^[13] On January 14th, a series of Skeptical Baby images were posted to humor Tumblr blog TopTumbles^[9] where it received nearly 39,000 notes within 4 days. Later, more of these images were shared on several humor sites and blogs including FunnyJunk^[7], ThumbPress^[8], Tastefully Offensive^[10], and BuzzLOL.^[11]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

2/10 Would Not Bang is an image macro series in which photos of physically attractive women are scrutinized for minor or imagined flaws, prefaced by an ironically low rating on a scale of one to ten. The images are meant to parody hypocritical judgments made about women’s physical appeal on the Internet.

Origin

The rise in popularity of the phrase “would not bang” can be attributed to the advice animal series Butthurt Dweller, which represents Internet commenters who are smug and judgmental about the physical appearance of others. On August 4th, 2011, a Butthurt Dweller Quickmeme^[14] image was submitted with the caption “‘That bitch got fat since high school, would not bang’ / 90 lbs overweight” (shown left). On September 15th, another Butthurt Dweller image with the caption “6/10 / Would Not Bang” (shown right) was submitted to the image macro site Meme Generator.^[12]

On January 3rd, 2012, a thread titled “Would not bang” was submitted to 4chan’s^[1] /b/ (random) board, which featured a photo of actress, model and WWE fighter Stacy Keibler.^[2] The image was captioned in red text with criticisms of subtle details in the photo and the words “2/10 / Would Not Bang” in white. The thread received 545 replies prior to being archived, many of which included new versions of the meme.

Precursor: Sharp Knees

On June 23rd, 2004, a photo gallery of Playboy model Carla Harvey was submitted to the Internet humor site Fark^[13], to which user studman69 replied:

“I definitely would NOT hit it. Just look at those sharp knees. She is way below my standard.”

The comment became an ironic catchphrase on the site and inspired photoshopped screenshots of the comment with images of unattractive men.

Spread

On January 3rd, 2012, a post titled “2/10 would not bang girls” was submitted to the /r/4chan^[3] subreddit, which included images from the original 4chan thread posted earlier that same day. On January 4th, a compilation of “would not bang” examples was submitted to FunnyJunk.^[5] On January 7th, Body Building^[7] forum user KuRdiSh created a thread titled “2/10 WOULD NOT BANG (pic)”, featuring the original image of Stacy Keibler from 4chan. On January 24th, the Internet humor blog UpRoxx^[8] published an article titled “Meme Watch: ‘2/10, Would Not Bang’ Is Here to Help Point Out The Flaws You Might Have Missed”, which applauded the meme for parodying Internet commenters’ hyper-criticism of beauty. The following day, Slacktory^[9] writer Cole Stryker published an article titled “2/10 Would Not Bang: 4chan’s Funniest New Meme”, which included several examples of the series.

The meme has continued to spread on sites like FunnyJunk^[16] and Tumblr^[6] under the tag “#would not bang.” As of April 24th, 2012, a Facebook^[15] page for “2/10 Would NOT BANG” has received 192 likes.

Notable Examples

Derivative: Would Bang

On January 23rd, a photo of Valve co-founder Gabe Newell featuring the caption “10/10, would bang” reached the front page of the /r/gaming^[17] subreddit, accumulating over 800 up votes in less than 24 hours. Several other inverse editions of “would not bang” have since been created with unflattering photographs.

Derivative: Would Not X

On January 26th, The Huffington Post^[10] published a post titled “2/10 Would Not Bang Meme: What Else Won’t People Do?”, which included variations of the series including “would not eat”, “would not save” and “would not date” derivatives.

Search Interest

Searches for “would not bang” were relatively low in volume until January of 2012, the same month the earliest “2/10, would not bang” derivatives appeared.

External References

About

Dafuq is 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.

Origin

The phrase “what the fuck” has been widely used both in real life conversations and popular culture prior to its adaption into online slang and image macros. The phrase eventually spun off into its abridged forms “WTF” and “the fuck?” as first documented via Urban Dictionary^[1] on March 3rd, 2003 and March 17th, 2004, respectively. The has been notably featured in a LOLcat video known as “‘the fuck was that’ cat,” uploaded by YouTuber webinapage on November 26th, 2009.

Meanwhile, the earliest known definition of the term “dafuq” can be found in an Urban Dictionary^[2] entry submitted on January 4th, 2009, which explains the phrases as “like wtf, it’s ebonics for what the fuck.”

Spread

The alternately version form of the phrase entered widespread usage in the following year, when it was featured in a two-pane image macro using a still shot of startled-looking Severus Snape (played by Alan Rickman) from the 2010 fantasy film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.

One of the first viral instances of “Dafuq” reaction image emerged in November 2010, when the still shot of Snape was paired with a photoshopped version of another still shot from the same Harry Potter film. Throughout November and December that year, the image made its rounds across a number of internet humor hubsites including Memebase^[5], 9GAG^[6] and FunnyJunk^[3] among others.

In addition to the usage of Snape reaction image, the term “Dafuq” has become also associated with odd or inexplicable images, as well as GIF animations and videos of startled-looking animals on Reddit^[9] and Tumblr.^[10] A single topic blog named “Dafuq-Posts”^[7] was launched in October 2011, curating a wide array of images and videos relating to the category of WTF humor. The Facebook fan page^[8] for the phrase “dafuq” was launched on December 11th, 2011 and has gained more than 1,700 likes in the span of first six months.

Notable Examples

Derivative: Dafuq Did I Just Read?

The popularity of the term “dafuq” has also led to a spin-off series of multi-pane vertical images featuring a rage comic character known as Dafuq Did I Just Read?, which is often used to illustrate the ridiculous nature of various forum and blog posts found on the web.

Search Interest

External References

About

Morphing is a photo-editing technique that transforms one image into another through a seamless transition. This visual effect is typically produced with image morphing software.

Origin

One of the earliest known morphing effects was used in the 1985 music video for the song “Cry” (shown below, left) by the English rock duo Godley & Creme. The video used an analogue cross-fade technique to produce the effect since morphing computer software was not yet available. The first film to use digital morphing was the 1988 fantasy Willow. In 1991, the sci-fi blockbuster film Terminator 2: Judgement Day used morphing for the shapeshifting villain character of T-1000, and the music video for Michael Jackson’s single “Black or White” included a sequence of people morphing into one another at the end of the song (shown below, right):

Morphing computer software programs like FotoMorph^[3], FantaMorph^[2], and Gryphon Software Morph^[4] became available in the early 1990s.

Spread

The domain for the website Morph Thing^[1], which allows users to make custom morphed images, was registered on March 17th, 2007. On October 24th, 2008, Funny or Die published a video titled “Morphing McCain: Two of a Kind” with photos of then United States Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin morphing into former President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

On September 7th, 2011, Justin Ribeiro of Stickman Ventures^[10] unveiled a WebGL demo for Ginger^[11], an interactive facial rig that uses morphing technology to change facial expressions in real time. On June 9th, 2012, a Morph Thing compilation thread appeared on 4chan’s /b/^[12] (random) board.

Morphing animated GIFs are occasionally featured on animated image blog Senor GIF^[7] under the “mindwarp” tag. Morphing videos can be found on YouTube^[6] and on Vimeo under the tag “morphing.”^[5] The Facebook^[9] interest page for “Morphing” has received 415 likes as of February 6th, 2012.

Micaël Reynaud

French GIF artist Micaël Reynaud^[16] often uses morphing techniques in his animations. On September 28th, 2011, the art blog Visual News^[14] published an article about morphing animated GIFs that are produced by Reynaud and linked to his Google Plus portfolio^[15] showcasing some of his work, including Amalgation.

Notable Examples

Note: Click through for the animated version.

Notable Videos

Search Interest

Search query volume for “morphing” has been in steady decline since 2006.

External References

About

“What People Think I Do / What I Really Do” is a series of visual charts depicting a range of preconceptions associated with a particular field of occupation or expertise. Unlike image macro series that are based on singular stereotypes like Advice Animals, this series compares varying impressions about one’s profession held by others, self-image and the often mundane reality of the job.

Origin

The original instance of the series was uploaded by artist Garnet Hertz via his Facebook page^[9] on February 2nd, 2012. The chart summarized various preconceived notions and generalizations that are associated with being a contemporary artist.

Precursor

The multi-perspective approach in visual jokes has been previously adapted by other survey template memes like “How People View Me After I Say I’m X” and “What I Watched vs. What I Expected vs. What I Got”.

Spread

A similar image “what people think directors do” was posted by Canvas user ItchyBarracuda^[1] on February 10th, 2012. The thread spawned several derivative versions including freelance programmer, tech support and videogame beta tester.

The “Director” instance was picked up by a number of personal blogs^[3][4][5] and professional websites on the following days, spawning additional derivatives along the way. On February 13th, PC Magazine^[6] reported on the series as a trending meme on Facebook. The same day, photography website Fstoppers^[2] presented the photographer’s edition in an article titled “Photographer MEME: What People Really Think I Do.”

Notable Examples

Template

Meme Builder

Search Interest

External References

About

“That Really Rustled My Jimmies” is an expression that is used to convey feelings of discontent or discomfort in response to someone else’s post in imageboards and discussion forums, most notably on 4chan.

Origin

The phrase originated on the /r9k/ board of 4chan on December 15th, 2010 in a thread about “times when someone really rustled your jimmies.”^[1] It was told in the style of a normal greentext story on 4chan, except using the outdated language from the 1950s. However, Google Insights reveals that the phrase “really rustled my jimmies” has been spotted as trending as early as in June 2010, which remains unverified.

The absurdity of the phrase “Rustled Jimmies” instantly led to a variety of responses to the OP, most notably an image of a frowning gorilla with the overlaid text “that really rustled my jimmies” in the popular Impact font. The original photograph of the gorilla can be found in a Flickr post titled “nors”^[7] uploaded by Frank Wouters on July 4th, 2007.

Spread

Although remarked upon a couple times by others in the 4chan community, both the thread and the image of the gorilla went relatively unnoticed until later on when another user posted an image taken from the front of a box of Gorilla Munch cereal^[2] with the overlaid text “My Jimmies Remain Unrustled.”

These two images came to define the idea of rustled and unrustled jimmies in later threads on 4chan’s /v/ (videogames) /x/ (paranormal) and /tv/ (television) board; the meme spread to other websites such as Newgrounds^[6] and FunnyJunk, as well as on social networking sites like Tumblr^[5] and Facebook^[12].

On February 23, 2012, a thread was created on 4chan’s /v/ board called Jimmies General^[11]. This thread was sticky-featured and lasted for over 650 posts before being archived. It is one of the largest threads dedicated to unrustling jimmies to date and it is the first jimmies thread to have been sticky-featured on 4chan. On February 24, 2012, the name of the /v/ board was changed from Video Games to ‘Jimmies.’

James Ferrario Standoff

On April 12th, 2012, Modesto, California resident James Ferrario shot dead a uniformed deputy police officer and a locksmith who had come to evict him from his house. He then barricaded himself inside, and caused a standoff with local law enforcement.^[13] Shortly thereafter, a troll posted an AMA thread on 4chan’s /b/ board, claiming to be Ferrario.^[14]

The news of the standoff was quickly picked up by Sacramento FOX affiliate KTXL Fox 40.^[13] A reporter made the mistake of featuring the aforementioned /b/ thread, and claimed that Ferrario had a gorilla fetish (due to numerous Jimmies-related images being posted), saying that he called himself “Jimmy Russel” or “Jimmy Rustle.” Once /b/ got word of this, Jimmies jokes exploded over the thread, and spread across the site.

Notable Examples

The expression has since spawned a series of image macros that are mostly based on cute illustrations or photographs of various animals, along with the caption conveying that either jimmies have been rustled or unrustled.

Videos

On youtube, fans upload videos showing image macros of the Gorilla Munch gorilla narrated by various, mainly classical, types of music. These videos have the purpose of giving delight when one’s jimmies have been rustled.

Search Interest

The result of Google Insights queries reveal that the phrase “really rustled my jimmies” began trending as early as in June 2010, though the existence of an instance corresponding with the date remains unverified.

External References

About

Scumbag Hat (snowclone: “Scumbag X”) is an exploitable image inspired by the fitted baseball cap worn by Scumbag Steve, an advice animal character associated with socially unethical or dishonest behaviors. The add-on accessory is typically photoshopped onto any image to portray the subject as a letdown or to point out its shortcomings.

Origin

The brown, hound-tooth patterned baseball cap is a limited edition of Boston Red Sox A-Tooth fitted cap manufactured and licensed by New Era. The hat was first introduced to the online audiences in January 2011 with the popular advice animal series Scumbag Steve. Following its initial onset, numerous spin-off characters began to emerge on Reddit^[2], most notably Scumbag Dog and Scumbag Stefano and Scumbag Mubarak. The last of the three satirized the former Egyptian president’s ill-advised decision to shut off the nation’s internet access which fueled the Arab Spring protests.

Since then, the image of the baseball cap quickly evolved into a symbol of nuisance in a wide range of contexts and became known as Scumbag Hat. In grammatical terms, Scumbag Hat can be seen as a visual modifier that characterizes its subject as a source of annoyance or inconvenience, similar to the way Hipster Glasses are used to depict its subject as a conceited elitist.

Spread

While the output volume of Scumbag Steve image macros reached its peak towards the end of spring in 2011, the presence of “Scumbag X” meme continued to grow throughout the year and inspired a long list of spin-off characters, many of which were influenced by other trending memes and current events. The exploitable enjoys especially strong presence on Reddit and Tumblr; aof May 2012, there are more than 48,000 posts relating to the keyword “Scumbag” on Reddit and 8,800 derivative templates featuring Scumbag Hat on Quickmeme.^[1]

Notable Examples

Some of the most enduring derivatives include Scumbag Brain (21,000 instances), Scumbag Stacy (9,000 instances), Scumbag Redditor (6,000), Scumbag Christian (2,400 instances), Scumbag DNA (1393 instances) and Scumbag Alcohol (1564).

Scumbag Scumbag Hat

Reflecting the popularity of the exploitable add-on, some began creating Scumbag Hat image macros with meta-references to the hat itself.

Search Interest

According to Google Insights and search results, Scumbag Steve and Scumbag Hat can be credited for the sudden overall increase in search interest and vernacular usage of the English adjective “Scumbag” on the Internet.

External References

About

Ermahgerd (also known as “Gersberms” and “Berks”), a lisped pronunciation of “oh my god,” is an image macro series featuring a photo of a young woman holding several books from the children’s horror fiction series Goosebumps. The phonetically written captions are meant to sound like a speech impediment caused by the use of an orthodontic retainer, often using the snowclone template “Ermahgerd X.”

Origin

On March 14th, 2012, a post titled “Just a book owners smile…” was submitted to the /r/funny^[9] subreddit with a photo of a young girl posing with three Goosebumps books and her mouth agape in excitement. A comment posted by Redditor plantlife^[10] linked to a Quickmeme submission of the photo with the caption “Gersberms / Mah fravrit berks.” The same day, the image macro was submitted in a post titled “BERKS!”^[1] which reached the front page of Reddit accumulating over 17,000 up votes within two weeks.

Precursors

The humorous trope of “retainer lisp” has been portrayed through various characters in popular TV shows and films, such as Beth from the animated series Total Drama Island (shown left) and Stan’s sister Shelly from the animated television series South Park (shown right).

Spread

On March 15th, 2012, the image macro was submitted to Funnyjunk^[2] by user michellemc, receiving over 18,000 views in less than two weeks. The same day, it was posted to the Memebase site Derp^[8] with the title “Thurrrrr So Scurrrrry.” On March 16th, YouTuber Berks Gerl uploaded a video titled “Mah Fravorit Berks!”, which featured the original image macro accompanied by a voice-over narration of the caption.

On March 19th, Body Building^[7] forums member Wilsbrah posted a thread titled “Gersberms!” with the original macro embedded in the post. Other forum members responded to the thread using incorrect English mimicking the caption. On June 4th, Redditor TycoBrahe submitted a post titled “Ermahgerd! Cluhrnet!”, which included an animated GIF of Malena Ernman performing a rendition of the orchestral interlude “Flight of the Bumblee.” Within 16 days, the post received over 8,700 up votes and 270 comments.

On June 16th, Graphic Design Forum^[23] member KitchWitch submitted a thread titled “Ermahgerd”, which included several notable image macros from the series. The meme has continued to spread on Memebase^[17] and Tumblr^[18] under the tag “#ermahgerd.” As of June 20th, 2012, the “Berks” Quickmeme^[3] page has received over 4,200 submissions, the “Ermahgerd” Meme Generator^[20]page has received more than 1,000 items and a Facebook^[21] page for “Ermahgerd, Berks” has accumulated over 990 likes.

Notable Examples

Identity

On March 28th, 2012, a post titled “BERKS Revealed” was submitted to the /r/adviceanimals^[11] subreddit by user superdude4agze, which included a picture of a young woman with the caption “Ermahgerd / I’m hot” (shown left). The following day, a post comparing the facial features in the two photos (shown middle) reached the front page of Reddit^[12], which sparked a lengthy discussion over the authenticity of Superdude5agze’s photo. On March 30th, Redditor ThazCrazy submitted a post to the /r/self^[22] subreddit titled “Actual BERKS Girl”, which included a photo of a woman named Maggie (shown right) whom ThazCrazy claimed was the real Berks woman.

Animal Variations

On June 8th, 2012, the website I Can Has Cheezburger^[19] published a post titled “Animal Memes: Ermahgerd! Er’m a Perg!”, which featured a photo of a pug staring at a box of Milk-Bone dog treats with the caption “Ermahgerd / merlkbehrns” (shown below, left). On June 16th, the pug image was submitted in a post titled “merlkbehrns” on the image remixing site Canvas^[16], where it received several replies with other variations based on cute animal photos that were captioned with the snowclone template “Ermahgerd X” (shown below, middle, right). On June 18th, the Tumblr^[15] blog Pleated Jeans published several images from the thread in a post which received over 67,300 notes within two days. The following day, the same images were published in a post titled “7 Super Excited ‘Ermahgerd’ Animals” on the viral content site BuzzFeed.^[14]

Search Interest

In its beginning, the meme was primarily referred to as “Berks” after the original instance of the series, but as it continued to spawn derivatives based on other images, the more generic term “Ermahgerd” surpassed the former in terms of search interest by May 2012.

External References

About

Ridiculously Photogenic Guy (RPG) is a photoshop meme and advice animal featuring a photo of a smiling man called Zeddie Little running in the 2012 Cooper River Bridge Run. The photo gained notoriety online after being posted to the social news website Reddit where users found the man to be exceptionally handsome.

Origin

On March 31st, 2012, computer programmer Will King took photographs of runners at the annual Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, South Carolina. King uploaded a set of almost 100 photos to Flickr^[4] and Facebook, where one of his friends dubbed the man “Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.” On April 3rd, 2012, King submitted the Flickr photo to the /r/pics subreddit in a post titled “My friend calls him ‘Mr Ridiculously Photogenic Guy’”, which received over 40,000 up votes.

According to an interview with King published by Charleston City Paper^[7], King posted it to Flickr around lunchtime and within an hour, it had reached 300,000 views.

Spread

Shortly after the post hit the front page, a facebomb version of the photo was posted by Redditor chehov.^[9]

The following day, the tech news blog Mashable^[3] published a post titled “New Meme Alert: ‘Ridiculously Photogenic Guy’” which included an image of RPG photoshopped into a picture with comedian Tina Fey.

Several hours later, MSN^[6] posted about the series of advice animal memes inspired by the photo. As of April 4th, 2012, the Quickmeme^[2] page has accumulated over 1,000 submissions and a Facebook page for “Mr Ridiculously Photogenic Guy” has received over 25 likes.

Identity

The day after the image was posted to Reddit, the man in the photo was identified as 25-year-old New York resident Zeddie Little by the Charleston City Paper.^[7] The article went on to claim that they were looking for Little in order to conduct an interview about his newfound Internet fame. On April 5th, The Daily Mail^[16] reported that they spoke with Little’s father, who revealed that his son was in a committed relationship of five years and was seeking a job in the public relations industry in New York. In the following days, social media accounts purporting to be Zeddie Little were created including a “Zeddie Little” Facebook^[15] page, and the @TheZeddieLittle^[13] Twitter account.

So I made a twitter to make it easier to talk to all of you! x

— Zeddie Little (@TheZeddieLittle) April 7, 2012

On April 8th, the IBITimes^[11] published an article quoting a tweet by Little’s brother Grayson, which claimed that the @TheZeddieLittle Twitter account was inauthentic. The tweet has since been removed and the authenticity of the Twitter account remains in question. On April 9th, the IBITimes^[12] posted a follow-up article featuring posts from a Zeddie Little Tumblr^[14] blog which provided answers to questions asked by Little’s fans.

Several Tumblr users asked questions about Little’s dietary preferences, to which he responded that he liked carrots and blueberry pancakes. The blogger also claimed that Little had been recognized in public already and that he found out about the meme from a friend.

Barney Stinson Comparison

RPG has often been compared to the character Barney Stinson from the TV sitcom series How I Met Your Mother, in which he is always portrayed as a photogenic ladykiller unable to take a bad picture:

Good Morning America

On April 11th, 2012, Zeddie Little, who goes by the name Watkins, appeared with photographer Will King on the American breakfast television show Good Morning America.^[19] In the interview, Little revealed that the photo was taken immediately after he waved to a friend and commented on his reaction to becoming an Internet meme. He also confirmed he would be running in the New York City marathon for the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health.^[18]

When asked about the appeal behind the meme, Little responded:

“I really dont know, but I kinda feel honored to be part of a joke that’s in good spirit because sometimes the Internet can be a little vicious or jokes can get bent the wrong way. But these are all kinda, for the most part, positive. It’s funny that everybody is kinda taking like to it. It’s, I guess, the most flattering way to get spread across the Internet.”

Notable Examples

Spin-offs

The series inspired other image macro series on Quickmeme. The “Tries Really Hard Girl”^[20] Quickmeme page features a cropped image of a runner from the original Zeddie Little photo with captions describing Zeddie Little stealing the spotlight (shown left). The first instance has been created by tumblr blog unitedstatesofmeryl ^[21] on April 7th, which received over 25000 notes as of now. “Ridiculously Photogenic Puppy”^[22] features a photograph of a young golden retriever accompanied by captions portraying the dog as exceedingly beautiful (shown right).

Template

Search Interest

External References