The Internet is an in-joke

Drunk baby

2012-11-20T09:21:00.000+02:00

Yet another 'baby' image macros meme!

This meme started on Reddit when someone posted a picture of a baby girl sitting next to a pint of beer with the title 'she tells the worst jokes'. Within a few hours, the first image macros had appeared.

This isn't the first meme to feature a drunk baby - but this one seems to have taken off more than any other image.

Success kid

2012-11-17T08:51:00.002+02:00

Success kid (also known as 'victory baby' and 'I hate sandcastles') is another baby image macros meme.

It features a baby fistpumping the air with a smug facial expression on his face.

The original image was taken by Laney Griner of her 11-month-old son Sammy, way back in 2007 - and it's still doing it's rounds on the internet today.

Some of the earliest versions of this photo to appear on the internet included a version with a Photoshopped background of a boy standing next to a broken sandcastle, crying. The title 'I hate sandcastles' was also added.

Since then, the meme has been used to depict situations where things turn out better than expected. It's sometimes used with a blue 'advice animals' background and sometimes with the beach background.

Success kid has even been featured in a Virgin advertising campaign.

Five years later, 'success kid' is going on for 5 years old.

Skeptical Baby

2012-11-03T11:32:00.002+02:00

Skeptical baby is an image macros meme (in other words, a meme that uses a picture with funny text superimposed on top) that started on Reddit.

When father and photographer, Jarod Knoten, uploaded this picture of his son and himself to Reddit he had no idea his little boy would become 'internet famous'. Redditors soon got hold of the quirky picture and added 'skeptical baby' captions - most of which began with something along the lines of 'you mean to tell me that...'

This meme normally highlights the innocence of young babies, and some of the 'harsh realities of life' they will soon discover.

Want to create your own Skeptical Baby image? You can do so here.

Hitler reacts

2012-10-22T09:38:00.001+02:00

Also known as Hitler Rants or Hitler's 'Downfall', this meme is based on a scene from Der Untergang (2004) - a German world war II film showing Hitler's last days in his bunker.

In the scene, Hitler finds out that his final counter-offensive against the Soviets has failed, and he's losing the war. The scene show Hitler yelling, screaming and berating his top generals.

If you're familiar with the meme, but you actually don't know what Hitler is really saying, take a look at the original scene.

The meme started way back in 2006 when someone added Spanish subtitles to the clip, with Hitler complaining about the lack of new features in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X.

Since then, thousands of parodies have been made. By changing the subtitles on Hitler's meltdown, video creators get to play screenwriter and director, building the tension and telling their story.

There's a YouTube channel dedicated to collecting these parodies - and it has over 34 million video views. Parodies have been made in many languages including Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.

It seems a new Hitler Rants video rears it's head every time something topical happens. Here's how he reacts to twitter going down:

Here's Hitler's reaction to the fact that the iPad can't multitask:

And here's how he takes the news of Michael Jackson's death:

How does the director of the film feel about the viral videos? He loves them!
On January 15th, 2010, New York Magazine’s entertainment blog interviewed Hirschbiegel, the director, asking his opinion of how the scene has been used online:
"Someone sends me the links every time there’s a new one… I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself!"

Don't lose your job
Of course, using the Hitler parody video could be a career-limiting move for some. Take for example Scottish Labour party Member of Parliament Tom Harris. Harris thought it would be a good idea to upload a Downfall parody to his personal YouTube channel criticizing Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond. But by comparing his rival to Hitler, he created an uproar - and eventually was forced to resign.

2012-02-15T11:33:00.000+02:00

Here's a list of some of the older memes on the internet. Check them out.

1. LOLcats
2. AYBABTU
3. Stuff on my cat
4. The cake is a lie
5. Fail
6. The Hampster Dance
7. I love horses
8. Rickrolling
9. Demotivational Posters
10. Numa Numa
11. Chuck Norris
12. The Hoff
13. Post Secret
14. A Series of Tubes
15. Leeeroy Jeenkins
16. Tourist Guy
17. Dramatic Hamster
18. Techno Viking
19. The Dancing Baby
20. Badger Badger Badger
21. Chocolate Rain
22. Over 9000!
23. Pirates
24. Ninjas
25. Ninjas vs Pirates
26. McCain Old Jokes
27. Peanut Butter Jelly Time
28. Do not want!
29. The Star Wars kid
30. In Soviet Russia
31. Crazy Frog
32. L33t
33. I'm in your base...
34. Lolrus
35. The Internets

Shoop da Whoop

2008-11-11T17:11:00.002+02:00

Here’s another meme (like Over 9000) that started with a Dragonball Z character - Cell is one of the main villains in Dragonball Z (specifically 'Imperfect Cell').

Someone on 4chan’s /b/ board used the very basic paint program, MS Paint, to alter Cell’s face into what is now known as Shoop da Whoop.

Cell's face has been blacked out and big eyes and red lips have been painted in amateurishly. A picture of ‘Shoop’ is usually accompanied by a phrase like 'IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER’

But Shoop da Whoop has a dark side – apparently, the Shoop da Whoop character was intended as a parody of early comics and thetre shows that featured black people in a stereotypical way, with bright red lips and very dark faces. (Like the 'Blackface' theatre characters seen on the American stage in the 1830's.) Even the ‘Shoop da Whoop’ wording and the phrases ‘IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER’ or ‘FIRIN’ MAH LAZER’ are meant to imply a typical African-American Southern drawl. The 'Imperfect' Cell character and another Dragon Ball Z character called Mr. Popo both caused some controversy for their resemblance to 'Blackface characters.

Pictures of the Shoop character generally appear in succession. Shoop usually starts by charging his laser, then shooting it out his mouth, then swallowing it.

Since the meme's introduction, numerous spinoff images have also been created, featuring various characters painted with the Shoop face. Check out many YouTube videos featuring Shoop.

Here's a YouTube video, featuring the 'Firing my laser' phenomenon.

The US Elections as a World of Warcraft campaign

2008-10-23T16:22:00.004+02:00

McCain: [talking to his Campaign advisers] OK guys, this Obama character has given us a lot of trouble in the past, so here’s what we’ll do:

I'll run in, and use Intimidating Shout, to kinda get everyone’s attention. Then I’ll try a couple of Mocking Blows and a Demoralizing Shout. That should do it.

I’m hoping for some Divine Intervention, because if we can’t bring these guys in quick we'll be in trouble. Uhh, I think this is a pretty good plan, we should be able to pull it off this time. Uhh, what do you think Weaver? Can you give me a number crunch real quick?

Weaver: Yeah gimme a sec... I'm coming up with sixty-two point six six uh, repeating of course, percentage, of winning.

McCain: Well, that’s great. Uhh, alright, you think we're ready guys? [interrupted]

Palin: Alright, chums, let's do this... SAAAARRRRRRRRRAAHHHH PAAALLLLLLLLLLLIIIINNN! [runs into room full of press]

-Short pause-

Schmidt: ... Oh my God she just ran in.

McCain: Oh jeez, who knows what she’s going to say. Stick to the plan guys. Stick to the plan!

Palin: I can see Russia from my house!

McCain: What the—what the hell?

Palin: Bail out? Health care reform! Tax payers... Job creation!

Salter: Shut up – backfire has been cast; you’re just hurting yourself!

Palin: We got em, we got em! I got it, I got it. I'm going to be VP - I own this place!

Schmidt: Shut her up! Someone!

McCain: Goddamnit Sarah! Goddamn it...

[Various others]: Yeah, Sarah you moron, Sarah!

McCain: Listen, this is ridiculous.

Salter: You dumbass.

McCain: I'm down, McCain down. I’m down 5 points Goddamnit. Why do you do this shit, Sarah?

Palin [crying]: It's not my fault!

McCain: Oh for - Great job! Sarah, you are just stupid as hell.

Palin: At least I have a new $150 000 wardrobe.

Cakes: no lie

2008-10-20T13:38:00.016+02:00

Previously I blogged about a Rickroll cake that was hidden beneath a 'cake that was a lie'...

Well, here’s yet another Rickroll cake.

It’s not too surprising though. It seems that the Internet memes and in-jokes have long been the inspiration for some fantastic cake ideas. It all goes to show, if it exists, there is cake of it.

Check out some of these geeky masterpieces:

The perfect Portal cake, baked using the recipe found hidden in the Portal game. (Instructions via instructables)

The AYBABTU cake from Flickr

The Mudkip cake made by Clever Cake Studio. Here's another.

The Domo cake found on Deviant Art and instructions on how to make your own.

The Dramatic Hamster/Prairie Dog cake (via Flickr)

The Lolrus cake... made of fish!

Two 1337 cakes

Pirates vs Ninja cake from Scienceblogs

The Chuck Norris cake

The Hypnotoad inspired Hypnocake.

And here's a bonus: a FAIL cake - they asked for it to read "Best Wishes Suzanne" and underneath that, "We will miss you".

For more Internet-inspired cakes, see Gizmodo’s cake gallery and this geekcake blog.

And while we’re on the subject of baked goods, here’s a Pi Pie.

Domo

2008-10-20T12:29:00.003+02:00

Domo-kun (or just Domo) is the mascot for the Japan's NHK television station. The station made various 30-second stop-motion promo spots for their channel featuring Domo. They are rather strange to say the least…

Domo spends most of his time hanging out in a cave with the wise rabbit Mr. Usaji and watching TV. Apparently, "his body is stout, but his heart is pure". The clips also feature a bunch of bats (one of which has a drinking problem), a hungry bear and a girl-weasel.

For more on the Domo characters, check out their official website.

Without ever being shown outside of Japan, Domo-kun became an Internet hit. And while the strange-but-endearing movie clips had something to do with his fame, it’s mostly thanks to Domo’s ability to be Photoshopped into some amazing situations that made him the Internet star he is today.

A lot of his original fame can probably be attributed to this image of kittens running from Domo-kun.

The image was created by a Fark user, who used this student magazine front page as his inspiration.

More recently, this Domo-kan image has found its way onto forums and boards, and is used after a noob has made a stupid comment…

A quick search on Flickr and Deviant Art will show you just how widespread Domo-kun’s fame has become, especially amongst Anime fans. Domo plush toys, t-shirts and other merchandise are all the rage.

Domo’s popularity continues to grow – he’s now appearing in the UK on Nicktoons (part of Nickelodeon) in short 2-minute spots.

He’s also being used as the theme of Target’s 2008 Halloween promotions.

If you're looking for a Halloween costume, here's a Domo-costume how-to.

And just in case you haven’t had enough Domo for today, go check out the Domo-Kun’s Angry Smash Fest flash game.

Upsidedown Dogs

2008-10-15T12:42:00.001+02:00

It's not quite a meme yet... but who knows. This could take off.

Upsidedown dogs are just like regular dogs, except they are upside down...

I can see Russia from my house...

2008-10-13T11:17:00.006+02:00

As the American elections draw closer, you can’t help but feel a little sorry for Sarah Palin, the current governor of Alaska and the running mate of Republican John McCain. The woman is just totally out of her depth.

As John McCain is the oldest man to ever run for office, the Republicans probably wanted to soften their campaign with a young, female face. A face they hoped ‘your average American woman’ would associate with.

Problem is, Palin has provided the Internet with far too much funny (and controversial) material to poke fun at.

Palin describes herself as a Hockey Mom, a cliché that many women feel insulted to be associated with. Matt Damon had a really good go at this one. He said in an interview… “There’s a really good chance Sarah Palin could become president… It's like a really bad Disney movie: the hockey mom, you know, 'Oh, I'm just a hockey mom'... and she's facing down [Russian] President Putin... It's totally absurd... It's a really terrifying possibility.”

Comedy site CollegeHumor.com even created a mock trailer for this ‘really bad Disney movie’ movie featuring a Palin look-alike.

Then there are the strange names of her kids: Track, Trig, Bristol, Piper, and Willow. Check out this Sarah Palin baby name generator.

Then there are her policies: Palin has stated that abortion should be banned in nearly all cases, including rape and incest, except if the life of the mother is endangered.

She has just had her latest baby – Trig – who was diagnosed with Down syndrome. Controversially, Palin was attending a conference in Texas when her water broke. She was in labour but continued to give her speech then got on a plane and flew for 12 hours before delivering her baby.

Although Palin preaches abstinence, her oldest daughter, who’s only 17, recently fell pregnant by mistake, and so mother and daughter will have children round about the same age. For a laugh, check out the blog: Teen Moms for Palin.

She’s also not very pro-environment – she’s trying to get Polar Bears off the endangered species list and is opposed to listing beluga whales as endangered. Apparently she believed that humans were around when dinosaurs roamed the earth. And she keeps changing her view on global warming.

When Sarah Palin appeared in an interview with Katie Couric of CBS News, her lack of experience really showed. The interview was widely criticised, and was parodied on Saturday Night Live, the late-night sketch comedy/variety show.

When asked about financial bail-out deal, Sarah Palin proved she had no idea what she was talking about. Confused by Couric’s question, she started throwing in key-words like healthcare and education.

When Saturday Night Live got hold of this they created a brilliant parody. Ironically, they didn’t need to write too much of a script – they used Palin’s own words to show her ineptitude.

Then Palin went on to talk about her foreign policy experience. Palin has very little foreign policy experience – but she sited the fact that Alaska is close to Russia as her ‘experience’ in dealing with superpowers of the world. In the Couric interview, Palin tries to explain her position, but again the Saturday Night Live Parody took this to a whole new level.

In the SNL parody, Tina Fey (playing Palin) again makes Sarah's comments look ridiculous.

But the meme that's going around at the moment all started when Tina Fey first parodied Sarah Palin on SNL... Together with Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. Fey delivered the line: "I can see Russia from my house" (again based on Palin's assertion that she is so close to Russia) which has now become a meme.

This brilliant poster held up at a political rally reads: "Hey Sarah, I can see the end of your political career... From my house!"

Stay tuned... because my feeling is that we haven't heard the last from Sarah - something crazy is going to happen. And the Internet will be all over it.

Like, who knows, maybe someone will make a Porn Movie featuring hr life story perhaps?

For more great Sarah moments, check out Red Green and Blue's take on Sarah and her policies.

F40PH Fridays

2008-10-13T08:56:00.000+02:00

Yet another 4chan meme. On Fridays, the 4chan /b/ board used to get flooded with ‘Furry’ hentai posts – in honour of Furry Friday. These images feature anthropomorphic animals in a sexually explicit way. To counter this ‘scourge’, the guys at /b/ created F40PH Friday.

The F40PH is – well, it’s a train.

According to Wikipedia, the General Motors Electro-Motive Division model F40PH is a 3000 horsepower B-B diesel-electric locomotive built from 1976 onwards. Supposedly, it's quite a train - equipped with a turbocharged 16 cylinder, two-stroke, water-cooled "Vee" diesel engine.

Anytime anyone started a ‘Furry Friday’ thread, it would be flooded with pictures of the great F40PH. Often 4channers use a directory dumper to mass-dump pictures of the train into the thread, taking it over.

Here's a video featuring some of the F40PH pictures used on F40ph Friday:

LOLcats vs Metallica

2008-10-03T09:02:00.005+02:00

A stroke of brilliance from the 4chan guys - take the lyrics to Metallic's Enter Sandman and add fitting LOLcat pictures and you've got a recipe for greatness.

Click here to see the full post.

I highly recommend playing the Metallica music video in the background while scrolling through the pictures…

Two memes: one idea - the Rickroll cake!

2008-10-02T14:45:00.001+02:00

Instructables.com is a cool site where people share their ideas and instructions for making crafts, artworks, and other fun things (like inverted bookshelves and dyed pasta).

One of the contributes to the site came up with an amazing idea.

She wrote "Every year I make a birthday cake for my wonderfully geeky boyfriend. The past two years I made him a Cthulhu themed cake, so this year it was time for something different. His birthday fell on D&D night, so the whole geek crew would be gathered together. The crew has been bitten by the Rick Astley bug, and so it seemed fitting that I should Rickroll them all."

She created a fake cake - made to look like the Portal 'Cake is a lie' Cake. And of course, in this case, the cake really was a lie - it was actually made out of an old hatbox. Under the fake cake is the real cake... in all it's Rickrolling glory.

She described the reveal, when she yanked the fake hat-box cake off:"They all looked horrified as I seemed to destroy the cake. Then the wave of recognition washed over all their faces as they realized that the cake had been a lie and they had just been Rickrolled... by a cake."

Brilliant. Check out the instructions here.

Of course, a great idea like this one is sure to spread. This journalist from the Miami New Times writes about how he Rickrolled his office co-worker as well.

The Large Hadron Collider Rap

2008-09-29T14:02:00.003+02:00

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex in the world. It was built as an experiment to see the effects of colliding opposing beams of protons with very high kinetic energy. Wikipedia has more detail…

It caused quite a stir earlier this year because some people actually feared that the Collider could possibly cause a Black Hole. One thing is for certain, though: not many people understand just what this 27km long super-science-experiment is meant to do.

Kate McAlpine made it her mission to change all that.

Kate is a 23-year-old Michigan State University graduate and science writer who created a very funny rap video about the groundbreaking collider.

McAlpine received permission to film herself and friends dancing in the caverns and tunnels where the experiments will take place.

"We love the rap, and the science is spot-on," CERN spokesman James Gillies said.

Top science magazine New Scientist wrote: “Hats off to Kate McAlpine and crew, who took to the tunnels under CERN to bring us the most entertaining explanation of physics we've seen since Schoolhouse Rock. Backup dancing aside, it's a completely respectable description of what scientists hope to learn when they first flip the switch on the Large Hadron Collider—a massive particle accelerator located near Geneva—sometime later this month.”

So, finally an Internet meme with an educational angle! Check it out:

I'm F*%&ing Matt Damon...

2008-09-26T11:11:00.001+02:00

Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a later night American talk show has always made Matt Damon the butt of his jokes.

A bit of history:

Frequently at the end of his show, Kimmel thanks the audience and then adds, "Our apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time."

When Matt Damon did actually appear on the show, Jimmy Kimmel started with a montage of clips showing the numerous times he had said those words, and then gave a very lengthy introduction. When Damon finally appeared on stage, Kimmel apologised and said (you guessed it) “sorry, the show is out of time.” This running joke continued for years on the Kimmel show.

Matt gets revenge.

In January 2008, Kimmel's long-time girlfriend (and fellow comedian) Sarah Silverman announced, via a music video, that she had been "f*%$g Matt Damon." Damon brought up Kimmel's long running gag by telling Kimmel at the end of the video, "Jimmy, we're out of time. Sorry."

This brilliantly catchy tune and very funny music video, won Sarah Silverman an Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics.

Kimmel’s revenge

As Kimmel rightly stated himself, the ‘I’m F%$ing Matt Damon song became an instant Internet hit. Kimmel jokes that it was “bigger than that fat kid with the light saber”

After the 2008 Oscars, Kimmel got his ‘revenge’ on Sarah, by showing off his own music video: “I’m F$%ing Ben Affleck”

In addition to Ben Affleck, the video stars some of holiwoods biggest names including Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, Cameron Diaz and even Brad Pitt (as the Pizza Delivery guy). Also look out for Christina Applegate, Don Cheadle, Dominic Monaghan (the guy from Lost), Meat Loaf, Macy Gray, and Josh Groban.

Pandora Mix

2008-09-25T13:56:00.000+02:00

Here's a quick one, a new video that's fast becoming a video phenomenon. It's really simple - a remix of a little girl making funny faces and noises on camera, edited into a catchy tune and captivating music video.

Garfield

2008-09-16T19:05:00.007+02:00

Lets face it; Garfield comics can be decidedly unfunny a lot of the time. Personally, Garfield was ruined for me as a kid when I saw the TV shows where they gave Garfield a voice – he just shouldn’t sound like that! But I digress – Garfield comics – not really funny. But with a little help from the Internets, we can change all that. Introducing the Garfield meme!

By Photoshopping or rearranging Garfield comics in different ways, a new meme was born.

Here are just a few of the different ways Garfield comics have been changed:

First – the Garfield Randomiser.
This website lets you randomly rearrange Garfield comic strips – often with great results.

Then, put new words in their mouth
By changing the words in the speech bubbles, the comics take on a whole new meaning.

Then there’s ‘crazy-eyes’ technique
By simply changing Garfield and Jon’s eyes in Photoshop, the comic strip tells a different story. The basic idea is that whenever Jon says something stupid, Garfield makes crazy-eyes – which causes Jon to go all crazy-eyed - which shuts him up!

Realfield
Replace Garfield with a real-looking cat and see the results:

Make Jon seem crazy

Someone figured out that if you simply take out Garfield’s thoughts the cartoons suddenly seem a lot funnier – Jon plays the role of crazy man who talks to his cat far too much.

Then some real genius realised that if you take out Garfield altogether, and it’s even funnier!

Check out this blog dedicated to Garfield – minus Garfield!

It turns out that Jim Davis, Garfield’s original creator, reads Garfield Minus Garfield and enjoys it.

Taking it too far
Removing all the characters... one step too far.

All Glory To The Hypnotoad!

2008-09-16T11:49:00.002+02:00

Futurama (in case you’ve been living under a rock) is an animated sitcom created by Matt Groening (the man famous for creating the Simpsons). The series follows the adventures of a pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, who gets frozen just before the new millennium and is then revived a thousand years in the future.

One of the recurring characters in Futurama is the Hypnotoad - a large brown frog with spinning eyes, who emits a low, buzzing sound.

The Hypnotoad has the power to hypnotize almost any living thing at will – and he has his own TV show, called ‘Everybody Loves Hypnotoad’ in which it hypnotizes the audience. He’s also been known to show up in TV commercials endorsing products.

The Hypnotoad became a meme on 4chan when people began ending their forum post with ‘ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD’ – the Hypnotoad supposedly hypnotises the poster, so he cannot finish his original thought and instead honours the Hypnotoad. The next poster will continue the trend, until the whole thread is filled with ‘ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD’.

Click to enlarge

The Hypnotoad meme is often used to end a thread that someone considers boring, because after the Hypnotoad is introduced… it takes over.

The Bel Air

2008-08-22T12:53:00.004+02:00

The other day I caught a few minutes of a “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” repeat on some dodgy TV channel. It was so strange to see the “I am Legend” star in this crazy, silly, carefree role, so different from his recent movies.

One of the memes on 4chan involves Will Smith’s famous rap that opens the Fresh Prince sitcom. I swear I could sing that whole song word for word when I was younger…

So, to perform a ‘Bel Air’, a person on 4chan will post a story (normally with some risqué story line) and just as it reaches a climax, it suddenly devolves into the ending lyrics of the Fresh Prince song. Generally, the story ends and the song starts with ‘and then my mom got scared, and said, “you’re moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air”’

Check this Google Answers page to see a Bel Air in action (posted by Mantrid, about half way down). Also see this IRL example (IRL = In Real Life):

Some Bel Air stories have become ‘copypasta’ and are repeated ad-nauseam on the boards.

To perform a reverse Bel Air, you actually start with Fresh Prince song, and then change half way through to a real conversation. XKCD demonstrates:

Tron Guy

2008-08-19T17:37:00.004+02:00

Now here’s a guy who’s not afraid to make fun of himself.

Jay Maynard is a computer programmer and system administrator. But he’s most famous for the hand-painted spandex costume he created, which was inspired by the movie TRON.

He wore the suit at Penguicon 2.0, a science-fiction and Linux convention he attended. After some positive feedback from his fellow conventioneers, Jay decided to add a link his site, Tronguy.net, on the popular tech blog Slashdot.

He received hundreds of comments – most of them negative. "Ahhh! Fat guy in spandex!" Initially, Maynard was hurt by the comments, but he soon realised that there were a few people who saluted his fanaticism and maybe even empathized with him.

"I finally decided that if somebody's got a problem, too bad," Maynard says. "I'm going to have fun my way."

He also started receiving interview requests from radio shows and TV programmes. "They were approaching it strictly from the angle of 'Let's make fun of the geek,' " Maynard says. "But I think I won them over."

He appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and was such a hit that Kimmel hired him as a temporary on-air correspondent. As Tron Guy, Maynard interviewed people at a bodybuilding contest, a pit bull show and a screening of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11. Each time, he brought the conversation back to Tron.

"The biggest thing I've learned," he admits, "is that no matter what the opinions of the big, unwashed masses are, I'm going to have fun my way."

Jay registered the domain Tronguy.net and keeps a LiveJournal. Tron guy has appeared at many conventions and other public appearances in full costume, he’s stood up in support of issues like net neutrality and he’s done many interviews about his Internet fame.

He’s also been parodied on South Park, along with a whole bunch of other memes. Because he sees the funny side of his Internet fame, and plays it up, Tron Guy has actually become a well-liked character, with many people commending him for his courage for being himself.

Mudkips: you liek?

2008-08-19T10:34:00.004+02:00

A bit of background:

Pokémon, in case you’ve never heard of it, is the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world (behind the Mario series, which is also made by Nintendo). In the Pokémon game, a Trainer captures a wild Pokémon creature and trains it up to battle other Pokémon.

One of the Pokémon creatures is the Mudkip – a small but strong water-type creature.

DeviantArt is an international online community for artists. They aim to provide a place for artists to exhibit and discuss their work. With over 8 million members, over 62 million submissions, and 36 million visitors a year, DeviantArt is quite a site. It was launched in 2000 – long before Flickr came into existence.

Within the DeviantArt website, different types of artwork are organised into different categories, like photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, Flash and filmmaking. One of the popular sections of DeviantArt is dedicated to Fan Art where people display artwork devoted to their favourite TV shows and computer games.

A meme is born:

When one Pokémon-fan commented on another Pokémon-fan’s picture, inviting him to join his Pokémon fan group, he began with the now-famous words: "So I herd u liek mudkipz”.

This little phrase found it’s way to the 4chan boards where it was developed into a popular piece of copypasta.

Copypasta is basically a body of text (often a story or narrative) that gets copied and pasted over and over in different posts by different people.

The copypasta story involving Mudkips can be found here, but I warn you, like many things on 4chan, it’s not pretty…

DeviantArt is still flooded with people creating art around the Mudkip meme, and YouTube has a growing collection of Mudkip-related videos.

On April Fools Day this year, DeviantArt turned the all of the avatars on DeviantArt to a picture of a Mudkip.

I leave you with a little YouTube mudkip-mashup:

Leave Britney Alone!

2008-08-01T11:05:00.011+02:00

Chris Crocker is a 21-year-old Internet celebrity most famous for his ‘Leave Britney Alone’ rant.

Crocker has a YouTube video channel where he posts videos which are really "monologues about life" and often deal with what it’s like being an openly gay and effeminate teen in a "small-minded town" in the Bible Belt.

He lives with his grandparents who home-school him after he was bullied too much at school. His grandmother occasionally appears in his videos.

His videos have received over 153 million views on YouTube alone. Although he has produced dozens of videos, Crocker gained the most fame from his viral video tearfully defending Britney Spears.

The video received international media attention, hundreds of parodies, criticism and even death threats.

His strange, over-the-top rant is bizarrely captivating. Mascara runs down his cheeks, and he looks totally distraught as he yells “You’re lucky she even performed for you” He also lashes out at gossip columnists such as Perez Hilton, and reality TV star Simon Cowell, who criticized Britney Spears' onstage music performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas.

Fame!

The video received worldwide attention and earned Crocker interviews on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, The Today Show, Maury, The Howard Stern Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM morning show. YouTube named it one of the top videos of 2007 and Wired magazine named it their top video of 2007.

Nearly 2000 people have posted video responses and parodies, including ones by Perez Hilton, Jimmy Kimmel, National Lampoon Inc., Rove McManus, Joe Cartoon and Charles Firth.

Actor Seth Green made a parody to promote his she Robot Chicken. He calls for people to "leave Chris Crocker alone!" Other parodies include one of a George W. Bush impersonator begging people "to leave General Petraeus alone" (a reference to the Iraq War).

Spot the Memes in this Weezer music video

2008-07-24T11:19:00.007+02:00

This new Weezer video for the band's latest single 'Pork and Beans' features a number of YouTube in-jokes. Check out the video and see how many you can spot.

(Here's the YouTube link)

You should recognise Peanut Butter Jelly Time, Dramatic Hamster, Chocolate Rain, AYBABTU, Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa and many more.

If you're not familiar with Chris Crocker of 'Leave Britney Alone' fame, Mentos and Diet Coke or Afro Ninja - stay tuned, I'll get to them.

But of course - like most great ideas - this one has been done before. The Barenaked Ladies also made a music video featuring internet memes and celebs. But their video just isn't as good, so it didn't have the same appeal. Check it out:

Remember these? A list of memes and in-jokes.

2008-07-22T09:46:00.005+02:00

Here's a list of the internet phenomenon covered thus far. How many of these memes do you remember? How many made you laugh, and how many drove you crazy?

1. LOLcats
2. AYBABTU
3. Stuff on my cat
4. The cake is a lie
5. Fail
6. The Hampster Dance
7. I love horses
8. Rickrolling
9. Demotivational Posters
10. Numa Numa
11. Chuck Norris
12. The Hoff
13. Post Secret
14. A Series of Tubes
15. Leeeroy Jeenkins
16. Tourist Guy
17. Dramatic Hamster
18. Techno Viking
19. The Dancing Baby
20. Badger Badger Badger
21. Chocolate Rain
22. Over 9000!
23. Pirates
24. Ninjas
25. Ninjas vs Pirates
26. McCain Old Jokes
27. Peanut Butter Jelly Time
28. Do not want!
29. The Star Wars kid
30. In Soviet Russia
31. Crazy Frog
32. L33t
33. I'm in your base...
34. Lolrus
35. The Internets