Ridiculously Photogenic Guy
Zeddie Little was simply a 25 year old New Yorker in South Carolina running
the Cooper River Bridge Run on March 31, 2012 – when his photo was taken and turned into an
internet meme. Among hundreds of runners, Little managed to land in the range
of a local photographer in perfect lighting and ideal photographing conditions.
Little was also smiling at the camera, as if he was not exhausted from the race
at all. With all these factors lining up, when the local photographer uploaded
the photo of Little onto his Flickr, one of his friends commented on the photo
and deemed Little “Mr. Ridiculously Photogenic Guy.”
The photographer, named Will King, then went on to post the
photo of Little on Reddit, and the photo went viral. Perhaps the juxtaposition
of all the other exhausted, unphotogenic runners in relation to Little’s
fantastic smile drew people to the photo. Perhaps the general attractiveness of
Little himself made the photo interesting for viewers. Perhaps the disbelief
that someone who had been running for hours would look as perfectly poised as
Little did intrigued people. Regardless, the photo of Little exploded on the
internet, garnering 40,000 up votes on Reddit and 300,000 views on Flickr
within the first few hours of being on the internet.
The first iteration of the meme was Little’s faced
super-imposed on the other runners in the original photo. The next iteration of
the meme, which grew to be a more common use of the meme, was Little’s face
photoshopped into a picture with two women making silly faces at the camera. The
meme read: “Sees a couple of girls taking a disastrous photo. Turns it into a
work of art”
From then on, the Ridiculously Photogenic Guy Meme turned
into a macro meme series, featuring a photo of Little during the race and text
which implies that Little is a ridiculously successful, lucky, and renown
character to match his good looks. Often jokes were made about Little’s often
successful romantic life, as well as his good looks. Examples can be seen
below:
The Ridiculously Photogenic Guy Meme quickly rose in
popularity for the first few weeks following the publication of Little’s photo. April 2012 was the peak of this meme's popularity Little was even featured in a Good Morning America segment regarding his recent
rise to internet fame. However, after a few months, the meme fell in popularity.
This particular meme inspired several other macro memes,
including the Tries Really Hard Girl, an image of a girl in the original photo
of Zeddie Little. She has a strained look on her face, and the text surrounding
the image often references Little stealing her spotlight. There have also been
other “ridiculously photogenic” equivalents, including Ridiculously Photogenic
Puppy and Ridiculously Photogenic Metal Head, which have had similar patterns
to the original meme.
Chris Kim
Chocolate Rain
"Chocolate Rain" is a video of Tay Zonday performing the song by the same name on YouTube.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
For starters, it's a catchy song with an infectious background track and very strange lyrics. Each line begins with the words "Chocolate Rain" and is followed by seemingly random sets of words, although Tay Zonday has later stated that the lyrics are about racism. I think that this song was able to get a lot of attention at this time because of his voice (very deep, although he seems like a fairly small guy) and the silly content matter.
This video began to take traction on the internet a few months after Tay uploaded it (April 2007) when Anonymous picked up on the song in July 2007. After it's viewcount skyrocketed that month, it was a featured video on YouTube, garnering it even more attention.
Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=tay+zonday,Chocolate+Rain
Tay Zonday would later cover and create more songs and be featured on a variety of TV shows and commercials. To this day, his video Chocolate Rain remains one of the most popular on YouTube, and has over 94 million views.
Timothy Wang
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Shane McDonough
“I Know That Feel Bro”
The, “I know that feel bro” meme, began circulating on 4chan in early 2011. The meme is a black and white line drawing that depicts the face of a bald man with a closed mouth and slightly squinted eyes, ether looking in the distance or embracing another bald man. It is used online to express empathy and solidarity with what someone else is saying or reacting to on online social media sites and message boards (be the subject matter serious or humorous). I believe this meme has stuck around and will continue to stick around because this notion of agreeing and feeling for what other people are saying online is so easily, humorously, and visually expressed with this simple image. It’s actually a really good natured meme because even is someone is posted about something negative in their lives, responding with some variation of the “I know that feel bro” meme shows you’ve been there and you empathize.
The original image is said to have come from the German image board Krautchan, and to have been created by user “Wojak”. Wojak posted the image on several international image boards with threads bemoaning the fact that he did not have a girlfriend, and it became know as “Wojak’s face”. The meme appeared on 4chan in the 2-bald-men-embracing format as early as January 27th 2011.
Today, the meme is still used, and a spinoff of the meme: “feels” is now also widely circulated. “Feels” is a term used in memes, gifs, and even text response, to refer to emotional occurrences and experiences, be they fictional (i.e. Bambi’s mom dying in the movie Bambi) or real (i.e. a video showing a military father reuniting with his son). Feels can refer to emotions that are happy, sad, or a combination.
According to Google Insights interest web searches for “I know that feel” or “I know that fee bro” meme reached their peak in July 2012, and though the popularity of these terms in web searches has dropped off a bit these terms are still searched relatively highly today.
Sources:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/feels
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-know-that-feel-bro
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22i+know+that+feel+bro%22,%22i+know+that+feel%22
Brian Ly
Slam Remixes aka "Come on and Slam"
Slam Remixes initially started on the early days of the internet prior to the YouTube era in a tribute site to Randy Savage on YTMND, mixing Quad City DJ's "Space Jam" as featured in the movie of the same name with chiptune song "Funky Stars", with the final product being known as Savageslam, created on April 13, 2005.
This then spawned various spinoffs of mixing "Space Jam" with video game music, popular music, and many other forms of music. Due to what is likely how well the song seems to sync up with other songs, mashups with "Space Jam" made Slam Remixes popular in various subcultures.
Slam Remixes in its modern iterations first appeared on YouTube in a remix for a song from the game Barkley, Shut Up and Slam: Gaiden, which was a game that featured NBA star Charles Barkley, on May 6, 2009, leading to many future iterations having Charles Barkley's face photoshopped onto the characters of the song remixed with "Space Jam." In this variation, while the "Space Jam" remixes were already popular due to how well the remixes were made, the almost ridiculously out of place faces of Charles Barkley on video game and anime characters made this meme even more popular in gaming and anime communities.
Examples of Videos:
Videos and MP3's have been shared on gaming websites such as IGN, music websites such as SoundCloud, and even on anime forums. Since the meme is rather derivative and thrives on generating new user-based content, it is difficult to assess exactly how popular this meme exactly is, since rather than focusing on the original version, it is based more on the idea of remixing the "Space Jam" song. However, it is interesting to note that the YouTube search query "Come on and Slam" generates about 268,000 results and the subreddit r/comeonandslam has over 1,100 mashups as of August 3, 2012 and over 22,000 subscribers as of November 27, 2013.
As noted in the development of the meme, the idea initially started with the Randy Savage tribute on YTMND, but it truly grew and exploded when the remixes became associated with Charles Barkley through the Barkley game. Rather than necessarily spawning other memes, it grew from a single YTMND site to an entire subculture based on editing Charles Barkley's face onto video game and anime characters and remixing "Space Jam" with a song from the same source, even meriting a fairly active subreddit.
Information from source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slam-remixes-vs-quad-city-djs
Qiqi Zhen
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping"
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping" is a meme and phrase for selfies by people pretending to be asleep. Often, the image will have a very obvious revelation that the said person took the photo themselves, such as through a mirror reflection. This meme stems off from the more general "Bitches be like" meme phrase for various cliché behaviors of females. The meme started as a Twitter post on October 2012 by @NostrandAv featuring a photo of a woman taking a picture of herself while pretending to be asleep, along with the caption "Females Be Like 'Bae Caught Me Slipping'"
However, it was instagram user Jermz_vi who started the fad with the picture most often associated with this phrase, namely a picture of a person asleep, along with a mirror reflection revealing that it was a selfie. The picture was posted on November, and many other users tried to emulate the same situation. These pictures were then shared through many image hosting sites and forums.
While its search was at its peak in early 2013, this meme is still rather popular even to this day. This meme became famous, most likely due to the fact that the viewer can clearly see through the lie, making this a hilarious epic fail for some people. Yet, at the same time, it showed a hint of truth on what people do on the internet to appear cute or to show off their relationship. Hence, the meme occasionally appears again when the situation fits.
Other examples:
Chocolate Rain
"Chocolate Rain" is a video of Tay Zonday performing the song by the same name on YouTube.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
This video began to take traction on the internet a few months after Tay uploaded it (April 2007) when Anonymous picked up on the song in July 2007. After it's viewcount skyrocketed that month, it was a featured video on YouTube, garnering it even more attention.
Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=tay+zonday,Chocolate+Rain
Tay Zonday would later cover and create more songs and be featured on a variety of TV shows and commercials. To this day, his video Chocolate Rain remains one of the most popular on YouTube, and has over 94 million views.
Timothy Wang
All Your Base Are Belong to Us
Transcript
of the “All Your Base” Meme’s Dialogue:
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It’s you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha …
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every ‘ZIG’!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move ‘ZIG’.
Captain: For great justice.
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It’s you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha …
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every ‘ZIG’!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move ‘ZIG’.
Captain: For great justice.
Zero Wing Video Game
(European Version), 1989. Transcript taken from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us.
The
“All Your Base” meme’s content originated in a 1989 16-bit game called Zero Wing. The dialogue features many
lines of horrible English translations from Japanese, which includes a lot of
bad grammar. This horrible translation is an example of Engrish, which is
humorous in its attempt to imitate the lack of parallelism in
Asian-language-to-English translations. The sentences in English and sentences
in Asian language are different in structure, and thus, attempts to translate
to English while maintaining the same structure of the Asian languages results
in an awkward, but hilarious, grammatically incorrect English sentence.
Engrish
started to become popular in the mid-1990s, and the “All Your Base” meme earned
its meme-ship in 1998. Its popularity spans from 1998 to the mid-2000s, where
the meme started to lose the interest of the people of the Internet.
 |
| Notice that Google Insights only provides data starting in 2004, but the meme's popularity had already started to decline. |
It
is hard to gauge the number of hits on the “All Your Base” meme, but some
measures of its popularity include the following:
- In 2000, a thread involving the “All Your Base” meme is started in the Photoshop-savvy online forum Something Awful. The discussion thread grew to over 30 pages and featured over 2000 Photoshop images.
- Many videos on YouTube have been made with influence from the “All Your Base” meme. A 2006 video (not shown here due to foul language), reaches over 2,000,000 views.
The
meme is sadly not the inspiration for other memes, but it does influence some
other pieces of work.
- On June 5, 2000, the Zero Wing Dub Project is released on OverClocked. The Internet now has a library of voiceovers and sound effects generated from users, based on their own renditions of the characters’ voices.
- On November 14, 2000, a song titled “Invasion of the Gabber Robots” is released. It is a “remix featuring some of the original soundtrack with Dub project voiceover and would eventually become the official unofficial All Your Base Belong To Us anthem.” (Know Your Meme - All Your Base Are Belong to Us, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us)
Examples
of the “All Your Base” Meme
- All Your Base Dialogue Video
- The following images are taken from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us
“I Know That Feel Bro”
The, “I know that feel bro” meme, began circulating on 4chan in early 2011. The meme is a black and white line drawing that depicts the face of a bald man with a closed mouth and slightly squinted eyes, ether looking in the distance or embracing another bald man. It is used online to express empathy and solidarity with what someone else is saying or reacting to on online social media sites and message boards (be the subject matter serious or humorous). I believe this meme has stuck around and will continue to stick around because this notion of agreeing and feeling for what other people are saying online is so easily, humorously, and visually expressed with this simple image. It’s actually a really good natured meme because even is someone is posted about something negative in their lives, responding with some variation of the “I know that feel bro” meme shows you’ve been there and you empathize.
The original image is said to have come from the German image board Krautchan, and to have been created by user “Wojak”. Wojak posted the image on several international image boards with threads bemoaning the fact that he did not have a girlfriend, and it became know as “Wojak’s face”. The meme appeared on 4chan in the 2-bald-men-embracing format as early as January 27th 2011.
Today, the meme is still used, and a spinoff of the meme: “feels” is now also widely circulated. “Feels” is a term used in memes, gifs, and even text response, to refer to emotional occurrences and experiences, be they fictional (i.e. Bambi’s mom dying in the movie Bambi) or real (i.e. a video showing a military father reuniting with his son). Feels can refer to emotions that are happy, sad, or a combination.
According to Google Insights interest web searches for “I know that feel” or “I know that fee bro” meme reached their peak in July 2012, and though the popularity of these terms in web searches has dropped off a bit these terms are still searched relatively highly today.
Sources:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/feels
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-know-that-feel-bro
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22i+know+that+feel+bro%22,%22i+know+that+feel%22
Brian Ly
Slam Remixes aka "Come on and Slam"
Slam Remixes initially started on the early days of the internet prior to the YouTube era in a tribute site to Randy Savage on YTMND, mixing Quad City DJ's "Space Jam" as featured in the movie of the same name with chiptune song "Funky Stars", with the final product being known as Savageslam, created on April 13, 2005.
Slam Remixes in its modern iterations first appeared on YouTube in a remix for a song from the game Barkley, Shut Up and Slam: Gaiden, which was a game that featured NBA star Charles Barkley, on May 6, 2009, leading to many future iterations having Charles Barkley's face photoshopped onto the characters of the song remixed with "Space Jam." In this variation, while the "Space Jam" remixes were already popular due to how well the remixes were made, the almost ridiculously out of place faces of Charles Barkley on video game and anime characters made this meme even more popular in gaming and anime communities.
Examples of Videos:
What Does the Chuck Say? - Quad City DJs vs. Ylvis
Ore no Barklimouto ga Konna ni Ballin' Wake ga Nai (My Little Barkley Can't Be This Ballin') - Quad City DJs vs. ClariS
Since this meme doesn't exactly have a specific name, spreading based on remixed videos, there is not much data on Google Trends. However, it is interesting to note that "Come on and Slam" has been on a steady increase since December 2011, still at its peak (and likely climbing even higher) as of October 2013.Videos and MP3's have been shared on gaming websites such as IGN, music websites such as SoundCloud, and even on anime forums. Since the meme is rather derivative and thrives on generating new user-based content, it is difficult to assess exactly how popular this meme exactly is, since rather than focusing on the original version, it is based more on the idea of remixing the "Space Jam" song. However, it is interesting to note that the YouTube search query "Come on and Slam" generates about 268,000 results and the subreddit r/comeonandslam has over 1,100 mashups as of August 3, 2012 and over 22,000 subscribers as of November 27, 2013.
As noted in the development of the meme, the idea initially started with the Randy Savage tribute on YTMND, but it truly grew and exploded when the remixes became associated with Charles Barkley through the Barkley game. Rather than necessarily spawning other memes, it grew from a single YTMND site to an entire subculture based on editing Charles Barkley's face onto video game and anime characters and remixing "Space Jam" with a song from the same source, even meriting a fairly active subreddit.
Information from source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/slam-remixes-vs-quad-city-djs
Qiqi Zhen
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping"
"Babe Caught Me Sleeping" is a meme and phrase for selfies by people pretending to be asleep. Often, the image will have a very obvious revelation that the said person took the photo themselves, such as through a mirror reflection. This meme stems off from the more general "Bitches be like" meme phrase for various cliché behaviors of females. The meme started as a Twitter post on October 2012 by @NostrandAv featuring a photo of a woman taking a picture of herself while pretending to be asleep, along with the caption "Females Be Like 'Bae Caught Me Slipping'"
 |
| http://t.co/GfpP8KQb |
However, it was instagram user Jermz_vi who started the fad with the picture most often associated with this phrase, namely a picture of a person asleep, along with a mirror reflection revealing that it was a selfie. The picture was posted on November, and many other users tried to emulate the same situation. These pictures were then shared through many image hosting sites and forums.
 |
| Jermz_vi |
While its search was at its peak in early 2013, this meme is still rather popular even to this day. This meme became famous, most likely due to the fact that the viewer can clearly see through the lie, making this a hilarious epic fail for some people. Yet, at the same time, it showed a hint of truth on what people do on the internet to appear cute or to show off their relationship. Hence, the meme occasionally appears again when the situation fits.
Other examples:
Images from: http://knowyourmeme.com/
There are also video versions, shown HERE is a vine by werevertumorro, who keeps saying "stop taping me" to his "love." However, by the end, a reflection from the mirror shows that it is the guy himself who is videotaping the vine.
Victoria Bravo
In May 2006, a video called
“La Caida de Edgar” was uploaded to YouTube. The video is 43 seconds long, and
focuses on an adolescent boy attempting to cross a creek using a bridge made
out of tree branches.
This video peaked in
popularity in June 2006 (Google Interests) and was most viewed in Mexico, along
with a few other Latin American countries showing some interest. The reason the
video was so popular in these particular regions is because it was filmed in
Mexico, and the dialogue is in Spanish. It is also popular because it is a
clear example of schadenfreude: harassment by Edgar’s friends is what leads to
him falling in the creek. Instead of his friends being concerned with him, they
laugh. The video ends with one of his friends saying to him what would be the
English equivalent of “damn, you just took a bath.” This video is funny because
it involves a kid cursing and being heckled by his friends.
The video was extremely
popular for a short while; today it has 39,000,000 views (YouTube). While it
may not be constantly talked about, members of the Latino community still
recognize him and know right away that it is him who’s being quoted when you
recite the phrase, “yaaaa gueyyyy,” which was Edgar’s initial plea to have his
friend leave him alone. This video continues to get occasional, but steady
comments, views and likes on it.
There weren’t many other
memes that emerged from Edgar’s popularity, as spoofs and/or parodies would
involve a possibly dangerous act of knocking someone into a creek. While there
weren’t many remakes of this video, Edgar’s popularity did garner him nation-wide
attention in Mexico. He became a YouTube celebrity: he was interviewed on a
variety of news channels, and was even the spokesperson of a brand of chocolate
bar called “Emperador,” who expanded on the video’s success and featured
soldiers coming into the scene to throw Edgar’s friends into the creek and save
him.
Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b89CnP0Iq30
Autum Boulais-Grumpy Cat
Being a closeted crazy cat lady, I have been pretty fond of the Grumpy Cat memes since the debuted last year. I follow several cat themed Twitters and Facebooks; they are my favorite animal. Grumpy Cat, whose real name is Tarder Sauce, is a mixed breed cat with a permanent “grumpy” look on her face. Her owner says the facial expression is due to feline dwarfism. Her image was originally posted by her owner’s brother on the /r/pics of Reddit. Within hours the image had been photoshopped and memes were created. It was upvoted over 25,000 times within the first twenty-four hours. The owner’s brother also posted video clips of the feline on YouTube. Most of the memes created involved the cat’s face with sarcastic and/or pessimistic saying from the cat’s perspective. Other memes showed Grumpy Cat’s image next to other stern faced humans, such as Ron Swanson. Within 48 hours of its creation, there were more than 300 memes created. Grumpy Cat was popular not only on Reddit and YouTube, but also in BuzzFeed, Quickmeme, UpRoxx, FunnyJunk and Daily of the Day. The ifficial GrumpyCat.com webpage was opened in October 2012 and the Grumpy Cat Facebook page currently has 2.4 million likes. Grumpy Cat has been featured on the Wall Street Journal as well as the cover of New York Magazine. Grumpy Cat has also inspired Grumpy Grandma memes, Grumpy Cat art projects, and a feature film. She also won BuzzFeed's Meme of the Year Award and a Webby Award in 2013.
I think the reason for Grumpy Cat’s success is that his image is a type of humor that is universal. There is no language, education or intellectual requirements needed to enjoy these memes. The ability of creating personalized memes using Grumpy Cat’s image makes it even more popular, as it adds a interactive element-no matter where you are in the world, it is likely you can look at Grumpy Cat’s face and find a relation to it and something else that is occurring in your life. Plus, its rare to see a cat looking so….grumpy.
David Zhang
Ryan Gosling
Teen heart-throb Ryan Gosling has been in media since he was
a young boy. From his days in the Mickey Mouse Club to starring in movies such
as “The Notebook,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” and “Gangster Squad,” Ryan Gosling
has grown a large female fan-base. Because of this, Ryan Gosling has become
subject to the meme, “Hey Girl.” In these memes, a picture Ryan Gosling is
accompanied by the phrase “Hey Girl” at the top of the picture and then a
flirtatious phrase such as “I know that the MLA guide says you have to indent
the first paragraph of that paper you just finished, but you should really set
your opening paragraphs flush left. Who are you going to trust, the Modern
Language Association of America? Or this face.” This meme was created in 2008
and has since exploded into social media. (Huffington Post: Valentine’s Day).
Since its inception in 2008, the Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” meme had its first
spike in popularity on google insight in 2011. After 2011, the meme dipped back
down and then exponentially rose. To this day, the meme is still very popular;
however, the meme obtains a majority of its searches geographically from Texas,
California, and New York. On the contrary, Ryan Gosling has had spikes in his
search since 2005 (Google insight). I believe this can be attributed to the
movie he was in, “The Notebook,” a female favorite. Similarly, his
popularity went down after 2006 and did not reach similar heights until 2011
(Google insight). After 2011, his popularity has only grown because of the
movie he starred in, “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” Similarly, the popularity of Ryan
Gosling’s “Hey Girl” meme also took off. In the movie, Gosling plays a colorful
pick-up artist, a ladies man. Because of this movie, Gosling has become a male
sex symbol and now has a meme about him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeA75Q-zH2Y
(Ryan Gosling hey girl video)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/ryan-gosling-hey-girl-meme_n_2923993.html
(Ryan Gosling Hey girl not about him)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/10/ryan-gosling-hey-girl-valentines-day-photos-meme_n_1263024.html
(Ryan Gosling Valentine’s day)
http://purplepond.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/hey-girl/
(website of hosted meme)
http://purplepond.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/mla.jpeg
(actual meme used in homework)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=ryan+gosling#q=ryan%20gosling&cmpt=q
(google insight “Ryan Gosling”)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=ryan+gosling#q=ryan+gosling+hey+girl+meme&cmpt=q&geo=US
(Google insight “Ryan Gosling Hey Girl Meme”) searched most frequently in
CA, TX, NY.
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