"Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop"
by Dana Kilian
On November 18th, 2011, an Occupy protest was organized by students at UC Davis, during which the students linked arms to form a human chain. When the students ignored a police order to disperse, UC Davis Police Officer Lieutenant John Pike walked in front of the group and sprayed them with bright orange pepper spray. Unfortunately for Lieutenant Pike, a large crowd had formed around the protest, and many people in the crowd took pictures and video of the event. Most people were shocked and disturbed by the use of pepper spray, at such a close range, on non-violent, seated, student protesters. In the pictures of the incident that eventually became a meme, Lieutenant Pike's expression and body language seems to indicate that he is very nonchalant and indifferent while he walks up and down the line of protesters while pepper spraying them. His reaction, combined with the sudden escalation in response (the pepper spraying of the students), enraged many people. On November 19th, 2011, a photo of Lieutenant Pike casually pepper spraying the protesters was posted to Reddit.
Video:
Original Photo:
(Image source)
By November 20th, several photoshopped versions of the original began to appear on Reddit. In one, Lieutenant Pike is placed in the 1819 painting Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull. This is a joke made in reference to the idea that Lieutenant Pike would just casually pepper spray the Declaration of Independence (or in other words, this picture emphasizes the idea that he does not respect the freedoms of Americans). At one point, there was an interactive game (posted to Reddit) that allowed users to be the cop and shoot pepper spray throughout the painting.
(Image source)
In another, he appears in the 1884 painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. In this picture, a calm, relaxing day at the shore is interrupted by Lieutenant Pike pepper spraying the young girls. The creator of this meme is making comparisons between the peacefulness of the people in the painting and the peaceful nature of the protest, thus emphasizing the ridiculousness of Lieutenant Pike's actions. Throughout the following weeks, Lieutenant Pike continued to be photoshopped into various well-known photos; usually those concerning milestones in the history of civil rights.
(Image source)
Other pictures:
Because this incident took place amid a string of other Occupy protests and incidents involving police force against protesters, the story (and meme) quickly gained popularity on major news outlets and social media sites. By November 22nd, the Google News Volume reached its peak. Both the meme and the news stories worked off one another to spread the news of the incident. Because the act of pepper spraying the students is so shocking from a civil rights standpoint, this meme became the public's way of sharing their disdain and disgust. The Internet made it possible to publicly and collectively shame Lieutenant Pike through humorous pictures.
Google Insight embed link:
On November 21st, 2011, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly appeared on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss the incident. In the course of her interview, Kelly described pepper spray as a food product.
From the interview:
Bill O’Reilly: “First of all, pepper spray -- that just burns your eyes, right?”
Megyn Kelly: “It’s like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.”
Megyn Kelly: “It’s like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially.”
This led to the creation of a new meme: a picture of Kelly from the interview, captioned with a dismissive statement about the effects of human rights abuse.
(Image source)
"Imma let you finish" (Kanye West)
by Lauren Wong
The ‘Imma let you finish’ Kanye West meme first appeared right after the broadcast of MTV Music Awards 2009, on September 13, 2009. During the MTV Music Awards, Taylor Swift had won Best Female Video award for “You Belong with Me”. During her acceptance speech, Kanye West suddenly came on stage, took her microphone and proclaimed “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, Imma let you finish but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time”. He was promptly booed off stage and Taylor Swift’s speech was cut to commercial. Patrick St. John’s video mashup of West’s rant and President Obama’s health care speech sparked the ‘imma let you finish’ meme after being featured on New York Times and O’Reilly Factor. The ridiculousness and rudeness of Kanye West was so unbelievable that his actions became comical and thus a satirical meme. Eventually Kanye West apologized and Taylor Swift accepted his apology.
The ‘imma let you finish’ Kanye West meme has been remixed and mashed up into political and funny Youtube videos cutting off the speaker or subject with Kanye West’s speech. In addition, Kanye West’s ‘Imma let you finish’image was photoshopped into other memes and his speech became a snowclone. Anything that could be overshadowed, Kanye West’s “imma let you finish” speech and image was incorporated.
Kanye West’s ‘imma let you finish’ became so popular that on September 14, 2009 a twitter of “Kanyeinterrupts” was started as well as two tumblrs. ‘Imma let you finish’ memes were featured online on blogs, on MTV and was even an Urban Dictionary word of the day on September 17, 2009. Google insights shows that ‘imma let you finish’ reached a high point of “100” (highest Google search rating on scale of 1-100) in September 2009. By November 2009 it went down to 16 and has gone down since then. As of this month, it ranks a 4 on Google insights.
Kanye West’s ‘imma let you finish’ was reignited at the BET Awards ceremony in July 2012. When Jay-Z went on stage with Kanye West to accept their Video of the Year award, Jay-Z handed Kanye West the microphone and then promptly cut him off with “imma let you finish”. Although this didn’t really become impacting enough for a meme, it did lead to a spike in tweets on BET Music Video awards. Additionally Kanye West's interrupting speech was autotuned as a song with Youtube
Original Video (could not embed): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z8gCZ7zpsQ
Auto-tuned Kanye West
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Google Insights:
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"GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!!"
by Ane Røst Klausen
Origin
The quote “Gingers have no soul” came from a South Park episode in 2005. Eric Cartman performs a class presentation about “Ginger kids”. He claims that they have a disease that causes red hair, light skin and freckles. This incurable and cursed disease is called “Gingervitis”. Due to their fair skin, they must stay inside during the day, just like vampires... Cartman then concludes his presentations with; gingers have no soul.
Gingers do have souls
In a response to the South Park episode, a young boy with red hair posts a video on YouTube five years later, saying “Gingers do have souls”. He shouldn’t have done this, he just fed the trolls! The passionate, but awkward teenager “CobberCab” was furious with people calling him bad names because of his hair color. Which is understandable, but I don’t think this video made it any easier for him. Comments like “I’m red headed and I’m proud of it”, and “Gingers have souls! I go to church, I’m a Christian! You don’t know me! You are not God!” became well know all over the world. This only led to more memes…
Parody
People made many parodies and remixes on YouTube, even South Park responded with a parody:
Popularity
After the South Park episode in 2005, there were reports about violence against redheaded people at several schools after a facebook group named “National Kick a Ginger Day, are you going to do it?”. And I’m guessing that CobberCabs outrageous/funny video didn’t make it easier. CobberCabs video got over 3 million views the first month. Today it has over 30 million views on YouTube (09.18.12).
Google Insight
As we can see from the Google Insight, the meme was most popular in 2010, but is still going strong. I guess that people never really get tired of a good laugh, or the lolz.
Sources:
"Chocolate Rain"
by Elliot Sharifi
• When did this begin to become popular/famous on the Internet and why? Provide a context and offer an analysis of why you think this became so popular (if no obvious reason presents itself).
“Chocolate Rain” is a viral video of the song of the same name produced by singer Tay Zonday and uploaded to YouTube in April of 2007. It gained popularity due to Zonday’s deep, baritone voice, his awkward mannerisms, cheesy audio and video production quality, and cryptic lyrics.
• The details/description of the "meme," person, event, etc.
In the video, a glasses-wearing Zonday appears in a white t-shirt singing and playing the piano. The words “Chocolate Rain” are hypnotically repeated every few lines. The song is known for its odd and puzzling lyrics, which Zonday has said are about institutional racism.
• How popular did it become and over what time span? (include "Google Insights" interest).
The video was released in April of 2007. In early July, it garnered the attention of Anon, and by late July was featured on YouTube’s and 4chan’s front pages. Google Insights reports that searches for “Chocolate Rain” peaked during the summer of 2007 and quickly dropped off once October rolled around.
For some reason, in April 2008, searches rose again, but not nearly as high as they did before. As of September 19, 2012, the video has been viewed almost 84 million times.
• Include other memes that may have emerged from this or have been influenced by this.
The caption "**I move away from the mic to breathe in", which appears early in the video, has become a meme on its own.
• Include videos or images when relevant to illustrate your description - please try to avoid posting images or video that may be offensive.
Direct YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA
Google Insights:http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=chocolate%20rain&cmpt=q
Know Your Meme: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tay-zonday-chocolate-rain
Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Rain
* NYAN CAT! BY KATIE ROSEFF *
Nyan Cat became a viral sensation on Youtube after it's creation in April 2011. It originated as an animated gif created by 25 year-old Dallas resident, Christopher Torres.
* NYAN CAT! BY KATIE ROSEFF *
Nyan Cat became a viral sensation on Youtube after it's creation in April 2011. It originated as an animated gif created by 25 year-old Dallas resident, Christopher Torres.
The meme consists of one animated 8-bit cat with the body of a Pop-Tart (strawberry flavored with sprinkles) soaring through a sparkling animated night's sky. Attached to the the cat's body is a rainbow which trails along as it soars, pretty much in place, to a Japanese pop song.
In 2011, it reached #5 on Youtube's most viewed videos list.
Christopher Torres says of the origin of his creation, "I was doing a donation drive for the Red Cross and in-between drawings in my Livestream video chat, two different people mentioned I should draw a 'Pop-Tart' and a 'cat'." Little did he know that his Pop-Tart cat- Nyan Cat- would become an internet sensation.
Many wonder why indeed there is so much hype about this little animated kitty. The meme is 3 minutes and 36 seconds of the Pop-Tart feline soaring in place to a song that sounds like "meowmeowmeowmeow". Nothing changes, it is just that. I think its popularity lies in its simplicity and mindlessness. Everyone likes some mindless entertainment once in awhile. Also many people see Nyan Cat as 'pointless' and 'stupid' so they share it with their friends to be like, "Hey do you get this? Why do people like it?" and it spreads a lot through that type of channel too.
The video has over 84mil views on Youtube and many new videos emerged from it including kids and elders reacting to Nyan Cat, Nyan Cat 10 hrs (seriously), Nyan Battle, Nyan Smooth Jazz, and many many more. You can even go to the Nyan Cat website and be timed on how long you can watch/listen to the meme while choosing from unique Nyan Cats like Michael Jackson inspired or Pikachu.
There is even a how-to-make-your-cat-Nyan-Cat tutorial:
Or while your at it, check out a human interpretation of Nyan Cat
Post by: Katie Roseff
"Paula Deen Riding Things"
by Pauline Loghmana
On February 27, 2011 Whole Foods Market Grand Tasting event took place during the annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami Beach, Florida. Amongst the crowd of celebrity chefs who attended, Food Network host Paula Deen teamed up with fellow friend and costar Robert Irvine for a cooking scene. Paula Deen was pictured atop Robert Irvine, or for lack of a better word, “riding” him. It was not long before photos were posted all over internet social networks. The day after the photo was taken; “Paula Deen Riding Things” had its own Tumblr. (http://pauladeenridingthings.com/)Paula Deen was first pictured riding a stick of butter. For those who do not keep up with Paula Deen, she harbors a reputation to adding butter to every dish that she prepares. The photos were originally posted on NYPost.com on February 28, 2011, the same day the Tumblr was released. The photo later advanced to reach BuzzFeed and Twitter. Before long, Paula Deen jumped onto her own bandwagon and created a Twitter account and began posting pictures of her riding ridiculous objects. The original “Paula Deen Riding Things” Tumblr was made by two college students, Robbie and Nick, who continue to make the memes and encourage others to submit their own to the original Tumblr. The meme was also featured on websites such as Funny or Die!, Time Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times.
Paula Deen is seen by the public eye as an energetic and exuberant mother figure. Her warm smile and welcoming laughter definitely makes the meme much more appreciable. To see Paula Deen riding anything, (tacos, President Obama, the Empire State Building) is a hilarious statement in itself.
Paula Deen Riding Things had it’s highest amount of searches and peaked in its popularity from its release date to late March 2011. During this time it, frequently appeared on Buzzfeed and of course, its launch on Tumblr (Google Insights). Although popularity continued into April and May, the meme’s popularity decreased since the release of the blog. During its 2-3 months of fame, the meme did not venture too much into international territories and stayed in America. The meme seems to share a resemblance to the meme “Hugh Jackman Can Ride Anything.” (http://cityrag.com/2010/12/hugh-jackman-can-ride-anything/)
"Imma Let You Finish"
by Lara Sarkissian
- During the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, as Taylor Swifts's video had been announced as winning the "Best Female" title, Kanye West ran to stage and interrupted Swift's speech by stating, "Imma let you finish...but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time." Beyonce was embarrassed from Kanye's rude manner, and later invited Swift to stage to finish her speech.
- The meme became popular because 1) it involves Kanye West who is internationally known as a musician/film director/his pretentious personality 2) It was a highly publicized event, where millions were watching, and his behavior on stage was generally taken as something rude and socially unacceptable by the public (which also made it humorous).
- The meme became popular after the 2009 Video Music Awards and hasn't stopped circulating the web. "Imma Let You Finish" has actually influenced the creation of other memes using a picture of Kanye on the VMA stage and his infamous line, but applied to other events such as the 2012 London Olympics, South Park, Bin Laden's death, KFC, 2012 Presidential Elections, lolcats, etc. There is also a meme generator for it, which gives access to anyone on the web to create their own meme out of it (and keeps the meme circulating, yet transforming to other unique types as well).
“Paula Deen Riding Things”
by Amir Mohtashami
• When did this begin to become popular/famous on the Internet and why? Provide a context and offer an analysis of why you think this became so popular (if no obvious reason presents itself).
“Paula Deen Riding Things” became famous in early March of 2011 after two students took an image of celebrity Paula Deen riding the co-host of the Wholefoods Market Grand Tasting Event and photo shopped 13 images of her riding various people and things. Jimmy Fallon found the pictures amusing and tweeted a link to their website. From there it gained popularity and submissions of “Paula Deen Riding Things” began to roll in.
I think this meme gained popularity because of the following reasons: tastemakers, the “cultural moment” that is associated with memes, and the lack of difficulty making ones own version of Paula “riding.” Tastemakers introduce us to new and interesting things and bring them to a large audience. In this case, Jimmy Fallon made the tweet: “Ha. Paula Deen Riding Things” which led to other websites reposting the blog link. The cultural moment is like the “big inside joke” which everyone wants in on. People are able to submit their versions of the meme without judgment or ridicule (at least not in person), which leads people of teh internets to join in on the joke without hesitation. The low levels of skill required to Photoshop and submit the meme also encourages many to participate. “You name it, she rode it” writes one of the original meme creators.
• The details/description of the "meme," person, event, etc.
On February 28, 2011 at the Wholefoods Market Grand Tasting Event, celebrity chef Paula Deen got on Mr. Irvine’s back with a glass of wine in hand, riding him as if he was a horse. After making the news, two students who saw this picture of Paula used Photoshop to crop her into pictures of her riding things.
• How popular did it become and over what time span? (include "Google Insights" interest).
According to Google Insights “Paula Deen Riding Things” hit peek popularity in March of 2011 at high point of “100” (highest Google search rating on scale of 1-100) for about a month and dropped to a fourth of its peek popularity by July of that year. Currently the search is at 9.
• Include other memes that may have emerged from this or have been influenced by this.
A meme that emerged from Paula Deen Riding Things was Paula Deen Ya’ll, which is about Paula Deen’s obsession with butter. This meme usually includes her in a picture with butter either indulging or defending it; or in this case attached to it.
“Imma let you finish” - Kanye West
by Vilde Larsen Hellum
The 'imma let you finish'-meme rose to popularity after the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards aired september 13th 2009. During country singer Taylor Swift's acceptance speech for Best Female Video Kanye West took to the stage, grabbed the mic and on live national television yelled out: “Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time”. This resulted in a shocked audience, an embarrassed Swift and West being booed off stage and reportedly asked to leave the venue. Although he handed the mic back to Swift, his oh-so-important speech, led to MTV cutting straight to the commercial break before she could even continue.
When Beyonce later that evening won the award for Video of the Year, she saved the day by calling Swift to the stage letting her finish her speech instead of giving her own. In an attempt to apologize Kanye later wrote a blog post on his official website. The post was however removed a few hours later.
During the following days of the event both West and Swift made appearances on different talk shows commenting on the incident. Reportedly Swift later received a phone call from West where he apologized and she accepted. Their personal 'feud' seemed to be over, but the trolls thought differently and the lulz begun.. The event caused huge reactions on several social media platforms, becoming the top trending topic on twitter just hours after the event. The memes popularity started out as a reaction to West's unexpected, obnoxious behavior, but soon evolved into being something humorous. The humor site 'verytasteful.com' turned West's apology post into an auto-tuned song and on September the 15th a video of President Obama calling West 'a jackass' was released. Several mash-up videos where made. Most popular being West's outburst featured in a speech President Obama had held a week before where he is being interrupted by a republican shouting “you lie!” while talking about his health care reform.
By September 14th West related threads appeared on 4chan and macros soon began appearing on Tumblr with the tag 'imma let you finish'.
As the google insights show the meme gained huge popularity rather quickly, but within a couple of months the interest dropped. The meme has remained on a relatively low interest level for the past years.
Despite the low interest rate, the meme still manage to cause some laughs. During the 2012 BET awards West and rap colleague Jay-Z took to the stage to accept their award for the Video of the Year. Jay-Z expressed his gratitude and handed the mic over to West, shortly after he interrupts his speech by saying “Kanye, I’mma let you continue, but…”. This instantly drew a round of laughter and applause from the audience.
SOURCES:
Operation Lioncash
by Dylan Johnston
Operation Lioncash has a storied history in internet meme-dom. It seems simple enough; all one has to do is draw a lion's face (represented by the emoticon: >:3) on a piece of currency. But to understand it fully, we must journey back to the days of yesteryear, back before Anonymous became a well-known pronoun, to the very forum that spawned Anonymous: 4chan. It all started in 2006, when a meme rose to fame, “Jesus Christ! It’s a Lion Get In The Car!”
This meme originally stems from the webcomic, “Basic Electronics Symbols” on Toothpaste For Dinner on August 30th, 2005:
By 2006, the emoticon >:3 (“RAWR I AM A LION”) had become associated with this meme, their popularity spiking mid-2006:
Throughout 2006, the phrase was used on a LOLcat shared on the Octopus Overlords forum[6], Yahoo! Answers[7], FARK[8] and the hacking blog SEO Black Hat.[9] In 2007, the LOLcat version gained greater popularity after being featured on I Can Has Cheezburger[10], appearing on My[Confined]Space[11], the Etiquette Hell forums[12] and LOLCatz.net.[13]Although it died out by 2007, from 2008 onward there has since been a massive revival. In the flames of this revival, Operation Lioncash, and, as it would happen, Anonymous, were forged. Shortly after /b/'s attack on Scientology began (April 23rd, 2008 to be exact), the following was posted to 4chan's /b/:
“From now on I’m going to add lions to my bills… I wonder how long it will take for another b-tard to see one…
Conversely, I wonder how long it would take America to break if every b-tard put lions on bills…”
Image courtesy knowyourmeme.com
The following day, another post was made to /b/:
Image courtesy of knowyourmeme.com
After this post, the meme spread rapidly:
The same day, Urban Dictionary[3] user No Picture Available submitted a definition for “lion cash”, describing it as “a bill with >:3 written over the face.” On April 25th, Urban Dictionary[3] user Mykaah submitted another definition for the term, citing the 4chan image board as the source of the meme. On the following day, the original 4chan screenshot was posted on the Internet humor site Ebaumsworld.[4] On June 5th, YouTuber hongkongLC uploaded a video titled “Lioncash Hong Kong”, which included footage of Hong Kong banknotes with lion faces drawn on them (shown below).Although not the most well-known meme, it has a place reserved in History as it was one of the first actions of Anonymous.
Since 2008, it has also been a steady trender (according to the google).
An interesting footnote; in the U.S., it is illegal to 'deface' currency (Title 18, Section 333). It is unknown at this time if the practice is considered actual defacement. Perhaps the Supreme Court will clarify this ambiguity some day.
- Google Trends (#lioncash): <https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=lioncash>
- Know Your Meme
<http://knowyourmeme.com> - Wikiality ("Anonymous")
<http://wikiality.wikia.com/ANONYMOUS#Operation_LIONCASH>
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