White Team Flash Mob : The Hunger Games Salute

Here are Teh Trollz' two videos of our team participating in the White Superteam Flash Mob holding up The Hunger Games Salute:

Assignment #3: Ginger Take Cream Pie to the Face [video]

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! By the way, don't be afraid to "share"; sharing is caring :]

by Ying Ying Louis-Jean

Cinnamon challenge is a popular dare game which requires the person being dared to take 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and try to swallow it within 60 seconds without drinking any fluids. This was originated in 2001 and became popular on YouTube around 2011.

Google Interest

Although swallowing a tablespoon of cinnamon sounds easy to do, it’s nearly impossible and could be dangerous. Cinnamon can quickly dries the mouth and make it hard to swallow; and because cinnamon powder is very fine, it can be inhaled simply by taking a small breath. Some people have been known to choke on the cinnamon, which has not been reported to cause any deaths, but very well could. However, this dare became popular because although it sounds easy to do, 99.9% of people fail with a entertaining effect involving dramatic coughing and “dragon breath,” when the person spit out a bunch of cinnamon powder.

Dragon Breath

Epic Cinnamon Challenge

Hot Girl Attempts the Cinnamon Challenge

MissingNo.

by Gabriel Orellana

"MissingNo." short of missing number, usually pronounced Miising-NO, is a Pokémon species found in the Pokemon Red and Blue video games that became famous around 1996. The species usually appears when the game attempts to access data for a nonexistent Pokémon species as a result of a glitch, which eventually became one of the most infamous in the Pokémon franchise. It's origin lies in the original title "Pokémon Red Version and Blue Version," which was published in the May 1999 issue of Nintendo Power. Described initially as a "programming quirk", it was advised to gamers to avoid the MissingNo as it would cause the game to reset in order to remove the graphical error.

Since becoming well-known among gamers in 1999, there have been many discussions of finding the Pokémon on purpose, involving a series of events as illustrated on this video:

Despite warning from Nintendo, information on how to go about finding MissingNo. was printed in several magazines due to it's possible positive effect. The positive effect it had in the Pokemon games was increasing the amount of your #6 item in your characters' bag to over 100, giving the opportunity to increase say, Rare Candy's which leveled ones Pokemon up, in order to bypass the time it takes to train Pokemon.

Additionally, in the game "Minecraft" the text "MissingNo" would appear when the certain text file had been modified or deleted without a specific folder.

IGN, a gaming review blog, listed MissingNo. in 2009 as one of the top Easter Eggs in video games due to it's perceived usefulness. As the google insight chart indicates, the popularity of "MissingNo." began in 2004 and radically increases over time spiking randomly until recently in 2010:

Leeroy Jenkins

by Cindy Xiao

The Leeroy Jenkins video was uploaded to Warcraft movies on May 11, 2005 by the guild PalsForLife. A thread was posted on Blizzard Forums by the group to ask what strategies they could utilize in their game; responses included options to download the video, paving the way for uploads on various sites. The video became increasingly popular, as it was spread throughout the Internet not only to gamers but also the mainstream community. The video consists of Leeroy’s teammates with one of the players explaining a “strategic” plan to his team moments before a raid and a player calculating a percentage of survival. Meanwhile, Ben Shultz, the creator of the character Leeroy, is supposedly away from his computer claiming chicken. All of a sudden, Leeroy returns to the game and screams “Leeeeerooooy Jenkiiiiins,” charging his character into a raid and perhaps unintentionally ruins his teammates “strategic” plan. After this incident, Ben Shultz states, “at least I have chicken.” This phrase as well as Leeroy Jenkins has become a meme.

Whether this incident was staged or not, the video has become very popular. The video has the conventional “geeks,” evident by what they were saying such as having a percentage for survival. It is Leeroy Jenkins that ruins their plan and viewers laugh at the fact that the serious and geeky gamers all die. Viewers think of Leeroy as a hero because his actions went against the geekiness of his teammates. In addition, Schulz “chicken” statement pokes even more fun at his teammate’s seriousness. Moreover, the term and how Shultz says “Leeeeeroy Jenkins” is very catchy and sticks in the viewer’s mind.

The video has attracted over 30 million views on YouTube since its first YouTube post on November 19, 2005. According to Google Insights, Leeroy Jenkins reached its peak interest in June 2005 among consumers but the public continued to show interest at high rates. High interests were also due to the mentioning of Leeroy Jenkins on College Jeopardy in November 2005, which helped break Leeroy Jenkin’s into mainstream media. It is not until the end of 2007 when interests begin to stabilize.

Due to the video’s popularity, Ben Schulz has given a keynote speech at ROFLCon, interviewed with several websites including GGL.com, and WOW even made a figurine of Leeroy with him holding a piece of chicken.

Other “memes” that emerged were reenactments of the scene, such as in the movie Year One and Monster Vs. Aliens. Year One skit:

Viewers have created parodies of Leeroy Jenkins as well as developed creative ways in using the meme, including the creation of a techno mix of the character:

Paula Deen Riding Things

By Dzinya Djugba

Paula Deen Riding things originated from a photograph of Paula riding a fellow food network chef Robert Irvine at the south Beach Wine and Food festival the event was put on YouTube, as well as a video posted of Paula Deen riding her co-star. Within 24 hours two colleges students named Nick and Robbie launched a tumblr page of the original meme of Paula Deen riding a stick of butter.

This image soon became known as the meme “Paula Deen Riding things”. The site also featured three templates that would allow anyone who visits that chance to create their own “Paula Deen Riding Things” meme. The site quickly gained popularity and users started to create Paula Deen Riding all kinds of pop cultural figures and event. How the meme works is that an image of Paula Deen riding is placed on anything and anyone. The image has also been animated to Paula Deen riding characters in movies and cartoons in a scene. There are three images to choose from Paula Deen holding a glass of wine the other two with her yelling and smiling.

The meme got mainstream coverage when in March 2010 the Rolling Stones photo shopped their own image of Paula Deen riding a silver rocket while holding onto her wine glass. Over a span of time Paula Deen Riding things was featured on various magazines, Internet sites, news channels, talk shows and more. The highest degree of popularity was from the end of February 2011 to early May 2011 according to google insights. The meme has not generated any other successful memes such as Paula Deen Riding things.

Angry Bert

Tracking the «Bert is evil» meme by Solfrid Federley Kirkemo

Most people know Bert as the grumpy, but still quite innocent puppet from the TV-show “Sesame Street”. However, if you put “Bert” into your google search box, the first thing that’s going to pop up is a link to a website called www.bertisevil.tv. Why would this happen?

This phenomenon started in San Francisco as early as 1998, when a man named Dino Ignacio started a website where he posted pictures of Bert manipulated into different historical photos. The photos were jokes, revolving around the thought that Bert was evil, thereby the name of the project; “Bert is evil”. In these photos Bert was seen posing with people like Adolf Hitler, or placed in historical events like the crowd surrounding the shooting of John F. Kennedy. The photos also included backstories, and the project gained somewhat of a cult-like status. After a while the website became too costly for Ignacio, so he offered people to mirror-host his website. This led to a quite a few mirror-sites, which again raised the popularity and spread the meme.

The popularity of this meme reached its peak in 2001 right after the terror attacks, when a news photograph of a Bangladesh pro-bin Laden protester holding a picture of Osama bin Laden and Bert started circulating on the internet. The picture he was holding originated from Ignacio`s website, and were apparently being sold in thousands at a local store in Bangladesh, which owner was not familiar with the Sesame Street. The whole incident was seen as quite puzzling in the West, and horrified the owners of Sesame Street. They threatened to sue Ignacio, and in response to this he chose to remove this particular section from his website. They also released an official statement in response to the use of their character being used in this context;

“Sesame Street has always stood for mutual respect and understanding. We’re outraged that our characters would be used in this unfortunate and distasteful manner.”

As the statistics from Google Insights below show the interest for “Bert is evil” has declined quite a lot since 2004. The reason for this might be because the phenomenon itself is rather limited, and in the end it`s hard to keep a thing like this going forever. I guess people basically grew a bit tired of it, with other memes taking its place.

The “Bert is evil” phenomenon probably caught people’s attention because it was funny and also quite well-made. By combining the puppet character and real-life situations with Photoshop including short-stories it created something unique and interesting. It was also something that people could, without too much effort, participate in by creating their own “Bert is evil” photos, which in turn helped spread the meme.

Chuck Norris Facts

by Eve Pashin

Starting in 2005, Chuck Norris facts became the latest Internet phenomena, remaining extremely popular ever since. Chuck Norris facts are fictional “facts” about the actor, playing heavily upon the toughness, manliness, and resilience he displayed in his 1990’s television show Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris facts are meant to be exaggerated and parodied, portraying the actor as super-human. The most central themes of the jokes are his unstoppable roundhouse kicks, his role as Cordell Walker on Walker, Texas Ranger, and his fantastic beard.

It is widely accepted that the facts began as a result of Walker, Texas Ranger oft being highlighted on Conan O’Brien’s talk show in 2005. O’Brien had a WTR (Walker Texas Ranger) lever, which when pulled would cause a random clip for the show to play. The WTR lever was pulled in a satirical way, showing the unnecessary drama of Walker, Texas Ranger. It was also around this time (and because Conan had re-popularized Chuck Norris as a celebrity figure) that Ian Spector decided to start posting Chuck Norris jokes on his blog, after a poll was taken. Spector’s witty and intelligent one-liners inspired countless others to popularize the fad of telling Chuck Norris jokes in an exemplary display of participatory humor. Chuck Norris facts became popular because they poke fun at how seriously Chuck Norris’ character takes himself in Walker, Texas Ranger. They over-dramatize the nonchalant attitude exhibited by Cordell Walker, which makes for great entertainment.

Chuck Norris facts are one of the longest running memes on the Internet today. Although their popularity peaked in early 2006, right around the time they started to appear on the Internet, they remain extremely popular well into today. “Chuck Norris facts” are still a highly popular search term in Google, especially in the United States. The meme has inspired countless websites dedicated to Chuck Norris facts; there was even a book published. Chuck Norris is often credited as being an online cult hero as a result of the facts.

After Chuck Norris facts burst onto the scene, countless other celebrity fact memes started to surface. For example, there is an entire blog dedicated to Rory Williams facts (a Doctor Who character). Linus Torvald (an Internet hacker) facts were also popularized soon after Chuck Norris facts. Despite the emergence of such similar memes, none ever became as popular as Chuck Norris facts.

Below are some of the best Chuck Norris facts to have appeared on the Internet since 2005:

Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back.

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.

Chuck Norris found out about Conan O'Brien's lever that shows clips from "Walker: Texas Ranger" and is working on a way to make it show clips of Norris having sex with Conan's wife.

Planking

by Hanna Baatevik

Planking is a global mass participation game that has become a social media phenomenon. Planking is a behavior where a person lay down on their belly with their face down and their hands along their body. This is usually done in public places where the person gets into planking position while somebody take their picture and upload it on social media channels.

Planking is actually a variation of an earlier meme called “The laying down game” that originated in the UK in 2006. In Australia it is called planking and started to get attention in early 2011 before it spread to most of the world with Facebook as a channel. It first got attention through radio stations in Australia that arranged planking competitions. It really took off in March 2011 when David Wolfman Williams, an Australian rugby player, planked during a game. After this planking evolved and people started to compete to find the most unusual and original location to plank, and the phenomenon got a lot of attention in the Australian media. After a 28 old man from Brisbane attempted a planking stunt on his balcony and fell to his death in May 2011, planking got attention in media worldwide and made the meme even more popular. In the picture above, you can see an example of how the danger element has become important. I think this is something that has become popular because of all the attention in the media. We live in a globalized world and things spread worldwide in a fast tempo. The news about the Australian man who felt into his death after a planking attempt spread information about the meme to the world. Facebook is a social media channel which is available for most people and pictures of people planking are in free flow all over the world. Planking is also something everybody can do; you don’t need much computer-knowledge or advanced equipment, just a camera and the internet. It is a funny, absurd and maybe a bit silly thing do and people challenge themselves and others to post the best pictures of planking. It is easy entertainment. Numbers from Google insights for search shows that planking was most popular in May 2011 and stayed popular throughout the summer, since then the interest has fallen, but still pictures of people planking is being uploaded from time to time.
Other memes that have been influenced by this is so called Teapotting and Owling, where you upload pictures where you try to look like a teapot or sits in different places like an owl. A Norwegian politician has also made a Facebook group to protest against planking, this is called “Fosterstilling i trygge omgivelser” which means Fetal position in safe surroundings. Here pictures of people crawling up like a fetal lying in safe surroundings are uploaded. This group is made to prevent the dangerous elements of planking. None of these memes has gotten as much attention as planking. On Youtube you can find several movies of people planking and there has also been made different planking songs. You can see one of them here:

Chocolate Rain

Chocolate Rain by Riccesha Hattin

Albert Nyerere Bahner, known as Tay Zonday, a graduate student from Minneapolis uploaded a video on YouTube called Chocolate Rain written and produced by Tay on April 22nd, 2007. His video received 65 million views ranking him as #96 video of all time, which explains his popularity and the different parodies in the internet as well as on the television series South Park. Anonymous grows attention to Chocolate Rain in July 2007, which in response Tay uploads another video called “Never Gonna Give You Up,” by Rick Astley’s. His video Chocolate Rain was then featured on the front page of YouTube. From then on he started making commercials, apprearances on T.V. shows, and other world wide exposure. Tay’s YouTube fans is what made his career today. The memes are all video formatted and have the same tune as in the original song “Chocolate Rain.” Most memes have a two-word phrase that is repeated in the beginning of each line, for example the meme Vanilla Snow he says “ Vanilla Snow, open doors etc… Vanilla Snow, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” The voices of the actors are deep and the body expressions is stiff with wide eyes and a wide mouth, similar to Tay’s voice and facial expressions.



In 2007 Chocolate Rain is at its all time high in popularity. Near 2008 Chocolate rain claims a YouTube award and toward 2009 Chocolate Rain begins to downfall in popularity interest. The web popularity of Tay Zonday is roughly 90% popular in 2007 and continues with a rocky decline from mid-2007 towards beginning 2008 to about 20-30% popular. South Park Chocolate Rain Parody:


McDonalds Chocolate Rain parody Google Insight Chart Embed for Chocolate Rain: Goggle Insight Chart for Tay Zonday:

by Riccesha Hattin

Kanye West "Imma Let You Finish"

"Imma Let You Finish" (Kayne West) by Erik Hugnes

Music News

This meme come into life at the MTV awards in September 13, 2009, when country artist Taylor Swift won the award for best female video and as she was on stage telling her acceptance speech, Kayne West, got on the stage, took the mic from Taylor and said this: "Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time". Then he stormed off the stage only to get kicked out of the show. Since all the time dedicated to Taylor Swift was taken away from her, the commercial brake started and she could not finish her speech. Later in the music awards when Beyonce won the price for best video of the year, she invited Taylor Swift on stage with her, so that she could finish her speech. Later that same night Kanye West posted an apology on his blog(See picture under). This apology was later removed from his blog. This outrageous act of Kayne West became the number one news being covered all over the US. It is all clear why this meme became so rapidly popular, it was an outrageous outburst live on national TV. Kayne West deserved all the public shame he got, later on he apologized publicly, but it was just after Taylor Swift had stated on a TV show on the 15th that he had not apologized personally, after this he called her and apologized, which she accepted. For their part the incident was over, but the meme continued to spread all over the internet. Because, once it's out there, it will never end. This event spread across the internet at a fast rate. On Twitter Kayne was the #1 topic for the following two days, and for the following week he stayed on top five. A quick Google insights search (below) shows that this meme became rapidly popular and that it dropped down quick but the meme continues to be popular for quite some time. Several other meme's emerged out of this scandal. E.g. Kayne's apology message on his blog became a song.



The meme also evolved into several "mash-up" videos like the speech President Obama had given a week before this had happened, where he addressed his health care reform and a republican shouted out "you lie".



Several Image Macros was also created and several websites has been created for this purpose. where different pictures was photoshopped by adding Kayne West holding the microphone and often accompanied with some text, familiarizing with the words he sad to Swift on stage. There has been dedicated several websites for uploading these kinds of pictures. The urban dictionary defines "Imma let you finish" as an "obnoxious way to interrupt someone and steal their moment" or as a "phrase used to interrupt someone with no intent of letting them finish what they were going to say". Even though Kayne West was rapidly out to apologize, going to talk shows on national TV, he really felt the wrath of public shaming. Several other celebrities spoke out their sympathy for Taylor and even President Obama called Kayne "a jackass":


Sources: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/kanye-interrupts-imma-let-you-finish http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Imma%20let%20you%20finish http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/kanye-west-parodies/

Meme: Gingers Do Have Souls

Gingers Do Have Souls by Mari Anna Friedrich
“Gingers do have souls” is an internet meme with origins from the South Park episode “gingers have no soul” from November 2005. In this episode the character of Eric Cartman has a presentation at school about red- headed children and the made up disease of gingervitis. He argues that people with red- hair do not have souls and that “gingers” are creepy.

Ginger Kids
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PARKmore...

Five years later as reaction of this south park episode 18 year old Coppercab posted a video with the name “gingers do have souls” on YouTube. In this video Coopercab tries to defend the red headed population by stating that “gingers do have souls” and that we would like to put an end to ginger- discrimination. To understand how this video became a meme I think it´s important to look at the video:



This video had over 3, 1 million viewers just in the first month and spread all over the internet in no time. People started making parodies of Coopercab as well as posting pictures making fun of Coopercab all over the internet. South Park even made their own parody of Coopercabs video and posted it on their webpage. I think this meme became popular and famous because of its origin. South Park made a very funny episode about ginger-kids, but at the same time, most people who watch South Park know that the show always portray things in a very sarcastic way. I don’t think the producers of South Park ever meant to discriminate or offend any gingers, and when Coopercab and others then comes and takes it very seriously their reactions became stupid and funny. This meme was mostly popular from 2010 until 2011, but me as a ginger- kid myself can still feel some after shakes from this meme. Every year people arrange kick- a- ginger- day. Even though I think it is supposed to be a funny joke, some people are still taking it a bit too serious. The establishing of “gingers have no soul” is often used as a funny way to describe people with red hair and freckles. //by Mari Anna Friedrich

Human Heads in Freezers (241543903)

Hanna Baatevik

Dzinya Djugba

Mari Anna Friedrich

Riccesha Hattin

Erik Hugnes

Solfrid Federley Kirkemo

Ying Ying Louis-Jean

Gabriel Orellana

Eve Pashin

Cindy Xiao