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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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