“They look like they just smoked some dust”
“They’re dry-humping air.”
“This is an absolute mockery of what it was.”
These are actual quotes from actual residents of Harlem, said after watching Harlem Shake videos on the internet. You can keep doing your 30-second videos and throwing them up on YouTube, sure, but remember: you’re not really doing the Harlem Shake.
I’m not sure if two of the biggest internet companies in the world actively participating in the latest meme craze is a fun thing or a death-of-the-meme- type thing. Either way, it’s happening.
Both Facebook and Google’s employees have decided to get in on the Harlem Shake craze
Here’s what’s going on at Menlo Park:
And now for the folks in Mountain View:
Who did it better? Where’s Mark Zuckerberg in all of this? Where’s Sergey Brin? Why is nobody actually doing the Harlem Shake? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?
It’s a great time of the year for Overly Attached Girlfriend (Laina Walker). Valentine’s Day means loads of attention from boyfriends and husbands. It’s that one special holiday where you’re forced to declare your intention to belong to someone.
Be mine.
And you better not turn down OAG’s Valentine. Seriously. Don’t do it.
Internet legend Sweet Brown has just starred in a new ad for Tulsa-based dentists Shortline Dental. We’re happy that Sweet Brown can turn her memedom into cash. You should be too.
A toothache? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
[Shortline Dental via reddit]
When Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig performed one of the better pre-award schticks of last night’s Golden Globes, most people in the audience seemed to enjoy it. Ferrell and Wiig’s bit had the two attempting to describe the nominated movies in their category – although it was obvious that neither of them had really seen the movies. At least that was the bit.
Cue an audience shot. It’s Tommy Lee Jones. And he’s not entertained. Or maybe he is, but it’s just how he shows his amusement.
Either way, this image of Jones is now part of the rich meme history of the interwebs after it blew up on Twitter:
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Or, if you prefer the GIF:
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And thus the “Tommy Lee Jones is not impressed” meme is born.
Oh my god. Someone please .gif Tommy Lee Jones looking Not Impressed.
Ha! RT @rctruitt: @todayshow Best moment of the #GoldenGlobes. #grumpycathttp://t.co/sRgRccPn
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Tommy Lee Jones learns he’s just won the lottery while orgasming. #GoldenGlobeshttp://t.co/vJzcEyTu
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You can check out the moment that birthed the meme below (at around 3:30).
It was arguably one of the best moments from the entire show – at least the best one not involving a Tina Fey/Amy Poehler joke. Grumpy Tommy Lee Jones, we love you.
![Samsung Brutalizes Puppy-Computers in Strange New Ad [UPDATED]](https://dev.webpronews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pexels-photo-2041627-80x75.jpeg)
Last week, in order to advertise their Solid States Drives, Samsung tapped Laina Walker, the wide-eyed girl better known as the inspiration behind the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme. In that ad, Samsung suggested that your computer could easily give up all of your private information – making your life a living hell (if it wanted to). So could your crazy ex-girlfriend, or course, and that was the motivation behind bringing OAG into the mix.
Today we get the second installment of Samsung’s “Love me again” campaign, and it’s even stranger.
This time, Samsung likens your computers to cute little puppies and asks you to not give up on puppy love. Instead, make it better with a Samsung SSD 840.
Cue two minutes of brutally destroying computers made to look like puppies. It’s a little morbid, when you think about it. If Samsung’s goal was to make me feel bad for old laptops, well, they succeeded. Check it out below:
UPDATE: We’ve received word that the video has temporarily been made private. We’re seeking further explanation and comment, and will let you know when we hear anything.
UPDATE 2: Some negative feedback prompted the move. We can only assume that some people were upset by the portrayal of the computer as dogs, and some of the violent actions being done to the dogs.
GIFs: They’re so hot right now.
You know them. You love them. They power reddit and Tumblr. They’re the perfect way to express a wide range of emotions and reactions, or simply a quick and easy way to cut to the chase and display the most important parts of any online video. Today, the Oxford American Dictionaries have proclaimed GIF the word of the year.
So take your victory lap, GIFs. You’ve earned it.
“The GIF, a compressed file format for images that can be used to create simple, looping animations, turned 25 this year, but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier,” notes Katherine Martin, Head of the US Dictionaries Program at Oxford University Press USA. “GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun. The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural memes into a tool with serious applications including research and journalism, and its lexical identity is transforming to keep pace.”
GIF beat out a half-dozen other 2012 buzz words for the title. Runners up include Super PAC, superstorm, YOLO, MOOC, and Higgs Boson.
The last internet-generated word to win Oxford’s word of the year was “unfriend” back in 2009. In 2005, the first year they awarded the prize, “podcast” took it home.
In celebration, here is how the internet feels when one of their primary forms of communication is validated:
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It would sure be a shame if your computer turned on you and began to slowly sabotage your privacy and security. Just like an ex-girlfriend, your computer has all of the tools and information to make your life miserable (if they so choose). That is, of course, unless you protect everything with a Samsung SSD (solid-state drive).
That’s the message behind a new virally-inspired ad from Samsung. It stars Laina Walker, who has skyrocketed to internet fame as the inspiration for the “Overly Attached Girlfriend” meme which you’ve probably seen while browsing reddit, Tumblr, and other social channels over the past few months. In the ad, Overly Attached Girlfriend becomes Overly Attached Computer, who talks about all of the evil ways in which she could ruin your life.
Those eyes do it. It’s time to put my information in a different, safer location. Yikes.
Do you remember where you were the first time your snickering friend directed you to goatse.cx? I sure do. The memory is burned into my brain – the first in a long line of introductions to disgusting internet memes like lemon party, tubgirl, and blue waffles that serve as a warning: The internet is great because of its vastness/The internet is terrible because of its vastness.
By the way, don’t Google any of those things I just mentioned. You’re going to have a bad time.
If you’re unfamiliar with the cult of goatse, let me carefully explain. It’s a roughly 13-year-old shock image that features a man, his private regions, and a lot of spreading. The goatse.cx Wikipedia page has a pretty clinical description of the image, if you’re interested. Goatse.cx (Goat sex) became ubiquitous in the early period of internet curiosity.
Why would such an image become so popular on the internet? It was the late nineties, mind you. Something had to fill the gaping, cavernous void of the early interwebs. Think of it as the original Rick-Roll, or something like that.
Goatse.cx has been inactive since 2004 when the owners of the TLD, the government of the Christmas Islands, suspended it based on violations to acceptable use policy. This was all spurred by a complaint by a Christmas Island resident. The image is not gone from the internet, of course – nothing can be. You can find it with pretty minimal efforts, if you’re feeling masochistic.
Now, the guy who bought the infamous domain is attempting to repurpose it as a vanity email location.
From it’s shut down in 2004 to 2008, the goatse.cx domain was at the center of a pretty strange bidding war that involved fake bids and threats of legal action. At one point, the asking price rose to $500,000. According to Gawker, our unnamed buyer claims to have purchased the domain in 2008 for around $10,200 on a “late night whim.” That’s one hell of a whim.
In order to recoup his losses, he plans on charging people for their brand new @goatse.cx email address. It won’t be much – maybe $5 a year. But it will cut in to the ten grand that he threw down four years ago, considering people actually want to receive email at such a loaded location.
Our anonymous goatse purveyor claims that he’s already fielded 4,000 signup requests for the new email, and also plans to create a goatse link shortener which would serve the purpose of making people think twice about following any link they see floating around Facebook and Twitter. Risky click, indeed.
You can signup for the email address at signup.goatse.cx today(SFW).
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Gangnam Style is getting a little old these days. Like with most memes, there’s nowhere for it to go but down. Rarely does a meme ever get a second chance at being great again. Luckily, Gangnam Style has found its savior in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China.
Big Trouble In Little China is a lot like Gangnam Style. They are both crazily hilarious experiences that caught on with their respective audiences and exploded in popularity. Some people will even claim that Big Trouble In Little China is the greatest film ever made, and I’m sometimes inclined to agree with them.
So what happens when you combine the two? A parody called Lo Pan Style that was shown off by John Carpenter himself this past weekend at Screamfest. Look out for a cameo from the original Lo Pan.
I think we can safely say that the Gangnam Style parody war has been won. Kim Jong Style made a valiant effort, but nobody could ever hope to win against Lo Pan.
[h/t: io9]
Today, we celebrate the trolls, the internet yellers, and the old people that don’t know any better. It’s October 22nd, which means that today, we celebrate CAPS LOCK.
You might be thinking to yourself – “hey, I remember when we did that earlier this year. It trended on Twitter and everything. What gives?” and that would be fair. That’s because INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY is celebrated twice a year, the other day being June 28th.
The fake holiday was first celebrated in 2000, at the behest of a guy named Derek Arnold.
“International Caps Lock Day is in fact a testament to the small mindedness of certain Western individuals: the majority of the world’s population writes in scripts which have no concept of letter casing. Therefore it is advised to laugh at anyone who invokes this day as an excuse to dismiss local typographical conventions: they are simply making an ass out of themselves,” he said more than a decade ago.
Since then, the holiday has been adopted by denizens of the interwebs. It even has its own (poorly designed) website and a Twitter account.
I MADE WICKER BASKET TODAY
Here’s how the rest of Twitter feels about the day:
welcome to the CAPSLOCKALYPSE … #capslockday
#CAPSLOCKDAY IS NOT FOR PLEASURE. IT IS DUTY, IT IS MAYHEM, IT IS FASCIST, IT IS OBLIGATION. (76)
INDICATIVE OF THE COUNTRY’S POLITICAL DISCOURSE, TONIGHT’S DEBATE IS TAKING PLACE ON INTERNATIONAL #CAPSLOCK DAY. http://t.co/wuxHi0d0
OHYA. TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL CAPSLOCK DAY. LETS EMBRACE IT.
Sure, we can bemoan the ubiquitous use of all caps typing across the internet. But just imagine if we had to fake-celebrate tHiS KiND oF cRaP, even for just one day.
It looks like John Matrix is a BuzzFeed fan. Actually Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new book) is a BuzzFeed partner, and the Terminator has been promoting this meme-style post of “15 Of The All-Time Best Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes” on Twitter.
He’s tweeted this post a couple of times, along with a call for a contest, where he will share the best memes of any lines that people think were left out of the BuzzFeed list.
RT this post. Then, let’s have a contest. I will share the best memes of any lines that you think were left out. http://t.co/D5mEimnz
So far, Arnold has retweeted a few:
@Schwarzenegger here’s a #meme for you! Take a look and “Stick Around”!! http://t.co/0vLkSdgj
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@Schwarzenegger “Remember Sully when I promised to kill you last? I lied.” http://t.co/AIFjoWRG
@Schwarzenegger No brainer! “You should not drink and bake” #memehttp://t.co/bMRECFKm
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@Schwarzenegger or “Twins” quotes like this – http://t.co/sM1I0sgo
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@Schwarzenegger hahah this deserves a rt! http://t.co/RsrQ8Aq2
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Now go get to work. There is plenty of untapped Commando dialogue. Speaking of which, I feel like there should be a Bill Duke meme contest as well.
![More Famous GIFs Set to Music [VIDEO]](https://dev.webpronews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/pexels-mikhail-nilov-6613956-80x75.jpg)
Reddit user Rasta_Pasta had quite a bit of viral success with thier first GIF Sound the Video compilation, which featured some of the internet’s most legendary GIFs set to some hilarious, oftentimes highly inappropriate music.
Now, they are back with part two, which features another three and a half minutes of GIFs paired with an expertly chosen soundtrack. This time, not all of the GIFs are as famous as the ones in the original video, but you shouldn’t worry – you’re guaranteed to lose it a few times.
Check out the perfect Monday morning pick up below:
Context is everything, right?
Memes. Memes everywhere. Some of them have stayed true to the the message of that which spawned them, and others have taken on a life of their own. Once the internet wraps its cold, clammy hands around something there’s no telling how many permutations it will go through before it reaches your screen.
If memes are poised to become the dominant form of online communication (and some may argue that they already have), we probably owe it to ourselves to find out where they came from. Or, you know, watch a cool video and forget it later.
Either way, YouTube user hatinhand made a helpful supermix of the various clips from movies, television, and the internet (memes are rather meta at times) that serve as the basis for most everything you see on reddit on a daily basis.
Check out a mess of memes below:
How many did you recognize? I can name them all. Not sure if proud of myself or severely depressed.
This. This is really good.
What do you get when you pair some of the internet’s finest GIFs with an appropriate/highly inappropriate soundtrack? You get the subreddit r/gifsound (or YTMND, in some circles). Now, what happens when you take some of the best submissions and string them together in an epic supermix?
You get this video courtesy reddit user Rasta_Pasta.
Prepare to lose it a few times during the three and half minute span (NSFW language):
How many GIFs did you recognize? How many songs? If you want the complete list of GIFs and their corresponding soundtrack, check out this thread.
As you may know, actor/director Clint Eastwood spoke at the Republican National Convention, and spoke to President Obama in front of a cheerful crowd. Obama, in Eastwood’s speech, took on the form of an empty chair next to the podium. For full context, here’s video from the convention:
It’s been all over the Internet today. There’s already an “Invisible Obama” Twitter account, a “Clint Eastwood Talking To A Chair” song, and even a comeback from Obama himself.
Now, “Eastwooding,” like planking, Tebowing, and owling before it, is a meme, and photos are surfacing all over social media. Google+, being the photo-heavy social network that it is, seems like a good place to start, though you’d probably have just as much luck on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc.
Here’s some of the latest entries to the Eastwooding craze from Google+:
Ladies and gentleman. Introducing Eastwooding.
more here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/eastwooding
#rncconvention2012 #eastwood #Eastwooding
#Eastwooding is going to be the next planking lol I can just feel it!
We don't all have the time Clint Eastwood does. I, for instance, need to multitask my imaginary debates. #Eastwooding
Team USA gymnast McKayla Maroney has been a pretty good sport about becoming the internet’s most-prevalent meme. In London, the vault expert was caught on camera with a rather prickly expression on her face shortly after being awarded the silver medal in the women’s vault final. Subsequently, her “meh” face blew up on the interwebs, as photoshoppers decided to place her unimpressed look in various pop culture situations.
Shopped photos began appearing on reddit, and eventually “MehKayla” found herself the subject of her own Tumblr blog called McKayla is not impressed.
Ever since, she’s played nice – discussing her memedom with the media and tweeting about it. I mean, a small part of her has to be annoyed that this is why she’s an internet star. After all, she did win a gold medal…
But it’s funny. And even if the internet continues to beat it like the dead horse that we know it can be, it’ll still be remembered as funny – at least for a brief time.
Now, it looks like McKayla has found her favorite version of the McKayla not impressed meme:
I just died.. (; http://t.co/NRLDVGyv
The Instagram photo shows the unimpressed gymnast in the middle of a famous Charlie Brown scene (seen above).
It even looks like her parents are getting in on the fun:
Look what i came home to on my fire place.. hahaha http://t.co/VzdW3OtL
“It is pretty funny,” she recently told David Letterman.
Being a meme is both an honor and a chore, but most people take it pretty well. Famous meme subjects like Bad luck Brian and Scumbag Steve have participated in reddit AMAs. Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson (watch out, we got a badass over here) once said that being a meme was “initially really weird and creepy.”
“..And then I said well, this in total is a celebration so I should not object.”
A celebration, indeed.
With all the attention focused on Reddit and the disappointing Digg reboot, we tend to forget one of the leading pioneers in making the Internet a better/worse place to live. Thanks to 4chan and its often wonderful /b/ board, we were exposed to a lot of firsts. The site just announced that it’s still one of the biggest influences on the Internet and has the numbers to prove it.
4chan passed 1 billion total posts yesterday. Unfortunately we don’t know what it was, but you can use your imagination…
It’s pretty impressive that 4chan has been able to weather the Internet for this long. Chans come and go with many not attracting the loyal fanbase that 4chan has. Sure, a lot of people left 4chan for other places like Reddit, but it’s still one of the best/worst places on the Internet. It’s come a long way since the days of people gathering around to talk about forced memes and OP being a you-know-what.
Speaking of memes, that’s the number one reason that we should be thankful for the continued existence of 4chan. Despite how you feel about /b/ and the rest of the site, they were instrumental in spreading popular memes like Lolcats and Rickrolls. Reddit can complain all they want about 9GAG stealing their content, but Reddit stole their content from 4chan first.
We also can’t forget that 4chan reportedly gave birth to Anonymous. Without them around, my and other tech writers’ jobs would be a lot more boring. You may not agree with their actions, but Anonymous is like 4chan personified. It’s chaotic in a way that only the Internet can provide.
In an Internet with limitless options, it’s nice to see one of the major contributors to the culture still holding on and thriving. Even though it may seem like I’m saying nice things about them, you should stay away. Seriously, never go to /b/. You’re better off going to the WTF subreddit.
[h/t: The Verge]
I hope the folks frequenting the Centre Country courthouse are up to date on their Internet memes, because Pedobear is on the scene. Now, whether he’s their to “support” Jerry Sandusky and the actions he’s accused of or if he’s there to poke fun at Penn State for creating an atmosphere where Sandusky could allegedly act without impunity remains an unknown, but the fact is, the person dressed in the Pedobear costume could be there for those and other reasons, like Internet notoriety.
The details surrounding Sandusky’s trial have been quite graphic and disturbing, making it the perfect scene for a Pedobear appearance, but more noticeable, at least to me, is reading PennLive.com’s article as it tries to explain what it is their readers are seeing. It reads like the writer was only a few minutes ahead of their readers in terms of Pedobear education. The fact that they linked to the actual Pedobear.org instead of KnowYourMeme’s entry indicates as much. And then there’s this description:
An Internet-born character called “Pedobear,” which mocks pedophiles or is their mascot, depending on which website you believe, is at the Centre County courthouse this morning..
The link in the quote goes to a SFGate Mommy Files blog entry that warns parents about the mascot. Unfortunately, neither publication discusses how Pedobear came about, or the significance of its origins. Well, that’s not entirely true. Amy Graff pays the origin some very brief lip service, but ultimately, she’s only concerned about warning parents about pedophiles.
KnowYourMeme’s entry is much more enlightening:
Pedobear is a cartoon mascot that became a well-known icon through its usage on 4chan to signal moderators and other users that illegal pornographic content had been posted. Due to the widespread nature of its application, Pedobear has been often misinterpreted as a symbol of pedophilia and lolita complex, especially in the news media and law enforcement agencies.
Of course, the person in the Pedobear costume who appeared at Sandusky’s trial is undoubtedly playing up the pedophilia angle, something the proud supporters of Penn State should already be used to. Lest we forget:
Today, the internet says farewell to one of its legends. Eduard Khil, the man responsible for one of the more memorable, long-lasting, and recreated viral videos of all time has died at the age of 77.
Last week we told you that Khil had suffered a stroke and was in critical condition at St. Petersburg Polenov Scientific Research Institute of Neurosurgery. Doctors were reportedly planning additional surgeries on Khil, but they acknowledged the fact that he suffered irreparable brain damage as a result of the trauma.
And early Monday morning in St. Petersburg, Khil passed away from “irreversible damage” caused by the stroke, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti.
In Russia, Khil was very popular and his baritone voice won him the People’s Artist Award in 1974. In addition to his success as a singer, Khil also taught the craft at Saint Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy. Two years ago, Khil was given the Order of Merit for the Fatherland by Russia.
But of course, his introduction to the West came courtesy of a YouTube video that went viral in 2009. The video, shot in 1976, shows Khil performing “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой,” or “I am glad, cause I’m finally returning back home.”
Or, as it is known by many on the interwebs, the Trololo song.
The video was parodied countless times and even found itself on par with the “Rickroll” in terms of classic internet bait-and-switch tricks. Check out Khil reacting to the various parodies of his performance back in 2010. Most of us won’t be able to understand what he’s saying, but there’s no doubt that he’s tickled by his internet stardom:
Eduard Khil, the Russian singer who shot to internet stardom after the video of a 1976 performance went super-viral, has reportedly suffered a stroke and is now in a coma at St. Petersburg Polenov Scientific Research Institute of Neurosurgery.
Eduard Khil might not ring any bells, but I’m sure that you recognize his other name, “Mr. Trololo.” Or, the “Trololo guy.” Khil’s performance of the Russian song “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой,” or “I am Glad, ‘Cause I’m Finally Returning Back Home,” found its way to YouTube in 2009 and the rest was history. Millions of views later, his distinctive vocal style and odd mid-performance laughter had landed him in the annals of memedom.
The video became the “Russian Rickroll,” another stalwart YouTube clip for internet bait-and-switch tricks.
If it’s been awhile since you’ve seen it, check it out below:
Doctors say they are planning on surgery, but Khil is 77 years old so survival definitely isn’t a sure thing. Even then, recovery is an unknown proposition as they say his brain has suffered irreversible damage as a result of the trauma. Although he is known across the interwebs as Mr. Trololo, he is known in Russia for many other songs.
Khil’s “Trololo” video spawned numerous parodies, including this gem courtesy of JImmy Kimmel Live and Inglorious Basterds‘ Christoph Waltz:
[Image via Wikipedia]
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