About

Emoji Spells are a series of posts featuring emojis arranged by self-identifying witches on social media with the intention of magically bringing about a desired outcome, such as getting over an ex-boyfriend or calming anxiety.

Precursor

A subsection of emoticons known as dongers^[1] featured pictorial representations of people using magic. On April 29th, 2015, Japanese.me^[2] compiled a list of dongers that appeared to be performing magic for users to copy.

A Tumblr devoted to Emoji Tarot Cards appeared on September 5th, 2015.^[4]

Origin

The first known appearance of the “emoji spell” concept appeared on October 29th, 2015, when Vice’s women’s interest sub-site Broadly^[3] published an article called “How to Cast Spells Using Emoji” as a part of “Witch Week.” The article featured directions for crafting, casting, and preparing for casting a spell, along with several example spells one can cast.

Spread

Following Broadly’s article, witches on social media, primarily on Tumblr, began casting emoji spells. On Tumblr, spell posts instruct users that Likes “charge” the spell and reblogs “cast” it. Some popular spells include one to take down Donald Trump (over 18,000 notes as of September 30th, 2016, shown below),^[5] to protect your pets (over 99,000 notes),^[9] and save the bees (over 40,000 notes).^[10]

On April 10th, 2016, Bustle^[6] published an article detailing one writers attempt to use emoji magic to improve her love life. Mic^[7] covered the trend on August 17th 2016, which led to other teen-marketed sites like Teen Vogue^[8] and others to cover the spread. At least two Tumblr accounts are devoted solely to creating and sharing Emoji Spells.^[11][12] They have received backlash within the witchcraft community, as some believe the practice of liking to “charge” spells to be disingenuous.^[13]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Pen Spinning, also known as pen twirling, is the practice rotating a writing instruments between one’s fingers. Online, communities dedicated to pen spinning have arisen on a variety of platforms, and videos showcasing pen spinning tricks are often shared on YouTube.

Origin

Pen spinning was originally popularized in Japan in the 1970s. In 1997, Japanese pen spinner Hideaki Kondoh created the first pen spinning website on Geocities.^[4] In 2000, the English language pen spinning enthusiast site Pentix^[5] was launched by spinner Fernan Kuo (a.k.a. Kam), who subsequently shutdown the site indefinitely in 2003.

Spread

In January 2004, the Universal Pen Spinning Board^[1] was launched for discussions about the practice. On March 29th, 2006, YouTuber roylys84 posted a pen spinning tricks montage. Within ten years, the video gained over 3.5 million views and 3,300 comments (shown below, left). On March 14th, 2007, YouTuber RukarioRey uploaded an instructional video titled “Pen Spinning Basics,” which accumulated more than 3.9 million views and 3,100 comments over the next nine years (shown below, right).

On April 18th, 2008, the Diagonal View YouTube channel uploaded a short video about the Thaispinner pen spinning club in Bangkok, Thailand (shown below, left). On September 10th, 2009, YouTuber learnfromlance posted a tutorial video for performing a “thumbaround” pen spin (shown below, right). Over the next seven years, the videos received over 1.7 million views each.

On July 25th, 2010, the /r/penspinning^[2] subreddit was launched for discussions about pen spinning. On May 17th, 2011, YouTuber 52Kards uploaded a pen spinning tutorial video, garnering upwards of 4.32 million views and 3,400 comments in five years (shown below).

On December 4th, 2013, YouTuber Kuma Films posted a video titled “Epic Pen Spinning,” featuring two young men spinning pens outdoors . Within three years, the video gained over six million views and 4,600 comments. On November 25th, 2014, Kuma Films released footage of themselves spinning LED light pens (shown below, right). Within two years, the video accumulated more than 1.3 million views and 900 comments.

On November 7th, 2015, Redditor ChazDoge submitted a pen spinning video to the /r/oddlysatisfying^[3] subreddit, where it received upwards of 7,000 votes (93% upvoted) and 470 comments prior to being archived (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

WIP, as always.

Coub is a website similar to Vine where users can upload 10-second loops of YouTube videos or other popular video sources.

Event

On September 28th, 2016, the U.K. supermarket Sainsbury’s launched their new range of diary-free cheese gary based upon coconut oil. Although a sane person wouldn’t give this a second thought, one Facebook-user thought it was appropriate to post a long rant about how vegan cheese isn’t real cheese and should therefore have another name. The Facebook-user suggested in the post that vegans should name it Gary instead. This post was spread rapidly throughout the vegan community, and many expressed their love for the proposed name. Shortly after, the Facebook-group “It’s not Vegan Cheese, it’s Gary” was created and the story was posted on Metro News which spread on the subreddit /r/vegan.

(work in progress)

about
RUSH B (often accompanied by “cyka blyat” or “NO STOP”) is a common joke term to mock and poke fun at Russian gamers and their other Slav relatives
for having poor and self-centered teamwork and online social skills, in in online multiplayer games. most prominent in Valve’s top-seller FPS game: Counter Strike:Global Offensive. which is notorious for containing an severe abundance of toxic and aggressive Russian players.

origin
The meme originated from the ever-popular multiplayer shooter Counter-Strike:Global offensive. in which players who either play as Terrorists or Counter Terrorists. Terrorist’s team’s task in the most popular game mode – DE or Demolition – is to destroy one of two objectives on the map A or B. using a bomb.
While the Counter Terrorists task is to defend said sites by preventing the bomb to be planted for 3 minutes or diffuse the bomb if it has been planted.

A popular team strategy which inexperienced players tried to practice is to rush the B objective as soon as the match starts.

While the Counter-Strike games have existed for over a decade, the major influx of Russian players, many of which have little to no knowledge of the English language, thick accents, toxic behavior – happened when Global Offensive was released to steam.
This infamous strategy has since been associated with bad Russian players, who claim that they know best and should be trusted. often, if not always leading the team to a crushing defeat. instantly followed by a torrent of Russian profanities

Rush B, has since become a running joke in the CS:GO community and later, spilled over other multiplayer games which happens to have many russian players.
The phrase became the basis of many jokes, images and videos. and is commonly used to poke fun and taunt russian players

the exact original date, or video of which the phrase was first used in an ironic matter is currently unknown but instances of this meme have never been spotted before CS:GO was released

usage

The phrase is mostly used in online chat, to mock players of Russian origin in online games.
often when a player speaks russian in an english-speaking server, it is common to reply with jokes like “rush B cyka” (“cyka” pronounced as “Sooka” the russian word for ‘bitch’)
or alternatively they would say “no we dont rush B!”

Other times players may say the phrase when they wish to pretend being Russian, in order to grief, troll, or make funny gameplay footage,
this is one example among many:

And finally. the meme became infamous enough to spill out of the CS:GO community and can be found in other multiplayer games containing an undeirable amount of russians and/or toxic players – many of which do not have A B or even C objectives:

A video entitled “Dank ass sandboarding son” was published in 2008 on YouTube.com. The video features men sliding down sand dunes on makeshift sleds while music plays in the background. They measure the speed of a sandboarding run to be 69 MPH with a radar gun, making it material popularized by Vine and tumblr communities.

About

Bowl of M&Ms is an image macro series featuring a photograph of a bowl containing a button-shaped candy, typically M&M’s or Skittles, captioned with a message excusing fear-based stereotypes about a particular group of people.

Origin

On May 26th, 2014, Tumblr user The Frogman published a post denouncing the Men’s Rights Movement in the context of the 2014 Isla Vista killings. At the end of the post, he compared violent men to a percentage of poisoned M&Ms in a bowl.^[2]

“You say not all men are monsters?
Imagine a bowl of M&Ms. 10% of them are poisoned.
Go ahead. Eat a handful.
Not all M&Ms are poison.”

Spread

On May 28th, Redditor stensaas submitted a graphic of The Frogman’s post titled “This is such horrible logic” to /r/TumblrInAction,^[7] where it received upwards of 2,000 votes (95% upvoted) and 600 comments prior to being archived (shown below).

On June 3rd, TheFrogman^[4] published a viewer-submitted post comparing featuring Islamophobic and anti-Semitic versions of his M&M statement, which he argued were “false equivalencies.”

“oh, you say not all muslims are terrorists? imagine a bowl of m&m’s…. oh, you say not all black people are criminals? imagine a bowl of m&m’s…. oh, you say not all women cut their husbands’ penises off and murder them while they sleep? imagine a bowl of m&m’s…. oh, you say not all jewish people are greedy? imagine a bowl of m&m’s…”

On July 5th, 2014, the DebunkingDenialism^[3] blog published an article condemning the M&Ms analogy as an “irrational monstrosity of bigotry.” On November 15th, 2015, Redditor Royalflush0 submitted a picture of a bowl of M&Ms with the caption “You’re saying not all muslims are dangerous / Some of the M&M are poisoned. Would you eat a handful?” to /r/facepalm^[10] (shown below, left). Two days later, a similar image macro reached the front page of /r/facepalm^[11] (shown below, right).

Syrian Refugee Crisis

That month, Republican politician Mike Huckabee compared Syrian refugees to a poisoned bag of peanuts. On November 22nd, John Oliver denounced Huckabee’s statement during a segment on Last Week Tonight (shown below).

“If you bought a 5-pound bag of peanuts and you knew that in the 5-pound bag of peanuts there were 10 peanuts that were deadly poison, would you feed them to your kids?”

On April 24th, 2016, Redditor GlassSmithOfTheStars submitted an image macro titled “Muslim immigration is like Russian roulette” to the /r/The_Donald^[8] subreddit. In the comments section, Redditor BLSPolitics noted the similarity to a “bowl of Skittles” meme that “feminists” use to excuse fearing men. On July 2nd, 2016, a “bowl of M&Ms” image macro comparing poisoned candies to Syrian refugees was submitted to the /r/forwardsfromgrandma^[9] subreddit (shown below).

On September 19th, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a photograph of a bowl of skittles with the caption “If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? / That’s our Syrian refugee problem” (shown below).^[6] Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 19,500 likes and 12,800 retweets.

Immediately after, Trump was widely criticized for posting the image, with many accusing him of promoting Islamophobia. On September 20th, 2016, The Hollywood Reporter senior writer Seth Abramovitch tweeted a response from a Skittles representative, stating that the company did not feel it was “an appropriate analogy” (shown below).^[5]

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online controversy, including NPR,^[12] The Daily Dot,^[13] UpRoxx,^[14] The Guardian,^[15] NY Mag,^[16] Slate^[17] and Reason.^[18]

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Brangelina Breakup refers to actress and lecturer Angelina Jolie’s divorce from actor and longtime husband Brad Pitt.

Background

On September 20th, 2016, TMZ^[1] reported that Angelina Jolie had filed for divorce from Brad Pitt, citing “a conflict over the kids, substance abuse, and anger.” Later the same day, Page Six^[2] reported that the divorce was a result of an alleged affair Pitt had with actress Marion Cotillard uncovered by a private eye hired by Jolie. The divorce was filed on September 15th, following two years of marriage, twelve total years as a couple.

Online Reaction

That afternoon, #Brangelina and Jennifer Aniston were trending topics on Twitter and Facebook as social media users expressed grief and made jokes referring to Aniston and Pitt’s storied 2005 breakup that occurred as a result of Pitt’s affair with Jolie.

Bustle,^[3] The Daily Mail,^[4], International Business Times,^[5] and the New York Daily News^[6] all published stories reacting to the surge of Jennifer Aniston memes made on Twitter that day.

Online Reaction Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Mr Rental is the titular mascot character of the Australian company Mr Rental focussed on renting a variety of products. Around late 2015, the official Facebook page for the character started accompying more memes in their posts, before also being featured in GiIlvaSunner videos around July 2016.

Origin

Mr Rental began in 1983 when founders Glen and Kerrianne Hickman moved to Bribie Island, north of Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia; the first store opened by 1991. Today the Mr Rental group services thousands of customers in Australia and New Zealand.^[1] Mr Rental also maintained an official Facebook page for their brand for years.^[2] Over the years, the account has posted hundreds of messages in character of Mr Rental, including many promotional posts about the chain and various life hacks.

Spread

In 2015, the Facebook page suddenly started using various internet memes in their posts, however always maintaining a theme of renting products in the posts. The earliest notable example of this dates back to June 30th, 2015, with “The Rentinator” (shown below, left), a play on “The Terminator” in relation to promotional post for the release of the Terminator: Genisys film.^[3] These posts increased in December of that year, likewise to the oddity of the Photoshops accompying the posts, such as a post making fun of Kanye West and a Merry Christmas message showing Nyan Cat (shown below, middle and right).^[4][5]

Likewise to the usage of memes, the popularity of the posts also increased throughout 2016; frequently gaining thousands of likes. The posts also began to use a frequent theme of disliking outright buying products opposed to renting them, referring to those that buy outright as “chumps,” and started to include “Mr John Cena” at various occassions. As of October 2016, the official Facebook page managed to gather over 53,000 likes.

Various Examples

[Editor’s Note: These examples were all posted by Mr Rental on his official Facebook page]

In GiIvaSunner Videos

[Researching]

External References

Overview

The Trump Tax Scandal refers to the fallout from documents leaked to the New York Times^[1] that indicate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump could have avoided paying taxes since 1995.

History

Throughout the 2016 United States Presidential Election, Trump has bucked the tradition of presidential candidates releasing their tax returns, causing speculation that something detrimental to his campaign and reputation was hiding in them.^[2] In the first Presidential Debate, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton questioned why Donald Trump had not released his tax return. Trump may have alluded to the fact he had not paid taxes and bragged, “That makes me smart.”^[14]

On October 1st, 2016, after receiving a leak of some of Trump’s tax returns, The New York Times published an article that revealed Trump had lost $916 million dollars in 1995, “from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.” Because of American tax laws, the loss would have wiped out over $50 million dollars in taxable income over the next 18 years.

Developments

The news dominated talk shows on October 2nd, 2016. On CNN,^[3] Rudy Giuliani called Trump a “genius” for avoiding his tax returns. Clinton released an ad attacking Trump about the scandal that day.^[4]

Slate,^[5]NPR,^[6]CNN,^[7] and more speculated the leak could hurt the Trump campaign. ThinkProgress^[13] and other Twitter users found instances of Trump complaining about where his now non-existent tax dollars were going. In a tweet,^[8] Trump suggested the news proved he knows America’s tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and he was the only one who could fix them.

#LastTimeTrumpPaidTaxes

On Twitter, the hashtag #LastTimeTrumpPaidTaxes spread as users reveled in 90s Nostalgia and used it to mock how Trump had avoided paying taxes for maybe twenty years. Uproxx,^[9] Huffington Post,^[10]TIME,^[11] and Daily Mail^[12] covered the spread of the hashtag.

Search Interest

External References

About

Huh Challenge is a series of roasting videos in which a person jokingly insults someone before uttering the word “huh.”

Origin

On September 10th, 2016, Instagram user youloverichard1 uploaded a video titled “#HuhChallenge,” featuring clips of himself roasting people, followed by an extended exclamation of the word “huh” (shown below). Within three weeks, the video gained over 132,000 views and 300 comments.

Spread

On September 12th, 2016, Twitter user @danial_babar tweeted a similar roasting video along with the hashtag “#huhchallenge,” garnering upwards of 49,000 likes and 36,400 retweets in the next three weeks (shown below).

On September 14th, YouTuber Juice Pop uploaded a compilation of Huh Challenge videos (shown below, left). On September 16th, WorldStarHipHop^[3] featured @danial_babar’s video in a Vine compilation. On September 21st, the Top Viral Vids YouTube channel highlighted a #HuhChallenge video featuring pop star Jacob Sartorius (shown below, right). The following day, BuzzFeed^[2] published an article about the video series.

On September 24th, YouTuber TopClips247 uploaded a montage of #HuhChallenge roast clips (shown below, left). Two days later, YouTuber RiceGum posted a video criticizing the video series, which received more than 3.1 million views and 34,000 comments (shown below). On October 3rd, 2016, Redditor UpVotesGoHere submitted a post asking about the video series to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[1]

Search Interest

External References

About

Ruin a First Date in Four Words is a word game that involves coming up with humorous four-word sentences that could potentially spoil a romantic date.

Origin

On May 11th, 2016, a image with the words “Ruin a first date in four words” over a black background with four blank boxes was submitted to 9gag^[2] (shown below). In the comments section, viewers responded with various four-word jokes related to bad dates.

Percursor

In December 2014, the Twitter hashtag #WorstDateInFiveWords^[1] was launched along with humorous descriptions of bad dates (shown below).

Spread

On May 25th, a image macro compilation featuring responses to the “ruin a first date in 4 words” prompt was uploaded to 9gag.^[3] That day, 2CoolFishing Forums^[7] member gom1 submitted a thread titled “Ruin a date in four words.”

On September 28th, the Veterans Against Tattoos Facebook^[5] page posted a variation of the blank template with the caption “Wanna see my tats?” (shown below). Within five days, the post gathered upwards of 330 reactions and 70 shares. On September 29th, Imgur^[6] user sleepless01 uploaded the blank template.

The following day, users on the Useless, Unsuccessful, and/or Unpopular Memes Facebook^[4] page posted edited versions of new template, which were subsequently removed by moderators. On October 3rd, The Daily Dot^[8] published an article about the meme’s circulation on Facebook.

Search Interest

External References

About

AriZona Iced Tea is a beverage company based in Woodybury, New York. It’s iconic pastel-colored cans and art style have made it a popular icon in the vaporwave community, particularly with noted “sad boy” rapper Yung Lean.

History

AriZona Iced Tea has its roots in 1970s Brooklyn, where creators John Ferolito and Don Vultaggio opened a successful beer distribution company.^[1] They saw Snapple’s success in the early 90s and decided to move into selling canned teas, and sold their first AriZona-branded drink in 1992. They have remained popular due to its pledge to never sell their 32 fl. oz cans for more than 99 cents.

Online Presence

In 2013, Arizona Iced Tea became coopted into the Vaporwave Aesthetic following Yung Lean’s video for “Hurt,” in which the rapper held bottles of AriZona (shown below). The pastel colors and Japanese imagery of the cherry blossom Green Tea crossed with several other examples of Vaporwave imagery.^[2]

As Yung Lean gained more popularity, AriZona Iced Tea’s association with Vaporwave and Aesthetic culture began to grow in the quasi-ironic artworks. In 2014, a thread on hip-hop forum KanyeToThe.com^[3] devoted to Yung Lean fans featured 3 teenage white boys miming crying while holding Arizona Iced Tea.

Over the following two years, AriZona Iced Tea remained a popular icon in Aesthetic culture. On September 30th, 2016, The Daily Dot^[2] published a piece that investigated how AriZona Iced Tea became a meme in Vaporwave culture. AV Club followed the next day with a piece on its “Great Job, Internet!” blog. While its conclusions on the meme origins of AriZona were indefinite, its look at AriZona’s Twitter^[5] account indicated the company is aware of its popularity in the subcommunity.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

“Mad World” is a 1982 new wave song by the British band Tears for Fears. A 2001 cover of the song by composer Michael Andrews and singer-songwriter Gary Jules has been frequently used online in videos to elicit a somber or melancholic tone.

Origin

On September 20th, 1982, Tears for Fears released the song “Mad World” as their third single release (shown below, left). On January 19th, 2001, a cover of the song by composer Michael Andrews and singer-songwriter Gary Jules was featured in the science fiction horror-drama film Donnie Darko. On January 8th, 2006, a music video for the cover was uploaded to YouTube, which gathered more than 96 million views and 69,000 comments (shown below, right).

Spread

On October 17th, 2012, YouTuber james cameron uploaded a slideshow featuring illustrations of the Spongebob Squarepants character Squidward wearing a sad-looking expression with the Andrew and Jules cover playing in the background (shown below, left). On November 13th, 2014, YouTuber Hoocham uploaded a distorted version of the song played over a picture of Gordon Hurd titled “Mad World – Gary Jules (Ear Rape Edition)” (shown below, right).

On April 23rd, 2015, YouTuber Fran zi uploaded a video featuring the Andrew and Jules cover of “Mad World” along with a slideshow of illustrations featuring Pepe the Frog and Feels Guy (shown below).

On Vine

On December 17th, 2013, Viner JohnsEdge uploaded a video titled “1st attempt to singing Mad World by Gary Jules” (shown below, left). Within three years, the video received more than 2.4 million loops, 48,000 likes and 22,000 revines. On October 29th, 2015, Viner stop it, joe posted a clip of a teenager falling from a skateboard followed by an overlay of JohnsEdge singing the song (shown below, right).

On November 19th, YouTuber Tom Davies reuploaded the video to YouTube, where it gathered upwards of 1.15 million views and 1,100 comments.^[1] Over the next month, other remixes of the video began appearing on Vine and YouTube.^[2] On December 8th, JohnsEdge uploaded a compilation of “All Around Me Are Familiar Faces” Vines to YouTube, gaining over 1.7 million views and 1,700 comments in 10 months (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

w.i.p. editors welcome

About

8 Sex Positions That Will Blow His Mind And Destroy His Penis is a form of clickbait similar to Top 10 Anime List Parodies in which a suggestive or humorous pose is edited to include the text 8 sex positions that will blow his mind and destroy his penis.

Origin

On May 27th, 2013, author Rachel Wenitsky^[1] posted an article on Reductress titled 8 Sex Positions That Will Blow His Mind And Destroy His Penis.^[2] It is part of a series of articles in the site’s Love and Sex category.^[3] Reductress is a satirical American feminist website which parodies articles targeted towards women.^[4]

Search Interest

External References

About

#ImWithKer is a hashtag campaign employed by Twitter users that claims Kermit the Frog as an anti-bigotry, pro-hope symbol of the left in an effort to counter the rise of Pepe as a symbol of alt-right and white nationalist politics. It is a play on a slogan of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton supporters, I’m With Her.

Origin

On October 2nd, 2016, journalist Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo tweeted^[1] a plea that America needed to get behind a “canonical pluralism frog to turn back the tide,” along with a picture of Kermit the Frog. The tweet, shown below, gained over 1,600 retweets and 3,200 favorites as of October 4th, 2016. Shortly after Marshall’s tweet, one of his followers, @BrooklynSpoke,^[2] replied with the hashtag, “#ImWithKer.”

Spread

Twitter users began tweeting pro-Kermit sentiments with with #ImWithKer and #TakingBackTheFrog hashtags,^[3][4] along with the quote “Kermit Trumps Pepe,”^[5] a play on a slogan popular with Hillary Clinton supporters, “Love Trumps Hate.” In further tweets, Marshall claimed that Kermit “demonstrated generosity of spirit, perseverance, collegiality and openness to introspection and melancholy that are ingredients of any open, free society,” while Pepe “embodies sadism, cruelty, and the lust for domination as touchstone of public life that are the makings of autocracy.”^[6] #ImWithHer trended on Twitter on October 3rd, 2016.^[12]

Shortly after the hashtag’s initial spread, alt-right users attempted to raid it in an effort to squash the movement.^[7][8] Marshall responded to the attempted raid by suggesting it was he desperate work of people “who know they are about to lose.”^[9]

Threads about the trend were posted to Reddit in the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[10] and /r/MillionDollarExtreme,^[11] and the moment was covered by The Daily Dot^[13] and Daily Kos.^[14]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References

About

“Deus Vult” (“God wills it” in Latin) was a battle cry called out by Crusaders at the declaration of the First Crusade in 1095. Online, the historical phrase has gained popularity among fans of the strategy video game series Crusader Kings, as well as the alt-right camp on Reddit’s /r/The_Donald and 4chan’s /pol/ (politically incorrect) board, typically in the context of discussions relating to Islamic extremism and the moe anthropomorphized character Christ-chan. The phrase can be seen as the Christian equivalent of “Allahu Akhbar”, an Islamic Arabic expression that is most well-known as the battle cry of Jihadhists in Western cultures.

Origin

In 1095, “Deus vult” was used as the cry of the people during Pope Urban II’s declaration of the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in Clermont, France. On February 14th, 2012, the strategy game Crusader Kings II was released, which contains a pop up message displaying “Deus Vult!” when the Pope announces a Crusade during the campaign (shown below).

Spread

On December 10th, 2013, YouTuber universalbean uploaded a video titled “Deus Vult!,” containing a slideshow of various paintings depicting the Crusades (shown below, left). On October 14th, 2015, YouTuber Metaphysical Gnome uploaded a video titled “Ave Maria! Deus Vult,” featuring footage of Christian soldiers in the Free Syrian Army (shown below, right).

On October 21st, Urban Dictionary^[1] user speed_kill submitted an entry for “Deus vult,” translating it as Latin for “God wills it.” On March 2nd, 2016, FunnyJunk^[7] user thedankmemer submitted a gallery titled “Deus Vult! Meme Collection” (shown below).

On May 6th, /r/The_Donald^[6] moderator D4rkd3str0yer submitted a post titled “Meme Magic Friday: Deus Vult Edition” to the subreddit, inviting viewers to “bring down the holy wrath of meme fire” upon Donald Trump’s political opponents. On July 10th, Imgur^[4] user TheBigGay submitted a gallery of image macros referencing the Crusades and “Deus vult,” which reached the front page of the /r/dankchristianmemes^[5] subreddit two months later (shown below).

On August 22nd, YouTuber Starbot Dubs uploaded an animated web comic in which a crusader repeats the phrase “Deus vult” (shown below). On October 3rd, Redditor MarlRhane submitted a question about “deus vult” references to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[3] subreddit.

Search Interest

External References

About

“The Boys Are Back In Town” is a classic rock song by the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy off their 1976 album, Jailbreak.^[1] The song is extremely popular and well-received, having made Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and Q Magazine’s list of best guitar tracks. It gained traction as a meme when its title lyric was placed over popular Advice Animals and image macros, and later it resurged as an ironic reference on Weird Twitter.

Origin

The single was released on April 17th, 1976 and reached number 12, number 8, and number 1 on the US, UK, and Irish charts, respectively. Initially it was not going to appear on Jailbreak, but management convinced the band it would be a hit.^[2]

Spread

In Pop Culture

The song has been used in commercials for Wrangler jeans and extensively covered. A cover by the band Everclear appeared on the soundtrack for the 2001 film A Knight’s Tale. The song was referenced in the 2010 episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, “Dennis Gets Divorced,” (shown below) and has been referenced in other episodes of the show.

An episode of The Powerpuff Girls featuring the title characters male counterparts, The Rowdyruff Boys, took the song’s title as its name.^[3] Other notable television series to use the song include Entourage, Cougartown, Gladiators, and more.^[4] It was also used to introduce Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan to the stage at the 2012 Republican National Convention to the displeasure of the family of Thin Lizzy singer Phil Lynott.

Online Use

“The Boys Are Back In Town” first saw use in memes as captions to Advice Animals like Brace Yourself (below, left), Matrix Morpheus (below, center), Success Kid (below, right), and many more.

A single-serving Twitter account, @intownagain,^[9] devoted to posting lyrics from “The Boys Are Back In Town” joined Twitter in September 2009. On March 23rd, 2015, Vice^[5] published an article titled “I Played ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ on a Bar Jukebox Until I Got Kicked Out,” in which the writer does what the title implies, which set the precedent for an ironic resurgence of references on Weird Twitter. On November 29th, 2015, Dril^[6] published a tweet that referenced “The Boys are Back In Town” (shown below).

About a week later, Tumblr user Bromurra^[7] posted a text post that read:

Good end: the boys are back in town
Bad End: the boys are not back in town
True End: the boys never left town. the town they were looking for was inside of them all along

The post was reblogged by Meme Archives on February 9th, 2016, and has gained over 5,900 notes as of October 4th, 2016. In the following months, “The Boys Are Back In Town” would become a popular reference on Weird Twitter, causing one user, @SocMalpractice,^[8] to tweet a scenario where he describes Twitter to his mother as “it’s a website where we disagree about everything except that referencing ‘the boys are back in town’ is funny.”

Various Examples

Spread

External References

Work in progress

About

Ballio and Pinnister are the names given to a fan-made Pokémon evolution from Popplio, the water starter Pokémon from the 2016 games Pokémon Sun and Moon. Since his reveal on 4chan in mid-2016 as an alleged leak, he gained both an ironic and unironic fandom due his disturbing appearance.

Origin

The original thread was created in mid-May 2016, where an anonymous user posted a supposed leak of the final evolutions from the 7th Pokémon generation starters. From all the leaks, the one that catched most attention from the viewers the evolution of Popplio, the water starter, featuring a clown-like sea lion creature holding a giant water ball. While the original thread isn’t registered on most 4chan archives, the earliest mention of the term and the Pokémon come from a post from May 22nd, 2016.^[1]

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Various Examples

External References

The ‘Everybody Knows Dave’ meme first appeared in r/jokes in 2016. It is used in a sarcastic fashion typically saying that one knows Dave and referring to something personal sounding that only someone who knew this hypothetical Dave would know. This meme seems to stem from an old joke about a man named Dave and his boss. Dave claims to know everyone in the world, so his boss twice tells him to prove it. The third time, Dave is recognized, with the Pope’s identity unknown, and the boss has a heart attack in disbelief.