Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technologies? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette
Speaker 1: and I am the tech editor here at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot Com. Sitting across from me, as he always does,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hi, ho everyone, Hey Jonathan? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what time it is? Is it peanut butter
Speaker 1: jelly time? It is peanut butter jelly time? Where you wet?
Speaker 1: Where you where you? Where you wet? Now there you go,
Speaker 1: there you go. Yes, he's stuck in your head for
Speaker 1: the rest of the day. I actually wrote down the
Speaker 1: whole origin of that. Today. We thought we would look
Speaker 1: at Internet memes. What are they? How do they get started? Uh?
Speaker 1: And uh kind of give you guys the lowdown on it,
Speaker 1: because this is one of those things where it's a
Speaker 1: word that's out there that you know, you see it
Speaker 1: attached to stuff and then you're thinking, yeah, but ultimately,
Speaker 1: what what is a meme? And it's actually one of
Speaker 1: those words it's very kind of challenging to define, so
Speaker 1: to to really get a grip on on the whole
Speaker 1: meaning of meme. You have to let's just leave the
Speaker 1: Internet behind for a minute here, because it's not limited
Speaker 1: to the Internet. Now, the term itself comes from a
Speaker 1: book written back in nineteen seventy s all the way
Speaker 1: back then that was like so twenty century, yeah, as
Speaker 1: ninety six, a year after a certain shark was terrorizing
Speaker 1: the movie theaters and a year before a certain hero
Speaker 1: from tattooing would blow up the Death Star. It was
Speaker 1: written by Richard Dawkins, and the book was called The
Speaker 1: Selfish Gene. Now, in this book he proposed a concept
Speaker 1: of a meme, which is a unit of cultural transmission
Speaker 1: or a unit of imitation, and then the study of
Speaker 1: such a thing would be called memetics. So meme is
Speaker 1: the accepted pronunciation, although some people call it mem and
Speaker 1: I would figure you would assume that from memetics. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard anybody call it memetics. No, but e, m E,
Speaker 1: m e. You think it's either meme or mimi at
Speaker 1: any rate, it's not Beaker from the Muppets. It's although
Speaker 1: he isn't many different memes. Yes, So, so anyway, if
Speaker 1: you're talking about a unit of cultural transmission, this could
Speaker 1: really be practically anything within a culture. For example, handshakes
Speaker 1: that could be a cultural meme because it's going to
Speaker 1: be unique to a specific culture. And then not only
Speaker 1: do you have memes propagate and spread throughout the culture,
Speaker 1: but they can mutate over time and change over time
Speaker 1: as people begin to alter them in little ways, whether
Speaker 1: that's consciously or not. And for example, with the handshake,
Speaker 1: you could get the things like the high five. Yes
Speaker 1: you know, so that would be a good example where
Speaker 1: the high five is really just kind of a adaptation
Speaker 1: of mutation of the handshake. Well, this, this whole idea
Speaker 1: of a unit of cultural transmission kind of made its
Speaker 1: way onto the Internet pretty early on. And uh, I
Speaker 1: remember the first time I ever encountered the word meme.
Speaker 1: It was actually on the web. Um, I had not
Speaker 1: read Dawkins book, so I was not familiar with the
Speaker 1: the the his definition of what a meme was. For
Speaker 1: the longest time, I thought meme was just a specific
Speaker 1: term for those really annoying quizzes that people would send
Speaker 1: around and be like, you know, the twenty questions about you,
Speaker 1: and it's it was just a you know, a series
Speaker 1: of questions that you would answer that would give people
Speaker 1: who read the list a little more of an idea
Speaker 1: of who you were and what makes you tick, things
Speaker 1: like you know what your favorite color is and what
Speaker 1: kind of foods you like, and um, have you ever
Speaker 1: kissed a girl in the back of a car? Um?
Speaker 1: That kind of stuff. I mean, tons and tons of
Speaker 1: list and then some people might, you know, usually at
Speaker 1: the end of it, and say something like, send this
Speaker 1: to several more people and then have them send it
Speaker 1: back to you so you can learn all about everybody
Speaker 1: around you and share minute details of your life. Defining
Speaker 1: a meme, you're doing it wrong. Well, that's the thing
Speaker 1: here is that for the longest time, that's what I
Speaker 1: thought a meme was. It was only that, But that
Speaker 1: that's just one kind of a meme because again it's
Speaker 1: a that list was spread viral e across multiple networks
Speaker 1: of friends, and then people might read that list and think, well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. But I think I can think
Speaker 1: of a few questions I want to have answered that
Speaker 1: aren't on this list. I'm going to add them, and
Speaker 1: then so the list kind of changes, and then other
Speaker 1: people are like, that's kind of lame. I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: a whole different list of goofy questions just as a joke.
Speaker 1: And then so again, the meme continues to to evolve
Speaker 1: and mutate over time. Yes, so basically it's it's an
Speaker 1: idea that gets spread. Yes, that's and actually might The
Speaker 1: first encounter I had with it was suh an article
Speaker 1: in Wired magazine some time back, and it was just
Speaker 1: when they did define it. And when you have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to look around on the Internet and in popular culture,
Speaker 1: you know, it's easy to the idea of a meme
Speaker 1: is readily apparent. Once you understand the definition. You okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally get that. And it's it's funny because it's
Speaker 1: become pretty pretty well universally adopted. I think at this
Speaker 1: point people go, I wish I've seen Facebook posts let's
Speaker 1: say things like I wish this annoying meme would quit.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody stop. But I know a million people
Speaker 1: who I get. Could I could get to stop this meme? Okay?
Speaker 1: Maybe not? But but even so, even so, I bet
Speaker 1: if you ask most of the people who encounter that
Speaker 1: word to define it, they would have difficulty doing so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they know what it is, but they can't say
Speaker 1: what it is, right, It's kind of like art. I
Speaker 1: know what it is when I see it. Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about some Internet memes, kind
Speaker 1: of give you a background on where they came from,
Speaker 1: and um, before we really get into that, I thought
Speaker 1: I would mention one other thing that I think is
Speaker 1: really interest thing about memes, which is that the most
Speaker 1: successful memes, in my view, are the ones that develop
Speaker 1: naturally that someone unleash is an idea that may or
Speaker 1: may not be funny immediately or relevant or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then over time it gets more and more uh well
Speaker 1: more people notice it time and then maybe tweak it
Speaker 1: and change it a little bit, and then, uh but
Speaker 1: it all happens naturally. No one's forcing it. Now. The
Speaker 1: ones where people do try to force it, and they
Speaker 1: do call them force memes, they being you know, various
Speaker 1: people on the Internet, um, mostly four Chan. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the the birthplace of many a meme, as we will,
Speaker 1: if not the birthplace, at least the place where they
Speaker 1: start to really start to take off. Um. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: a forced meme would be one where someone creates something
Speaker 1: specifically with the intention of it going out there and
Speaker 1: exploding on the Internet and getting changed around and and
Speaker 1: uh and and altered and tweaked and to propagate like that.
Speaker 1: And often it's either an attempt to get notoriety or
Speaker 1: to maybe even do some sort of marketing. Um, those
Speaker 1: don't work as well because I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people pick up on that pretty quickly. If it if
Speaker 1: there's not a genuine you know, just a wow, this
Speaker 1: thing is pretty funny, or this thing is just crazy.
Speaker 1: I can't believe someone did this. Uh, if it's if,
Speaker 1: if there's a forced mean thing behind it, it just
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel genuine, and people abandon it. No, go ahead,
Speaker 1: I apologize, Um, I was going to say that. Ue.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, for some who don't intend their actions to
Speaker 1: become memes, some of these things take off viral e
Speaker 1: uh and uncontrollably, and it is affected many people's lives.
Speaker 1: But I figure we're going to talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of those people in a few minutes. Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: some cases we're talking about people who created something without
Speaker 1: any intention of it turning into an ex loas of
Speaker 1: internet hit and then having to endure some pretty heavy
Speaker 1: duty teasing, I guess is the best way of putting it.
Speaker 1: So we started off by talking at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of this podcast. So we made a reference to peanut
Speaker 1: butter Jelly Time, yes, which reference is a very specific meme.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with it, that means you weren't
Speaker 1: on the internet back in uh probably two thousand two
Speaker 1: or so. Um, it's a flash animation flash animation of
Speaker 1: a banana, of course, yes, because who's better prepared to
Speaker 1: sing about peanut butter jelly time than banana? Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's the Dancing Banana animated emoticon, which is
Speaker 1: just this little banana that just kind of bounces back
Speaker 1: and forth a little bit and has a big grin
Speaker 1: and yeah, and it's set to a song called Peanut
Speaker 1: Butter and Jelly Time by the Buckwheat Boys and uh
Speaker 1: and so it just the song is pretty repetitive and
Speaker 1: pretty repetitive. It's not as repetitive as a badger Badger badger, right,
Speaker 1: but or Potter Potter Potter, the the Harry Potter parody
Speaker 1: of Badger, Badger Badger? Have you seen that? Showing that
Speaker 1: to you after the podcast? You know what a bunch
Speaker 1: of people are going to write in after they look
Speaker 1: these memes up, and you know, we're gonna get lots
Speaker 1: of omgs on her, Yeah, especially the people who are
Speaker 1: like I had never heard of that, and now I
Speaker 1: can never unhear it. So, yeah, this little flash animation
Speaker 1: just showed this banana yelling out it's peanut butter jelly time. Actually,
Speaker 1: the banana wasn't saying anything, just playing in the background.
Speaker 1: Banana's just looking like a maniac. And then you hear
Speaker 1: it's peanut butter jelly Time by the Buckweed Boys. And
Speaker 1: that was created the the and the flash animation was
Speaker 1: created by um a couple of guys who were posting
Speaker 1: too off Topic dot com and uh and and then
Speaker 1: that kind of got picked up later on new grounds
Speaker 1: dot com and then that's another good place to find memes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and from those those boards that it's spread out, and
Speaker 1: then it actually spread out so far that it affected
Speaker 1: other parts of popular culture. It even appeared on an
Speaker 1: episode of Family Guy where Brian dresses up as the
Speaker 1: banana in an attempt to cheer up a very despondent Peter,
Speaker 1: and it does not work, and then Brian just keeps
Speaker 1: on going anyway, because you know, once you're in peanut
Speaker 1: butter jelly time, you don't get out. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that that's uh. And and we should also
Speaker 1: add that we're getting a lot of this information from
Speaker 1: a wonderful web resource. Oh yeah, this is UM by
Speaker 1: the people who brought you the the uh Internet news
Speaker 1: tech news podcast Rocket Boom. Yeah. So it's, you know,
Speaker 1: an authoritative source. They have no your meme dot com, yes,
Speaker 1: write that down, No your meme dot com yes, So
Speaker 1: if you ever come across a meme, you can go
Speaker 1: to know your meme dot com and do a search
Speaker 1: for it, and there's a good chance they're going to
Speaker 1: have an entry on there. Uh. And sometimes they do
Speaker 1: a full episode where they break down the origin of
Speaker 1: a meme and it's it's really definitive and thorough work.
Speaker 1: The one for peanut butter jelly time was excellent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to say that, yes exactly. It was a
Speaker 1: very attractive young lady, one of the prisoners, addressed as
Speaker 1: a banana um delivering the very serious peanut butter jelly
Speaker 1: time yes derivation. Um. Yeah, so we do recommend that
Speaker 1: it's it's a great source. But we thought we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the other memes that
Speaker 1: that uh we've encountered and some of our favorites, and
Speaker 1: why don't you go ahead and hingant Uh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I actually found a list of on earl Esque, which
Speaker 1: is uh one of the aol dot com sites. On
Speaker 1: they posted their one hundred most iconic Internet videos and
Speaker 1: wanted to see which ones that I had heard of. Uh.
Speaker 1: Number eleven was one that went around a while ago.
Speaker 1: Uh you know Newman Numa yes Numa, Numa Yesuma. I
Speaker 1: actually this one was it was a not really a
Speaker 1: forced meme, but it was intentionally posted by the author.
Speaker 1: It was Gary Brolsma, who was singing along with a song,
Speaker 1: or actually appears to be singing along with the song.
Speaker 1: You actually hear the real version as the drug of
Speaker 1: Steve Tindah didn't didn't, That's what it was. And uh,
Speaker 1: he is, you know, basically having a good time hanging
Speaker 1: out at his computer and thinking it's it's it's an
Speaker 1: infectiously good time. I mean, he looks like a total
Speaker 1: spaz doing this this dance and lip singing, but he
Speaker 1: did it on purpose, and he did this with the
Speaker 1: intention of showing it to some friends, and then his
Speaker 1: friends showed it to some other people and then the
Speaker 1: exploded from there did it new Grounds, which is where
Speaker 1: he put it on there, and uh, you know he's
Speaker 1: getting millions of views. And this is you know, pre
Speaker 1: as they as they pointed out on on the website
Speaker 1: there at at LASK, this was before YouTube, so it
Speaker 1: was getting millions of hits, even before YouTube made it
Speaker 1: really simple for people to thrust a meme out into
Speaker 1: the public eye on a quick basis. Now, later on
Speaker 1: he tried to recreate that success with a couple of
Speaker 1: other videos that didn't have the same sort of viral
Speaker 1: effect as his first one, probably because again it was
Speaker 1: kind of coming across as a forced meme at that point.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the first time it all. It all
Speaker 1: kind of exploded naturally just as people got interested in it.
Speaker 1: But no one wants to be spoon fed or force
Speaker 1: fed something, so you want to I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: of the gate with my favorite one of all times,
Speaker 1: Ninja's versus Pirates, and it's Pirates all the way. It
Speaker 1: is Pirates all the way. There's always a bunch of
Speaker 1: Ninja fans because if they do, they reveal what they are.
Speaker 1: The ninjas can't write in we might get some blank
Speaker 1: slips of paper written an invisible ink. But no, yeah, Ninja's,
Speaker 1: if you are a real Ninja, you're not gonna write
Speaker 1: in um except for asking Ninja that guy he said,
Speaker 1: you can't shut him up, so um. Actually I love
Speaker 1: that show too. But Ninja's versus pirates. So this this
Speaker 1: is a weird meme in that it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to say where this one came from. As early as nine,
Speaker 1: there was an Atari arcade game called Skull and Crossbones
Speaker 1: where you got to play as pirates, and you normally
Speaker 1: would fight against other pirates, but you also fought Ninja's.
Speaker 1: But in two thousand three you had Robert Hamburger parodying
Speaker 1: Ninja's in a series of UH posts on Real Ultimate
Speaker 1: Power UM where he would give he would give synopsis
Speaker 1: of movies that movie ideas he had for Ninja's and
Speaker 1: the UH and several of them, Ninja's would fight pirates
Speaker 1: and the Ninja is always one. Actually Ninja, I should say,
Speaker 1: because that's the plural. Now I'm gonna have to do
Speaker 1: this s connected dy shuffle. You don't get that unless
Speaker 1: you listen to stuff. You should know enough of a
Speaker 1: plug for them. But I would I would point out
Speaker 1: to that. It's gone so far as I've seen a
Speaker 1: we video game called Ninja's Versus Pirates Dodgeball, yes, and
Speaker 1: maybe backwards Pirates. I don't know. Actually there there's a
Speaker 1: game in which Ninja's and pirates fight each other in
Speaker 1: dodge I have a friend who on his birthday had
Speaker 1: a Ninja versus Pirate Dodgeball tournament. I was unable to attend.
Speaker 1: I did get to see the bruises later. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's that's one of those means that the origin
Speaker 1: is kind of, you know, foggy. We're not really sure
Speaker 1: where how they took off, but it really has taken off. Um,
Speaker 1: It's probably not as popular now as it used to be,
Speaker 1: but you can still find plenty of sites dedicated to
Speaker 1: the whole Ninja pirate animosity. I once created a similar
Speaker 1: rivalry between conquistadors and YETI, but that hasn't really taken off.
Speaker 1: And I have seen people try to insert zombies into
Speaker 1: the equation to make it sort of a three way battle,
Speaker 1: but you know, nobody has done it so much so
Speaker 1: that the Ninja versus Pirate Yeah, now next zombies. Okay, um,
Speaker 1: let's go with a quite persistent meme LOLd cats. Ah, yes,
Speaker 1: now this is another one. We can thank sites like
Speaker 1: four chan. Four yes, this is uh we we'd love
Speaker 1: to tell you exactly who it was that came up
Speaker 1: with this idea, but I, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: it was posted anonymously to four chan, and uh, nobody knows. Well,
Speaker 1: somebody knows exactly who it was that decided to put
Speaker 1: a picture of a cat, take a picture of a
Speaker 1: cat and put some silly caption over it in a
Speaker 1: sort of pigeon English, and uh what yes, yes, so
Speaker 1: it's evolved now to the point where you can have
Speaker 1: whole conversations in it, and and low cats may have
Speaker 1: actually evolved from an earlier uh captioned animal photo, the
Speaker 1: oh really owl. Oh yes, I love the old really owl.
Speaker 1: So the this is the this is a snow owl
Speaker 1: that looks surprised because it's it's beak is open and
Speaker 1: its eyes are wide open, so it looks like it's
Speaker 1: oh really. That's it's spelled oh r l y, which
Speaker 1: is sort of a text you know, text messaging shorthand,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of a way of of trolling a site,
Speaker 1: like someone says something whether or not it's surprising or not. Actually,
Speaker 1: more often it's when it's not surprising. Someone says something
Speaker 1: that's really obvious, and then in response, someone posts the
Speaker 1: photo of the owl that says oh really on it.
Speaker 1: The proper response to that, by the way, is yeah really,
Speaker 1: which is a barn owl that looks really angry, and
Speaker 1: then the uh. The third response would be no way,
Speaker 1: which is ah, I think it's a hawk with its
Speaker 1: mouth white or being wide open um no way spelled
Speaker 1: in O w A I uh. And that that started.
Speaker 1: The earliest usage of that came from the something Awful forums. Again,
Speaker 1: this isn't a breeding ground for things such as this
Speaker 1: and usually quite funny, right and then uh, but four
Speaker 1: chan picked it up and ran with it. And then
Speaker 1: that's probably where the loll cats thing kind of because
Speaker 1: you know that that's sort of served as the foundation
Speaker 1: for things like all cats and the the bucket walrus
Speaker 1: the loris which actually was not a walrus. It wasn't
Speaker 1: It was a seal. Yeah two years ago, sad. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: Now he's in bucket heaven. He's got all the buckets
Speaker 1: he could want. Now. This is where memes get to
Speaker 1: be big business. Because an entrepreneur named Ben Huh actually
Speaker 1: purchased a website called I Can has Cheeseburger dot com
Speaker 1: and has made a business off of uh some people.
Speaker 1: Some people are angry at him for you know, somebody
Speaker 1: else who started the site and he purchased the site
Speaker 1: along with some other ones. There's a there's one about
Speaker 1: about dogs and failed dogs. No, it's not failed dogs, uh.
Speaker 1: It I has a hot dog dot com and there
Speaker 1: are pictures of dogs with similar captions, dogs doing funny
Speaker 1: things and you know, even funnier now that you've put
Speaker 1: a caption over it. Uh. And they these sites allow
Speaker 1: you to uh to submit your own photos. You can
Speaker 1: even use the generator to take a an existing photo
Speaker 1: and put a different caption on there and submitted, which
Speaker 1: is really where we're coming through the whole meme thing
Speaker 1: in the first place. Like if if all this was
Speaker 1: was just a photo of a particular cat, like the
Speaker 1: hanging their baby cat, and that's all it was, was
Speaker 1: just a hang in their baby cat, and no one
Speaker 1: ever altered it, or it didn't really spread beyond that,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a meme. But because it's taken on
Speaker 1: a life of its own, where now you see a
Speaker 1: picture of a cat with some funny text and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a little cat, you know, And then you could
Speaker 1: actually take that same photo and put different text on it,
Speaker 1: and then you've you've just you know, made that meme
Speaker 1: go a little bit further. Um, and then you know
Speaker 1: it's spawned sub memes like a ceiling cat and basement cat,
Speaker 1: the you know got in the devil as Cats, a
Speaker 1: white cat in a a black cat, and uh, all
Speaker 1: sorts of other little sub memes from there. The ety
Speaker 1: Bitty Kitty Committee. Well, speaking of cats, Yes, in six
Speaker 1: a special video was taken. Do you know where I'm
Speaker 1: going with this? Yeah? I think its a video of
Speaker 1: a cat named fat So. Owner Charlie Schmitz creates a
Speaker 1: video where he manipulates his cat, fat So, wearing a
Speaker 1: little onesie playing a keyboard. And that video was, like
Speaker 1: I said back in okay, So let's skip forward to
Speaker 1: two seven. Some friends uploaded or he actually I guess
Speaker 1: uploaded it to YouTube, just a video of his cat.
Speaker 1: The scoofy video of a cat playing a keyboard. Um.
Speaker 1: Enter Brad O'Farrell, yes, who then asks permission to use
Speaker 1: this video to play to play off another video of
Speaker 1: a guy strapped to a I think it was an
Speaker 1: office chair falling down an escalator. Yes, yeah, it looks
Speaker 1: really painful. And then at the end of it it
Speaker 1: cuts to the keyboard Cat playing the keyboard where the
Speaker 1: key the cat is playing off the guy falling down
Speaker 1: the escalator. The idea being that it's like from Vaudeville
Speaker 1: Day's when your act starts to totally tank and the
Speaker 1: giant hook comes from off stage and hooks you and
Speaker 1: then pulls you off stage. Same idea keyboard Cat is
Speaker 1: to to essentially say that was a complete failure. You
Speaker 1: are done now, and uh so keyboard Cat. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: become That was a big meme probably lot. I would
Speaker 1: say last year was really when when it kind of
Speaker 1: peaked and then started to go away. There's another great
Speaker 1: YouTube video that was also a huge meme for a
Speaker 1: while until it died on Thanksgiving. Okay, do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm going with this? I don't know that intro.
Speaker 1: You must have given me up, you must have let
Speaker 1: me down. Now you're running around and hurting me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Rick rolling, buddy, Yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: How could you forget about Rick Rolling? I had tried
Speaker 1: very hard to put it out of my mind. I
Speaker 1: didn't even write it down on purpose. You're a greater
Speaker 1: man than I. Gungadine. Um So Rick Rolling, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Rick Astley never Gonna Give You Up video. This was
Speaker 1: sort of a do it yourself meme because a lot
Speaker 1: of people went to a great effort to disguise the
Speaker 1: deo of Rick Astley's song as something else so that
Speaker 1: they could open it. And suddenly Rick Astley was singing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might get like five seconds of whatever it is
Speaker 1: you thought it was supposed to be. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: Rick Astley breaks in and he's singing to you, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know the was it the Cartoon Network float at Thanksgiving? Yes,
Speaker 1: that was the the culmination I think of the phenomenon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're at the during the Thanksgiving Day parade. And by
Speaker 1: this time the Rick Rolling meme had already kind of
Speaker 1: played out. People were pretty much over that meme. And
Speaker 1: that's the other thing. These memes do have a lifespan.
Speaker 1: Some of them will last for years and some of
Speaker 1: them will, you know, peak for a couple of months
Speaker 1: and then just disappear. This was one that had some
Speaker 1: staying power, but it kind of started to die out.
Speaker 1: And then on Thanksgiving Day, during the Thanksgiving parade, Uh,
Speaker 1: cartoon Network float comes up, and in the middle of
Speaker 1: the Cartoon Network floats presentation it suddenly you hear Rick
Speaker 1: Astley's music start and he popped out and sang to
Speaker 1: the crowd, which is a kind of an indication he's
Speaker 1: a good sport up the whole thing a parent, he
Speaker 1: apparently loves it. He says that, you know, if people
Speaker 1: are finding getting enjoyment Alvis music, however, that might be
Speaker 1: more power to them. I'm like, that's a great attitude.
Speaker 1: That is. Any others who want to chat about Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about mentioning Steve Spangler. Steve Spangler, yes,
Speaker 1: who in nine in two thousand two appeared on a
Speaker 1: TV segment. Uh he's a you know, physics teacher, so
Speaker 1: you know, he appears on KUSA TV and demonstrates that
Speaker 1: if you drop some breath mints, specifically mentos and a
Speaker 1: bottle of soda, there's an eruption, right, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: a cheap and easy experiment to replicate. So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, around two thousand five, everyone started doing that
Speaker 1: and there were not only people doing this in their
Speaker 1: own backyard and posting it to YouTube. There were people
Speaker 1: orchestrating large events in which there were chain reactions of choreos,
Speaker 1: choreographed reactions of fountains of soda spattering everyone in anyone.
Speaker 1: It was even featured on the popular television series MythBusters
Speaker 1: MythBusters Zone by Discovery Communications and uh yeah, parent company
Speaker 1: of Housefforce dot com. And yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: That's another example of people really running with a specific meme.
Speaker 1: Here's a good one. Um, there's a there's a a
Speaker 1: little phrase that as near and dear to my heart
Speaker 1: because it it is actually found on a T shirt
Speaker 1: I gave to my wife for Valentine's Day this year.
Speaker 1: Comes from a little video game called Zero Wing. All
Speaker 1: your base are belonged to us. This is also kind
Speaker 1: of the the origin for lull speak in a way,
Speaker 1: it's the idea of this. Uh. This poorly translated text
Speaker 1: from UH, in this case a video game from Japan,
Speaker 1: so often derogatively referred to as English. Uh. This game
Speaker 1: had lots of different passages in it that were torturous
Speaker 1: to read, including all your base or belong to us
Speaker 1: and someone set us up the bomb that all your
Speaker 1: base are belonging to us exploded on the internet and
Speaker 1: uh and has been around ever since. And and indeed
Speaker 1: was on a Think Geek T shirt, which is what
Speaker 1: I purchased for my wife as a Valentine's Day gift,
Speaker 1: which was roses a red violence are blue. All my
Speaker 1: baser belonged to you. Um, we wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the people who weren't necessarily intending on becoming
Speaker 1: Internet superstars. I have one for you that will let
Speaker 1: you keep yours. Um. This name may or may not
Speaker 1: be familiar to you at first glance. Andrew Meyer Andrew Meyer.
Speaker 1: September seven at the University of Florida, he confronted Senator
Speaker 1: John Kerry on an event uh to ask him about
Speaker 1: the Skull and Bones, which is his uh secretive organization
Speaker 1: and you and uh. Actually they wanted to escort him out.
Speaker 1: Security tried to get him to eve and in the
Speaker 1: process he inadvertently created the meme better known to the
Speaker 1: world as don't taste me bro right twice as are
Speaker 1: a calls And then actually I just thought of something.
Speaker 1: I'll still let you keep yours. Um the hold Kanye, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll let you finish right. Yeah, that was definitely Now,
Speaker 1: granted that one was intentional. Come on, Kanye is always
Speaker 1: about getting grabbing the attention. But it became a mean
Speaker 1: But I was recent I was thinking specifically of Star
Speaker 1: Wars Kid. Yes, Andy, Andy Bio of h waxy dot
Speaker 1: org discovered this video. It was and he's not the
Speaker 1: name of the kid, by the way, And he's the
Speaker 1: name of the guy who discovered it, and he discovered
Speaker 1: it back in um two thousand three. Uh, the name
Speaker 1: of the kid was who in two thousand two filmed
Speaker 1: himself with a golf ball retriever and was going through
Speaker 1: a series of semi uh kind of martial arts sort
Speaker 1: of moves and making noises at the time. Now was
Speaker 1: a hefty young lad and was very enthusiastic. He was
Speaker 1: clearly having a great time and just enjoying in a
Speaker 1: way very similar to the new Manuma guy, you know,
Speaker 1: clearly enjoying himself. But he had not intended for this
Speaker 1: video to ever be seen by anyone else necessarily. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: he left it in the studio where other people could
Speaker 1: find it, and the other people thought it was hysterical
Speaker 1: and uploaded it to the internet, and then it got
Speaker 1: lots and lots of views, and Gislan as a as
Speaker 1: a result, was the subject of much um teasing and
Speaker 1: derision and ultimately left school and reportedly finished school in
Speaker 1: the psychiatric ward. So I mean that also shows you
Speaker 1: that sometimes four chan will do whatever that whatever four
Speaker 1: chan wants to do in order to create hilarity for
Speaker 1: four Chan, and it doesn't matter if someone gets hurt
Speaker 1: in the process doing it for the lulls. In other words, yeah,
Speaker 1: other people took the video and basically superimposed the lightsaber
Speaker 1: of effect onto the golf ball grabber and and you know,
Speaker 1: the out of the sound effects and did all this.
Speaker 1: And there are lots of remixes, which is also a
Speaker 1: very common theme and memes. You'll find lots of different remixes. Um.
Speaker 1: I got one other quick little example, which is okay Go.
Speaker 1: So okay Go has a couple of different music videos,
Speaker 1: including a Million Ways to Be Cruel and Here It
Speaker 1: Goes Again, both of which are pretty low budget music
Speaker 1: videos where the group kind of did simple one take
Speaker 1: shots of them performing a dance routine, and their fans
Speaker 1: have created their own versions of these dance routines and
Speaker 1: uploaded them to YouTube. So much so that it's become
Speaker 1: a meme itself, and not that the band intended it
Speaker 1: to be a meme. They just would be a fun,
Speaker 1: low budget way to create music videos. Um, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to wrap this up. Unfortunately, we could do a
Speaker 1: whole series of episodes on memes, but we're running out
Speaker 1: of time, and so I guess we're gonna do you
Speaker 1: have one more you want to end with? Well, one
Speaker 1: that was sort of introduced to me was one that
Speaker 1: sort of had his genesis in the release of a
Speaker 1: movie by someone completely unrelated to the meme on March
Speaker 1: fourth to two thousand five. Vin Diesel Um was in
Speaker 1: the pacifier at this release of that movie. Uh and
Speaker 1: uh someone and the someone something awful for him. See
Speaker 1: there's that side against another good place to find memes.
Speaker 1: Um Ian Spector apparently decided to point out how cool
Speaker 1: and tough Vin Diesel was, so they had they made
Speaker 1: up a bunch of facts about how tough he was,
Speaker 1: and you know, the memes started to lose steam. So
Speaker 1: they said, okay, well, who should we create a fact
Speaker 1: generator for to talk about how tough he is? Well,
Speaker 1: the favorite was Chuck Norris. Yeah, there was also Mr
Speaker 1: T for a while, really was Mr T in there
Speaker 1: because I had more, far more familiar with the Chuck Norris.
Speaker 1: I've run across Mr T and Vin Diesel, But Chuck
Speaker 1: Norris is the one that uh is is definitely the
Speaker 1: one that took off. And and I could read these
Speaker 1: uh and and chuckle for hours, like Chuck Norris's tears
Speaker 1: could cure cancer, but he has never cried. Yes, And
Speaker 1: Chuck Norris doesn't do push ups. He pushes the earth down.
Speaker 1: Chuck Norris, you know if he shaved his goateee, there
Speaker 1: would be a fist, right. Yeah. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of jokes that are ripped directly from a Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Live series of skits called Bill Brewski, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them also are original. That's a good one. But
Speaker 1: but yes, that that's totally and and they're far more
Speaker 1: tons and tons of these, And we could yes, you
Speaker 1: the man now, bog, We could go on for ages
Speaker 1: about these, but Jerry's giving us the stinky, so we
Speaker 1: need to wrap this up. Um. So, if you guys
Speaker 1: have a favorite meme you want to talk about, send
Speaker 1: us an email. Our email addresses tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And remember You can tune in
Speaker 1: every Tuesday one pm Eastern to see us in our
Speaker 1: live show while we do our song and dance routine
Speaker 1: for your entertainment pleasure. Mostly we talked about technology, but
Speaker 1: sometimes news is light that we but you can find
Speaker 1: that at blogs dot how stuff works dot com. PRIs
Speaker 1: and I will talk to you again really soon for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and be sure to check
Speaker 1: out the new tech stuff blog now on the house
Speaker 1: stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you