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List of Internet phenomena

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An Internet phenomenon (sometimes called an Internet meme) occurs when something relatively unknown becomes increasingly popular, often quite suddenly, through the mass propagation of media content made feasible by the Internet; however, the popularity of the phenomenon usually wanes as rapidly as it was acquired: the Internet's lack of physical boundaries leads to a much faster and wider spread of information and ideas, especially when the subject is based around humor or curiosity. It is nearly impossible to accurately measure the depth of a phenomenon's popularity, and different groups of Internet users may participate in spreading the phenomenon more than others. Most of the internet phenomena have begun from certain websites, which include Newgrounds, Fark, Something Awful, YTMND, Tribalwar and 4chan. Some people point to these sort of Internet phenomena as good examples of memes. In William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition an interesting kind of Internet phenomenon—"the footage"—plays an important role.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Internet phenomena include:

People

Celebrities

  • Sean Connery — Actor who is most known for his role as the original James Bond in the James Bond series of movies. A website was created honoring a moment in the film Finding Forrester where he says "You're the man now dog". This quote was made into a website which eventually became www.ytmnd.com
  • Howard Dean — 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and current chairman of the DNC. His famous 2004 "scream" after polling third in the Iowa caucuses has been widely parodied. [1]
  • Vin Diesel — the actor was the subject of the original version of the humorous "Facts" phenomenon, where often ludicrous "facts" about Vin Diesel's supposed "abilities" are invented for humorous purposes.
  • David Hasselhoff — World famous American actor and singer. Indirectly inspired the "Hasselhoffed" phenomenon. See Hasselhoffed.
  • Colin Mochrie — A Canadian improv actor, who is best known for his appearances on the improv TV show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He is a popular symbol in the so called Animutations such as The French Erotic Film (Note: This animation is suitable for any age group, despite its name).
  • Chuck Norris — every major accomplishment of mankind is attributed to the actor, as well as funny "facts" such as: When Chuck Norris jumps in the ocean, he doesn't get wet; the water gets Chuck Norris.
  • Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf — Iraqi Minister of Information, who became popular from making outlandish comments during the 2003 Iraq War
  • Mr. T — The popular 80s actor has become the protagonist of a series of websites featuring, via photo editing programs, him battling other celebrities, fictional characters and politicians, among others.
  • Robert Tilton — An American televangelist whose preachings were dubbed with flatulence in a series called The Farting Preacher.
  • Tila Nguyen — She was discovered by Playboy scouts, but became popular as being the most-viewed profile on MySpace. Her song "Straight Up" is included in the MySpace compilation record.
  • Andy Milonakis — Before he got his own show on MTV, he uploaded a lot of short films on the Internet, including guitar songs like "The Superbowl is gay" & freestyles like "Crispy". Those songs were famous for its very bizarre, obscene & unrealistic lyrics.

Non Celebrities

  • Anton Maiden — Known for his MIDI + vocal renditions of Iron Maiden songs
  • Brent Simon — Keyboard player best known for his videos The Bittorrent Song and Space Camp. Achieved popularity due to his unique melodies and lyrics. There is a documentary titled Brentumentary in the works about a day in his life.
  • Brian Peppers — A registered sex offender in Ohio with a facial malformity. [2]
  • Ellen Feiss — A teenage girl featured in an Apple Computer advertisement, whose slurred speech and disoriented eyes provoked speculation that she was under the influence of illicit drugs
  • Elena Filatova — under the nickname KiddOfSpeed posted photographs of her alleged motorcycle trips in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
  • Henry Earl — A homeless African-American man from Kentucky, Earl became famous primarily because of his extensive police record, mostly for non-violent alcohol-related offenses, and the subsequent often humorous and widely varied mugshots. Henry has made numerous talk show appearances and has been featured in national and international media venues, including MSNBC, the UK Sunday Mail, and Jimmy Kimmel Live.
  • Katilce Miranda — a Brazilian girl that received a kiss from Bono Vox during a show of U2. People watching the show in TV quickly discovered her orkut profile and in less then 48 hours she received more than 1.500.000 scraps on the relationship site.
  • Kimbo Slice — a 32 year-old Miami, FL based underground boxer and street fighter. He has appeared in two full length bare-knuckle fights available through the internet and P2P file-sharing networks.
  • Lee Hotti — A young adult who was a frequent poster on Sherdog.com who received wide criticism on the forums while posting pictures of himself, family, and friends for all having long straight spiked hair, overly tanned skin, a flipped up shirt collar, and headband. Subsequent videos and pictures were created using the original pictures. The original and edited pictures spread across the internet in a matter of weeks. A website, [3] was created within a month.
  • Marguerite Perrin — A woman on the FOX program Trading Spouses whose obesity, maniacal rantings about gargoyles and psychics, and proclamations of religious superiority quickly made her an overnight punchline.
  • Old Grandma Hardcore — A grandmother noted for her interest in video games and her excessive preoccupation with them even at her "high" age of 70.
  • Pokémon Kid — An overweight prepubescent boy singing along to the Pokémon theme song in a room full of Pokémon merchandise - [4]
  • David Wills — a professional wrestling fan who proclaimed "It's still real to me, dammit!" then proceeded to cry during a question-and-answer segment at a wrestling convention. Click here to view video.
  • Star Wars Kid — Ghyslain Raza, a Quebecois teen, filmed himself acting like the Star Wars character Darth Maul. The video was subsequently placed on the internet by classmates. It became widely parodied on such shows as Arrested Development and American Dad.
  • Tom — Creator of MySpace, who is automatically everyone's friend who joins, until they decide to delete him. View the many humorous parodies of his well-known default photo here.

Bands

  • Beatallica — A satire band that played music combined from songs written by the Beatles and Metallica. Owes most of its initial fame (and name) from Milwaukee resident David Dixon who created a webpage about the band in 2001.
  • Dschinghis Khan — A late 70's-mid 80's group very little known in the US until the "Moskau" fad. Besides being a short video with crazy dancing and happy German music, the Dschinghis Khan clip is also included in some Flash files.
  • Group X — makers of the songs "Bang Bang Bang", "SchfiftyFive", "Too Many Guys", and "Mario Twins," the latter of which is a parody of the Super Mario Bros. theme song. Many of their songs have been adapted into Flash videos.
  • Hollywood Undead — The first band to become known strictly through MySpace.
  • Hurra Torpedo — a Norwegian band that broke up in the mid 1990s appeared on the internet in a video and later reformed for a mock US tour.
  • Electric Six — A disco-rock band that became infamous after a video for their song "Gay Bar" surfaced on the internet featuring dubbed vocals with George Bush and Tony Blair.

Videos

  • Aicha — a pimply teenager lip synchs a love song for his girlfriend. The original Aicha video was made by a Belgian teen going by the name of gellieman. Numerous parodies have resulted. [5]
  • Angry German Kid (or numerous variations with the name German Kid) — German boy gets angry on his computer and smashes up his keyboard while spewing German expletives. Watch the video here
  • Back Dorm Boys, a Chinese male duo who gained fame for their lip sync videos to songs by the Backstreet Boys.
  • Bad Day — a man takes out his rage on his computer.
  • Bear is Driving — a scene from Clerks: The Animated Series in which Dante and Randal find themselves in a car driven by a bear, just one of the surreal events that occurs after the episode is handed over to Korean animators.
  • Brokeback Mountain parodies — The movie Brokeback Mountain inspired many parodies on TV in 2005, Chocolate Cake City's Brokeback to the Future probably being the most famous of them all. Its mock trailer, using scenes from the Back to the Future trilogy re-worked to show a previously non-existant romance between Marty McFly and Doctor Emmett Brown, led to many other movies and TV shows to be re-worked in the same way.
  • Bubb Rubb — a man who rose to fame thanks to a humorous local TV broadcast where he was interviewed on the topic of whistle tips
  • "Call On Me" by Eric Prydz has had a popular video featuring a male in a female aerobics class, along with many spoofs. [6] The most famous spoof features a female in a male Naval aerobics class. [7]
  • Chin2 — two Korean youths dancing in front of a mirror.
  • The backstroke of the west [8] — A very poor Chinese translation of a pirated copy of Star Wars: Episode III. The final scene has Darth Vader bellowing a long, anguished "No!" that is translated literally as "Do not want".
  • Elektronik Supersonik — An allegedly Eastern European pop song and music video, featured on the Molvania website. Intended as a parody of Eastern European pop culture.
  • Exploding whale — an old news story, thought to be myth, gets a second following with the postage of a news footage video. [9]
  • Fan films, especially for Star Wars. [10] — Fanfilms range from simple backyard antics to professional looking films such as "Duality"
  • G.I. Joe PSAs - Public service announcements that appeared at the end of the G.I. Joe animated series re-edited by Fenslerfilm to be completely silly and random. [11]
  • Hot Hot Hot — Appalachian State University promotional video that had an unintended response. [12] [13]
  • Is This The Way To Armadillo — spoof music video of Peter Kay's version of "Is This the Way to Amarillo" made by UK troops stationed in Iraq. It was so popular it crashed the army's server. [14]
  • John Daker — a singer who makes up for his lack of ability and his unusual voice with bizarre facial expressions.
  • K-Fee Coffee Commercials — German coffee company releases horror themed commercials to simulate the effects of caffein; the most (in)famous of the commercials was titled "Auto" and was linked, e-mailed and mirrored extensively by horrified people wanting to see what they have seen. All of their commercial ads can be accessed from their site.
  • Kill Christ - parodying The Passion of the Christ, one of many mock trailers made from re-cut footage of existing films
  • Lazy Sunday - a music video starring Saturday Night Live cast members Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg that aired on the December 17, 2005, episode of the show.
  • Leeroy Jenkins — A party of World of Warcraft players gets wiped out thanks to the actions of one of their group. [15]
  • Matrix ping pong — A group of people playing ping pong "Matrix style" with the aid of several stage-hands. The clip originates from a Japanese game show. [16]
  • Milk and Cereal — two college guys lip sync to "Milk and Cereal" with milk and cereal props in their dorm room.
  • Numa Numa Dance — An overly enthusiastic kid (Gary Brolsma) sings along to a Romanian-language dance song ("Dragostea Din Tei" by O-Zone) [17]. It was featured in the February 25, 2005 issue of the New York Times.
  • Prophet Yahweh — video[18] of the prophet supposedly summoning UFOs, was widely circulated on the internet in June of 2005.
  • Rubber Johnny — a short film by music video director Chris Cunningham, accompanied by music from Aphex Twin, which was thought by some to depict an actual mutant teenager in a wheelchair when excerpts from it began appearing on the internet [19]
  • Wizards of Winter — A display of Christmas lights synchronized to a song (The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter") by electrical engineer Carson Williams, recently adopted by Miller Lite for a TV advertisement. [20]
  • Stealth Disco — Videos of people rocking out behind unknowing victims.
  • Video Game Pianist — Piano player who plays both old and new video games' themes. Formerly called "The Blindfolded Pianist"

Animation-based

  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us — A flash animation with a montage of images depicting the famous Zero Wing quote, "All Your Base Are Belong to Us." in various images. This quote is more familiar with the video gaming world since Zero Wing is a game that received its infamy from its poorly translated dialogue.
  • Animutations — simple animations usually containing foreign music and pop-culture references. The fad first gained widespread popularity with "Hyakugojyuuichi".
  • Badger Badger Badger — a repetitive animation about dancing badgers, a mushroom, and a snake; several variations were produced.
  • BT Pipeskater — A repetitive game, loosely based on BT Broadband, hosted on the BT website as an advertisement for their wholesale broadband product. Has become phenomenally popular with schools in England in which Safety Filters block out most games sites BT PipeSkater
  • Bananaphone — various animations with the song "Banana Phone" by Raffi Cavoukian, where the first and most widespread features Osaka with a "Gundam Bananaphone"
  • Dancing baby — a 3D-rendered dancing baby. First appeared in 1997 and became something of a late '90s cultural icon.
  • Dancing Banana — an animated icon that became famous after being adapted in an animation with the song "Peanut Butter Jelly Time".
  • The Demented Cartoon Movie — A very long minimalist Flash animation full of silliness. "Zeeky boogy doog!"[21]
  • The End of the World — a Flash animation using Group X-style voices.[22]
  • Hampster Dance — a page filled with animated GIFs of hamsters dancing, linking to other animated pages. It now has its own CD.
  • Hatten är din (The hat is yours) - a Swedish animation featuring an assortment of bizarre imagery (centered around a floating hat) and Swedish phonetic "subtitles" to Middle Eastern music
  • Happy Tree Friends — a series featuring cute animals that meet violent ends
  • Homestar Runner — an online series that features cartoons of varying lengths, games, and the popular "Strong Bad Emails", in which viewers can email one of the main characters, to which he wittily responds. The site is updated on a weekly basis; thus, it is more of an internet fixture rather than a short-lived phenomenon.
  • How to Kill a Mockingbird — A parody of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird that quickly deviates into a fantasy about pirates, dinosaurs, robots, and ninja.
  • JibJab [23] — This Web site's Flash animation "This Land" became wildly popular for its satirizing of the 2004 Presidential Election
  • Kenya — A Weebl cartoon extolling the virtues of a holiday to Kenya- "We've got the lions/tigers, Only in Kenya! Come to Kenya, we've got lions/tigers..."
  • The Llama Song — Flash song/animation about llamas, accompanied with pictures to fit the lyrics - "Here's a llama, there's a llama, and another little llama. Fuzzy llama, funny llama, llama, llama, duck." It is often re-written to fit one's fandom.
  • Madness Combat — A highly violent series.
  • Magical Trevor — A Flash cartoon about a magician.
  • Neurotically Yours — a series featuring a Goth and her pet squirrel
  • Peanut Butter Jelly Time
  • Prank flashs — Flash animations that tend to catch people off guard. They can be heart jumping "screamers" or just simply flashes such as "You Are An Idiot".
  • Red vs Blue — a popular and commercially successful machinima series using the Microsoft Halo and Halo 2 video game engines. A popular, fan-created outgrowth is Sponsors vs Freeloaders.
  • Rejected — a story of an animator and the effects of rejection, created by Don Hertzfeldt
  • Retarded Animal Babies — an obscene Flash series about the vice-filled lives of various pet animals
  • Salad Fingers — a series featuring an odd character in a strange and creepy world
  • Star Wars Gangsta Rap — Star Wars characters rapping through A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, one of the first popular Flash movies.
  • The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny — A flash by Neil Cicierega and Shawn Vulliez
  • There she is!! — a Korean series about a girl rabbit that fell in love with a cat
  • We Drink Ritalin — an animutation
  • Weebl and Bob — a series about two egg shaped friends
  • Weeeeee! (Gonads and Strife) another wacky Flash song/animation
  • Xiao Xiao — a set of stick figure action animations. Xiao Xiao #3 was particularly popular.
  • Potter Puppet Pals—an animated spoof of the Harry Potter series created by Neil Cicierega, using animated puppets. It's storyline, limited movements of the puppets and the character's mindlessness contribute to the laughter. www.potterpuppetpals.com

Anime

Images

File:Orly.jpg
O RLY? Owl, a popular Image macro

Films

  • Snakes on a Plane — A 2006 film starring Samuel L. Jackson that became an internet meme due to its ridiculous title and premise a year before its planned released and before any promotional material was released.

Things

Websites

Advertising

See also

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