#1. Lolcats
A relatively recent and explosively popular phenomenon, lolcats are a photos of cats with a funny caption in lolspeak (also known as kitty pidgin). These captions might look completely random, but they actually have some popular sentence structures and may even contain other memes. It's believed this phenomenon originated from 4chan imageboards. You often encounter lolcat pictures on internet forums which don't frown upon posting lolcat images as responses to the topic.
Crash Course in LOLspeak
Often start your sentences with 'oh hai' and end them with 'kthxbye'.
Lolcats go OM NOM NOM NOM when they eat.
White cats are usually Ceiling Cats. They are the Gods of the lolcat world. Correspondingly, black cats are Basement Cats and they are the loldevils.
Have fun messing with the spelling, as long as the word is still pronounced similarly (action becomes akshun, etc).
Use some popular lolcat sentence structures, such as:
In your noun, verbing your noun (In ur fridge, eating ur foodz) - which is really a spinoff from another meme, "in your base, killing your dudes".
Adjective noun is adjective (Long cat is long).
OH HAI. I verbed ur noun (OH HAI. I eated ur cakez).
Use left dislocation: Skillz. I has dem.
Use singular verbs: I has a bunny.
Use white Arial Black font with a black outline for lolcat captions.
LOLcat Links
A LOLcat Colleckshun
- a book with the best lolcat pictures ever. Great gift!ICanHasCheezburger.com - the home of lolcats with a gallery and a lolcat maker.
LOLCode.com - a programming language based on lolcat grammar.
SpeakLOLSpeak.com - lolspeak glossary and lessons.
#2. Rickrolling
Rickrolling is one of the most widespread internet memes. It involves tricking people into clicking a link to a music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The URL can be masked using services like TinyURL.com and said to be relevant to the topic at hand. If a person falls for the trick, he is said to have been rickroll'd.
Real-Life Rickrolling
Rickrolling has become so popular that it has spread even outside the internet. On April 4, 2008, many blogs asked their readers to vote "Never Gonna Give You Up" for the 8th inning sing-along at Shea Stadium for the New York Mets season. The Mets posted a web poll to select a song, and left a blank field for write-ins. To the great surprise of the organizers, Rick Astley's song was the winner with more than five million votes. It was played during the home opener and greeted with a shower of boos (see New York Mets Rickroll'd on YouTube) from a crowd of 55,000 people.
Similarly in November 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes. However, during the actual show, the Best Act category was treated like a joke (see MTV EMA rickrolled on YouTube), with Perez Hilton announcing that "MTV had been rickroll'd" instead of actually awarding Rick Astley.
Rickroll Video on Youtube
If you've never been rickrolled in your life, now is the time. Click the video below and enjoy (over 30 million happy viewers!):
#3. This Is Sparta !
THIS. IS. SPARTA !!! is a meme inspired by the brutal and overly dramatic movie "300" where the Spartan king Leonidas shouts the line before killing a Persian messenger. The whole dialogue goes like this:
Messenger: Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.
King Leonidas: [to himself] "Earth and water"?
[Leonidas unsheathes and points his sword at the Messenger's throat]
Messenger: Madman! You're a madman!
King Leonidas: Earth and water? You'll find plenty of both down there.
Messenger: No man, Persian or Greek, no man threatens a messenger!
King Leonidas: You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city steps. You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same!
Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!
King Leonidas: Madness...?
[shouting]
King Leonidas: THIS IS SPARTA !
[Kicks the messenger down the well]
The meme has been modified many times; you must have seen people posting things like THIS. IS. INTERNETS! and such. Basically anything can be (and has been) used to replace the last part of the line. This web fad has also inspired a number of silly images and videos. You can see one of the most famous creations below: a "This is Sparta" techno remix, which has gotten over 20 million views on YouTube (edit: the original video has been removed due to terms of use violation; you can still see one of the many other versions below):
#4. All Your Base Are Belong To Us
All Your Base Are Belong To Us (also known as "All Your Base", "AYBABTU", or just "AYB") is an Engrish (broken English) phrase originating from the opening cut scene of the European Sega Mega Drive version of Zero Wing, a rather poorly translated Japanese video game by Toaplan.
AYBABTU became so popular not because of the game itself (indeed, most people spreading the meme never actually played Zero Wing), but because of various message boards (starting with SomethingAwful.com) and fan-made flash clips. The meme survived to this day thanks to occasional appearances in media, video games, T-shirts and webcomics. Some of these references are listed below.
All Your Base References
On April 1, 2003 seven people placed signs all over Sturgis, Michigan that read, "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." They claimed to be playing an April Fool's joke; however, the police chief Eugene Alli said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat depending on what someone interprets it to mean."
In February 2004, North Carolina State University students made the phrase appear in a news ticker on a live broadcast on News 14 Carolina channel.
On June 1, 2006, YouTube was taken down temporarily for maintenance. The phrase "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US" appeared as a placeholder while the site was down. Some users believed the site had been hacked, so the host later added a message: "No, we haven't been hacked. Get a sense of humor."
On September 22, 2008, on the MSNBC show Countdown, Princeton Professor and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman said that the proposal presented to the US Congress concerning the federal bailout of failed financial institutions was the equivalent of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson saying, "All your decisions are belong to me."
Transcript of the Original Zero Wing Opening
In A.D. 2101
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha ....
Operator: Captain !! *
Captain: Take off every 'ZIG'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
Captain: For great justice.
Several other phrases from the dialogue above (such as "for great justice" or "main screen turn on") have also been widely used in various instances of geek humor.
All Your Base Video
You can watch a techno remix of All Your Base Are Belong To Us which contains the original cut scene from the Zero Wing game as well as a lot of instances where this meme had been used, both online and in real life:
#5. Oolong the Pancake Rabbit
Oolong (named
after a certain variety of tea) was a domestic rabbit owned by a Japanese photographer Hironori Akutagawa. The rabbit was famous for the ability to balance various objects on his head (the owner called this trick "head performance"). Oolong achieved the status of an internet meme with a single photo where he balances a pancake on his head (see above). The picture was made into an image macro - much like with lolcats - and frequently posted on various online forums. The caption said: "I have no idea what you're talking about, so here's a bunny with a pancake on its head."Oolong Gallery
You can view the entire gallery of photos on the owner's website. While it is in Japanese, it has received thousands of visitors from around the world and created a surprising number of Oolong fans.
Sadly, Oolong passed away on January 7th, 2003. His owner now has a new rabbit named Yuebing, which is a female of gray Netherlands dwarf variety. Akutagawa has been training her in the arts of "head performances" as well.
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