Real Story Behind Biggest Internet Memes

 Real Story Behind Biggest Internet Memes 12. “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” Taken from a segment from the 1989 Japanese 16-bit article game Zero Wing, this popular meme first gained traction on the SomethingAwful web forums back in 1998. As a result of poor translation from Japanese to English for gamers in Western countries, an introductory message from the antagonist was improperly interpreted for the side-scrolling game’s European release.

 While there are many instances of the game-based dialogue making little-to-no sense, the quote, “All your base are belong to us,” became an Internet sensation. The correctly translated phrase is, “CATS have taken over all your bases.” The original image that accompanied the mistranslated line was subsequently replaced by various other humorous pictures that lampooned or built upon the incompetent n ature of the nonsensical phrase. Many of these were pictures of individuals looking triumphant despite incompetent actions taking place. The meme inspired intense nostalgia among gamers who once frequented arcades or owned Zero Wing on the Mega Drive. It remains widely used on social media platforms to this day.

 11. “Salt Bae”

 In early January 2017, Turkish chef and steakhouse owner Nusret Gokce posted a article on Instagram in which he cooked and prepared an Ottoman Steak. During the article, Gokce tosses salt onto the steak over his forearm. The pose that he struck while performing this heavily stylized method of seasoning quickly became a viral image. Over the course of just two days online, the article surpassed two million views, received almost ten thousand comments and inspired countless parodies. Soon afterward, Twitter user @lolalissaa reposted the article with the caption, “so this is #saltbae.” The name stuck. The image is often used to jokingly in reference to a wide range of subjects ranging from passionate approaches to everyday activities to fantasies about the perfect boyfriend.

 10. “But That’s None of My Business” Starting in early 2014, numerous images of Jim Henson's most famous creation, Kermit the Frog, accompanied by ironic phrases and slogans swept through social media. But it was in June of that year that the screen grab of Kermit drinking hot Lipton tea accompanied by the phrase, “But that’s none of my business,” first appeared. The Instagram account @ThatsNoneOfMyBusinessTho was then created. It gained over a hundred-and-thirty thousand followers, many of whom submitted sarcastic or passive aggressive statements related to many different topics that were then complemented by Kermit sipping his tea in profile. After a brief departure from mainstream relevance, the meme resurfaced in 2016 after the official Twitter account for ABC’s Good Morning America mistakenly referred to Kermit as “#TeaLizard.” The irony of a major news source mistaking an amphibian for a reptile was too good of an opportunity for the meme’s biggest admirers, leading to its re-emergence alongside the birth of loosely associated “Tea Lizard” memes.

 9. “Grumpy Cat”

 That famous feline commonly known as Grumpy Cat actually goes by the name Tardar Sauce, a name her owner chose when she adopted the mixed snowshoe in early 2012. A few months later, her owner’s brother posted a series of pictures of Tardar Sauce on a sub-Reddit.

 The images set off a huge response across the web, with numerous parodies, caption submissions and the birth of the famous Grumpy Cat meme.

 Depictions of Tardar Sauce’s disgruntled expression received more than twenty-five thousand Reddit up-votes within the first day of the original posting. As she continued to gain celebrity status on platforms like Imgur and YouTube, Buzzfeed published an image-based article entitled, “This Cat is Not Impressed.” By the following year, Grumpy Cat’s official Facebook page had more than a million likes.

 With comparisons to an ever-growing number of real-life figures, unique merchandise and a universally relatable cascade of memes bearing her nickname, Grumpy Cat’s frown shows no sign of diminishing any time soon.

 8. “The Rickroll”

 There’s simply no way that Rick Astley could have known in 1987, when he released his pop song, “Never Gonna Give You Up,” that the eponymous music article would one day become a tool in one of the most bizarre trend of pranks in Internet history. The practice of “Rickrolling” began in 2007, with the false link tactic originally being used on 4chan. Bloggers and social media users would claim to post links related to any number of different topics, mostly for the purpose of attracting clicks. Once the links were opened, they would navigate to a YouTube article - originally posted by YouTuber Cotter558 - of Astley’s singular pop hit. This admirably harmless prank led to an unexpected resurgence in popularity for Astley and the song for which he is best known. Eventually, YouTube itself decided to take part in the fun on April Fools Day 2008, when every single featured article on the site’s homepage redirected to “Never Gonna Give You Up.” The tactic continues to be employed in everything from protests to sports events. Every time it appears that the “Rickrolling” bait and switch has fallen out of favor, it seems to come back - never to give us up.

 7. “Ermahgerd”

 The “Ermahgerd” meme - also known as the “Berks” or the “Gersberms” meme - arose from a joke that surfaced when a picture of a young woman holding up three books in R.

 L. Stine’s Goosebumps series started gaining traction online. In the photo, the pig-tailed girl displays a maniacal smile while showing off the books. In 2012, the original meme was created and posted to content aggregator Funnyjunk, using a phrase to accompany it written in the pronunciation of what is known as “retainer lisp” - a temporary impairment of vowel pronunciation while wearing a retainer.

 After less than a month of the meme spreading like wildfire across various platforms with thousands of different captions and photoshops effects applied, the image was revealed to be an old photograph of Maggie Goldenberger, a nurse from Phoenix, Arizona. After Vanity Fair confirmed this a few months later, Goldenberger stated that she has never quite gotten used to stumbling upon random parodies of herself online.

 6. “Double Rainbow”

 True sincerity and appreciation for the little things are both hard to come by in the digital age. But a few months after YouTuber Hungrybear9562 posted a article from his recent trip to Yosemite National Park in 2010, the relatively common experience of seeing a rainbow in the sky took on an entirely new meaning. In the article, the original poster, a firefighter and trucker from Los Angeles, California, named Paul Vasquez, narrates his real-time sense of wonder at witnessing not one, but two, rainbows overlapping one another. After a couple minutes of proclaiming his feelings, he asks enthusiastically, “What does it mean?!” This culminates in him breaking down in tears. The three-and-a-half minute article did not make much of a splash upon its original publication, but when the staff of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! discovered and aired it, it became an Internet sensation.

 After being transformed into everything from a much-shared meme to a vast array of auto-tune remixes, the phrases, “Double rainbow!” and “What does it mean?!” trickled into Western culture as natural reactions to rainbow sightings. World-renowned filmmaker David Fincher can even be heard quoting the article in a behind-the-scenes featurette for, of all things, his 2011 film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

 5. David After Dentist

 Eight months after his son David, Jr.’s 2008 visit to the dentist to have an excess tooth removed, David DeVore, Sr. posted a YouTube article of his son sitting in the backseat of their car immediately after the procedure.

 As the anesthesia slowly wore off, David, Jr. attempted to make sense of the bizarre separation from reality that he was feeling.

 He asked his father questions like, “Is this real life?”, “Is this going to last forever?” and “Why is this happening to me?!” He also sprung himself up from his seat and screamed wildly, only to be constrained by his seatbelt and fall back into a placid state. Even though the article was only intended for David, Jr.’s mother at the time, David Sr. decided to make it available on YouTube for friends and family members. It now has over hundred and thirty-five million views.

 Soon after reaching viral status, the footage was quickly “memed.” Screen grabs of David, Jr.’s stunned queries with accompanying captions were used widely in social media interactions and as responses to major events.

 4. “Chuck Norris”

 After the release of the 2005 family film The Pacifier, a trend began on the SomethingAwful forums in which users posted ridiculous made-up facts about actor Vin Diesel. After creating a separate website for this category of submissions, Ian Spector, who created the “Vin Diesel Fact Generator,” decided that the activity had lost its original appeal. He then requested that subscribers vote among twelve other potential celebrities about whom absurd facts would be particularly entertaining. Action star Chuck Norris was the resounding winner. As the submissions grew in their level of creativity and imagination, those signature Chuck Norris memes followed. Most of these are now stored on the misleadingly titled website ChuckNorrisfacts.com.

 Spector has credited NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien with re-invigorating interest in Chuck Norris-related humor. The show introduced the famous “Walker Texas Ranger” lever, which allowed O’Brien to play random clips from the Norris-centered TV show, after NBC’s merger with Universal in 2004.

 3. “Charlie Bit My Finger”

 Also referred to as the “Charlie Bit Me” meme, “Charlie Bit My Finger” was the result of an exchange captured in yet another home movie - this one in 2007. Over the course of the article, which runs for less than a minute, British father Howard Davies-Carr caught his son Harry placing his finger in his little brother Charlie’s mouth - twice. Little Harry’s devastated, over-the-top reactions to the toddler’s amused biting received hysterical responses from the family’s relatives in the United States, with whom Davies-Carr had shared the article privately on YouTube.

 When he made it public later that year, it spawned spoofs, parodies and memes that were widely circulated. In 2009, it surpassed “The Evolution of Dance” as the site’s most viewed article. As a meme, “Charlie Bit My Finger” grew into a pop-cultural focal point of the late 2000s.

 2. Demotivational Posters

 Sometimes called “Demotivators,” images known as demotivational posters were created by Despair, Inc., a humor website that comically subverts the intention behind traditional motivational posters that are common in school or office environments. These spoofs contain images in which the subjects face or have just experienced hopeless situations. A word or phrase with an additional sardonic caption appears below the image. Beginning in 1998, these memes were rapidly spread around via email by educators and people who worked corporations who found the reversal of insincere encouragement absolutely hilarious. Demotivators then spread into other areas and were applied to instances of commonplace disappointment. To this day, Despair, Inc. invites users to create their own posters and apply the method to their own social lives.

 1. “Dramatic Chipmunk”

 Even though the animal shown in the original article clip is actually a prairie dog - hence the alternative title, “Dramatic Prairie Dog” - the meme widely referred to as “Dramatic Chipmunk” first surfaced in 2007. This striking image first appeared on the seventh episode of Hello! Morning, a Japanese TV show. During a segment called “Pet Gathering,” teenage pop stars displayed for the audience a number of cute woodland creatures. The second animal brought out was a prairie dog that turned around to look into the lens of the camera just in time for a zoom towards its face.

 Soon after the episode aired, YouTuber magnets99 extracted the five-second clip of the prairie dog’s reaction and inserted a music cue from Mel Brooks’ hit 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein.

 A duplicate article was posted by another account.

 Combined, the two articles have over sixty million views. In addition to inspiring single-image memes, the clip also led to countless GIFs, spoofs, spin-offs, re-enactments, re-mixes, and tributes. On social media, the clip and its variations are often used as response comments in a vast assortment of contexts.