There’s something so elegant about minimalism, which is why it’s amusing when something extremely inelegant, like Internet memes, are giving a boost of class through something so simple as taking elements away. Behold, the classiest Internet memes you’ve ever seen, told through the art of minimalist movie posters.

For more minimalist meme posters, head on over here.

(Meme Movie Posters via Laughing Squid)

Relevant to your interests

• Danny Trejo is starring in a movie inspired by a meme
• A feature-length film about memes is in development

Ray Thomas has a dream, one in which he makes a deck of standard playing cards, but each card features an image macro, one of the more common Internet memes. There are certainly enough image macros to spread across 52 separate cards, so all Thomas needs is the money to produce them. Welcome to life, Thomas. Luckily for Thomas (and us), there’s this website called Kickstarter that is pretty well-known for kickstarting projects in need of funds. Ray Thomas is seeking to pledge $4,200 by February 16, a price quoted to him by card manufacturers, to make all of his (and our) image macro playing card dreams come true.

Pledges (Kickstarter terms for giving someone money) are not unrewarded, assuming the goal of Thomas’ project is met. The first 50 people to pledge $7 will get a pack of the cards at a special rate, shipping included. A pledge of $10 will net a pack of the cards, shipping included, while a pledge of $15 or more will net you a pack of cards with shipping included (this is the option for international pledges). A pledge of $19 or more gets you two decks with shipping included, $28 will get you three decks, $37 will get you four, $45 will get you five, and $55 gets you five with shipping included (another international option).

Pledge $500, and Thomas will allow you to choose which macro goes on which card, while a pledge of a whopping $1,000 and Thomas will allow you to have your say regarding the design on the back of the cards.

As of this writing, the project only has $364 pledged with 36 backers, and February 16 isn’t too far away. You can check out the project, or donate some funds, over at Kickstarter.

(Kickstarter via Mashable)

Relevant to your interests

• Here’s Pepper Spray Cop casually pepper spraying great art
• Here’s the Periodic Table of Memes
• Here’s Troll Dad, doing his little troll dance

Back in February 2010, a video was taken of a 67-year-old white man, Thomas Bruso, getting into a fight with a black man on a bus due to what seemed to be an argument based on a racial misunderstanding. The 67-year-old man, after trying to avoid any kind of confrontation by moving to another seat on the other side of the bus, happened to be wearing a shirt that said, “I am a motherf**ker,” and despite his efforts to avoid the fight, got into one anyway. The man he was fighting with actually threw the first punch, but then surprisingly, Bruso quickly jumped out of his seat and subdued the man via a flurry of punches, earning the Internet title of “Epic Beard Man.” His shirt obviously helped garner the Internet’s attention. Now, it seems Danny Trejo will be in a movie entitled Bad Ass inspired by Bruso, trailer above.

Danny Trejo just can’t seem to live a peaceful life, you know? Fighting just seems to find him, and he can’t help but make a difference.

Catch up on your Epic Beard Man knowledge over at Know Your Meme.

(via BuzzFeed)

Relevant to your interests

• The full The Hobbit trailer, get ready for some hill-walking!
• Trailer for The Dark Knight Rises
• Men in Black III trailer has two grown men talkin’ to the wall, wall talkin’ back

Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop rose to meme prominence fairly quickly. We chose to focus on him casually pepper spraying great works of art, because we felt his tour through art was funnier and more compelling than the majority of the meme, which just shoved him into any old situation. However, his appearance in DOOM is extremely clever, in that some trickster took a bit of time and care morphing the space marine on DOOM’s cover into the cop, weird upside-down hand and all.

(reddit via Nerd Approved)

Relevant to your interests

• Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop pepper sprays great works of art
• Did you know that DOOM was classified as porn in Germany until recently?
• Some neat DOOM nail polish art

Developed by Ben Stone, the program Instant Elevator Music plays music whenever a user is waiting for a process to finish on his or her computer. Modding the program, Stone was able to slap a Nyan Cat into the progress bar, replacing the now old and busted soothing green bar. Currently, the Nyan bar only works in Windows 7, and Stone says it won’t work in Windows XP and there’s also a chance that the bar will only work properly with the Windows File Explorer. Head on past the break to see a video of the bar in action.

(via Technabob)

Not only does answer engine Wolfram Alpha know the lyrics to the Shaft theme, but it now makes us feel like jerks by defining the term “meme” as “inside jokes for people who have no friends with whom to have real inside jokes.” Are you aware that quoting Encyclopedia Dramatic just makes you part of the problem? Are you aware that you’re becoming a meme, Wolfram Alpha? Hm? Are you?!

(Wolfram Alpha via reddit via Blame it on the Voices)

The iconic children’s book series by Roger Hargreaves, Mr. Men, otherwise known as that weird cartoon that insomniacs happen upon because it is now six in the morning and they left the television on, has been updated to reflect modern times. You know, by turning them into rage faces.

(via The Daily What)

Rocketboom teaches us the origin of the ever-nyaning Nyan Cat. Turns out Nyan Cat wasn’t born of a freak accident involving a toxic sewage explosion at a Pop-Tarts factory and a cat.

(Rocketboom via Laughing Squid)

Reddit user johnfactorial and his girlfriend paint memes and hang them around their house. Though the paintings are pretty enough, johnfactorial and his girlfriend lose a couple of points for not hanging them in hilariously appropriate areas. Philosoraptor (or OMG Rage Face, for that matter) over the toilet? Socially Awkward Penguin over the computer? Socially Awesome Penguin over the front door that can be seen when leaving the house? Location has a place in comedy too!

Philosoraptor

Depression Dog

Socially Awesome Penguin, Nyan Cat, Socially Awkward Penguin

OMG Rage Face

Business Cat

(via reddit)

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Below, 35 of the best Paranoid Parrots:

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(All images via Quickmeme, Know Your Meme, Memegenerator, assorted Googlings)

CEO of Colorado-based marketing company NURV Andrew Fischer has decided to round up popular meme stars, such as Antoine Dodson of Bed Intruder fame, Paul Vasquez of Double Rainbow fame, Brian Collins of Boom Goes the Dynamite fame, and “Numa Numa” guy Gary Brolsma, and make a feature-length film entitled The Chronicles of Rick Roll.

TechCrunch points out that with a title referring to rickrolls, there is a bit of skepticism regarding the legitimacy of the film; however, the movie has a fairly legitimate-looking website. The trailer on the film’s official site (which can be seen above), seems a little too ridiculous to be real–however awesome it may be–and surprisingly, wasn’t a rickroll. According to Antoine Dodson, the movie even has a script, a piece of which was sent to Dodson himself.

Judging from the trailer, it looks like the movie (if this ends up being a real thing) will feature an actual plot, rather than be a documentary about the meme stars. Head on past the break to see a larger, high-def version of the trailer.

(via TechCrunch)

The Scumbag Steve meme became so big, that it got spinoffs. Now, it’s so big that the meme becomes a meme.

(reddit via Blame It On The Voices)

However, the spinoffs that have emerged from the Scumbag Steve meme are arguably funnier than the original. Throw Steve’s trademark brown hat on Sauron, Han Solo, or elemental oxygen, and you’ll soon realize what jerks those guys are.

1. Scumbag Sauron (via)

2. Scumbag Amerigo (via)

3. Scumbag Cera (via)

4. Scumbag Dog (via)

5. Scumbag Renaissance Guy (via)

6. Scumbag Leno (via)

7. Scumbag Mubarak (via)

8. Scumbag Shepherd (via)

9. Scumbag Solo (via)

10. Scumbag Son (via)

11. Scumbag Steam (via)

12. Scumbag Oxygen (via)

13. Scumbag Moon (via)

Last month, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly stepped into instant Internet infamy when, in a debate with American Atheists president David Silverman, O’Reilly attempted to prove the existence of God by citing the mystery of the tides: “I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.” Only one problem: There’s this thing called the Moon which might have a little to do with tides.

More recently, O’Reilly attempted to clarify his remarks (sort of) by asking, “where’d the Moon come from?” But this too opened O’Reilly’s flank to any number of scientific counters, and anyway, the damage had been done. Fairly or not, O’Reilly had been pegged as an ignoramus who blindly defended faith not with reasoned arguments, but with questions that could be answered with a quick Wikipedia lookup.

Thanks to a spirited Reddit thread last night, O’Reilly’s gaffe is well on its way towards becoming a meme. An image macro in the Advice Dog vein, the O’Reilly meme features Papa Bear’s head on a red-and-blue backdrop. In the top half of the image, he asks about conundrums which are more Seinfeld than metaphysics: How does bread turn into toast? Why does water come back when you flush the toilet? And why would Chewbacca, a seven-and-a-half foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor with the runty Ewoks? You can’t explain that.

Below, the O’Reilly meme in action:

Even if you have the gall to try to explain any of these mysteries, please don’t be desperate about it:

(Original via mynameismeech. Thermos via m4ck, camera+money via guitmusic11, soda machine via tehstealthy, and the rest via MemeGenerator.)

This guy must have done something pretty gnarly to his ex-girlfriend, who happens to have photo editing skills as well as the ability to navigate Google Images. But hey, word of warning: do not mess with someone who has such skills. Unless you want to end up as a really embarrassing Internet meme.

Seriously, what did he do to this girl? We all have our share of nasty, evil exes, and as much as I’d like to humiliate one of mine with this kind of viral, semi-permanent treatment, I just can’t bring myself to care enough about him and give him this kind of attention.

So either a) this guy did something beyond egregious, b) this girl now has a lot of time on her hands and wants revenge for being wronged, or c) someone is flat-out crazy (probably the girl). Could also be d) all of the above.

But what’s even weirder is that the ex-boyfriend’s mother says “we own copyright” for the original photo. Ummmm … huh? I suppose that it’s possible that this is a professional headshot, and the family owns the business that took the picture. But other than that scenario, how does a photo of your son (pretty as it is) have a copyright on it? (Answer: It probably doesn’t.)

According to the thread, there is nothing more that can be done to remove the pictures. Because here is the even more sinister level of spammery courtesy of the scorned girlfriend:

[S]he knew to have the source site remove the images but Google still has them in their index. The issue is that although the images appear to be gone, the URLs they are sourced via are actually returning a 200 status code, which to Google means they are still there. They need to return a page not found status code, and they do not.

In other words, those pictures aren’t disappearing any time soon.

My ex is sooooo lucky I don’t have SEO superpowers.

(Search Engine Roundtable via Reddit)

Parodies of the logo of what many to consider to be one of the first hardcore punk bands, Black Flag–probably most known for their lead singer, spoken wordsmith, and guy who unpredictably didn’t murder me when I once hugged him outside of a House of Blues, Henry Rollins–have been sprouting up across the Internet for the past few days. Fairly simple, the parodies are both audible and visual puns.

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(all images drawn from BuzzFeed, Boing Boing, The Daily What, and Georgethecat)

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(all images drawn from Street Couch, Socially Awkward Penguin, Military Photos, NeoGAF, Meme Generator, FYeah Socially Awkward Penguin, Know Your Meme)

]]> http://www.geekosystem.com/socially-awkward-penguin/feed/ 5 http://www.geekosystem.com/lord-in-internet-heaven-save-us-boxxy-is-back/ http://www.geekosystem.com/lord-in-internet-heaven-save-us-boxxy-is-back/#comments Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:40:25 +0000 James Plafke http://www.geekosystem.com/?p=46199

For the uninitiated, or for those who are generally safe from Internet Happenings, Boxxy is a girl who posted rambly videos on the Internet a couple years ago and, due to the somewhat adorable, somewhat annoying, seemingly forced, over-exaggerrated personality she exudes, she became an Internet phenomenon, largely supported (going so far as being called their queen) and hated by Internet forum 4chan. Her supporters and detractors were so fervent in their beliefs that the situation between the two parties ended up crashing 4chan. In an odd move after becoming Internet-famous, she actually bowed out of the limelight, until a few months ago when she posted an auction of an InuYasha bag on eBay.

Since her eBay venture, all was quiet on the digital front--until now. On January 10, 2011, Boxxy posted the above video with a title that some may perceive to be a dire warning: "Things are about to get intense."

Family Tech Support Guy seems to be fairly new; Know Your Meme states it was discovered only this month. It’s a little niche, but extremely relatable to those who understand the torture of being birthed in a modern generation by parents who weren’t.

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(Meme Generator via Urlesque)

If the above phrase is familiar to you, but you still don’t have any idea what it means, come listen to a story that exemplifies the internet in all its splendor.

Yesterday, reasoning that a large portion of Reddit was at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive, a user proposed that the online members of the community start a new and inexplicable meme to confuse those who were away from their computers.

Lets make up a pointless meme while the hardcore redditors are away… Like when someone says Waffles in their post, someone else can reply “Waffles? Don’t you mean carrots? HAHAHAHA”

It has since become incredibly effective and incredibly ineffective.

Ineffective, because, as pointed out in the original thread, many Redditors were, in fact, able to keep up on waffle/carrot related news via mobile devices or free wifi connections.  Effective, because it looks like the meme is here to stay.

Aside from having a page on Know Your Meme (where it is simply up for confirmation; not yet an established meme), “waffles” shot up to the sixth hottest Google search for October 30th, 2010, with related searches including, yes, carrots.

A day later there are still a couple of posts utilizing the meme on the top page and in a certain meme sensitive subreddit.

We all know it’s not a real meme until people make original posts about how much they hate it, only serving to reinforce the use of the meme by those who like it.  That dark process has already begun.

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Having originated from Rageguy, a popular meme that is generally used to express disappointment or anger, Forever Alone is a newer meme that is generally used to express loneliness. There are quite a bit of clever ones out there, and luckily for you, we’ve scoured the Internet for infinite loneliness and compiled it all into one tidy place.

In case you’ve been living in an Internet-free cave, Pedobear is a character made popular by the 4chan image forums that is frequently displayed or referenced when someone is being a little too weird about children on the Internet and basically amounts to one big Internet in-joke, in no way supportive of pedophilia. Despite this, California’s San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department issued a “public safety information bulletin” describing the dangers of Pedobear.

The Californian sheriff’s office didn’t get the memo that the people who make mention of Pedobear are Internet nerds, not actual pedophiles (surely if real pedophiles identified themselves with such a symbol, it would be a godsend to law enforcement.) They released a pamphlet (unintentionally) humorously entitled “A Seemingly Innocent Menace: An Introduction to ‘PEDO BEAR.’” A news station even reported on the “menace” in the segment in the video above.

The pamphlet describes the bear as a common symbol pedophiles have created to unite under to easily identify themselves within the pedophile community. Of course, most of the people who sport the symbol or even dress up in costume as the character are simply people who are fond of Internet jokes, something of which the sheriff’s department is apparently aware, but decided to ignore and produce a serious pamphlet regarding the “issue” anyway. As funny as the police warning may be, it’s scary that people who simply enjoy Internet humor could be branded as pedophiles by the police or by people in their community due to one overzealous sheriff’s department and the tone-deaf news outlets that have picked up their warning.

Kudos to Valleywag for contacting the sheriff’s department as well as digging up pictures of the flyer, below:

(via Valleywag)

GeekDad Review of Machete (Wired)

Botched Transformers 3 Stunt Sign of Negligence? (Spinoff)

Another Adorable Japanese Robot (TechnaBob)

Star Wars Smash Bros. You Know You Want It (Kotaku)

This Is A Spinning Black Hole (APotD)

PAX Cosplay Gallery (1Up)

Pokemon Fusion! (Alex Onsager)

(pic via Reddit.)

HP ousts chief for hiding payments to friend (NY Times)

Amazing marriage proposal in memes finds success (TDW)

PB&J’s deconstructed (Neatorama)

8-bit comic superheroes reimagined for the NES (ComicsAlliance)

Matthew Vaughn: Superhero movies will be dead soon (Nerd Bastards)

Civilization V is starting to sound pretty awesome (GameSpot)

The greatest, most dramatic, and silliest Wikipedia edit wars (Gizmodo)

Bonus video: The mini-cannon is back:

(title image via Photography Served)

The iOS PDF flaw that makes iPhone jailbreak work could let bad people hack your phone (Ars Technica)

50 neat facts from mental_floss (mental_floss)

How to make meme cutouts (Urlesque)

Nine minutes of hot Catan-on-Microsoft-Surface action (Topless Robot)

In defense of anonymous commenting (Salon)

Breakup 2.0 (Newsweek)

Facilitate audience conversations and drive engagement with social currency
(wtf is my social media strategy)

(title screaming watermelon via BuzzFeed)

As we all know, the internet is 90% cats. Here is one of them. It plays a little drum, and it dances a bit. Mostly it plays a keyboard. We suppose that would make it a keyboard cat. But not the first keyboard cat. A second keyboard cat.

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Accompany our exit with a musical selection, piano feline!

(via Boing Boing.)