Two Babes And The Helium Effect
Enjoy!!
Participants:
Julie Holter-Soerensen
Marte Groensted
Hege Brokke
Sunniva Hoff Finnoey
Hedda Christina Groenbech Hafskjold
Marie Helene Simonsen
Birgitte Notoe Nesje
Ida Rebecca M. Ophus
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The Soc 167 blog of 9 Norwegian students at UC Berkeley
onsdag 10. april 2013
onsdag 27. februar 2013
Chuck Norris facts
By Marie Helene Simonsen
“They once tried to carve Chuck
Norris’ face into Mount Rushmore, but the granite wasn’t hard enough for his
beard”
“When
the boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck
Norris.”
“Chuck
Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.”
Originally it all started with Vin Diesel facts on
March 4th 2005, but it lost interest and after a poll contest, Chuck
Norris facts took over the meme. Chuck Norris jokes began to become popular on
Internet early in 2005. It started on “Late night with Conan O`Brian”, witch is
seen as a inspiration for the fad, but this exaggerated style of these jokes is
similar to a “Saturday Night Live” sketch called “Bill Brasky”. I think this became so popular because of its
humoristic context and the whole participation behind it. That people
themselves could make up a joke and it became sort of a contest to come up with
the best joke. There was also sort of an
explanation behind these kinds of jokes; that he always plays these strong
characters on movies and that he has an eight degree Black Belt Grand Master
ranking (as the first man from the Western Hemisphere in the over 4,500 years
tradition of Tae Kwon Do).
The Chuck Norris facts are these satirical jokes about
actor Chuck Norris. The context is often absurd claims about Chuck Norris
toughness and masculinity, and it claims that Chuck Norris is an all-powerful
super-being.
It was most popular in the beginning of 2005 and it
had its peek from 2005-06. (At one point it was even more popular than the
search for boobs!). But it lost interest and a lot of people blame it on an
episode from “South Park” and a commercial for a politician.
There are a lot of memes that have emerged or have
been influenced by these memes. Some examples are a page on “Tumblr” who
creates similar jokes for the actress Rory Williams who plays “Doctor Who”.
Another one is a “Schalke 04” player named Hans Sarpei who received a facebook
page with similar jokes.
But is seems that these Chuck Norris memes have been
spread all around the world and spawned localized versions, like for example we
have similar memes about Lars Monsen in Norway. He is this outdoor guy who
Norwegians see as gruff and tough and therefor there has emerged memes about
him in a chuck Norris kind of style.
“Lars
Monsen has enough energy to power Las Vegas' lighting in 2 years”
“Wolves
tells stories about a puppy that cried Lars Monsen”
“There
is only one thing the weather can not do anything about, and that is Lars
Monsen”
“Lars
Monsen sweats so much on his feet, that when he twists on his socks the price
of electricity goes down.”
“There
is no echo in the mountains, it's just Lars Monsen fucking with you.”
Sources:
- http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/chuck-norris-facts
- http://www.google.com/trends/explore#cat=0&q=Chuck%20Norris%20Facts&geo=&gprop=&cmpt=q
- http://jelafacky.tumblr.com/post/18803006036/a2-tracking-memes-chuck-norris-facts-adriana
- http://www.larsmonsenfacts.com/
Chocolate Rain
By Hedda Christina Gronbech
Hafskjold
“Chocolate
rain” was uploaded on YouTube in April, 2007 by Tay Zonday. Overnight his music
video became a hit. At first people questioned if the video was real because of
this young guy’s dark voice, but after a little bit of individual private
investigation it was a fact, the video is real. By this time we were hooked and
it became a stuck in head sensation, and today it has more than 88 million views.
When first
uploaded the audience was unsure of what the strange lyrics actually meant. But
according to urban dictionary “chocolate rain” is a euphemism for racism
created by Tay Zonday in his hit YouTube song “Chocolate rain”. E.g. if you
replace racism with chocolate rain in the lyrics it may make more sense:
“Chocolate rain, The school books say it can’t be here again”.
Tay himself
(and many more) claim that 4chan is the reason why it became so popular. In
July (only a month after being posted) the internet forum displayed him all
over the front page, along with Chocolate rain jokes and a remix of the song. After
the video was featured on 4chan, lots of parodies was created and got millions
of views only by being associated with Zondays song.
As mentioned
earlier the video has over 88 millions views. If we look at the “Google
insight” interest of the meme the video went from 0 in June 2007 to 100 in
August 2007. After its absolute peak it dropped significantly to 19 in October
2007. But after getting a Youtube Award the video has a modest peak in April
2008. Since this the interest has steadily decreased.
“Chocolate
Rain” is spread all over the internet. Since the music video was released in
2007 the concept has evolved throughout numerous of commentary, imitations,
parodies, tributes, remixes, and covers. For example several artists spoofed
the song, among them is Chad Vader. And there also have been made a parody on
Barack Obama.
Sources:
- http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=Chocolate%20Rain&cmpt=q
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Rain
- http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chocolate%20Rain
- http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tay-zonday-chocolate-rain
Paula Deen Riding Things
By Ida Rebecca M. Ophus
Paula Deen Riding Things is a photoshopped meme spawned from a photo of
celebrity chef Paula Deen riding on another celebrity chef during the South
Beach Wine & Food Festival on 27th of February 2011. They were co-hosting
the Whole Foods Market Grand Tasting Event, when Irvine got down on all four
and Deen jumped on his back, mimicking the pose of a jockey, while holding a
glass of wine.
The following day, February 28th,
photos of the event were shared on the New York Post, FARK, Uproxx, Buzzfeed, celebrity gossip blog
Dlisted and MSNBC. The same day, the meme
”Paula Deen Riding Things” was created by two college students named Nick
and Robbie, providing two templates and posting 13 different photoshopped
images of Deen.
On March 1st, Paula Deen began to
trend on Twitter after the talk-show host Jimmy Fallon tweeted a link
to the blog. The next day, “Paula Deen Riding Things” was featured on the
Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Times’ Daily Dish, CNN’s Eatocracy, Food
Network Humor and Rolling Stone’s Tumblr, who photoshopped Deen over
Jersey Shore-star Snooki on the cover.
I believe this meme became popular because it
probably was an suprising sight to watch Deen suddenly jump on the back of
another celebrity chef, riding him in public - a little bit “taboo”, but funny.
The “Paula Deen Riding Things” meme became really popular fast, but it
had its top early 2011 and nearly stopped there. Now we see in Google Insight
that it just as quickly got popular, also got unpopular. Now the meme-search
has calmed down to a regular 10 searches a day.
Here’s a picture I believe has been
inspired from the Paula Deen Riding
Things meme:
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