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 4^th 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: