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/