Bottom Line: If there is anything more meme-worthy than a celebrity losing his mind in private, it’s a celebrity losing his mind in public. The scene between Kanye West and Taylor Swift at the VMAs set off a tidal wave of photos, spoofs and days worth of Twitter Trending Topics.

On September 13, 2009, during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards while Taylor Swift was accepting her award for Best Female Video, West went on stage and grabbed the microphone to proclaim that Beyoncé’s video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, nominated for the same award, was “one of the best videos of all time”. He was subsequently removed from the remainder of the show for his actions. When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”, she called Swift up on stage so that she could finish her acceptance speech. West was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst, and by U.S. President Barack Obama, who called West a “jackass” in an “off the record” comment. Kanye’s VMA disruption originated a large amount of internet photo meme with blogs, forums and tweets with the “Let you finish” photo-jokes. West posted two apologies on his blog, one the night of the incident and the other the same day he appeared on The Jay Leno Show, on September 14, 2009, where he apologized again. After Swift appeared on The View two days after the outburst, partly to discuss the matter, West called her to apologize personally. Swift said she accepted his apology.

Meme Anatomy: Celebrity, Overreactions, Iconic Catchphrase

Urban Dictionary

Verb: Taking attention away from someone; stealing another person’s moment

Other Sources

Videos: Kanye West

Pictures: Kanye West

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 19,000 – 4
Photo Search Results: 2,000,000 – 5
Search Volume: 15,300,000 – 5
Blog Search Results: 2,386,322 – 5
News Search Results: 2,840 – 4

Overall Rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: What happens when Celebrities lose control? Well, if it’s the right celebrity and just the right context what you end up with is a fast burning meme. Take the case of Christian Bale.

In July 2008, Bale had an angry tirade on the sets of Terminator Salvation, while filming in New Mexico. In February 2009, the audio recording of the incident was released. The tirade was directed at Shane Hurlbut, director of photography for the film. According to Bale, Hurlbut had, for the second time, ruined his concentration by walking into his line of sight during a scene. The recording is of a highly agitated Bale directing profanities at Hurlbut, threatening and belittling him, and finally threatening to quit the film if Hurlbut repeated his offence without being fired for it. It was reported that Warner film executives sent the tape to the insurer of the film in case Bale decided to quit the movie. In an interview with E! Online, assistant director and producer of Terminator Salvation, Bruce Franklin, said it was an isolated incident. “If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove…It was the most emotional scene in the movie,” said Franklin. “And for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn’t walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed.”

Meme Anatomy: Leaked, Celebrity, Overreactions

Other Sources

Videos: Christian Bale

Pictures: Christian Bale

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 32,300 – 4
Photo Search Results: 67,200 – 4.5
Search Volume: 150,000 – 3
Blog Search Results: 32,267 – 3
News Search Results: 358 – 3

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: A classic movie meme that involves overreactions and Samuel L Jackson. What more could you ask for?

The film gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fan bases online and becoming an Internet phenomenon, due to the film’s title and premise. In response to the Internet fan base, New Line Cinema incorporated feedback from online users into its production, and added five days of reshooting. Before and after the film was released, it was parodied and alluded to on television shows and films, fan-made videos, video games, and various forms of literature.

Many of the early fan-made trailers and later other viral videos and commercials circulated via YouTube, and captured media attention there with such titles as: “Cats on a Plane”(which was featured in Joel Siegel’s review of “Snakes” on “Good Morning America”), “Snakes Who Missed The Plane”, “All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us” (a spoof of the All your base are belong to us phenomenon), and “Steaks on a Train”. Several websites also held contests about the film in fan-submitted short films and posters. On July 6, 2006, the official Snakes on a Plane website started a promotional sweepstakes called the “The #1 Fan King Cobra Sweepstakes”. The contest makes innovative use of the publicity-generating potential of the Internet, requiring contestants to post links on forums, blogs, and websites and collecting votes from the users of those sites. The winner was Max Goldberg, owner of YTMND, who opted to split the prize with the second place winner.

Meme Anatomy: Celebrity, Iconic Catchphrase, Pop Culture, Overreactions

Urban Dictionary

A simple existential observation that has the same meaning as “Whaddya gonna do?” or “Shit Happens”. Taken from the upcoming Samuel L. Jackson movie of the same name, and immortilised by screenwriter Josh Friedman on his blog post of Wednesday, August 17, 2005.

[Link]

Other Sources

Videos: Snakes On A Plane

Pictures: Snakes On A Plane

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 8,900 – 3.5
Photo Search Results: 120,000 – 5
Search Volume: 7,640,000 – 4.5
Blog Search Results: 1,177,263 – 5
News Search Results: 7,950 – 4.5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Rick Rolling is a message board spawned meme that combines the Internet’s love of musical comedy with the joy of getting one over on someone. Add to that the 1980s kitsch of Rick Astley and a meme is born.

Rickrolling is an Internet meme typically involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. The meme is a bait and switch: a person provides a web link that they claim is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the Astley video. The URL can be masked or obfuscated in some manner so that the user cannot determine the true destination of the link without clicking. When a person clicks on the link and is led to the web page, he or she is said to have been “Rickrolled”.

As the practice has spread, two of the various Rickrolling videos available online have been viewed more than 39 million times combined. These figures track the total number of visits, not individual viewers. Rickrolling has extended beyond Web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places; this culminated when Astley and the song made a surprise appearance in the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a televised event with tens of millions of viewers.

Meme Anatomy: Musical, Pop Culture, Celebrity

Urban Dictionary

To send someone a link to 80s pop star Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” video, making them believe that they’re gonna see something completely different. The meme originated in 4chan’s /v/ (videogame) board, when the official “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas” trailer was coming out on the game’s website but couldn’t be watched due to heavy traffic. Playing a prank on everyone who was reading, an anonymous 4chaner said that the trailer was on YouTube and posted a link to Astley’s song. Since then, the Rick Roll has been made countless times, not only on 4chan but on the whole of the Internet.

[Link]

Other Sources

Videos: Rick Roll

Pictures: Rick Roll

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 78,000 – 4.5
Photo Search Results: 79,100 – 4.5
Search Volume: 425,000 – 3
Blog Search Results: 28,800 – 3
News Search Results: 247 – 3

Overall Rating: 3.6 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Leave Britney Alone is a vintage embarrassment / overreaction meme that features everyone’s favorite YouTube personality Chris Crocker. If a tearful rant about a celebrity wasn’t enough to get this one on everyone’s lips he managed to do it right at the height of Miss Spears less than ideal return to the public spotlight.

Crocker is best known for his Britney Spears videos, posted to YouTube in September 2007. The first part of the infamous work though was posted September 9, 2007 called “Leave Britney Alone pt.1″ to his MySpace page, while the better-known “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!” (part 2) was posted to both MySpace and YouTube. In “Leave Britney Alone pt.1″, an emotional Crocker stated that he did not want fellow Southerner and gay icon Britney Spears to spiral out of control like Anna Nicole Smith, who had died in February 2007. As of January 2009[update], the video has been viewed over 3.5 million times and has accumulated a total of nearly 500,000 comments. It is just a few seconds shorter than the second part, and Crocker, although emotional, remains relatively calm and composed, becoming teary only at the very end.
Screen capture showing an upset Chris Crocker from his LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! video.

In the videos, Crocker lashes out at gossip columnists such as Perez Hilton, and at reality TV star Simon Cowell, who criticized Britney Spears’ onstage music performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas. Within the first 24 hours of its posting, the video had accumulated over 2 million views. As of January 2009[update], it has accumulated a total of 24 million views and is the second most discussed video of all time on the site (in all categories), with over 350,000 comments. “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!” is one of YouTube’s fastest “climbing” videos, reaching the minimum seven million views needed (as of September 2007[update]) to be included in the “Top 100″. The video was nominated in the Commentary category in the 2007 YouTube Awards. The video received worldwide attention and earned Crocker interviews on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, The Today Show, Maury, The Howard Stern Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Ryan Seacrest’s KIIS-FM morning show. Crocker and his video were also commented on in the mainstream media by shows like The View and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. YouTube said “the melodramatic two-minute clip made Crocker an instant YouTube star” and named it one of the top videos of 2007. Wired magazine named it the top video of 2007.

Meme Anatomy: Iconic Catchphrase, Celebrity, Embarrassment, WTF

Urban Dictionary

An exclamation made when your friends or family are teasing you to a point where you can’t handle it anymore and a hissy fit is in order.

Derived from a YouTube user’s famed outburst following Britney’s lackluster performance at the 2007 VMA’s.

Other Sources

Videos: Leave Britney Alone

Pictures: Leave Britney Alone

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 9,350 – 4
Photo Search Results: 39,500 – 4
Search Volume: 259,000 – 3
Blog Search Results: 23,299 – 3
News Search Results: 487 – 3.5

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: The meme that launched a sea of memes.

YTMND originated in 2001 from Max Goldberg’s original website, “yourethemannowdog.com”, which he registered along with “dustindiamond.com” after seeing a trailer for the movie Finding Forrester in which Sean Connery says the line “You’re the man now, dog!”. Originally, the website featured the text “YOURE THE MAN NOW DOG.COM” drawn out in 3D ASCII text with a sound loop from the Finding Forrester trailer of Sean Connery reciting the phrase “You’re the man now, dog!”. The advent of zoomed text currently on the website was seen in the following months, where the website also featured a photograph of Sean Connery. Goldberg’s new creation inspired others to make similar sites with other movie and television quotations (or any other sound clip they wished to use). At first, Goldberg maintained a list and mirror of these sites, but the list soon became exceptionally long.

In 2004, Goldberg wrote a press release after winning a lawsuit filed by Dustin Diamond for the “fan page” at the aforementioned dustindiamond.com. He mentioned yourethemannowdog.com, as well as a new website, YTMND, that would be ready by April 10. The website opened that day after a rushed coding and design process. The site caught on in popularity and became an Internet phenomenon when major weblogs and Internet forums began linking to the Picard Song YTMND.

Meme Anatomy: Pop Culture, Iconic Catchphrase, Celebrity

Urban Dictionary

A general statement of praise intended for a male. Popularized by the film “Finding Forrester” in which Sean Connery triumphantly and uncharacteristically exclaims that his pupil is now ‘the man’. Subsequently immortalized on the website www.yourethemannowdog.com. One of the most bizarre ‘tributes’ on the internet.

[Link]

Other Sources

Videos: YTMND

Pictures: YTMND

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 2,020 – 3
Photo Search Results: 263 – 2
Search Volume: 94,000,000 – 5
Blog Search Results: 2,042 – 2
News Search Results: 63 – 3

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Action star Chuck Norris found himself as a part of an attribution meme a few years back. Dozens of websites, video parodies and even a book were produced describing the over the top feats Mr. Norris was capable of performing.

Things you may not have known about Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

Chuck Norris has two speeds. Walk, and Kill.

When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

Meme Anatomy: Celebrity, Pop Culture

Urban Dictionary

One Kick Ass Son of a Bitch!

Some random facts about Chuck Norris:

“Alien vs Predator” is an autobiographical depiction of Chuck Norris’ first sexual experience.

While Chuck Norris was on holiday in Spain, he ate some bad paella causing him to take the largest shit known to man. That shit is now France.

Instead of having a cigarette after sex, Chuck Norris heads outside and brands his cattle.

Chuck Norris doesn’t break up with his girlfriends… He punches them in the vagina and they leave.

Chuck Norris had sex with a cigarette machine.

Chuck Norris once ate an entire watermelon, including the seeds, then grew an entire watermelon patch in his stomach which fed eleven families for six weeks.

In ancient China there is a legend that one day a child will be born from a dragon and vanquish evil from the land. That man is not Chuck Norris, because Chuck killed that man.

If you were to know Chuck Norris’ true name, your mind would collapse upon itself.

A freak accident involving Chuck Norris and a severe thunderstorm turned an ordinary Total Gym (R) into Richard Dean Anderson, star of TV series “MacGyver”. Scholars around the world maintain that this is the only known case of irony that is both situational and dramatic.

Contrary to popular belief, Chuck Norris is unable to send his roundhouse kicks across the fabric of time, however he IS able to perform this action across parallel dimensions and once, just for fun, roundhouse kicked his own ass…. [link]

Other Sources

Videos: Chuck Norris

Pictures: Chuck Norris

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 52,600 – 4.5
Photo Search Results: 1,080,000 – 5
Search Volume: 787,000 – 3.5
Blog Search Results: 93,711 – 4
News Search Results: 9,200 – 5

Overall Rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars