Bottom Line: Edgar’s Fall is a meme that plays on the fact that the Internet loves to see people hurt themselves, especially if those people need subtitles.

The video features a young Mexican kid named Edgar and his cousin Fernando hiking in a ranch near their home town of Monterrey. The video starts with Edgar being afraid of trying to cross a small stream using two long branches as a bridge. Soon after Edgar starts crossing, Fernando starts moving one of the branches, making Edgar curse angrily with a Mexican “norteño” (northern) accent until he finally loses his balance, plunges into the stream and curses even more as he emerges from the water.

Edgar’s fall was the subject of much media exposure in México which included newspapers and the clip being shown on the TV news.

There are ringtones, games, parodies, remixes and even a web page where Edgar is proposed for Mexico’s presidency. There are over 20 versions of the video including Star Wars, Mario Bros, Street Fighter, and Pokémon. Some publicity campaigns have made use of the video without worries of copyright issues, for example Nike’s Joga Bonito campaign. Edgar has also gained other media exposure, appearing on TV shows and in newspapers.

Meme Anatomy: Vaguely Foreign, Embarrassment, Overreactions, Leaked, Kids

Other Sources

Videos: Edgar’s Fall

Pictures: Edgar’s Fall

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 1,400 – 3
Photo Search Results: 392 – 2
Search Volume: 129,000 – 3
Blog Search Results: 88 – 1
News Search Results: 0 – 1

Overall Rating: 2 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: There is nothing quite like “leaked” footage of someone getting electrocuted to spur on a mean. Well, maybe there is when that person decides to scream, “Don’t Tase Me Bro” moments before the faithful incident.

On September 17, 2007, U.S. Senator John Kerry addressed a Constitution Day forum at the University of Florida in Gainesville, which was organized by the ACCENT Speaker’s Bureau, an agency of the university’s student government. When Meyer asked Kerry about his connection to the Skull and Bones society, university police removed Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old fourth-year undergraduate telecommunications student, from the forum, restraining him and drive stunning him with a Taser.

Several videos of the episode were then posted on the Internet. The most viewed version of the video, shot by Kyle Mitchell of The Gainesville Sun, had more than 3.8 million views on YouTube by May 2009. The New Oxford American Dictionary listed “tase/taze” as one of the words of the year for 2007, popularized by the widespread use of “Don’t tase me, bro!” The Yale Book of Quotations designated the same quote as the most memorable quote of 2007.[1] Mick Jones, former guitarist for The Clash, wrote and published a song inspired from the event, “Don’t Tase Me, Bro,” and new wave band Devo use the quote in their song “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man).”

Meme Anatomy: Leaked, Iconic Catchphrase, WTF

Urban Dictionary

1. An utterance emitted by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer on the evening of September 17, 2007 in efforts to ward off the vicious bite of a police taser after he was detained for getting uppity at a forum with U.S. Senator John Kerry.

2. A phrase used (with ironic reference to the above incident) to express feigned dissatisfaction with another’s recent or impending actions or speech.

Other Sources

Videos: Don’t Tase Me Bro

Pictures: Don’t Tase Me Bro

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 1,050 – 3
Photo Search Results: 19,900 – 4
Search Volume: 12,800,000 – 5
Blog Search Results: 16,272 – 3
News Search Results: 526 – 4.5

Overall Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars

Bottom Line: Epic levels of ego backfiring has always been fertile ground for memes, that’s why celebrity faux pas always seem to do so well. Impossible Is Nothing shows that you don’t have to be rich or famous to get your self-love thrown back in your face. The low numbers you see may be the result of Aleksey’s rather significant attempts to wipe himself off the face of the Internet.

The self-aggrandizing video resume of a Yale Student, Aleksey Vayner, to the wealth management company UBS. It almost seems designed for the internet, complete with a ballroom dancing scene and a rambling staged interview. The video spread across the web and led to threats of legal action against UBS, YouTube and a number of other entities by Vayner.

Mr. Vayner seems to have scrubbed his video from the Internet, unfortunately that means we can only show you this spoof that pretty accurately parodies the incident. If you have a link to a working copy of the video, leave it in the comments.

Meme Anatomy: Embarrassment, Leaked

Other Sources

Videos: Impossible Is Nothing

Pictures: Impossible Is Nothing

Meme Strength

Video Search Results: 41 – 1
Photo Search Results: 677 – 2.5
Search Volume: 4,150 – 1
Blog Search Results: 431 – 1
News Search Results: 61 – 3

Overall Rating: 1.7 out of 5 stars