The Complete Internet Iceberg [TIER TWO]

The Complete Internet Iceberg [TIER TWO] - YouTube

Transcripts:

Now we descend past [music] the surface where algorithms dare not recommend. Challenges that sent people to hospitals. Where memes become movements and irony becomes ideology. The places your parents warned you about and the ones they never knew existed. From viral sensations erased overnight [music] to communities that thrive in digital shadows.

Welcome to tier 2 iceberg charts. A visual format that organizes information about a specific topic into layers with the most well-known entries at the surface and increasingly obscure or disturbing content as you go deeper. The format mimics an actual iceberg where only a small portion is visible above water.

The template gained mainstream traction around 2017 on Reddit and image boards, though earlier examples exist. Users create these charts for everything from video game lore to conspiracy theories to internet history itself. Each layer represents a different depth of knowledge with casual fans recognizing the top entries while only dedicated researchers or longtime community members know the bottom tier content.

The deeper you go, the more niche, esoteric, or allegedly darker the entries become. Some charts focus on factual obscurity, others lean into creepy pasta territory or unverified rumors. The format works because it gamifies knowledge, turning obscure trivia into a challenge where reaching the bottom tier means you've truly gone down the rabbit hole.

 The chart spawned an entire subgenre of YouTube videos where creators explain each entry layer by layer. These videos can run anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours depending on how deep the iceberg goes. The format itself became so popular that iceberg charts now exist for iceberg charts, creating a very meta situation. If is an image sharing app and website launched in 2011 that became a popular destination for memes and viral content.

The platform allowed users to upload and share funny images, videos, and gifts with a collective feed system similar to nine gag or Reddit. The site is perhaps most infamous for its automatic watermark that was stamped on every image shared from the platform. This watermark became a running joke across the internet as if content would spread to other platforms with the branding still attached.

 Many users on sites like Twitter and Reddit would mock images bearing the iPhone if watermark associating them with stale or lowquality memes. ioney developed a reputation for having an extremely edgy and politically charged user base, particularly in the mid to late 2010s. The platform became known for hosting controversial content that pushed boundaries further than mainstream social media would allow.

 This earned it a stereotype of being populated by teenage users, trying to be as provocative as possible. The app had a feature called the collective, where users could subscribe to specific meme categories and communities. Despite its controversial reputation, iFunny maintained millions of active users and became a notable part of internet meme culture, even if often as the butt of jokes from users on other platforms.

Nine gag is a social media platform and meme aggregator website launched in 2008. The site operates as a collection of user sububmitted images, videos, and gifts organized into categories like funny, gaming, and wholesome. The platform gained massive popularity in the early 2010s as one of the main hubs for meme distribution alongside Reddit and Forchan.

 Users can upvote and downvote content with popular posts reaching the hot page. Nine gag became notorious in meme communities for its practice of automatically adding watermarks to all uploaded content, even material that originated elsewhere on the internet. The site faced constant criticism for reposting content from Reddit and other platforms without attribution while slapping their own branding on it.

 The community developed a reputation for recycling outdated rage comics and advice animals long after they stopped being relevant. The comment sections became known for their particular brand of casual racism and misogyny hidden behind the excuse of dark humor. Multiple investigations revealed that Nine Gag used bots and fake accounts to artificially inflate their content metrics.

 Former employees claimed the company would systematically scrape content from other sites and repost it as original submissions. Eugene Yauni is an American YouTuber and online personality who rose to prominence in the mid2010s for her fashion and makeup content. She gained a substantial following across YouTube, Twitch, and Instagram for her gothic and alternative fashion style videos.

 Cooney became one of the most discussed figures in internet discourse due to widespread concern about her physical appearance and health. Online communities and viewers expressed worry about her extremely thin frame, leading to years of debate about whether discussing her condition publicly was helpful or harmful.

 The situation escalated whenmany viewers and fellow creators called for intervention, arguing that her content could negatively influence vulnerable audiences. In 2019, she took a break from social media and later revealed she had been receiving treatment. Shane Dawson documented her return in a controversial video titled The Return of Eugene Yakuni, which sparked debate about exploitation versus awareness.

 Despite the treatment, concerns persisted when she returned to creating content. Her Twitch streams and YouTube videos continued to generate controversy with some viewers arguing she was being enabled by platforms and fans who refused to acknowledge ongoing issues. Multiple petitions circulated requesting her removal from platforms, though she remained active.

 The Eugene Yakuni situation represents the complicated intersection of mental health, content creation, and platform responsibility. Her case sparked broader discussions about when intervention becomes appropriate and whether public figures struggling with visible health issues should be deplatformed or supported. >> Like this video and subscribe to Meger.

Doomcrolling, also known as doom surfing, is the act of endlessly scrolling through negative or distressing news content on social media and news websites, even when it causes anxiety or makes the person feel worse. The term gained major traction during the early 2020s, particularly during the global health crisis when people found themselves compulsively checking for updates despite the mental toll.

 The behavior isn't new, but social media algorithms made it worse by feeding users more of whatever keeps them engaged, which often means more upsetting content. The practice typically happens late at night when people should be sleeping, but instead find themselves stuck in an endless feed of bad news, disaster footage, and doomladen headlines.

 Each refresh promises new information, but usually just delivers more reasons to feel terrible about the state of the world. Twitter users were particularly notorious for this behavior with many joking about their inability to log off despite knowing it was destroying their mental health. The pandemic turned doomcrolling into a widespread phenomenon as people constantly refreshed news feeds looking for case numbers, policy changes, and crisis updates.

 The irony is that people doom scroll while fully aware they're doing it and that it's bad for them. But the compulsion to stay informed overrides common sense. Florida man refers to a widespread internet meme and cultural phenomenon centered around bizarre and outlandish news headlines originating from the state of Florida.

 The term became shorthand for any absurd news story beginning with the phrase Florida man followed by an increasingly ridiculous crime or incident. The meme took off in the early 2010s when people noticed the disproportionate number of strange news stories coming from Florida. Headlines like Florida man attacks neighbor with kindness or Florida man arrested for throwing alligator through drive-thru window became viral sensations across social media platforms.

 The reason for Florida's reputation stems largely from the state's public records laws known as the sunshine laws. These laws make arrest records and police reports readily accessible to journalists, meaning reporters can easily dig up and publish unusual incidents that might stay buried in other states. Florida doesn't necessarily have more weird criminals than anywhere else.

 It just has more transparent reporting. Multiple Twitter accounts and the subreddit r/ Florida man dedicated themselves to cataloging these headlines, turning the meme into a daily source of entertainment. The phenomenon grew so large that Florida Man became a game where people would search Florida Man followed by their birthday to see what absurd headline appeared on that date.

Some outlets created Florida Man challenges and the meme expanded beyond just news aggregation into merchandise, Halloween costumes, and even a short-lived reality TV series. Grammar Nazi refers to internet users who compulsively point out spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes in online posts and comments.

 The term emerged from early internet forums and message boards where certain members would interrupt discussions to correct typos or grammatical errors, often in a condescending manner. These corrections typically target common mistakes like confusing your and your there there and there, or misusing apostrophes.

 The behavior became so recognizable that it spawned its own internet archetype, complete with memes showing people dramatically correcting minor errors while ignoring the actual content of discussions. The term itself has faced criticism for trivializing historical events by using Nazi as casual slang. This led some communities to adopt alternatives like grammar police or grammar pedant.

 Though the original term remains widely understood across the internet, grammar Nazis often justifytheir corrections as helpful or educational, while others view the practice as unnecessarily hostile and derailing to conversations. TV Tropes is a wiki style website that cataloges and documents recurring storytelling devices, patterns, and conventions found across all forms of media.

 Launched in 2004, the site started as a collection of tropes from the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer before expanding to cover everything from anime to video games to literature. The site is notorious for being an extreme time sync. Users often report clicking one article and suddenly finding themselves dozens of tabs deep hours later, leading to the common phrase, "TV tropes will ruin your life.

" Or the more positive, "TV tropes will enhance your life." The site's internal linking structure makes it nearly impossible to read just one page. TV Tropes has its own unique writing culture with a casual conversational tone and extensive use of self-referential humor. Articles are written in second person and frequently make jokes about the very tropes they're describing.

 The site also popularized terms like lampshade hanging and documented existing ones like Mary Sue into mainstream internet vocabulary. In the early 2010s, the site underwent controversial changes when it purged large amounts of content related to adult material and controversial topics, leading to the creation of alternative wikis by disgruntled users.

 The site also became known for the there is no such thing as notability policy, which allowed articles on extremely obscure media, though this was later revised. The phrase, "The page will not launch," became a minor meme referring to works that were being discussed on the site's forums, but didn't have actual pages yet, often because they were vaporware or perpetually in development.

Jellybean, also known as Jellybean or Jellybean VR, is a Minecraft YouTuber who became both famous and infamous in the early 2020s. They represent a style of content creation known as PNG tubing, where creators use static or simple animated PNG images as their avatar instead of showing their face or using more complex VTuber models.

 Jellybean rose to prominence making short Minecraft videos and streams, but became widely known for their catchphrase, "It's not a mistake, it's a masterpiece." This phrase quickly evolved into a spam meme with fans flooding comment sections across YouTube to promote the channel. The aggressive promotion strategy backfired spectacularly, turning Jellybean into one of the most controversial figures in the Minecraft YouTube community.

 The backlash was severe. Jellybean faced intense harassment, doxing attempts, and widespread mockery across social media platforms. The controversy highlighted the darker side of YouTube drama culture, particularly when it involves younger creators. Many criticized the disproportionate hate directed at what was essentially a kid making Minecraft videos.

 PNG YouTubers as a whole also caught criticism during this period with many viewing the format as loweffort compared to traditional facecam or Vtuber content. The term became somewhat derogatory in certain circles. Though the format continues to be used by smaller creators who prefer anonymity or lack resources for more elaborate setups.

Goat Simulator is a physics-based sandbox game developed by Coffee Stain Studios and released in April 2014. The game puts players in control of a goat wreaking havoc in an openw world environment, causing destruction and racking up points through increasingly absurd stunts. The game originated as an internal game jam project that was never meant to be taken seriously.

 After the studio released a gameplay trailer showing the intentionally janky physics and glitchy mechanics, the internet fell in love with how ridiculous it looked. The developers leaned into the chaos and released it as a full product. Goat Simulator became a viral sensation specifically because of how broken it was.

 Ragd Doll physics would launch the goat hundreds of feet into the air. Objects would clip through walls and NPCs would react in completely unpredictable ways. Coffee Stain Studios made the decision to leave most of these bugs in the game, marketing it as a deliberately stupid experience, and warning potential buyers that it was a small, broken, and stupid game.

 The success spawned multiple expansion packs, including Goat Z, a zombie survival parody, and Goat MMO simulator, which made fun of MMO game tropes. The game's popularity also contributed to the wave of absurdest simulator games that flooded Steam during the mid2010s with varying levels of quality and sincerity.

 A sequel, Goat Simulator 3, was released in 2022. Yes, they skipped Goat Simulator 2 entirely as a joke. Amorei is a psychological horror role- playinging game created by artist and designer Omacat. Originally funded through Kickstarter in 2014, the game didn't actually release until December 2020 after 6 years of development, thegame follows a Hikamorei boy named Sunny who explores both a colorful dream world called Headspace, and his real world suburb.

 The story deals with themes of depression, anxiety, trauma, and repressed memories surrounding a tragic incident from the protagonist's past. Omorei gained a massive cult following online for its emotional storytelling, unique art style, and the way it handles heavy subject matter, including self- removal. The game became particularly popular on platforms like Twitter and Tumblr, where fans created extensive fan art, theories, and discussion around its symbolism and multiple endings.

 The game's soundtrack, composed by Pedro Silva, also became widely shared and remixed across the internet. Many players noted the stark contrast between the whimsical dream sequences and the increasingly dark revelations of the realworld sections. Despite the six-year wait between announcement and release, Omorei was generally wellreceived by critics and players, though some found its pacing slow and its content potentially triggering without proper content warnings.

Justin Y was a YouTube commenter who became notorious for appearing in the comment section of nearly every popular video during the late 2010s. His profile picture, a simple anime character icon, became instantly recognizable across the platform. The phenomenon was simple but bizarre.

 No matter what video you clicked on, whether it was gaming content, music videos, memes, or documentaries, Justin Y would already be there with a comment. He managed to rack up millions of subscribers without ever uploading a single video purely from his omnipresent commenting. People started making jokes about it.

 Comment sections would reference him, asking where Justin Y was if his comment wasn't immediately visible. Some viewers theorized it had to be multiple people sharing one account or some kind of bot operation. Justin Y himself claimed it was just him staying online constantly and refreshing his subscription feed to catch videos early.

 His comments weren't particularly insightful or funny on their own. They were just normal YouTube comments, but the fact that he was everywhere turned him into a meta joke about YouTube culture itself. He became less active over time. Though whether this was due to burnout, algorithm changes, or something else remains unclear. Goodreads, also stylized as Goodreads, is a social cataloging website for books launched in 2006.

 Users create virtual bookshelves to track what they've read, want to read, and are currently reading, while rating titles on a scale of 1 to five stars. The site became known for its brutally honest review culture. Unlike other platforms where politeness reigns, Goodreads reviewers gained a reputation for absolutely eviscerating books they disliked.

 One-star reviews often became more entertaining than the books themselves with users crafting elaborate takedowns complete with GIFs and memes. Amazon acquired the platform in 2013 for around $150 million, leading to integration with Kindle devices and the Amazon ecosystem. This merger sparked concerns about the independence of user reviews and potential conflicts of interest.

 The site hosts the annual Goodreads Choice Awards where users vote on their favorite books of the year across various genres. These awards carry significant weight in the publishing industry and can seriously boost a book's sales. Goodreads became somewhat notorious in author circles for being a minefield. Authors who responded to negative reviews, even politely, often found themselves at the center of drama that could tank their careers.

 The unwritten rule became clear. Never engage with your Goodreads reviews, no matter how inaccurate or hostile they might be. The platform also faced criticism for fake reviews, review bombing campaigns, and an interface that hasn't meaningfully updated since the late 2000s, despite countless user complaints. Blue Sky AT protocol or authenticated transfer protocol is the technical foundation behind Blue Sky, a decentralized social media platform.

 The project was originally funded by Twitter back in 2019 when Jack Dorsey announced plans to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The AT protocol was designed to let users own their data and identity across different platforms rather than being locked into a single company's ecosystem.

 Think of it like email where you can use different providers but still send messages to anyone regardless of their provider. Blue Sky launched as an invite-only platform in early 2023 and opened to the public in February 2024. It gained massive traction as a Twitter alternative, especially after various controversial changes to X, formerly known as Twitter.

 The platform saw huge surges in user signups during periods when people were frustrated with X's direction. The protocol allows for portable accounts, custom algorithms, and third-party services to be built ontop of it. Users can essentially take their followers and content with them if they ever want to switch to a different service using the same protocol.

The great reset is a proposal launched by the World Economic Forum in 2020 during the CO9 pandemic. The initiative called for global cooperation to address economic recovery, climate change, and social inequality with the slogan build back better becoming closely associated with it.

 On the internet, the Great Reset became a major focal point for conspiracy theories. Many believed it represented a coordinated plan by global elites to implement authoritarian control, enforce widespread surveillance, eliminate private property ownership, and reduce population numbers. The involvement of world leaders, billionaires, and organizations like the WF fueled suspicion that the pandemic was being used as cover to reshape society according to a predetermined agenda.

 Phrases from WEF founder Klaus Schwab like you will own nothing and be happy were widely circulated and interpreted as evidence of dystopian intentions. Critics pointed to synchronized messaging from world governments, the push for digital currencies and ideas and corporate alignment with WF goals as proof of coordination.

 The theory spread rapidly across social media platforms and became intertwined with other pandemic related conspiracies. Videos and articles analyzing WF meetings, particularly the annual Davos gatherings, became popular among those convinced that a small group of unelected individuals were orchestrating fundamental changes to the global economic and social order.

Astroworld Festival Crowd Crush refers to a tragic incident that occurred on November 5th, 2021 during rapper Travis Scott's Astroorld Festival in Houston, Texas. During Scott's headlining performance, a crowd surge resulted in 10 people losing their lives and hundreds more being injured due to compressive esphyxiation.

The event became a massive topic of discussion across social media platforms as footage from the festival showed the chaotic scene unfolding. Attendees reported feeling trapped and unable to breathe as the crowd pushed forward toward the stage. Multiple people attempted to alert security and production staff about medical emergencies happening in the crowd with some even climbing onto camera platforms to get attention.

 Controversy erupted over why the performance continued for nearly 40 minutes after officials declared it a mass casualty event. Videos circulated online showing Scott pausing briefly when he noticed an ambulance in the crowd, but then continuing his set. The festival's organization, security measures, and crowd control protocols faced intense scrutiny.

 The internet response included viral Tik Toks and tweets documenting the experience, criticism of Scott's handling of the situation, and debates about artist responsibility during live performances. Some conspiracy theories emerged alleging darker motives or ritual symbolism, though these remain unsubstantiated speculation. Legal proceedings followed with hundreds of lawsuits filed against Scott, Live Nation, and other parties involved in organizing the event.

 The incident sparked broader conversations about festival safety, crowd management, and the responsibility of performers to stop shows when attendees are in danger. Decentralization refers to the movement and technology aimed at distributing control of the internet away from centralized authorities and corporations.

 Rather than having a handful of major companies or servers managing data and services, decentralization pushes for peer-to-peer networks where users share the load directly with each other. The concept gained major traction during the 2010s with the rise of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. Bitcoin became the poster child for decentralized currency operating without banks or governments controlling transactions.

 This sparked broader conversations about applying similar principles to social media, file storage, and web hosting. Decentralized platforms like Mastadon emerged as alternatives to Twitter, while projects like IPFS attempted to replace traditional web hosting with distributed file systems. The pitch was simple. No single entity could control, censor, or profit off your data.

 Web 3 became the buzzword for this supposed future internet, promising users ownership of their digital lives through blockchain and cryptocurrency integration. Supporters argued it would democratize the web and return power to individual users. Critics pointed out that many decentralized projects ended up just as centralized in practice with wealthy early adopters and large stakeholders controlling the majority of influence.

The technology also faced issues with scalability, energy consumption, and the fact that truly decentralized systems tend to be slower and more complicated for average users. The movement attracted both genuine idealists seeking internet freedom and opportunistslooking to profit off hype cycles and speculative investments.

Copslide is a term from image boards, primarily 4chan, referring to a disruptive tactic used to derail or shut down threads. The method involves users posting highly illegal content that would immediately attract law enforcement attention, causing the thread to be quickly deleted by moderators or forcing it to slide off the board entirely.

 The name comes from the dual meaning of attracting cops while simultaneously sliding the thread away. This tactic was most commonly deployed during controversial discussions or when users wanted to kill threads they disagreed with. The practice became particularly associated with certain boards during the 2010s where it was used as a nuclear option to end conversations.

 Moderators and site administrators treat these posts with immediate removal and typically issue permanent bans to the posters involved. One guy, one jar, also known as the jar squatter video, is a shock video from the late 2000s that became one of the internet's most notorious pieces of extreme content. The video shows a man recording himself inserting a glass jar, which then breaks while inside him, causing severe injury.

 What made this particularly disturbing to viewers was the man's complete silence throughout the ordeal, showing no reaction to what was happening despite the visible consequences. The video ends with him calmly attempting to remove the glass shards. The original video surfaced on shock sites and extreme content forums, quickly spreading and becoming a staple of internet shock culture alongside videos like two girls one cup and goats.

It was often used to troll unsuspecting users by disguising the link as something innocuous. The man in the video was later identified through internet so sleuththing, and he allegedly confirmed in forum posts that he survived the incident and sought medical attention afterward. Some claimed he stated this wasn't his first time attempting something similar, though these claims remain unverified.

The video remains one of the most referenced shock videos in internet culture. Often mentioned as a right of passage for those exploring the darker corners of the early internet. Chopped chin refers to a Photoshop trend where images of celebrities and public figures have their chins digitally removed or severely reduced.

 The edits create an unsettling appearance where the subject's face appears to end abruptly at the lower lip, often making them look like a thumb or giving them an oddly infantile appearance. The trend gained traction on Reddit and Twitter in the mid2010s with users targeting everyone from politicians to actors to athletes.

 Some of the most popular subjects included Jay Leno, whose famously prominent chin made him an ironic choice, and various Marvel actors, whose strong jawline suddenly disappeared. The meme taps into the uncanny valley effect, where faces that are almost but not quite normal trigger an instinctive discomfort. Despite the simplicity of the edit, chopped chin images tend to be significantly more disturbing than expected, with many viewers reporting they can't unsee the edits once they've been exposed to them.

Carl and Shaggy stuck doing the Macarena is a looping video that shows exactly what the title describes. Carl, Brutin, and Adelowski from Aquatine Hunger Force and Shaggy Rogers from Scooby-Doo are animated doing the Macarena dance on an endless loop. The video originated as one of those absurdest YouTube poops or mashup videos that became a minor meme in the late 2010s.

 There's no deeper meaning or context beyond the inherent comedy of watching two iconic cartoon stoners perpetually trapped in a dance they can never escape from. The video gained traction on platforms like Reddit and Twitter as an example of peak internet absurdism with users sharing it as a representation of their mental state or as a form of light torture to inflict on friends.

 Some versions include distorted audio or visual effects to enhance the unsettling nature of the infinite loop. Ray William Johnson, also known as RWJ, was one of YouTube's first major celebrities, best known for his show Equals 3, where he reviewed and commented on viral videos. at his peak in the early 2010s, churning out multiple videos per week of him sitting in front of a white background making jokes about whatever was trending.

 His catchphrases became part of early YouTube culture, and his format of reacting to viral content essentially created the blueprint for commentary channels that followed. He had notable beef with maker studios over ownership of his content and got into various disputes with other creators during YouTube's Wild West era.

 Your favorite Martian was Ray's side project, an animated band featuring cartoon characters performing comedy rap, and pop songs. The music videos featured characters like Puffpuff, Hbert, and Benitar rapping about topics like stalking, douchebags, and otherintentionally crude humor aimed at the teenage YouTube audience of the time.

The project ended abruptly in 2012 amid drama about the actual musicians behind the animated characters not being properly credited or compensated. Ray claimed he was moving on to other ventures, but the sudden cancellation left fans confused and the whole situation messy. Dorkley was a comedy website and YouTube channel dedicated to video game humor and pop culture parodies.

 The site launched in 2007 as part of the Cheeseburger Network, the same company behind sites like Icon has Cheeseburger and Fail Blog. Dorkley became best known for their animated video content, particularly the Dorkley Bits series, which featured short comedic sketches reimagining popular games like Pokemon, Mario, Sonic, and Zelda.

 Their animation style was simple but effective, often taking beloved gaming franchises and giving them dark, absurdist, or satirical twists. One of their most popular creations was Pokemon Rusty, an animated web series following an incompetent trainer whose Pokemon all meet terrible fates. The series ran from 2013 to 2016 and became a cult favorite for its dark humor and willingness to subvert Pokémon's typically cheerful tone.

 The site also produced comics, articles, and lists covering gaming culture and nostalgia. At its peak, Dorkley's YouTube channel had millions of subscribers and their videos regularly pulled in hundreds of thousands of views. In February 2022, Dorkley abruptly shut down after Literally Media, the parent company that acquired the Cheeseburger Network, decided to cease operations.

 The closure came suddenly with minimal warning, ending 15 years of gaming comedy content. Island Boys, also known as Fly Soldier and Kodiak Red, refers to twin brothers Frankie and Alex Venegas, who became viral internet personalities in late 2021. The duo gained widespread attention for their song I'm an island boy, a freestyle rap performed in a pool that featured repetitive lyrics and an unusual melodic delivery.

 The original Tik Tok video quickly spread across social media platforms, spawning countless parodies, remixes, and memes mocking the song simple hook and the brother's distinctive appearance, which includes vertical dreadlocks and extensive face tattoos. The phrase, "I'm an island boy," became a popular audio clip used in ironic content.

 While the brothers attempted to capitalize on their viral fame by releasing more music and making media appearances, they became more wellknown as a punchline than as serious artists. Their continued presence online has included controversial moments and various attempts to remain relevant, including a shift to adult content platforms.

 The Island Boys represent a particular type of internet virality where the line between genuine artistry and being in on the joke remains perpetually unclear. They've maintained a dedicated following while simultaneously being the subject of widespread mockery, creating a strange duality in their internet presence.

WFAPS/ LFAPS is slang that emerged from rating culture on platforms like Tik Tok and Twitter in the early 2020s. The term combines W for win and L for loss with FAPS, which refers to viewing adult content. Users would share their so-called WFAPs, meaning adult content they felt good about viewing, versus their LFAPS, content they regretted or felt ashamed about afterward.

 The format became a confessional trend where people would categorize and rank their viewing habits as either wins or losses. The trend sparked debate about oversharing personal information online and the normalization of discussing private habits publicly. Some saw it as honest discourse about a taboo subject, while others viewed it as unnecessary oversharing that crossed boundaries of what should be kept private.

 The format eventually expanded beyond its original context with people applying the W/L framework to other embarrassing or regrettable decisions in their lives. Jerkmate, also known as Jerkmate Ranked, is an adult webcam platform that became infamous for its aggressive advertising campaigns across the internet throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s.

 The site gained notoriety not for its content, but for the sheer volume and persistence of its advertisements, which appeared as pop-ups, redirects, and sponsored content on various websites. The ads often featured provocative thumbnails and claims about local performers being available in your area. The term jerkmate ranked specifically refers to a meme format that emerged mocking the site's omnipresent marketing.

 Users joked that jerkmate ads had achieved such widespread coverage that they became unavoidable, ranking among the most intrusive advertising campaigns on the web. The phrase became shorthand for describing any overly aggressive or seemingly inescapable online advertisement. The site's marketing strategy relied heavily on affiliate programs, incentivizing other websitesto display jerkmate ads in exchange for commission.

 This led to the advertisements appearing in unexpected places, including legitimate streaming sites, torrent platforms, and even educational resources. Opium bird, an image of a bird with its mouth wide open that became a mascot for the opium aesthetic movement on Tik Tok and Twitter starting around 2021. The term opium refers to the dark, chaotic music style popularized by rapper Playboy Cardi and his record label of the same name.

 The aesthetic embraces distorted visuals, aggressive trap beats, and deliberately unhinged energy. The specific bird image, often a minor or similar species caught midscreech, was repeatedly posted by fans of this music scene with captions mimicking the chaotic vibe. It evolved into an ironic symbol of the culture, appearing in memes that either celebrated or mocked the over-the-top edgginess.

 The bird itself became inseparable from opium and rage music culture, functioning as both an inside joke and a recognizable visual shortorthhand. Users would spam the image in comment sections. Pair it with distorted bass boosted audio or use it to signal their affiliation with the aesthetic. Comfort character refers to a fictional character from any media that someone feels an emotional attachment to and turns to for psychological relief during tough times.

 The term became widespread across Tumblr, Twitter, and Tik Tok throughout the 2010s and early 2020s. People use comfort characters as a form of emotional support or escapism. This could be a character from television shows, movies, anime, video games, books, or any fictional media. The attachment usually stems from relating to the character's personality, finding them calming, or simply [clears throat] enjoying their presence in the story.

The concept ties into parasocial relationships and coping mechanisms. When stressed or anxious, fans will consume content featuring their comfort character. Whether that's re-watching episodes, reading fanfiction, or looking at fan art, some people have multiple comfort characters that serve different emotional needs.

 The term gained enough traction that who's your comfort character became a common icebreaker question in online spaces. It also spawned the related concept of comfort media, referring to entire shows or games people return to for similar reasons. Slang overload refers to the internet phenomenon of packing sentences with so much slang terminology that they become nearly incomprehensible to outsiders.

This style of communication emerged as various online communities developed their own vocabularies with users intentionally cramming multiple slang terms into single posts for comedic effect or to demonstrate insider knowledge. The trend gained traction in the 2010s across platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, and Tik Tok.

 Users would string together terms like no cap, busing, shees, slaps, and hits different into dense paragraphs that read like parody. What started as genuine community language evolved into self-aware mockery of how quickly internet slang cycles through trends. Examples often looked like, "This new song absolutely slaps no cap. It hits different far far.

 The vibes are immaculate and it's giving main character energy. The humor came from the excessive layering making the actual message secondary to the performance of being extremely online. Slang overload also highlighted generational divides with corporations and older internet users attempting to use trending terms in their marketing, often resulting in cringe-worthy combinations that felt forced or outdated.

 These failed attempts at relevance became their own source of entertainment, spawning countless memes mocking brands trying too hard to connect with younger audiences. Snuff films, a term referring to videos that allegedly depict real killings filmed for the purpose of entertainment or commercial distribution. The concept became a widespread urban legend in the 1970s and 80s, largely fueled by moral panic and underground film culture.

 The debate around snuff films centers on whether they actually exist as a commercial product. While there are documented cases of killers recording their crimes, law enforcement and film scholars generally maintain that true snuff films in the commercial sense have never been proven to exist. The distinction lies in intent.

 Films made specifically for profit versus documentation of criminal acts. Several movies have been mistaken for or marketed as snuff films over the years. The 1976 film Snuff added fake footage to the end, claiming to show a real killing purely as a marketing stunt. The Italian film Cannibal Holocaust led to the director being arrested because authorities believed the deaths were real, though this was later disproven.

Internet forums and dark web mythology have kept the snuff film legend alive. With countless hoaxes and misidentified videos circulating as supposed proof, the concept has become more of acultural boogeyman than a verifiable phenomenon representing fears about the darkest corners of human behavior being commodified.

 The legend persists partially because it touches on real anxieties about what exists in hidden parts of the internet, even though actual evidence remains non-existent. Digital public square is a phrase used to describe social media platforms and online spaces as modern equivalents of traditional town squares where public discourse takes place.

 The term gained significant traction in the late 2010s and early 2020s, particularly in debates about free speech and content moderation on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The concept suggests that because these platforms host so much public conversation and political debate, they function as essential public forums, even though they're privatelyowned companies.

 Politicians, tech executives, and commentators invoke this framing when arguing about whether platforms should allow controversial content or if banning users violates some democratic principle. Elon Musk heavily promoted this idea during and after his Twitter takeover in 2022, repeatedly calling the platform the digital public square and framing his changes as protecting free speech.

Critics argue the metaphor is misleading since actual public squares have government oversight and constitutional protections while private companies can set their own rules. The phrase became a talking point in broader culture war debates about online censorship, deplatforming, and whether tech companies have too much power over public conversation.

 Some view these platforms as vital democratic infrastructure that should be treated differently than typical businesses, while others maintain they're just websites with terms of service. Social AI is a social media platform launched in late 2024 by developer Michael Seaman. The app functions exactly like Twitter or X with one notable difference.

 Every single user you interact with is an AI bot. When you post on Social AI, you receive instant replies, likes, and engagement from AI followers programmed to respond in various personalities and tones. You can choose what kind of bots interact with your posts, ranging from supportive cheerleaders to devil's advocates to comedians.

 The platform went viral immediately upon launch, though not necessarily for positive reasons. Many users described the experience as deeply dystopian and lonely, essentially creating an echo chamber where you're talking to yourself through algorithmic mirrors. Critics pointed out it felt like a Black Mirror episode made real, while others joked it was the logical endpoint of social media addiction.

 Some defended social AI as a potential mental health tool for people who want to practice social interactions or vent without judgment. The creator argued it could help users work through thoughts in a safe space before sharing them with real people. The internet largely treated social AI as either a fascinating social experiment or a concerning glimpse into digital isolation.

 Screenshots of users having conversations with their AI followers became a minor meme format, highlighting the absurdity of performing for an audience that doesn't actually exist. FilterBubble refers to the algorithmic personalization of internet content that effectively isolates users in their own unique information ecosystem.

 The term was coined by internet activist Eli Parisser in his 2011 book of the same name. The basic concept is that search engines and social media platforms use algorithms to selectively guess what information a user would like to see based on their location, past click behavior, and search history. This creates a situation where two people searching the same term on Google or scrolling through Facebook can see completely different results tailored to their individual preferences.

 The problem is that users become trapped in their own cultural or ideological bubbles, rarely encountering information or opinions that challenge their existing worldview. You end up seeing content that confirms what you already believe while opposing viewpoints are filtered out entirely. This became a major talking point during the 2016 election when people realized their political feeds looked nothing like their neighbors.

 Critics argue filter bubbles contribute to increased polarization and the spread of misinformation since algorithms prioritize engagement over accuracy. Social media companies have pushed back claiming users have more diverse information access than ever before. Though internal research often contradicts this, the filter bubble essentially turned the internet from a tool for discovering new perspectives into a mirror that reflects your own beliefs back at you.

Fetish art refers to illustrations, drawings, and digital artwork depicting various fetishes, and kinks. This content exploded across the internet in the late 1990s and early 2000s, particularly on platforms like DeviantArt, which became notorious for hosting massive communities dedicated to highly specific interests.

 The sheer volume and variety of fetish art online became something of an internet legend. Rule 34. The internet adage stating that adult content exists for everything imaginable is largely sustained by the fetish art community. Artists create content ranging from relatively tame to extremely niche, covering everything from feat and inflation to transformation and vore.

 Deviant Art became the poster child for fetish art culture with entire sections of the site dedicated to specific interests. The platform's reputation became so intertwined with fetish content that it spawned countless memes and jokes about accidentally stumbling into unexpected territory while browsing for normal artwork.

 The community is known for taking commissions with artists making substantial income creating custom pieces for clients. Some fetish artists have built entire careers around their niche, developing dedicated followings and Patreon supporters. The prevalence of fetish art also led to the creation of various gurus and specialized image boards where users could tag and categorize content with extreme specificity.

 These databases contain millions of images all meticulously tagged and sorted for easy discovery. Soulseek is a peer-to-peer file sharing network launched in 1999 designed specifically for sharing music files. Unlike mainstream filesharing programs like Napster or Limewire, Soulsek carved out a niche by catering to music collectors looking for rare, underground, and outofprint albums that couldn't be found anywhere else.

 The platform uses a dedicated client application where users can search other people's shared folders, browse entire music libraries, and download directly from other users. What set apart was its built-in chat room system and the culture that developed around it. Users could message each other, recommend music, and build connections based on shared taste.

 The community became known for its focus on quality over quantity, with many users sharing lossless audio formats and maintaining carefully organized collections of obscure genres like experimental electronic, underground hip hop, and rare bootlegs. Trading etiquette was taken seriously, and users with locked folders or poor sharing ratios were often shunned.

Despite legal pressure that took down most filesharing networks in the early 2000s, Soulsek managed to survive by staying relatively small and maintaining its music focused identity. The platform remains active today with a dedicated user base, serving as one of the last remnants of the old peer-to-peer filesharing era.

Apollo Legend was a speedrunning YouTuber active from 2016 to 2020 who became known for his investigative videos exposing cheaters and fraudulent world records in the speedrunning community. His content focused heavily on calling out illegitimate runs and controversial figures, which earned him both praise and criticism.

 He frequently clashed with other content creators, including Billy Mitchell and Carl Jobs, leading to public feuds and legal threats. Apollo's videos were thorough and wellressearched, often serving as definitive takedowns of exposed cheaters. However, his confrontational style and willingness to burn bridges made him a polarizing figure in the speedrunning scene.

 In late 2020, Apollo Legend uploaded a final video addressing personal struggles and conflicts within the community before passing away. His channel remains up as an archive of speedrunning history and investigations with many considering his work important documentation despite the controversy surrounding his methods. Mitten Squad was a YouTube gaming channel run by Paul known for his challenge run videos in games like Fallout, Skyrim, and other role- playinging games.

 His content focused on completing games with self-imposed restrictions, asking questions like, "Can you beat Fallout 3 without taking any damage, or can you beat Skyrim?" as a pacifist. What set Mitten Squad apart was Paul's distinctly dry, deadpan delivery and self-deprecating humor. He narrated his runs with a monotone wit that became his signature style, often making jokes about his own failures or the absurdity of the challenges he'd taken on.

 His videos typically ranged from 10 to 20 minutes and covered a wide variety of games, though he was best known for his Fallout series content. Paul was open with his audience about his struggles with alcohol dependency, occasionally referencing it in his videos. In December 2022, Paul passed away at age 27. The circumstances were related to his ongoing health issues.

His death was confirmed by his family and led to an outpouring of tributes from the gaming YouTube community with many creators citing his unique style and honesty as inspirational. His channel remains up as a memorial to his work with over 1 million subscribers and hundreds of challenges. Pack God, an internet personality whorose to prominence in the early 2020s for his aggressive roasting style known as packing.

Packing refers to the act of verbally insulting someone in a rapid fire manner, usually in Discord voice chats or live streams. Pack God became known for his extremely fast delivery, often speaking at speeds that made it difficult for targets to respond or interrupt. His content typically features him entering random Discord servers or voice chats and launching into extended insult sessions against other users.

 The roasts combine internet slang, pop culture references, and highly creative insults delivered at breakneck speed. Pack God's videos gained millions of views on YouTube and Tik Tok, spawning countless imitators trying to replicate his style. The packing community grew into its own subculture with users competing to see who could deliver the most devastating roasts in the shortest amount of time.

His catchphrases and signature lines became frequently quoted memes across social media platforms. The content walks a fine line between comedy and genuine harassment with critics arguing the format encourages bullying behavior while fans view it as harmless entertainment between willing participants. AJ and Big Justice, also known as the Costco guys, are a father and son duo who gained viral popularity on Tik Tok starting in 2023.

 AJ Buffumo and his son Eric post enthusiastic food review videos, primarily featuring products from Costco with their signature catchphrase, boom, punctuating each taste test. Big Justice, despite being a child, delivers exaggerated reactions to food items with the energy of a professional hype man. Their videos follow a simple formula of visiting Costco, trying various foods, and rating them with theatrical enthusiasm.

 The duo's wholesome, family-friendly content, and Big Justice's over-the-top personality made them a crossover hit across multiple platforms. Their most popular content includes the double chunk chocolate cookie reviews and collaborations with other food content creators. The Costco guys phenomenon represents a specific type of viral family content where genuine enthusiasm, whether authentic or performed, becomes the main draw.

 Critics have pointed out the potential issues with child influencer content and the commercialization of childhood. Though the family maintains their content is simply about having fun together. By 2024, they had amassed millions of followers and began appearing in mainstream media with Big Justice becoming a recognizable figure in internet culture despite his young age.

Queso is a Twitch streamer and content creator who rose to prominence in the mid 2020s. He gained a massive following primarily through gaming content, particularly playing Roblox and various other games while interacting with his chat. The most notable aspect of Queso's online presence is the communitywide running joke about his weight.

 His viewers constantly spam jokes and memes about him being overweight, which has become a defining characteristic of his streams. Queso himself leans into these jokes rather than shutting them down, often reacting with exaggerated frustration or playing along, which only encourages more of the behavior. This dynamic created a unique feedback loop where the jokes became a core part of his content and appeal.

 Clips of him reacting to weight jokes frequently go viral on Tik Tok and YouTube shorts, introducing him to even wider audiences who then join in on the bit. His popularity exploded particularly among younger internet users with his clips regularly appearing across social media platforms. The humor is straightforward and accessible, making it easy for casual viewers to understand the joke and participate.

Urban Dictionary is a crowdsourced online slang dictionary founded in 1999 by Aaron Peekom. The site allows anyone to submit definitions for words, phrases, and slang terms with other users voting on which definitions are most accurate or helpful. It became the internet's default reference for understanding new slang, memes, and cultural terminology that wouldn't appear in traditional dictionaries.

 The site is particularly known for its crude humor and explicit definitions, often featuring joke entries alongside legitimate explanations. Urban Dictionary played a major role in documenting internet culture and youth slang as it evolved in real time. Whenever someone encounters an unfamiliar term online, the common response is to tell them to check Urban Dictionary.

 The site's voting system means the top definitions are supposedly the most accurate. Though this isn't always the case, some entries become infamous for being deliberately misleading or gross, [music] with users creating fake slang terms as pranks. One running joke involves people submitting overly flattering definitions of their own names.

Flamingo, also known as Albert or formerly Albert Stuff, is a YouTube channel run by Albert Erits that focusesprimarily on Roblox content. Starting in 2017, the Flamingo channel became one of the platform's most subscribed gaming channels, amassing over 10 million subscribers within a few years. The channel is known for its chaotic and absurdest humor, often featuring Albert trolling in various Roblox games, making intentionally cursed avatars, or creating bizarre scenarios that confuse other players. His videos typically

involve loud reactions, running gags, and a deliberately obnoxious persona that resonates with younger audiences. Before Flamingo, Albert ran the Albert Stuff channel, which featured similar content, but with more explicit language and mature themes. He created Flamingo as a family-friendly rebrand to appeal to Roblox's predominantly younger demographic and avoid demonetization issues.

 The channel spawned numerous catchphrases and inside jokes within the Roblox community, including his signature phrases and recurring characters like his avatar, Felipe the Flamingo. His influence on Roblox culture is substantial with many players imitating his trolling style or referencing his videos in game. Dreamy Bull, also known as Ambatukam or by his real name Peril Aquarius Brown, is an adult content creator who became a viral internet meme in the early 2020s.

Brown initially gained attention through his work on adult subscription platforms. But his internet fame exploded when clips from his content were extracted and repurposed as reaction sounds and meme material. The most notable of these became known as the Ambatukum meme, a sound clip that spread rapidly across platforms like Tik Tok, YouTube, and Twitter.

 And the meme's popularity led to countless remixes, edits, and ironic usage in completely unrelated contexts, transforming Brown from an adult performer into an unexpected internet celebrity. His content was frequently used in [ __ ] posts and ironic humor with users finding comedy in the absurdity of taking clips out of their original context.

 Brown himself acknowledged his meme status and occasionally engaged with the community that formed around these viral moments. The Dreamybull phenomenon represents a common pattern in internet culture, where adult content creators accidentally achieve mainstream meme fame through sound bites and clips that take on entirely new meanings when divorced from their source material.

Some Ordinary Gamers is a YouTube channel run by Mutahar Anas. The channel launched in 2012 and initially focused on horror gaming content, gaming creepy pastas, and the haunted gaming series that covered alleged paranormal occurrences in video games. The channel gained significant popularity during the gaming creepy pasta boom of the early 2010s, covering topics like haunted game cartridges, bizarre glitches, and internet urban legends surrounding games like Pokémon, Mario, and other Nintendo titles. Around 2015, Mutahar shifted

focus toward what became his signature content, the deep web browsing series. Using virtual machines for safety, he would explore the dark web and showcase the strange, disturbing, and often illegal content found there. This series exploded in popularity and became his most viewed content, introducing millions of viewers to the concept of the hidden internet.

 The channel evolved to cover tech topics, cryptocurrency, internet drama, commentary on internet culture, and occasional gaming content. Mutahar became known for his distinctive laugh, his use of virtual machines for everything, and his catchphrase addressing viewers as, "Ladies and gentlemen, Lessons in Meme Culture is a YouTube channel dedicated to documenting and explaining internet memes, viral trends, and online phenomena.

 Launched in 2017, the channel functions as a digital encyclopedia for internet culture, breaking down everything from obscure forum jokes to mainstream viral moments. The channel's format is straightforward. Each video covers a specific meme, trend, or piece of internet history, providing context on its origins, spread, and cultural impact.

 The narration style is direct and informative, treating meme culture as a legitimate subject worth serious documentation rather than mockery. What set lessons in meme culture apart was its timing. As internet culture became increasingly fragmented across platforms, the channel served as a centralized hub where viewers could catch up on memes they missed or understand references they didn't get.

It essentially became required viewing for anyone trying to stay current with online trends. The channel covers a wide range of content from wholesome viral videos to darker corners of internet culture, maintaining a neutral educational tone throughout. This approach helped legitimize meme studies as a field worth taking seriously, even if the subject matter itself was inherently ridiculous.

Short Wars is an alternate reality game that launched in 2016 on YouTube. The project centered around a series of interconnected channels posting crypticvideos that gradually revealed a narrative about artificial intelligence, digital consciousness, and the nature of reality itself. The main channel featured distorted footage, glitched visuals, and encoded messages that required viewers to piece together clues across multiple platforms.

 Participants discovered hidden links in video descriptions, decoded audio files, and followed breadcrumb trails that led to additional YouTube accounts, each playing a role in the larger story. The narrative followed entities trapped within digital spaces, attempting to communicate with the outside world through fragmented transmissions.

 As the game progressed, viewers uncovered connections between seemingly unrelated channels, revealing a larger conspiracy about simulated realities and beings trying to break free from their digital prisons. The creator maintained strict anonymity throughout the experience, communicating only through the puzzle elements embedded in the content.

Community members collaborated on dedicated forums and Discord servers to solve increasingly complex riddles and advance the plot. The ARG ran for approximately 2 years before concluding with a final series of videos that left many narrative threads deliberately open-ended. Some participants believed certain channels were still active and posting hints, [music] though the official story line had reached its conclusion.

Flight Reacts, also known as Flight or Not Your Average Flight, is a YouTube personality and Twitch streamer who rose to prominence in the mid2010s for his explosive reactions to NBA highlights and gameplay videos. His content typically features him watching basketball clips or playing NBA 2K while providing loud animated commentary that often includes yelling at the screen, jumping out of his chair, and delivering memorable oneliners that became widely memed across social media.

 His catchphrases like, "Look at Curry Man and Cash Nasty as trash turned into recurring jokes within the basketball YouTube community." I hate it when is a meme format and relatable content trend that became widespread across social media platforms in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The format involves people sharing common frustrations or minor annoyances that most internet users could identify with.

Typically paired with images or reaction faces, the posts usually followed a simple structure starting with the phrase, "I hate it when followed by a specific scenario." Popular examples included things like, "I hate it when I'm about to fall asleep and my body does that fake fall thing," or, "I hate it when you're telling a story and someone interrupts to tell their own.

" The format thrived on Facebook pages, Tumblr, and Twitter, where users would share these relatable moments to generate engagement and comments from others who experienced the same thing. Many of these posts featured rage comic faces or stock photo reactions to illustrate the frustration. The trend eventually evolved into more absurd and surreal variations with people creating increasingly specific or bizarre scenarios that subverted the original relatable format.

 Some versions became deliberately unrelatable as a form of anti-humor. Screamers, also known as screamer videos or screamer pranks, are videos or websites designed to trick viewers with seemingly innocent or boring content before suddenly flashing a terrifying image accompanied by an extremely loud scream.

 The content would typically present itself as a relaxing video, a puzzle game, an optical illusion test, or something requiring close attention to the screen. The formula was simple but effective. A viewer would be instructed to focus closely on the screen, turn up their volume, or stare at a specific point. After building false security through mundane footage or gameplay, the video would abruptly cut to a jump scare, most commonly using the possessed face from The Exorcist or similar horror imagery paired with a piercing scream loud enough to jolt

anyone within earshot. The maze game became one of the most recognizable screamers. Disguised as a simple browser game where players navigated a dot through increasingly narrow passages, the game required intense concentration and a steady hand, making the eventual jump scare all the more effective. Thousands of reaction videos flooded the internet showing friends and family members recoiling in terror.

 Other notable examples included Jingle Bells Reversed, which claimed to reveal a hidden satanic message and What's Wrong With This Picture? Which asked viewers to spot differences in an innocent photograph. The format peaked in the early to mid 2000s when internet users were less familiar with the concept. Screamers eventually became so widespread that the term itself became a warning.

 Comments sections would be filled with people asking, "Is this a screamer?" before clicking suspicious links. The predictability led to the format's decline, though it occasionallyresurfaces in new forms through social media platforms and messaging apps. Arcade Craniacs was a YouTube channel that ran from 2016 to 2019, featuring two friends named Steve and Nolan visiting various arcades across the United States.

 The channel focused primarily on claw machines, ticket games, and other arcade prize redemption games. Videos typically showed the duo attempting to win prizes, tracking their tickets, and showcasing their halls. The content was light-hearted and familyfriendly with Steve and Nolan's genuine friendship serving as the main draw for viewers.

 The channel accumulated hundreds of thousands of subscribers during its run, becoming one of the most popular arcade focused channels on the platform. Their enthusiasm and wholesome energy resonated with audiences looking for positive, non-controversial gaming content. In 2019, the channel abruptly ended when Steve was arrested and charged with multiple counts related to inappropriate contact with minors.

 The revelations led to Nolan immediately distancing himself from Steve and ceasing all channel operations. Steve was subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison time. The entire Arcade Craniac's channel was deleted, though re-uploads and archives exist scattered across the internet. Nolan later addressed the situation, stating he had no knowledge of Steve's actions and expressing support for the victims.

Postirony refers to a form of internet communication where sincerity and irony become so intertwined that distinguishing between them becomes impossible. The term gained prominence in online spaces during the late 2010s as internet culture evolved beyond simple ironic detachment. The concept describes situations where someone might genuinely believe something while simultaneously mocking it or where a community starts as parody but gradually attracts members who take it seriously.

This creates a state where participants can never be entirely sure if others are joking or being sincere. And often the participants themselves aren't certain of their own intentions. Post irony became particularly visible in meme culture and online communities where layers of ironic meaning pile up so high that the original joke gets lost.

Someone might post something absurd as a joke, but by the third or fourth level of reposting and recontextualization, new viewers might interpret it as genuine while original members maintain it still ironic. The phenomenon relates closely to Po's law, which states that without clear indication of intent, parodies of extreme views become indistinguishable from actual extreme views.

 Postirony takes this further by suggesting the distinction might not even matter anymore. Various internet subcultures have been described as postironic, where members simultaneously embrace and mock the communities they participate in. This created environments where earnestness and mockery exist in the same space without conflict. Noise music, also known as harsh noise, is a genre of experimental music built around dissonant, abrasive sounds rather than traditional melody or rhythm.

Artists layer feedback, static, distortion, and industrial sounds to create deliberately challenging audio experiences. The genre gained a cult following online through filesharing networks and forums in the early 2000s with Japanese artist Merzbow becoming the most recognizable name in the space. His album Pulse Demon is often cited as the quintessential harsh noise release featuring 75 minutes of uninterrupted distortion.

 Online communities dedicated to noise music treat the genre with genuine appreciation while outsiders often view it as a joke or endurance test. This led to noise albums becoming a meme format with people challenging friends to listen to entire albums or posting reactions of confusion and discomfort. The genre intersects with power electronics, industrial music, and the broader experimental music scene.

Artists perform at underground venues and DIY spaces with some shows becoming legendary for their physical intensity and volume levels that border on painful. Noise music exists in a strange space where sincere artistic expression meets ironic internet humor. Whether listeners find it therapeutic, confrontational, or completely unlistenable depends entirely on individual tolerance for sonic extremity.

Always has been is a meme format that exploded in popularity around 2020. The meme features two astronauts in space looking at Earth. The first astronaut makes a shocked realization saying, "Wait, it's all followed by whatever the joke is." The second astronaut, standing behind them while pointing a gun, responds with, "Always has been.

" The original image comes from a 2012 comic, but didn't gain traction as a meme template until mid2020. The format became incredibly versatile, used to reveal fake or absurd truths about anything from geography to pop culture to internet culture itself. The appeal comes from the dramatic reveal combinedwith the casual betrayal happening in the background.

 The gun-wielding astronaut represents the knowing party who's about to eliminate someone who learned too much. Though the violence is played for absurdest humor rather than actual threat. The phrase always has been itself became shorthand in online communities for confirming someone's delayed realization about something obvious.

 People still use it across social media whenever someone points out a truth that others claim was apparent all along. I hate everything, often shortened to Ihe, is a YouTube commentary channel created by British YouTuber Alex Bale in 2013. The channel built its identity around posting highly critical and sarcastic reviews of movies, television shows, video games, and internet trends, all delivered by an animated character with a perpetually angry expression.

 The channel's format typically involves Alex breaking down why something is poorly made or why he personally dislikes it with a dry, deadpan delivery that became the channel's signature style. Popular series on the channel include The Search for the Worst, where Alex reviews notoriously bad movies and I hate videos targeting specific topics like Minions, Mars Bars, or Twitter.

 Or I gained significant attention in the mid2010s and became part of a wave of commentary YouTubers who built audiences through negative or cynical takes on media. The channel was involved in a notable controversy in 2016 when it received a copyright strike and subsequent ban from YouTube due to a video criticizing Derek Savage's film Cool Cat Saves the Kids.

The strike was later reversed after backlash from the YouTube community. The channel has collaborated with other commentary creators like Your Movie Sucks and has expanded into more general video essays and documentary style content in recent years. Photobucket is an image hosting service launched in 2003 that became one of the most popular platforms for uploading and sharing photos online.

 During the early to mid 2000s, it was the go-to site for hosting images on forums, MySpace profiles, eBay listings, and personal websites. The site functioned as a free storage solution where users could upload their photos and receive direct links to embed them elsewhere on the internet. At its peak, PhotoBucket hosted over 10 billion images and had millions of active users.

 The platform became infamous in July 2017 when it abruptly changed its terms of service and began requiring a $400 annual subscription for third-party image hosting. This change happened without warning and overnight, billions of images embedded across countless websites, forums, and blogs were replaced with a broken link placeholder demanding payment.

 The decision effectively broke huge portions of internet history. Forum threads from the 2000s. Tutorial websites, product reviews, and personal blogs lost their embedded images permanently. Many users either couldn't afford the fee or simply abandoned their accounts, making the content unreoverable. The incident became known as the Great Photobucket Purge and is considered one of the largest digital content losses in internet history.

 It serves as a reminder of the risks of relying on third-party services for hosting important content. Matan Even, also known as the Bill Clinton kid, is an Israeli American internet personality and content creator who became notorious for crashing high-profile events and ambushing popular streamers. He first gained attention in 2019 when he held up a sign supporting Hong Kong protesters during a televised NBA game.

 He went fully viral in December 2022 when he snuck onto the stage at the Game Awards during the Game of the Year presentation for Elden Ring. He grabbed the microphone and said he wanted to nominate the award to his reformed Orthodox Rabbi Bill Clinton before being escorted off stage and arrested. Following this incident, Mottton became known for showing up everywhere.

 He would track down in real life streamers like Kaisenat and I show Speed at random locations, essentially stream sniping them in person. He crashed Universal Studios, local Super Smash Bros. tournaments, and even ambushed NBA player Javal McGee during a soccer match. This led to the Mottton Everywhere meme where people would photoshop him into historical photos and random videos, treating him like a real life version of where's Waldo.

 His content style includes using a fake accent as part of his troll persona and deliberately provoking reactions from other creators. One notable moment was when he showed up to a worker strike protest holding signs that said, "We love landlords and chanted in front of political streamer Hassan Piker." Another viral clip featured him challenging only fans models to name 10 books during a podcast appearance.

Facebook Parenting for the Troubled Teen is a viral video uploaded to YouTube in February 2012 by a father named Tommy Jordan from North Carolina. In the video, Jordan responds to a Facebookpost his 15-year-old daughter Hannah made complaining about her parents and chores. He reads her post aloud while sitting in a lawn chair, addresses each complaint point by point, then proceeds to shoot her laptop nine times with a hollow point45 caliber handgun.

 The video was titled as a lesson in parenting and quickly went viral, racking up millions of views within days. Public reaction was heavily divided between those praising Jordan's tough love approach and those condemning it as abusive or dangerous behavior. Jordan defended his actions in follow-up interviews, stating he wanted to teach his daughter about consequences and public accountability.

 He mentioned he had previously warned her about complaining on social media. The incident sparked widespread debate about parenting methods, privacy, technology use, and whether destroying expensive property was appropriate discipline. Hannah Jordan later gave interviews stating she understood why her father did it and that their relationship eventually improved.

Baba is You is an indie puzzle video game released in 2019 by Finnish developer RV Tea, also known as Hempuli. The game's defining feature is that players can manipulate the rules of each level by physically pushing around word blocks that form the game's logic. Instead of working within fixed rules like most puzzle games, you literally move words like baba, is you, wall, stop, and win to change what objects do and how you control them.

 Breaking apart the phrase wall is stop might let you walk through walls. Rearranging flag is win to baba is win makes you instantly complete the level just by existing. The game won the Excellence in Design Award at the Independent Games Festival in 2018 before its full release and gained widespread attention for its mind-bending approach to puzzle solving.

Levels range from simple introductory concepts to absolutely brutal brain teasers that require completely rethinking what's even possible within the game's logic system. Baba is You became a favorite among puzzle game enthusiasts and speedrunners with players discovering increasingly creative and unintended solutions to levels.

 The game spawned numerous memes about its reality breaking mechanics, usually formatted as X is Y statements applied to everyday situations. Cookie Run is a South Korean mobile game franchise that began in 2009 with the original Endless Runner game online. The series features anthropomorphic gingerbread cookies as playable characters, each with their own unique abilities and backstories.

 Players control these cookies as they escape from a witch's oven, collecting jellies and coins while avoiding obstacles. The franchise exploded in popularity with Cookie Run Oven Break in 2016 and Cookie Run Kingdom in 2021, which shifted the gameplay to a city-building RPG format. The games became known for their colorful art style, massive roster of cookie characters, and surprisingly deep lore involving ancient kingdoms, dark magic, and cookie politics.

 Cookie Run developed a significant internet following, particularly among younger audiences and in East Asian gaming communities. The character designs led to extensive fan art, shipping culture, and meme content. Characters like Pure Vanilla Cookie, Dark Choco Cookie, and Espresso Cookie became especially popular online.

 The franchise's gotcha mechanics and crossover events with properties like Disney and Sonic the Hedgehog kept it trending in mobile gaming circles. Cookie Run Kingdom in particular sparked discussions about its generous free-to-play rewards compared to other gotacha games, though some criticized its repetitive gameplay loops. Man or bear in the woods question, also known as man versus bear, refers to a viral thought experiment that spread across social media platforms in late 2020s.

 The hypothetical scenario asks whether someone would rather encounter a random man or a wild bear while alone in the woods. The question originated on Tik Tok and quickly sparked widespread debate across multiple platforms, including Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube. The responses overwhelmingly favored the bare option with many users explaining their reasoning through personal experiences and safety concerns.

 The viral nature of the question led to countless response videos, memes, and heated discussions about trust, safety, and gender dynamics. Men responded with confusion and frustration at the results, while others used the opportunity to discuss why the responses reflected deeper societal issues. The debate became so widespread that it spawned parody versions, analysis videos, and even academic discussions about what the question reveals about modern social anxieties.

 News outlets covered the phenomenon, and it became one of the defining internet moments of 2024. The Binding of Isaac is an independent roglike dungeon crawler released in 2011 by Edmund McMillan and Florian Himl. The game follows Isaac, a young boy who flees into his basement after his motherreceives what she believes is a divine command to sacrifice him, directly referencing the biblical story of the same name.

 The gameplay combines elements from the original Legend of Zelda with randomly generated dungeons, permanent death mechanics, and hundreds of items that create different synergies and play styles. Players navigate through procedurally generated floors, fighting enemies with Isaac's tears as projectiles, collecting powerups that range from straightforward damage increases to completely game-breaking combinations.

 The game became notorious for its dark religious imagery mixed with body horror and scatological themes. Isaac encounters twisted versions of biblical figures, collects items like dead cats and aborted fetuses, and transforms into increasingly grotesque forms. This led to it being rejected from Apple's App Store and sparked discussions about censorship in gaming.

 The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, a complete remake released in 2014, expanded the game significantly with better performance, more content, and mod support. The modding community exploded with players creating thousands of custom items, characters, and challenges. Subsequent expansions like Afterbirth and Repentance continued adding content with Repentance alone adding over 130 new items.

 The game developed a massive speedrunning and content creation scene. Its random nature and high skill ceiling made it perfect for streaming with runners discovering increasingly broken item combinations and optimization strategies. Dead Bart is a creepy pasta centered around an alleged lost episode of The Simpsons.

 The story claims that during the show's first season, an episode titled Dead Bart was produced but never aired due to its disturbing content. According to the pasta, the episode shows Bart boarding a plane alone to visit relatives. The plane experiences turbulence and crashes, resulting in Bart's death. The rest of the episode supposedly consists of the family grieving, followed by a lengthy funeral sequence with minimal dialogue and unsettling visuals.

 The most infamous detail involves a cemetery scene where gravestones display the names and death dates of various celebrities and guest stars who had appeared on the Simpsons. The creepy pasta claims these dates were accurate predictions of their actual deaths, which occurred years after the episode was allegedly produced.

 The story gained traction in the late 2000s and early 2010s, becoming one of the more well-known examples of the lost episode creepyp pasta format. It follows the typical structure of these stories, claiming that animators and staff who worked on the episode refused to discuss it and that copies were destroyed or locked away.

 Matt Groing and other Simpsons staff have never acknowledged the existence of such an episode. The story is entirely fictional, though it remains a popular piece of internet horror folklore. That vegan teacher, also known as Miss Katie, is the online persona of Katie Karen Dememy, a Canadian Tik Tok creator who gained notoriety in the early 2020s for her extremely confrontational approach to vegan activism.

 Deakmeer, a former elementary school teacher, began posting videos on Tik Tok around 2019 where she would directly call out meateers, celebrities, and other content creators in an attempt to convert them to veganism. Her content often featured original songs, classroom style lectures, and comparisons that many viewers found deeply uncomfortable or inappropriate.

 The account became infamous for making extreme analogies between eating animal products and various atrocities. targeting popular creators like Gordon Ramsay and Tommy Init with aggressive callout videos and creating content that frequently crossed the line into what many considered harassment. Her catchphrase, eating animals is wrong, became a widespread meme, often used mockingly across social media.

 That vegan teacher was permanently banned from Tik Tok in early 2021 for multiple violations of the platform's community guidelines, though she continued creating content on YouTube and other platforms. The ban sparked debate about the line between passionate activism and platform harassment with supporters claiming she was silenced for speaking truth, while critics argued her methods were counterproductive and alienating.

 Her content style inspired countless parody videos and response content, essentially making her one of the most divisive figures in online vegan activism. Common Sense Media is a nonprofit website founded in 2003 that provides parents with reviews and age ratings for movies, TV shows, video games, books, apps, and other media.

 The site breaks down content into specific categories like violence, language, drinking, and mature themes, giving detailed descriptions of what appears in each piece of media. The platform became widely known among millennial and Gen Z internet users who grew up with parents checking the site before allowing themto watch or play anything.

 Common Sense Media reviews often became a source of frustration for kids and teens who felt the ratings were too strict or overly cautious. Online, the site turned into something of a meme. Screenshots of particularly dramatic or overprotective parent reviews frequently get shared on social media with users poking fun at concerns like, "My child saw someone drink a soda and now asks about caffeine or parents rating media one-star because their kid had nightmares.

" The review section became notable for showcasing the gap between what parents think is inappropriate and what kids actually care about. The site also gained attention for sometimes rating content more harshly than official ratings boards, with some animated films or teen shows receiving surprisingly high age recommendations.

 [music] Despite the jokes, Common Sense Media remains one of the most popular parental media resources on the internet with millions of monthly visitors checking reviews before making decisions about what their children consume. The Perfect Girl is a darkwave synth pop song by the artist Maru that became a viral sound on Tik Tok and across social media platforms in the early 2020s.

 The track features heavy synthesizers and melancholic vocals describing an idealized romantic partner delivered with an 80s inspired aesthetic. The song exploded in popularity when users began pairing it with video edits featuring anime characters, film scenes, and aesthetic visuals, particularly those with dark, moody, or cyberpunk themes.

It became especially associated with Sigma male and lonewolf style content, as well as edits romanticizing fictional female characters from various media. The track's widespread use led to it becoming somewhat mimedic with many creators using it ironically or saterizing the earnest edits that had popularized it.

 Some variations featured intentionally poor or absurd editing choices to mock the trend. The song also spawned numerous remixes, slowed versions, and reinterpretations across platforms like YouTube and Soundcloud. The Perfect Girl became emblematic of a specific era of internet culture where moody synthwave music paired with heavily filtered visuals dominated recommendation algorithms.

 Its association with certain online subcultures and editing styles made it instantly recognizable to anyone who spent time on short form video platforms during its peak popularity. Twit longer was a third-party website that served as a workaround for Twitter's character limit. When Twitter only allowed 140 characters per tweet and later 280, Twit Longer let users write much longer posts.

 The service would automatically post a shortened version of your message to Twitter with a link directing followers to read the full text on Twit Longer's site. The platform became particularly popular among users who needed to share detailed thoughts, apologies, or statements without breaking their message into messy multi-weet threads.

 It was commonly used for drama callouts, lengthy explanations, and Twitter arguments that required more space than the platform allowed. Twit longer's relevance declined significantly after Twitter introduced its own threading features and eventually removed most character restrictions for Twitter blue subscribers.

 The site still exists, but sees far less use than it did during Twitter's stricter character limit era in the early 2010s. Lankybox is a YouTube channel and content creator duo consisting of Justin Chroma and Adam MacArthur. The channel launched in 2016 and initially focused on comedy sketches and challenges before pivoting to reaction videos and gaming content aimed primarily at children.

 The duo became massively successful in the late 2010s and early 2020s, amassing tens of millions of subscribers through their high energy reaction videos to internet content, zero budget parodies, and gameplay videos. They're particularly known for their original characters, Boxy and Rocky, anthropomorphized versions of a cardboard box and a rock that appear throughout their content and merchandise.

 Lankybox has become one of the most polarizing channels in the YouTube commentary space. Critics often label them as a content farm, pointing to their repetitive video formats, bright thumbnail designs optimized for the algorithm, and what many see as loweffort reaction content. The channel has been accused of stealing content without proper credit, creating videos that many consider manipulative toward younger viewers, and prioritizing quantity over quality.

 Despite or perhaps because of the criticism, Lankybox has achieved enormous commercial success with their merchandise line generating significant revenue and their videos consistently pulling in millions of views. They represent a broader trend of channels that optimize every aspect of their content for maximum engagement with younger demographics, often at the expense of creativity or originality in the eyes of older internet users.

Audacity is a free open-source audio editing program that became one of the most widely used pieces of software for content creators, podcasters, [music] and musicians on the internet. First released in 2000, the program gained popularity for being completely free while offering professional level editing capabilities like multi-track recording, noise reduction, and various effects.

 For years, Audacity was recommended in practically every beginner's guide to audio editing and podcast creation, making it a foundational tool for countless YouTubers and online creators. The software's interface became iconic enough that screenshots of Audacity's waveform display are instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever edited audio.

 In 2021, Audacity became the center of controversy when it was acquired by Muse Group. The new owners proposed updates to the privacy policy that would collect user data, leading parts of the internet to declare Audacity had become spywear. The backlash was immediate and intense with users demanding the software remain completely offline and privacy respecting.

 This led to several fork projects being created by developers who wanted to preserve the original spirit of the program. The controversy also spawned the term audacity as a play on words to describe the boldness of the changes. Despite the drama, Audacity remains widely used, though the 2021 incident left a permanent mark on its reputation in privacy conscious internet communities.

FGTV, also known as the family gaming team, is a familyrun YouTube gaming channel that launched in 2010. The channel features Vincent Ryan, known as Duddy or FGTV Duddy, alongside his wife and their four children, creating gaming videos, vlogs, and comedy skits. The channel gained massive popularity in the mid2010s by focusing on family-friendly gaming content with an energetic, hyperactive presentation style.

 Their videos typically feature the family playing trending games like Minecraft, Roblox, and various mobile games, often with exaggerated reactions and kid-oriented humor. FGTV became one of the most successful family gaming channels on YouTube, accumulating billions of views and expanding into multiple related channels, including Funnel Vision for vlogs, and Do Much Fun for toy content.

 The family also branched into merchandise, graphic novels, and even a mobile game. The channel's style has been divisive among viewers. While younger audiences gravitate toward the loud, chaotic energy and accessible content, older viewers and parents have criticized the videos as overstimulating or annoying. The family has also faced minor controversies typical of family vlogger channels, including debates about featuring young children in monetized content and questions about authenticity versus performance in their videos.

Despite starting as a relatively unknown gaming family, FGTV became a multi-million subscriber phenomenon that essentially defined the family gaming channel genre on YouTube. Lethal Company is a co-op survival horror game created by solo developer Zeers that exploded in popularity after its early access release in October 2023.

 The game casts players as employees of a shady corporation tasked with scavenging abandoned industrial moons for scrap metal to meet increasingly demanding profit quotas. The gameplay loop involves exploring dark facilities filled with hostile creatures while trying to collect enough loot to satisfy the company before the deadline hits.

 What made Lethal Company go viral was its proximity voice chat system combined with the tense gameplay. Players can only hear each other when they're close, leading to moments of panic when teammates get separated or attacked. The game's dark humor about corporate exploitation resonated with audiences, featuring elements like having to purchase equipment from the company store and facing termination for poor performance.

 The game became a massive hit on Steam and dominated Twitch and YouTube throughout late 2023 and early 2024 with streamers and content creators showcasing the chaotic and often hilarious moments that emerged from its gameplay. Various monsters like the Bracken, Coil Head, and Jester became internet staples through clips and memes.

 Despite being made by a single developer and still in early access, Lethal Company became one of the highests selling games on Steam during its release period. I Want to Be the Guy is a notoriously difficult freeear platformer released in 2007 by developer Michael O'Reilly. Known online as Cayenne, the game earned its reputation through intentionally unfair level design where nearly everything can and will kill the player, often with no warning.

 Apples fall upward, spikes appear from nowhere, death is constant and expected. The game pulls sprites and bosses from classic video games like Mega Man, Castlevania, and Metroid, creating a mashup that's equal parts homage and torture device. Players die hundreds or thousands oftimes trying to complete even basic sections.

 The difficulty spawned countless rage videos and streaming content throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. I want to be the Bosshi followed in 2010, created by a developer known as Soulgrren. This fan game cranks the difficulty even higher and features bosses and references from games like Tu and characters like Sonic and Mario.

Bosshi became the gold standard for punishing platformer difficulty with completion times measuring player skill in the community. Both games launched an entire genre of freeware Iwana games, each trying to outdo the last in creative ways to kill the player. The masochistic appeal turned these games into a right of passage for platformer enthusiasts and content creators looking to suffer on camera.

Don't Starve is a survival video game developed by Cly Entertainment and released in 2013. The game [clears throat] drops players into a randomly generated wilderness where they must gather resources, craft items, and manage their health, hunger, and sanity to survive as long as possible. Death is permanent, meaning each run starts from scratch.

 What made Don't Starve stand out was its distinctive handdrawn art style that looks like a Tim Burton film came to life. Featuring dark humor and gothic aesthetics, players control Wilson, a gentleman scientist trapped in a mysterious world by a demon named Maxwell. The game gained a massive following for its punishing difficulty and the sheer amount of ways players could die.

 From starvation to monster attacks to literally going insane in the dark, the community became known for sharing their most ridiculous or unfortunate deaths. In 2016, Clay released Don't Starve Together, a multiplayer version that became even more popular than the original, letting friends suffer and starve together. The game spawned multiple DLC expansions and even a solo expansion called Don't Starve: Shipwrecked.

 Don't Starve became a staple of the indie survival game genre and remains popular on streaming platforms where viewers can watch others struggle to not die from eating the wrong mushroom. Eddie Wallally was a Belgian singer and entertainer who became an unexpected internet sensation in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

 Born in 1932, Wall-E spent decades as a showman in Belgium. Known for his extravagant sequined outfits, over-the-top personality, and theatrical performances, his internet fame came from a series of clips showing him saying, "Wow!" in his distinctive, enthusiastic voice, often while wearing sparkly suits and striking dramatic poses.

 The most famous clip shows him arriving somewhere in a white suit, spreading his arms wide, and exclaiming, "Wow!" with pure joy. This became a popular reaction image and video across forums and social media. Wall-ally embraced his meme status later in life, appearing to genuinely enjoy the attention from a new generation of fans who appreciated his unapologetic flamboyance.

 He was sometimes called the voice of Europe in Belgium, though his internet nickname became simply Wow Guy. He passed away in 2016 at age 83 with many online communities paying tribute to the entertainer who brought such genuine enthusiasm to everything he did. His clips continue to circulate as wholesome examples of someone living life with maximum energy and zero shame.

Ram Ranch is a shock audio track released by Canadian musician Grant Macdonald in 2010. The song features extremely explicit content involving cowboys and became notorious on the internet for its use as raid material in gaming streams and online communities. The track gained significant meme status throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, particularly on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, where users would spam links or play the audio to shock unsuspecting streamers and audiences.

 Grant Macdonald himself leaned into the meme status, eventually creating over 500 numbered versions and variations of Ram Ranch. The song became a staple of internet shock culture and trolling, similar to Rick Rowling, but significantly more explicit. It saw renewed attention during the Canadian trucker protests in 2022 when anonymous users reportedly played it on loop over the trucker's communication channels.

 Grant Macdonald has maintained that Ram Ranch started as sincere artistic expression before evolving into its current status as internet folklore. The track represents an interesting case of content creator and audience participating together in transforming a work into widespread [music] meme culture. You reposted in the wrong neighborhood is a viral mashup that combines Culio's Gangsters Paradise with We Are Number One from the children's show Lazy Town.

The mashup was uploaded to Soundcloud in January 2016 by user Sloth on Meth and quickly spread across platforms like YouTube and Vine. The title itself became a catchphrase and meme format, often paired with the image macro of Robbie Rottton's face from Lazy Town, edited to look menacing or aggressive.

The contrast between the gritty '90s hip-hop track and the upbeat children's show song created an unexpectedly cohesive blend that resonated with internet users. The success of the original sparked countless variations and remixes with creators applying the same mashup concept to other song combinations. The format became a template for the In the Wrong Neighborhood meme series, where incompatible or unexpected elements are combined for comedic effect.

 The mashup gained renewed attention in late 2016 when Stefan Carl Stephenson, the actor who played Robbie Rotten, was diagnosed with cancer. The internet rallied around We Are Number One remixes and memes as a way to support him, pushing the song and related content to even greater popularity. Corridor Digital, also known as Corridor, is a production studio and YouTube channel founded by Sam Gorski and Nico Puringer in the late 2000s.

 The channel became known for creating highquality visual effects, heavy action shorts, and comedy sketches. Essentially proving that YouTube creators could produce Hollywood level VFX work on a fraction of the budget. Their content often features parkour, gunfights, and elaborate stunts combined with seamless computerenerated effects.

 They also run a sister channel called Corridor Crew, where they break down VFX in movies and explain how they achieved their own effects, which became massively popular for demystifying movie magic. The Glitch is one of Corridor Digital's most ambitious projects. It's a sci-fi action web series that premiered in 2015, following a character who discovers they can manipulate reality through parkour and hand movements.

 The series was essentially a love letter to action films and video games. With each episode featuring increasingly elaborate fight choreography and visual effects, the show gained attention for its production value, which rivaled many television productions despite being made by a relatively small team. It showcased what independent creators could accomplish on YouTube with enough skill and determination, helping establish the idea that web series could be taken seriously as a format.

Pixel Gun 3D is a mobile firstperson shooter game released in 2013 that gained massive popularity among younger players during the mid2010s. The game features blocky Minecraft style graphics and allowed players to battle in various multiplayer modes with an arsenal of weapons ranging from basic guns to ridiculous fantasy items.

 It became one of the most downloaded mobile shooters of its era, particularly among elementary and middle school-aged kids. The Battlecats is a free-to-play tower defense mobile game developed by Japanese studio Ponos Corporation. Originally released in 2012, the game involves sending waves of cats to destroy an enemy base while defending your own.

 The game gained a dedicated internet following for its absurdest humor and deliberately bizarre cat designs. Players collect various cat units ranging from basic cats to increasingly ridiculous variants like ninja cats, zombie cats, and cats based on historical figures. The gameplay itself is simple, but the gotacha mechanics and unit collection became surprisingly addictive for many players.

The Battlecats developed a notable presence in online gaming communities throughout the 2010s, particularly on Reddit and YouTube, where players shared strategies, tier lists, and memes about the game stranger elements. The game's advertising also became somewhat infamous for its surreal promotional videos and crossover events with other franchises.

 What set it apart from other mobile tower defense games was its commitment to weird, often inexplicable design choices and its willingness to reference internet culture directly in its content updates. Pizza Tower is a fast-paced indie platformer released in January 2023 by developer Tour to Pizza. The game stars Papino Spaghetti, a perpetually anxious Italian chef who must climb a mysterious tower to save his restaurant from destruction.

 The game draws heavy inspiration from the Warri Land series, particularly Warriand 4, with its momentum based movement and emphasis on destruction over precision platforming. Players speed through levels causing chaos while racing against the clock with the ability to revisit completed stages to hunt for secrets and achieve higher ranks.

Pizza Tower gained significant traction online well before its official release through years of development updates and demos that showcased its distinctly expressive cartoon animation style reminiscent of 1990s Nickelodeon shows. The game soundtrack composed by Mr. Sausman and Classy Jit among others became particularly popular with tracks like It's Pizza Time and Unexpectancy spawning countless remixes and meme videos.

 The game's breakout success caught many by surprise, selling over half a million copies in its first month and dominating indie game discussions throughout early 2023. Its combinationof satisfying speedrunning mechanics, over-the-top Italian stereotypes played for comedy, and genuinely stellar pixel art made it a darling of gaming YouTubers and Twitch streamers.

 The Pizza Tower community quickly formed around achieving P ranks, the game's highest ranking system that requires near-perfect runs, as well as creating fan art of the game's memorable cast of characters, including the stoic rival, The Noise, and the Mysterious Pizza Head. BrainPOP is an educational website featuring short animated videos covering topics from science and math to social studies and health.

 The site launched in 1999 and became a staple in classrooms throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Each video stars Tim, an average student, and Moby, an orange robot who communicates exclusively through electronic beeps that Tim somehow understands perfectly. The format typically begins with Tim reading a letter from a viewer asking about the day's topic before diving into the lesson with Moby's robotic assistance.

 The site gained significant nostalgia status among millennials and Gen Z who grew up watching these videos in school computer labs. Mobi in particular became something of a folk hero online with users joking about the robot's apparent infinite wisdom despite only being able to beep. The slightly stiff animation and earnest educational tone made BrainPop ripe for meme culture, spawning countless jokes about Tim and Moby's relationship dynamic and the awkward way certain mature topics were explained to children.

 BrainPOP expanded over the years to include BrainPop Jr. for younger students and subject specific spin-offs. The site requires a subscription for full access, though many schools provided it to students during the platform's peak years. Seth Everman, also known as the I'm the bald guy guy, is a Swedish musician and YouTuber who became internet famous for his dead pan piano covers and comedy sketches.

 He's recognizable by his completely bald head and expressionless face, which he maintains throughout his videos regardless of what he's playing. Seth gained massive attention in 2019 when he commented, "I'm the bald guy." on Billy Isish's official bad guy music video. The comment became the most liked comment in YouTube history, racking up over 3 million likes.

 This cemented his internet fame beyond just his own content. His videos typically feature him sitting at a keyboard with zero emotion, playing intricate covers, or creating comedy sketches with minimal editing and maximum awkwardness. The contrast between his serious blank expression, and the often ridiculous content he's creating became his signature style.

 He's also known for roasting other musicians and music genres with his signature deadpan delivery, as well as creating highly technical medleys that showcase his actual musical talent beneath the comedy. Extremist pipelines, also known as the radicalization pipeline or the rabbit hole effect. The term describes how social media algorithms and recommendation systems can gradually expose users to increasingly extreme content over time.

 The concept gained widespread attention in the late 2010s when researchers and journalists examined how platforms like YouTube's autoplay and recommendation features could lead viewers from mainstream content to fringe ideologies. The pipeline typically starts with someone watching relatively normal videos on topics like politics, history, or current events.

 The algorithm then suggests increasingly provocative content based on watch time and engagement metrics. Each video pushes the boundary slightly further, normalizing more extreme viewpoints as the user continues clicking through recommendations. YouTube became the primary focus of these discussions after multiple investigations showed connections between gaming channels, self-improvement content, and political commentary that fed into more radical communities.

 The platform's stated goal of maximizing watchtime meant controversial content often received preferential treatment in recommendations. Content creators and academics mapped out common pathways users would take, noting specific channels that frequently appeared as stepping stones. Some creators acknowledged their role in these pipelines, while others disputed the framing entirely.

 The debate intensified around whether platforms bore responsibility for the content their algorithms promoted versus individual user choice. Several platforms implemented changes to their recommendation systems in response, though the effectiveness of these measures remains contested. Greatest Freakout Ever is a viral video series that dominated YouTube in the late 2000s.

 The videos feature a teenager named Steven, nicknamed the freakout kid, having extreme emotional meltdowns filmed by his brother Jack. The most infamous clip shows Steven losing his mind after his mom cancels his World of Warcraft subscription. During the tantrum, he thrashes around his room, screams into a pillow, and inthe moment everyone remembers, attempts to shove a TV remote where the sun doesn't shine.

 The raw intensity and bizarre behavior made it prime meme material. Jack uploaded dozens of freakout videos over the years, each showing Steven having similar meltdowns over various gaming related incidents. The channel gained millions of views and spawned countless reaction videos and parodies. The big question that followed the series was whether the freakouts were real or staged.

 Many viewers believed the overacting and convenient camera placement suggested the whole thing was scripted for views. Others insisted no one would willingly humiliate themselves like that for internet fame. The debate became almost as popular as the videos themselves. Steven eventually appeared on Tosh.0 where he claimed the videos were real.

Though this did little to settle the argument. Terminally online, also known as chronically online, is a phrase used to describe someone who spends so much time on the internet that their perception of reality becomes warped by online culture. These individuals often struggle to understand that most people don't know or care about the latest Twitter discourse.

 niche internet drama or whatever meme format is currently popular, they might assume everyone is familiar with specific online personalities, debates, or inside jokes that only exist within certain corners of the internet. The term is often used self-deprecatingly by people who recognize their own internet addiction, but it can also be used critically to describe someone who's lost the ability to gauge what's normal or important outside of their digital bubble.

 Common signs include getting genuinely upset over online arguments, believing that online trends represent mainstream opinion, or being unable to have conversations without referencing internet culture. The phrase gained traction in the late 2010s as social media became more dominant in daily life with people spending increasingly unhealthy amounts of time scrolling, posting, and arguing online.

Alternative history refers to the online genre and community centered around imagining what would have happened if historical events had gone differently. The internet became a hub for alternate history enthusiasts who create detailed timelines, maps, and narratives exploring scenarios like what if the Axis powers won World War II? What if Rome never fell? Or what if the Confederacy won the American Civil War? These scenarios range from plausible divergences to completely absurd premises.

 Forums like alternatehistory.com became massive repositories of collaborative worldbuilding with users spending years developing intricate alternate timelines complete with fictional news articles, propaganda posters, and diplomatic correspondents. Reddit's alternate history communities continue this tradition with users constantly posting custom maps showing redrawn borders and re-imagined nations.

The genre also bleeds into YouTube with channels dedicated to exploring these whatif scenarios through video essays and animated maps. Some creators focus on serious historical analysis while others lean into memew worthy premises like what if Minecraft existed in ancient Egypt. There's occasional overlap with actual conspiracy theory communities who believe in alternative versions of real history, though most alternate history enthusiasts are simply engaging in speculative fiction as a creative exercise.

Deaf Noodles, real name Dennis Phtosa, was a drama commentary channel that rose to prominence on Tik Tok and YouTube during the early 2020s. He covered internet drama, controversies, and trending news within the online creator space, often reporting on other YouTubers and internet personalities. The channel gained a substantial following for its frequent uploads and coverage of breaking drama.

 But Deaf Noodles became increasingly controversial himself. He had a public falling out with H3H3 and Ethan Klein after initially being featured on their podcast. Critics accused him of poor research, sensationalizing stories, and contributing to cancel culture while simultaneously becoming the target of it.

 His downfall accelerated when he began feuding with other commentary channels and was called out for alleged hypocrisy, cloutchasing, and spreading misinformation. The drama peaked when he posted increasingly erratic content, and engaged in public arguments with viewers and other creators. His subscriber count and viewership tanked dramatically.

 By late 2022, Deaf Noodles had become more known as a cautionary tale about the dangers of drama commentary channels rather than an actual source of news. The channel eventually went dark after the controversies piled up. Nerd City is a YouTube channel that launched in 2016 focused on investigative deep dives into internet culture and YouTube itself.

 The channel became known for its extensive research and high production quality. often spending months on single videos. Theircontent typically exposes deceptive practices by influencers and creators. Notable videos include investigations into Instagram reality versus expectations, fake guru scams, and YouTube algorithm manipulation tactics.

The channel's most famous work is probably their series on Jake Paul, which analyzed his controversial content and business practices in forensic detail. Nerd City uses a distinctive visual style with heavy motion graphics and data visualization. The narrator often appears wearing a plague doctor mask, maintaining anonymity while delivering dry, sarcastic commentary.

Videos frequently run over an hour long and include spreadsheets, statistical analysis, and interviews with experts or affected parties. The channel went on an extended hiatus starting around 2021 with uploads becoming increasingly sporadic. This led to speculation about the creators burning out from the intensive research process or facing legal pressure from subjects of their investigations.

 The channel occasionally posts updates, but has largely stopped producing full investigative pieces. Trisha Pas is a YouTube personality and content creator who has been a fixture of internet drama since the late 2000s. They started making videos on YouTube around 2006 and 2007. Initially gaining attention through mukbang videos, personal vlogs, and music parodies, Trisha built their brand on being unpredictable and controversial, which led to ongoing debates about whether their content is genuine or elaborate performance art. They became known for

making shocking claims and contradictory statements, ranging from identity announcements to allegations against other creators. This pattern made them a lightning rod for both dedicated fans and critics who couldn't look away from the chaos. Some of their most notable feuds include drama with David Dori's Vlog Squad after dating member Jason Nash and their time co-hosting the Frenemies podcast with H3H3's Ethan Klene.

 The Frenemy's era brought Trisha to a new audience, but ended in spectacular fashion with accusations, deleted videos, and multiple response videos from all parties involved. They're also known for the infamous clip of them eating a raw chicken nugget on their kitchen floor while crying, which became a lasting meme format. Beyond YouTube, Trisha maintained a presence on Only Fans and other platforms, constantly reinventing their image and persona with new aesthetics, beliefs, and content directions.

 The core appeal of Trisha's content lies in the uncertainty. Viewers are never quite sure what's real, what's exaggerated for views, or what's complete fiction, making them one of the internet's most polarizing figures. Granny is a firstp person survival horror game released in 2017 by indie developer Dave Loper.

 Players wake up trapped in a dark house and have 5 days to escape while avoiding the titular granny, a hostile elderly woman who hunts them by sound. The game became a massive phenomenon on YouTube and mobile platforms. Despite its simple graphics and basic mechanics, any noise alerts Granny to the player's location, forcing them to move quietly while solving puzzles and collecting items to unlock the exit.

 The game success spawned multiple sequels, including Granny Chapter 2 and Granny Chapter 3, along with countless imitators trying to capture the same formula. Its popularity peaked around 2017 to 2018 when it dominated mobile gaming charts and generated millions of let's play videos. The game's appeal lies in its straightforward horror concept and jump scares, making it perfect content for reaction videos and streamers.

 Granny's unsettling appearance and aggressive AI created genuinely tense gameplay moments that translated well to video format, cementing its place as a defining mobile horror game of the late 2010s. Omegaverse, also known as [ __ ] or Alpha Beta Omega, a fanfiction subgenre and trope that emerged from the supernatural fandom around 2010 to 2011 on Live Journal and Archive of our own.

 The genre presents an alternative universe where humans have a secondary biological classification system based on wolfpack hierarchy dividing people into alphas, betas, and omegas, each with distinct physical and behavioral traits. The dynamics typically involve biological imperatives like heat cycles, scent marking, and mating bonds.

 While it started in supernatural fandom, the trope quickly spread across fandoms and eventually spawned original fiction in the genre. The content is predominantly adultoriented and often explores power dynamics and relationship structures outside conventional norms. The term became widely known outside fandom circles in 2016 when author Addison Kaine attempted to trademark Omegaverse and filed lawsuits against other writers in the genre claiming copyright infringement.

 The legal action was heavily criticized by the writing community for attempting to monopolize a collaborative fan- created trope. The case was eventually dismissed and Kane'strademark attempt failed. The genre has since become a recognizable category in independent publishing, particularly in romance fiction with thousands of published works bearing the Omegaverse label.

Airhorn remixes were a meme format from the mid2010s where people would take existing songs, videos, or audio and blast loud air horn sound effects throughout. The air horn would interrupt or completely replace key moments in the original content, turning everything into an obnoxious cacophony. The trend peaked on YouTube and Soundcloud around 2014 to 2015.

 Entire channels existed just to airhorn everything from classical music to movie dialogue to pop songs. The joke was simply how excessive and earestroying the interruptions were. One of the biggest examples was the Airhorn remix of John Cena's entrance theme, which fused with the unexpected John Cena meme and became unavoidable for a solid year.

 The format also spawned MLG air horn compilations that threw in every meme sound effect imaginable. The meme eventually wore out its welcome through sheer overuse, but it remains a time capsule of mid2010's internet humor when louder automatically meant funnier. Marge crumping refers to a scene from the Simpsons episode, The Hawhod Couple, where Marge Simpson performs crumping, an aggressive style of street dance that originated in Los Angeles.

 In the scene, Marge learns to crump as a way to release her frustration and stress, flailing her arms and contorting her body in exaggerated movements. The clip became a widely circulated reaction gif and meme across social media platforms starting in the early 2010s. People use it to express chaotic energy, excitement, or when things are getting wild and out of control.

 The absurdity of a middle-aged cartoon housewife aggressively crumping resonated with internet users who found it both hilarious and oddly relatable. The scene taps into the Simpsons long history of becoming meme material. With Margie's crumping sitting comfortably alongside steamed hams and Homer backing into bushes, it remains a go-to reaction image when words just won't capture the unhinged vibe of a situation.

Hugs is a YouTube content creator who rose to prominence in the mid2010s with his How It's Actually Made series. The series takes real footage from the educational show How It's Made and replaces the original narration with comedic fake explanations that describe increasingly absurd and incorrect manufacturing processes.

 Where the original show might explain how crayons are made, Huges would narrate it as if the factory workers are engaged in bizarre activities completely unrelated to the actual production. His deadpan delivery mimics the calm educational tone of documentary narration while describing workers eating the products, fighting each other, or operating machinery for nonsensical purposes.

 The channel expanded beyond just how it's made parodies to include other documentary style content and commentary videos. His humor relies on maintaining the facade of legitimate educational content while the actual script becomes progressively more unhinged. The juxtaposition between professional footage and absurdest narration created a formula that influenced similar parody content across YouTube.

 Hugs built a dedicated following by consistently uploading these parodies with many viewers discovering his content through recommendations after watching actual how it's made episodes. The algorithm often placed his videos alongside legitimate educational content, leading to confusion for viewers who didn't immediately catch on to the joke.

Jack sucks at life, also known as Jack Massie Welsh, is a British YouTuber who gained popularity in the 2010s for his gaming content and challenge videos. What sets him apart is his unusual obsession with YouTube itself as a platform, particularly his quest to collect as many YouTube play buttons as possible.

 Jack became known for creating dozens of YouTube channels, each dedicated to increasingly specific and absurd topics solely for the purpose of earning play buttons when they hit subscriber milestones. Some of his channels include Jack Sucks at geography, Jack sucks at pop-up pirate, and even a channel dedicated entirely to content about Elon Musk's Twitter.

 At one point, he had over 20 active channels running simultaneously. His content often revolves around YouTube meta commentary, covering topics like algorithm changes, platform drama, and the inner workings of content creation. He's also known for his geography content, where he quizzes himself on flags, countries, and maps.

 The Play Button Collection became something of a running joke in his community with Jack documenting the unboxing of each new award and displaying them in what he calls his play button room. He's accumulated silver, gold, and even diamond play buttons across his various channels, making him one of the most awarded creators on the platform in terms of sheer quantity.

King Von staring, also known as King Von Death Stare, refers to a series of reaction images and memes featuring Chicago rapper King Vaughn with an intense, unblinking stare. The format emerged on social media platforms around 2020 and 2021 using screenshots and clips from his music videos and interviews where he appears to be staring directly at the camera with an intimidating expression.

 The meme typically follows a caption format where the stare represents silent judgment or disapproval. Users pair the image with scenarios describing embarrassing moments, questionable behavior, or situations where someone is watching you mess up. The format gained traction on Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok as a way to express secondhand embarrassment or the feeling of being watched during an awkward moment.

 King Vaughn, born Devon Bennett, was active in the drill music scene before his passing in November 2020 following an altercation in Atlanta. Following his death, the staring meme took on additional layers of meaning within online communities. Sometimes used as a way fans paid tribute to his memory or referenced his reputation.

 The format has remained popular in meme culture as a multi-purpose reaction image for expressing judgment, suspicion, or awkward surveillance. R/public freakout, often hilariously misspelled as r/pubic freakout, is a subreddit dedicated to videos of people losing their composure in public spaces. Created in 2014, the community grew into one of Reddit's most popular video sharing hubs with millions of members.

The subreddit became a go-to destination for footage of Karens demanding to speak to managers, road rage incidents, retail meltdowns, and pretty much any situation where someone completely loses it while being recorded. The content ranges from secondhand embarrassment to genuinely intense confrontations captured on smartphone cameras.

 Public freakout gained massive traction during the 20s, particularly during major news events and protests when users would flood the subreddit with dozens of angles and perspectives of the same incidents. This led to the community becoming somewhat politically charged with debates erupting in comment sections about context and framing of the videos.

 The subreddit spawned several spin-offs, including r/actual public freakouts, which emerged after disagreements about moderation policies and political content. These sister communities often feuded over which one represented the true spirit of public freakout content. The common typo replacing public with pubic became its own running joke within the community with users occasionally creating parody posts and comments referencing the unfortunate misspelling.

Milk crate challenge. A viral stunt that exploded across Tik Tok and social media in August 2021 where participants would stack milk crates in a pyramid formation and attempt to walk up one side and down the other without falling. The setup typically involved anywhere from 10 to 15 crates arranged in an increasingly unstable staircase pattern.

 The wobbly plastic crates would shift and collapse under the person's weight, leading to spectacular and often painful falls. Videos of people eating concrete became a major source of entertainment, and the challenge spread rapidly despite the obvious danger. Medical professionals immediately spoke out against the trend, warning that participants were suffering broken bones, spinal injuries, and concussions.

 Hospitals reported treating multiple people for injuries sustained during the challenge. The orthopedic community basically begged people to stop. Tik Tok eventually began removing videos of the challenge and suppressing the hashtag to discourage participation. Other platforms followed suit. Despite this, the challenge had already cemented itself as one of the defining viral moments of 2021, spawning countless memes, reaction videos, and compilations of the best and worst attempts.

Charlie Charlie Challenge, also known as the Charlie Charlie game, was a viral social media phenomenon that peaked in 2015 where participants attempted to summon a supposed Mexican demon named Charlie using two pencils balanced on a piece of paper. The setup involved drawing a grid with the words yes and no written in opposite quadrants.

 Two pencils were then placed on top of each other in a cross formation with the top pencil balanced precariously so it could rotate. Players would chant, "Charlie, Charlie, are you here?" and wait for the pencil to move, supposedly indicating Charlie's response. The challenge exploded across Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, generating millions of posts and videos within days.

 The hashtag became a trending topic worldwide as teenagers filmed themselves playing the game, often screaming and running away when the pencil inevitably moved. The movement of the pencil was easily explained by physics. The unstable balance combined with air currents, vibrations, or slight movements made thetop pencil shift naturally.

 Despite this rational explanation, the challeng's theatrical nature and jump scare potential made it perfect viral content. Some claimed the game was based on an old Spanish ritual or Mexican folklore, though no concrete evidence of these traditions existing before the internet trend has been verified. Schools in several countries banned the game after it caused classroom disruptions, with some religious groups warning about the dangers of summoning spirits.

NE T, which stands for not in education, employment, or training, is a term that originated as a United Kingdom government classification in the late 1990s for tracking young people outside the workforce and school system. The term was used in economic reports to identify individuals between 16 and 24 who were unemployed and not pursuing education.

 The internet adopted neat as a self-identifying label, particularly on image boards like Foreshan and in anime communities. It evolved into a cultural descriptor for people who withdraw from conventional society, often living with family members and spending most of their time online or consuming media. The term carries overlap with the Japanese concept of hikamori, though nes aren't necessarily shut-ins.

 Online, neat culture developed its own aesthetic and humor. People began wearing the label ironically or as dark comedy, sharing memes about living basement lifestyles, surviving on tendies and energy drinks, and avoiding social interaction. Anime and manga frequently feature ne characters, which further cemented the term in internet vocabulary.

 The stereotype includes spending entire days playing video games, browsing forums, watching anime, and maintaining irregular sleep schedules. While originally clinical terminology, NE became shorthand for a specific type of internet user who's opted out of typical life milestones. The term remains common in online spaces as both self-deprecating humor and genuine identification, representing a lifestyle that exists somewhere between voluntary dropout culture and economic circumstance.

Banana Sprite Challenge, an internet dare that gained traction in the early 2010s, where participants would eat two bananas and immediately chug a liter of Sprite. The combination supposedly triggers an intense chemical reaction in the stomach. The carbonation from the Sprite mixes with the potassium and natural sugars in the bananas, causing rapid gas expansion that forces the contents back up.

 Most people who attempted the challenge would end up throwing up within minutes. The challenge spawned countless reaction videos on YouTube showing people attempting it with predictably messy results. Some claimed they could beat it by spacing out the consumption or using different techniques, though success stories were rare.

 The science behind why it works is actually straightforward. Bananas are filling and heavy in the stomach, while Sprite adds excessive carbonation and liquid volume. The body simply rejects the overload. There's no special chemical reaction beyond basic digestive physics working against you. r/nicegirls is a subreddit dedicated to documenting women who display entitled or hypocritical behavior in romantic situations.

 The community serves as a counterpart to r/ nice guys, showcasing screenshots of conversations where women act pleasant until being rejected, then turn hostile or manipulative. Common posts feature text exchanges where someone claims to be a good person deserving of romantic attention, only to lash out with insults when things don't go their way.

 The subreddit highlights the double standards and self-aware lack of self-awareness in these interactions. Created in 2013, the community grew as users recognized these behavioral patterns weren't exclusive to one gender. Posts typically show the same red flags as the nice guy archetype, including guilt tripping, sudden personality shifts after rejection, and the belief that being nice automatically entitles someone to a relationship.

 The subreddit walks a fine line between calling out toxic behavior and potential misogyny in the comments, leading to occasional drama about whether the community punches down or simply documents legitimate problematic interactions. Internet Historian is a YouTube channel created by Harold, an anonymous content creator who produces highquality documentary videos about internet culture and notable online events.

 The channel launched in 2016 and [music] quickly gained popularity for its detailed, humorous breakdowns of internet history, ranging from website failures to viral moments. His signature style involves extensive research, high production value, and dry comedic narration covering topics like Dashcon, the Tumblr ball pit convention disaster, the Costa Concordia sinking, and various internet scams.

 Internet Historians videos often feature animated segments, reenactments, and edited footage that make hours long research feelentertaining and accessible. The channel spawned a secondary channel called Incognito Mode, which covers more casual, shorter form content. His work has been praised for preserving internet history that might otherwise be forgotten, documenting everything from failed crowdfunding campaigns to massive online gaming events.

 In late 2022, internet historian faced plagiarism accusations when his video man in cave was found to contain large sections copied nearly verbatim from a mental floss article by writer Lucas Riley. The video was initially taken down, then re-uploaded with credit, then removed again. The controversy sparked debates about proper attribution in video essays and damaged his reputation among some viewers, though his core fan base remained largely intact.

PC master race, a term used by PC gaming enthusiasts to playfully assert the superiority of personal computer gaming over console gaming. The phrase originated in 2008 from a zero punctuation review by Ben Yatsi Krashaw, who used it sarcastically to mock the elitist attitudes of some PC gamers. Despite the obvious Nazi Germany reference intended as a joke, the PC gaming community embraced the term both ironically and unironically.

The subreddit r/pcmaster race became one of the largest gaming communities on Reddit with millions of members sharing computer builds, gaming setups, and memes about the advantages of PC gaming like higher frame rates, better graphics, and customization options. The community adopted a tongue-in-cheek mascot and created an entire culture around the joke.

 While many use the term light-heartedly, it sparked debates about elitism in gaming communities and whether the Nazi imagery reference is appropriate even in justest. Some gaming forums and communities have banned the phrase due to its origins. The term represents the ongoing platform wars between PC and console gamers that have existed since the early days of gaming, just with a more memeable label attached.

Hideki Kamiya Twitter blocks refers to the legendary blocking spree of Japanese video game director Hideki Kamiya on Twitter. Kamiya is known for creating games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Okami, and Resident Evil 2, but his Twitter presence became just as iconic as his game development career. Kamiya gained internet notoriety for blocking users at an unprecedented rate, often for seemingly minor or arbitrary reasons.

 He famously called users who bothered him insects and maintained a pinned tweet with rules for interacting with him, including a demand that non-Japanese speakers not ask him questions in English, despite frequently tweeting in English himself. The contradictory nature of this rule became part of the joke. The blocking became so prolific that getting blocked by Kamiya turned into a badge of honor within gaming communities.

 users would intentionally try to get blocked, treating it like an achievement to unlock. Some estimated he blocked over 20,000 accounts during his time on the platform. His blocking habits spawned countless memes and became a running gag in gaming circles. People would share screenshots of their blocks, celebrate getting blocked, or warn others about what would get them blocked.

 The whole phenomenon turned Kamiya into an internet folk hero of sorts with his aggressive blocking strategy becoming inseparable from his online identity. Kamiya eventually left Twitter in late 2022, but his blocking legacy lives on as one of the most memorable examples of a creator having an extremely confrontational relationship with their fan base.

Cheese challenge refers to a viral trend from 2019 where parents would throw slices of American cheese at their baby's faces and film their confused reactions. The videos typically showed infants sitting in high chairs or on the floor when a cheese slice would suddenly land on their face, usually sticking due to moisture.

 The babies would react with confusion, surprise, or sometimes try to eat the cheese. The trend exploded on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok after a few initial videos gained millions of views. Parents worldwide began participating, creating countless variations of the same concept. Some expanded it to include pets, particularly dogs and cats, with similarly bewildered reactions.

 The challenge drew criticism from parenting experts and child safety advocates who argued it was disrespectful to use babies for internet clout and could potentially be harmful if cheese blocked airways. Others defended it as harmless fun that didn't actually hurt anyone. The controversy itself fueled more engagement with think pieces and news articles debating whether throwing cheese at babies was acceptable entertainment.

 Like most viral challenges, the cheese challenge had a brief but intense lifespan before fading away as the internet moved on to the next trend. Tonedeaf refers to when someone, usually a brand or public figure, posts or says something that completely misses theroom. The term describes content that shows a severe lack of awareness about current events, social issues, or the general mood of the public.

 The phrase became a go-to criticism across social media during the 2010s. A celebrity might post vacation photos during a natural disaster. A company might tweet a cheerful ad campaign hours after a tragedy. A politician might celebrate something trivial while their constituents face a crisis. Classic examples include brands trying to capitalize on social movements with cringe-worthy marketing or wealthy individuals complaining about minor inconveniences during times of widespread hardship.

 The Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial became a textbook case attempting to co-opt protest imagery to sell soda. What makes something tonedeaf is the disconnect between the message and the context. The person or brand is so removed from reality that they don't realize how their content will land. Sometimes it's accidental ignorance.

Other times it's willful blindness to optics. The internet has zero tolerance for tonedeaf moments. Screenshots spread rapidly. ratio quotes pile up and the original poster usually has to issue an apology or delete entirely. Some argue the term gets overused as a catch-all criticism, but the most egregious examples tend to earn their label.

Game over refers to the internet fascination with disturbing or unsettling game over screens from video games, particularly from older titles. Starting in the early 2000s, online communities began cataloging and sharing gameover sequences that were notably dark, creepy, or psychologically distressing.

 These ranged from explicitly violent death animations in games like Mortal Kombat to more subtly disturbing messages in titles aimed at younger audiences. The phenomenon gained traction on forums and image boards, where users would compile lists of the most traumatizing game over screens from their childhoods.

 Examples frequently cited include the drowning music from Sonic the Hedgehog, the nightmareinducing game over screen from Echko the Dolphin, and various gruesome endings from survival horror titles. What made this a distinct internet subculture was the way these gameover screens were treated as a form of lost or forgotten horror media.

 Users would hunt down obscure titles specifically to experience their game over sequences, with some claiming certain screens were designed to be intentionally psychologically damaging to players. The trend eventually expanded to include creepy pasta stories about cursed or haunted game over screens with tales of hidden messages or alternate endings that appeared under specific conditions.

Some of these stories blurred the line between documented game content and complete fabrication. Shurik scan is a type of YouTube poop music video format that became widely used in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The bass track is a song called Rukunden, also known as Shurik Scan 1.99 Crack, created by Teapport member Soft Maniac.

 The song itself is a remix of Overdrive, also called Battling Precariously, from the 1990 NES game Ninja Giden 2. The format gained massive popularity after a Sony Vegas project file for one of these videos got leaked online in 2011. This veg file made it incredibly easy for anyone to create their own Shurik scan. Users could simply download the template, swap out the original video with literally anything else.

 Hit render and boom, instant content. This convenience led to an absolute flood of Shurik scans, particularly in the logo editing community. People would throw in animation studio logos, company bumpers, or random video clips without any additional editing or quality control. The format became especially associated with remixes of the Klasky Supo logo, with some versions racking up hundreds of thousands or even millions of views.

Because of how easy and loweffort these became to make, Shurik Scan developed a reputation in the YouTube poop music video community as the poster child for lazy bottom tier content. Many videos were offkey or poorly synced because creators would just slap their footage into the template without tuning anything.

 Despite this reputation, or perhaps because of it, the format persisted as a staple of YouTube poop culture for years. Shrek is love, Shrek is life is a green text story originally posted on Foreshan in 2013 that became one of the most infamous examples of shock humor copyp pasta on the internet. The story is written from the perspective of a young person describing their obsession with Shrek and contains extremely graphic content that parodies both the DreamWorks character and fanfiction conventions.

 It deliberately pushes boundaries with explicit material involving the character in ways no one asked for or needed to see. The green text spawned an animated YouTube video adaptation in 2013 that went massively viral, racking up millions of views and cementing the phrase Shrek is love, Shrek is life into internet culture.

 Thevideo combined crude animation with a dramatic reading of the original text and haunting music, turning the whole thing into a bizarre internet spectacle. The meme became a touchstone for early 2010's internet humor, spawning countless parodies, remixes, and references across platforms. It represents a particular era of Chan culture where shock value and absurdist humor collided with mainstream movie franchises.

 The phrase itself became shorthand for referencing deliberately uncomfortable or cursed content, often used ironically in meme communities. Everywhere at the End of Time is a six-stage album series by The Caretaker, the musical alias of British artist Leland Kirby, released between 2016 and 2019. The project totals roughly 6 and 1/2 hours of audio designed to simulate the progression of dementia and memory deterioration.

 The music begins with nostalgic samples of old ballroom records from the 1920s through 40s that gradually degrade across the six stages. Early stages feature relatively clear looping melodies that evoke faint memories. As the albums progress, the samples become increasingly distorted, layered with static, reversed, and eventually disintegrate into near unrecognizable ambient noise.

 The final stage is widely considered one of the most unsettling pieces of music ever created, consisting primarily of droning, empty soundsscapes with barely any recognizable melody remaining. The series gained massive attention on YouTube and across internet communities dedicated to disturbing or experimental media.

 Listeners often described the experience as genuinely harrowing with many unable to complete the full runtime. Reaction videos and analysis essays dissecting the project's symbolism and emotional impact have racked up millions of views. The caretaker's work became a benchmark for internet discussions about art that explores difficult subjects like memory loss and mortality.

 Some viewers report feeling genuine dread or sadness while listening, describing it as an emotional endurance test that simulates losing yourself piece by piece. Be Real is a social media app that exploded in popularity during 2022, particularly among Gen Z users. The app operates on a simple but unusual premise.

 Once a day at a random time, every user receives a notification with a 2-minute timer to take and post a photo. The catch is that the app uses both the front and back cameras simultaneously, capturing your face and whatever is in front of you at the same time. The idea behind Be Real is to combat the curated, filtered nature of platforms like Instagram by forcing users to share unplanned, unedited snapshots of their actual daily lives.

You cannot post late without it being marked as such. And there are no filters or editing tools. The random timing means you might be doing something genuinely interesting or sitting on the toilet, and that unpredictability is supposedly the point. Critics and users alike have noted the irony that many people began staging their bal posts anyway, defeating the entire purpose.

Others questioned whether authenticity could really be manufactured through a mandatory daily notification. The app's popularity peaked quickly, but also declined relatively fast as the novelty wore off and users realized their authentic daily lives were mostly just them staring at their phones. Neon is a kick streamer who rose to prominence in the early 2020s through controversial IRL content and inflammatory behavior.

 He gained attention for his confrontational streaming style, often inserting himself into drama with other content creators and engaging in shock value content designed to generate clips and outrage. His streams frequently featured him in public settings, causing disruptions, getting into arguments, and pursuing increasingly extreme content for views.

He became particularly known for relationship drama streams that would regularly trend on social media as well as collaborations with other controversial figures in the streaming space. Neon has been involved in numerous controversies, including accusations of staged content, problematic statements, and behavior that many viewers considered exploitative.

 His content often walked the line of platform terms of service, leading to multiple bans and suspensions across various streaming platforms before finding a more permanent home on Kick. Critics argue his content represents the worst impulses of modern streaming culture, prioritizing engagement and controversy over substance.

 Supporters claim he's simply playing a character and providing entertainment that viewers clearly want based on his viewership numbers. His presence in the streaming ecosystem sparked broader discussions about platform responsibility and the race to the bottom for attention in content creation. Jack Doherty is a YouTube creator and live streamer who rose to prominence in the late 2010s through prank videos and public stunts.

 His content typicallyinvolved disrupting public spaces, pranking strangers, and increasingly dangerous physical challenges that pushed platform guidelines. He built a following among younger audiences, but became widely criticized across the internet for his confrontational filming style and disregard for others in public settings. His videos often featured him being kicked out of stores, confronting security guards, and filming people without consent.

 In October 2024, Doerty crashed his McLaren sports car while live streaming and allegedly texting while driving in heavy rain. The crash was broadcast live to thousands of viewers and instead of immediately checking on his cameraman who was injured and bleeding, Daherti's first instinct was to retrieve his cameras and continue streaming.

 The incident went massively viral and became a defining moment illustrating the extremes of live stream culture and cloutchasing behavior. The crash sparked widespread backlash and discussions about the dangers of distracted driving and the prioritization of content over safety. He was subsequently banned from the streaming platform Kick.

 The incident solidified his reputation as a cautionary tale about internet fame and the increasingly reckless lengths creators will go to for views and engagement. Drinking bleach is an internet phrase and meme that became popular across forums and social media as a darkly humorous reaction to disturbing or cringe-worthy content.

 The expression typically appears as I need to drink bleach or pass the bleach as an exaggerated way of expressing the desire to unsee something particularly awful or mentally scarring encountered online. The phrase gained traction on platforms like 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter throughout the 2010s as part of the internet's tendency toward dark, self-deprecating humor.

 It functions similarly to other hyperbolic expressions of digital regret like delete my browser history or I want to gouge my eyes out. The meme also spawned various image macros and reaction images often featuring characters holding or drinking from bleach bottles in obviously satirical contexts. Some variations include eye bleach, which paradoxically refers to wholesome or pleasant content used to cleanse one's mind after viewing something disturbing.

Content farms, sometimes called content mills, are websites that mass-produce low-quality articles designed solely to rank high in search engine results and generate advertising revenue. These sites became a major problem in the late 2000s and early 2010s when Google's search algorithm could be easily gamed.

The business model is simple. Content farms pay writers extremely low rates, sometimes as little as a few dollars per article, to turn out hundreds of pieces per day on trending search topics. The articles are often poorly researched, filled with keywords, and provide minimal actual value to readers. Sites like Demand Media, associated content, and e-how became notorious examples of this practice.

 Content farms exploit the fact that search engines prioritize content volume and keyword density over quality. Users searching for information would be bombarded with these shallow articles that answered questions in the vaguest possible way while being stuffed with ads. The experience became so frustrating that Google was forced to update their algorithm multiple times, most notably with the Panda update in 2011, which specifically targeted these sites.

 The legacy of content farms lives on through clickbait websites, algorithm exploiting YouTube channels, and AI generated blog spam. The term has evolved to describe any operation that prioritizes quantity and search optimization over providing genuine value to audiences. Jeffree Star is a beauty YouTuber, makeup mogul, and internet personality who built a massive online empire through controversy and cosmetics.

 Star first gained notoriety on MySpace in the mid 2000s as a musician and scene kid icon known for his bold makeup looks and provocative persona. He transitioned to YouTube in the 2010s, pivoting to beauty content and product reviews that quickly amassed millions of subscribers. In 2014, Star launched Jeffree Star Cosmetics, which became wildly successful through his direct to consumer model and social media marketing.

 His brand is known for colorful eyeshadow palettes and liquid lipsticks with launches often selling out within minutes. Star became infamous for his involvement in beauty community drama, engaging in public feuds with other creators like James Charles, Kat Von D, and Manny Mua. These conflicts often played out through Twitter threads, response videos, and expose content that generated massive attention.

 His controversies extend beyond petty drama. Old videos and social media posts resurfaced, showing Star making inappropriate comments, leading to accusations of past behavior that he later addressed and apologized for. His close association with Shane Dawson during multiple scandal cyclesalso drew criticism. Despite or perhaps because of the constant drama, Star maintained a devoted fan base while critics labeled him as manipulative and calculated.

 He's known for flaunting his wealth with designer purchases, luxury cars, and eventually a massive property in Wyoming where he relocated. Star represents the beauty YouTuber archetype where controversy and business success became deeply intertwined with each scandal seemingly boosting rather than damaging his brand recognition. AI art turning yellow refers to a widespread phenomenon where artificial intelligence image generators started producing images with a distinct yellowish tint or warm color cast.

 The issue was first noticed in March 2025 when users on Reddit and other platforms began pointing out that AI generated images from tools like ChatGpt, Doll E, and Midjourney consistently came out looking like they had a sepia filter applied. By May of that year, the yellowing had become a full-blown viral topic on Twitter with users making jokes and comparisons to the infamous piss filter that plagued video games in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

 The cause appears to be rooted in the training data used to teach these AI models. If the data sets contained a disproportionate number of images with vintage aesthetics, old scanned photographs, or yellowed paper, the AI would learn to associate these warm tones as normal or even desirable. Some theories also suggested that recent trends like Studio Giblly style AI images might have influenced the color bias, though the exact mechanism remained unclear.

 The yellowing became such a recognizable problem that multiple correction tools emerged in spring 2025. Sites like yellowtint.art and unellow GPT were developed specifically to remove the unwanted warm tint from AI generated images, allowing users to restore proper color balance without manual editing. The phenomenon sparked debates about AI training data quality and whether these color biases reflected deeper issues with how these models learn and reproduce visual information.

The logo community is a collective of graphic design enthusiasts and branding nerds who dedicate their time to discussing, critiquing, and obsessing over corporate logos and brand identities. They gather across platforms like Reddit, Discord, Twitter, and specialized forums to analyze every pixel of a company's visual identity.

These communities became particularly active during major corporate rebrands with members either celebrating clever design choices or ruthlessly mocking questionable decisions. The GAP logo disaster of 2010 became legendary within these circles where the company debuted a new logo that lasted less than a week before public backlash forced them to revert.

 Members track logo evolution over time, compile extensive archives of vintage branding, and sometimes leak upcoming redesigns before official announcements. They develop strong parasocial relationships with brand identities, treating logo changes like personal betrayals when a beloved design gets simplified or modernized. The community gained wider attention when major tech companies began adopting flat, minimalist designs in the 2010s and 2020s.

 Firefox's progressive simplification of its logo sparked heated debates about whether reducing detail improved or destroyed iconic imagery. Logo community members documented every iteration with the intensity of art historians analyzing Renaissance paintings. Scary logos also known as logo horror or nightmare fuel logos.

 a subculture focused on television station identuction company logos and corporate bumpers that traumatized an entire generation of kids. The community cataloges and discusses logos primarily from the 1970s through the 1990s that featured unsettling visuals, disturbing audio, or both. The most infamous examples include the Screen Gems S from hell logo with its oppressive synth drone, the Viacom V of Doom with its ominous Tony hits, and the THX deep note that shook theater speakers to their core. Other notable entries are the BND

mask of Doom, the Klasky Kisupo splat logo, and various Eastern European broadcasting idents that looked like they were designed specifically to give children nightmares. The phenomenon gained traction on YouTube in the mid200s when users began uploading compilations of these logos and sharing their childhood fears.

 Dedicated wikis and forums emerged where people would rate logos on their scare factor, share personal trauma stories, and hunt down rare or obscure examples from different countries. What makes these logos particularly unsettling is the context. They appeared without warning, often late at night or after a show ended, catching viewers offguard.

 The combination of primitive computer graphics, analog video artifacts, and aggressive audio design created an uncanny valley effect that stuck with people decades later. The community has since expanded to include modern logos, bumpers, and even error screens. Thoughthe consensus remains that nothing quite matches the primal terror of a 1980s synth logo blasting through your television at 2 in the morning.

Pixels is a free stock photo and video website launched in 2014 by German entrepreneurs Daniel Freeze and Ingo Joseph. The platform became popular for offering highresolution images and videos completely free of charge with no attribution required, making it a go-to resource for content creators, designers, and anyone needing visuals without paying Getty Images prices or dealing with watermarks.

 Pixels operates by aggregating content from photographers and videographers who voluntarily upload their work, as well as partnering with other free stock sites to expand their library. The business model relies on sponsored images and affiliate links rather than charging users directly. The site gained particular notoriety in internet circles for its oddly specific and sometimes memew worthy stock photos.

 Many YouTubers and online creators joke about recognizing the same handful of Pixels images appearing across countless videos and websites to the point where certain photos became unintentionally iconic through overuse. In 2019, Pixels was acquired by Canva for an undisclosed amount, integrating its massive library into Canva's design platform while maintaining its free standalone website.

Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon, also known as Peanut the Squirrel, refers to two pet animals that became the center of a massive internet controversy in late October 2024. Peanut was a rescue squirrel who had been living with owner Mark Longo in New York for over 7 years, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers across social media platforms.

 Fred was a more recent addition to the household, a raccoon that Longo was also rehabilitating. On October 30th, 2024, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation raided Longo's home following anonymous complaints about him keeping wild animals without proper permits. Both animals were seized and subsequently put down to test for rabies after Peanut allegedly bit one of the officers during the raid.

 The incident exploded across the internet within hours. People viewed the situation as government overreach and unnecessary force against beloved animals that had been safely kept for years. The timing just days before the 2024 presidential election turned Peanut into an unexpected political symbol with multiple politicians and public figures commenting on the case.

 Hashtags and memorial posts flooded social media. Conspiracy theories emerged suggesting the raid was politically motivated or that the rabies testing excuse was fabricated. The story became one of the most talked about internet events of late 2024, spawning countless memes while also sparking genuine debates about wildlife rehabilitation laws and government authority.

The episode aired in July 2009 and featured Plankton creating a gas that turns everyone in Bikini Bottom into babies. When Patrick transforms, his baby form appears with a blank expressionless face that became the source of the meme. The meme took off in the fall of 2019 when YouTubers began pairing the still image with music, particularly an excerpt from Soulja Boy's Kiss Me Through the Phone.

 The most popular version was uploaded by Maxi Taxi in October 2019 and racked up over 9.7 million views within a year. The format spread rapidly across YouTube and Tik Tok with creators making countless remixes and edits. The image itself became a reaction meme used to convey various emotions despite Patrick's completely neutral baby expression.

Needy streamer Overload, also known as Needy Girl Overdose, is a visual novel simulation game released in 2022 by Japanese developer WSS Playground. The game puts players in the role of Pchan, the boyfriend and manager of an aspiring internet streamer named Amy, who goes by the handle OMG K A W A I I Angel Chan or K Angel.

 The goal is to help her achieve 1 million followers within 30 days by choosing what content she streams and managing her mental health statistics, including stress, affection, mental darkness, and follower count. The game became notable for its unflinching portrayal of internet cultures dark side. Players navigate decisions about what potentially controversial content Kangle should stream, what substances or medications she should take, and how to balance her deteriorating mental state with the demands of chasing online fame and validation. The game features over

20 different endings, ranging from successful streamer outcomes to significantly darker conclusions. Despite its pastel pink aesthetic and anime art style, the game deals heavily with themes of parasocial relationships, [music] internet addiction, self harm, and the psychological toll of content creation.

 The contrast between its cute visual presentation and disturbing subject matter became a major talking point when the game gained traction on Steam and among content creators. Thegame developed a cult following for its authentic depiction of streamer culture toxicity and the desperate pursuit of online validation. It resonated particularly with viewers familiar with the pressures and mental health struggles often hidden behind cheerful streaming personas.

Grant Thompson, also known as the king of random, was a science and DIY YouTube creator who started his channel in 2010. Thompson built one of the platform's most successful educational entertainment channels by focusing on DIY science experiments, life hacks, and backyard projects that viewers could recreate at home.

 The channel gained massive popularity throughout the 2010s, accumulating over 11 million subscribers. Thompson became known for his enthusiastic everyman approach to dangerous and explosive experiments, often involving dry ice, molten metal, and homemade rocket launches. He demonstrated everything from making freeze-dried ice cream to building electromagnetic weapons.

 Always emphasizing safety disclaimers despite the inherently risky nature of many projects. His content made science feel approachable and fun rather than academic. In July 2019, Grant Thompson passed away in a paragliding accident in Utah at age 38. He had failed to return from a paragliding trip and his body was discovered by search and rescue teams the following day.

 The news shocked the YouTube community, particularly given how active and healthy he appeared in his videos. The channel continued operating after his passing with hosts Nate and Cali taking over production. This decision sparked controversy among longtime fans who felt the channel should have ended with Thompson's passing while others supported the continuation as a tribute to his legacy.

The post Thompson era saw declining viewership and engagement with many viewers expressing that the content lacked the original creators personality and charm. By the early 2020s, upload frequency had significantly decreased. Based, also known as redpilled, are two internet slang terms that evolved from separate origins but became closely linked in online discourse.

 based originated from rapper Lil B the based god in the late 2000s initially meaning to be yourself and not care about others opinions. The term spread across social media and image boards throughout the early 2010s. Redpilled comes from the 1999 film The Matrix where taking the red pill reveals hidden reality.

 Online communities adopted the term to describe awakening to supposed truths that contradict mainstream narratives. By the mid2010s, both terms migrated heavily into political spaces on platforms like Forchan, Reddit, and Twitter. Based shifted to mean expressing controversial or politically incorrect opinions without apology, while redpilled became associated with adopting specific ideological viewpoints, particularly those critical of mainstream media, feminism, or progressive politics.

 The phrase based and redpilled became a common combination typically used to praise someone for expressing views the speaker agrees with or finds courageously controversial. The terms saw widespread adoption in meme culture. Sometimes used ironically and other times genuinely. Both words eventually entered more mainstream internet usage, though they retain political connotations.

 Critics argue the terms often serve as dog whistles for extremist viewpoints. While defenders claim they simply represent independent thinking. Alt F4 is a keyboard shortcut on Windows operating systems that closes the currently active window or program. Pressing these keys together will immediately shut down whatever application you're using, which makes it a popular tool for quickly exiting programs or shutting down your computer.

The internet culture surrounding Alt F4 stems from a long-running prank where users would tell newcomers or unsuspecting people to press Alt F4, claiming it would unlock special features, fix technical problems, or provide some kind of benefit. In reality, pressing the combination would simply close their game or application, causing them to lose progress or disconnect from online sessions.

 This troll became especially prominent in online games during the 2000s and 2010s. Players in MMOs like World of Warcraft or Runescape would tell others that pressing Alt F4 would give them free items, increase their stats, or reveal hidden content. Competitive games like League of Legends and Counterstrike saw similar trolling with players claiming the shortcut would improve performance or unlock cheats.

 The prank works because the keys themselves don't indicate what they do, and many inexperienced computer users wouldn't know the function beforehand. Once someone falls for it and their program closes, they'd usually return angry or embarrassed, having learned a hard lesson about trusting random strangers on the internet. Cash Patel is an American attorney and former government official who served in various roles during the Trumpadministration.

 He gained significant internet prominence through his presence in conservative online spaces and conspiracy theory communities, particularly during and after the 2020 election. Patel became a recurring figure in discussions about the deep state narrative. Frequently appearing on right-wing podcasts and social media platforms to discuss alleged government corruption and surveillance abuses.

 He authored a children's book called The Plot Against the King, which used fairy tale allegory to depict events from the Trump presidency, becoming a bestseller in conservative circles and spawning countless memes and parodies online. His social media presence exploded, particularly on platforms like Truth Social and Twitter, where he regularly shared content related to government transparency, declassification efforts, and political conspiracy theories.

Online communities on forums like the Donald and various Telegram channels treated him as a key insider figure with his statements often analyzed and discussed extensively. Patel became associated with theories about the 2020 election, FBI investigations, and classified documents controversies. His appointment announcements and government roles generated massive engagement across social media with supporters viewing him as an anti-establishment figure and critics raising concerns about potential politicization of

intelligence agencies. The internet discourse around Patel represents the broader phenomenon of political figures becoming internet personalities where their online presence and engagement with digital communities becomes as significant as their official governmental roles. Max Mofo, real name Max Stanley, is an Australian YouTuber who rose to prominence in the mid2010s as part of the so-called cancer crew alongside Filthy Frank, Idubbbz, and Anything for Views.

 His channel started with comedy sketches and challenge videos in the vein of his collaborators, but gradually shifted focus toward Pokémon card opening content. Max became known for spending thousands of dollars on vintage Pokémon card packs and booster boxes, documenting the thrill of hunting rare holographic cards and first edition sets.

 His Pokémon content attracted a dedicated fan base separate from his comedy work, turning what started as occasional videos into the primary focus of his channel. He appeared in many of Filthy Frank's videos during the peak era of that content style, participating in various challenges and skits that defined YouTube comedy of that period when the cancer crew eventually disbanded and moved on to different content.

 Max largely stuck with Pokémon cards while reducing his upload frequency significantly. His last video uploads have been sporadic with long gaps between posts becoming the norm. The shift from edgy collaborative comedy to solo Pokemon content marked one of the more dramatic pivots among that friend group. Though his card opening videos maintain a loyal audience who appreciate his genuine enthusiasm for the hobby.

Ricardo Milos is a Brazilian adult film performer who became a widespread internet meme in the late 2010s. The meme centers around a clip of Milos dancing in minimal clothing originally from one of his adult videos. The clip shows him performing a dance with exaggerated hip movements and confident expressions that quickly caught the attention of online communities.

 The meme exploded in popularity around 2018 and 2019, particularly within gaming circles, Twitch streams, and Discord servers. Users created countless edits set to various songs with the electronic track You Got That by Halagen becoming the most commonly associated audio. The edits often featured increasingly elaborate effects, green screen implementations, and mashups with other memes or video game footage.

 What made Ricardo Milos unique as a meme was the genuine positive reception he received. Unlike many memes that mock their subjects, the Ricardo Milos phenomenon was largely celebratory. Communities embraced the meme as a symbol of confidence and charisma, often using it as a humorous way to express admiration or hype up moments in streams and videos.

 The meme became so widespread that Milos himself acknowledged it, appearing in interviews about his unexpected internet fame. He expressed appreciation for the positive attention, noting the surreal experience of becoming a beloved figure in online culture years after the original content was produced. Emiranth, real name Caitlyn Sirrausa, is a Twitch streamer and content creator who rose to prominence in the late 2010s and early 2020s for pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable on streaming platforms.

 She became particularly known for her hot tub streams where she would broadcast herself in a bikini sitting in an inflatable pool along with ASMR content and other suggestive material that technically didn't violate platform guidelines, but clearly tested them. This type of content sparked majordebates about what should and shouldn't be allowed on Twitch, with many accusing the platform of inconsistent enforcement of their terms of service.

 Amaranth has been temporarily banned from Twitch multiple times over the years for various violations, though she always returned to streaming. Despite, or perhaps because of the controversy, she became one of the highest earning content creators on the platform, reportedly making millions through Twitch subscriptions, donations, [music] and her Only Fans account.

 In October 2022, she went live revealing she was being abused and controlled by her husband, who she claimed had been forcing her to continue streaming. and managing her finances. The situation led to widespread concern in the streaming community and police involvement. She later stated she was safe and working to exit the situation.

 Beyond streaming, she's invested her earnings into various business ventures, including gas stations and inflatable pool toy companies, essentially becoming the hot tub stream mogul. Yahi is a YouTube content creator who gained recognition in the 2010s for creating YouTube poop style videos and gaming parodies.

 The channel became particularly well known for remixing World of Warcraft content, taking in game footage, cutscenes, and voice lines and editing them into absurdest comedy videos with rapid fire cuts, audio distortion, and surreal humor. The creators videos often featured characters from Warcraft doing unexpected things or saying completely different dialogue through creative editing and sound manipulation.

 The style fit perfectly with the YouTube poop genre that was popular during that era where creators would take existing media and remix it into something bizarre and comedic. Yahayami's content appealed to both World of Warcraft fans who appreciated the deep knowledge of the game's lore and characters, as well as general YouTube poop enthusiasts who enjoyed the chaotic editing style.

 The videos demonstrated a strong understanding of comedic timing and internet humor trends of the time period. The channel represents a specific snapshot of mid2010's YouTube culture when gaming parodies and heavily edited remix content thrived before algorithmic changes began favoring longer, more traditional content formats.

Virus Total is a free online service that lets you scan files and web addresses for malicious software. The site was launched in 2004 by Spanish security company Hispac Systemus and was later acquired by Google in 2012. Instead of relying on a single anti virus program, Virus Total runs your uploaded file or URL through dozens of different anti virus engines simultaneously.

 This gives you a comprehensive overview of whether something might be dangerous, showing results from companies like Kasperski, McAfee, Norton, and many others all in one place. The service became popular among security researchers, IT professionals, and everyday internet users who want to verify suspicious downloads before opening them.

 If you've ever downloaded something sketchy and weren't sure if it was safe, Virus Total is the go-to tool for getting a second, third, and 70th opinion. The site also maintains a database of scanned files, which means if someone else already uploaded the same file before you, you get instant results without having to wait for the scan to complete.

 This crowdsourced approach helps identify new threats quickly as they spread across the internet. Watermelon is an emoji symbol that gained widespread use on social media platforms as a form of coded activism and solidarity. The watermelon's colors, red, black, white, and green, match those of the Palestinian flag.

 The symbol saw increased usage during periods of conflict in the Middle East, particularly when direct political imagery faced moderation or removal on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Users adopted the watermelon emoji as an alternative way to express support while avoiding content filters. This practice has historical precedent dating back to the 1960s through 1980s when displaying the Palestinian flag was banned in certain territories.

 During that time, artists and activists reportedly used watermelon imagery in artwork and protests for the same reason, the matching color scheme. The emojis surged in popularity during the 2021 conflict and saw another major spike in 2023 and 2024. Posts featuring watermelon emojis often appeared alongside news articles, personal statements, or fundraising efforts.

 Some accounts changed their display names or profile pictures to include watermelon imagery. Platform moderation of the symbol became a point of controversy with users claiming their posts were being suppressed or removed despite using what they considered innocuous fruit imagery. Others argued the symbol had become inherently political and should be treated accordingly by content filters.

A cautionary tale refers to a creepy pasta story posted to the troll pastawiki in July of 2012. Troll Pasta is a website that collects rejected or intentionally bad creepy pastas that didn't make the cut for the main creepy pasta wiki. The story follows a man driving home from work who gets stuck behind a slowmoving vehicle.

 Unable to pass, he grows increasingly angry and starts flashing his lights and honking his horn repeatedly to force the other driver to speed up. Eventually, the car in front speeds up and pulls away. As the man continues down a quiet road leading to his home, he suddenly finds himself in a dangerous situation as payback for his road rage.

 The narrative ends with a moral lesson about minding your manners and being polite because you never know who you might offend. The story falls into the category of cautionary tales, which have been a staple of internet horror since the early days of creepy pasta. These types of stories typically warn against common behaviors like road rage, being rude to strangers, or breaking social norms by showing the horrific consequences that can follow.

 The story was credited to a user named They Mufflin and became one of many examples in the troll pasta collection that demonstrates how not to write a pasta, often due to being too heavy-handed with its moral message or lacking the subtlety that makes effective horror writing work. Verbase, also spelled verbicize, is internet slang for the act of turning a noun into a verb.

 The proper linguistic term for this is verbing or verbification. But somewhere along the way, the internet decided to get meta and create its own verb for the process of creating verbs. Examples include using friend as a verb, like I friended you on Facebook, or turning Google into an action by saying just Google it. The term itself is pretty ironic since verbicize is doing exactly what it describes.

 Taking the word verb and turning it into an action. Interestingly, something called the verbicizer existed long before the internet term. It was a Mac app David Bowie used in the mid 1990s to randomize sentences and help write lyrics for his album Outside. The internet version of the term appeared around 2017 as online communities embraced the weird flexibility of English grammar and started calling out this linguistic phenomenon with its own self-referential label.

FH rit, an acronym for an extremely vulgar phrase, was a viral prank trend from the 2010s where people would interrupt live news broadcasts by shouting the phrase at reporters on camera. The phenomenon began in 2014 with a series of staged videos uploaded by filmmaker John Ca that appeared to show news reporters being interrupted by the phrase during live broadcasts.

 The videos were professionally edited to look authentic and many viewers believed they were real incidents. The fake videos went viral and spawned countless imitators. What started as scripted comedy quickly became a real problem when people began actually disrupting legitimate news broadcasts with the phrase reporters conducting onloation interviews were regularly interrupted by pranksters shouting the phrase turning the staged hoax into an actual widespread nuisance.

The trend peaked around 2015 and became particularly associated with sports events and crowded public gatherings where news crews were filming. Several high-profile incidents led to real consequences. Multiple people lost their jobs after being identified shouting the phrase on camera, and some jurisdictions considered the interruptions a form of harassment.

 News organizations spoke out against the trend, calling it disrespectful and disruptive to journalists trying to do their jobs. Superhock is a port manto combining supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock. It refers to a specific era of Tumblr fandom culture in the early to mid2010s when these three shows dominated the platform.

 The term emerged because a significant portion of Tumblr users were fans of all three series simultaneously. These fandoms overlapped heavily with many people reblogging content from all three shows on the same blog. The shared aesthetic of supernatural or sci-fi elements, charismatic male leads, and emotionally intense storytelling created a perfect storm of crossover appeal.

Superhock became shorthand for the stereotypical Tumblr user during this period, roughly 2012 to 2014. Users created massive amounts of crossover fan art, fanfiction, and gift sets, imagining scenarios where characters from all three shows would interact. The term itself became self-aware with users ironically referring to themselves as part of the superhock demographic while simultaneously mocking its earnestness.

The phenomenon represented peak Tumblr fandom culture before the site's gradual decline in user activity. Looking back, Super Hoolock serves as a timestamp for a particular moment in internet history when Tumblr was the dominant hub for TV show fandom culture. before that energy dispersed to platforms like Twitter and Tik Tok.

A Dose of Buckley was a CanadianYouTuber and social commentator active primarily throughout the 2010s. The channel featured cynical, sarcastic rants about internet culture, pop culture trends, and societal annoyances delivered in a signature deadpan style. His most popular series was Musical Autopsy, where he would dissect and criticize mainstream pop songs and music industry trends with brutal honesty and zero sugar coating.

 Other recurring segments included advice no one asked for and comment commentary where he would read and respond to viewer comments with the same dry wit. Buckley built a dedicated following for his willingness to be openly negative about things most creators avoided criticizing, positioning himself as the internet's resident keragin during YouTube's more earnest era.

 His videos often went after sacred cows in music and internet culture, earning him both devoted fans and critics who found his approach too harsh or elitist. The channel largely went dormant around 2019 to 2020 with Buckley citing burnout and a desire to step away from constant content creation. He occasionally returned for sporadic uploads but never resumed the regular schedule that defined his peak years.

Labbotomy Corporation and Limbbus Company are video games developed by South Korean indie studio Project Moon, part of a connected universe that includes Library of Ruina. The series gained a dedicated cult following online for its notoriously difficult gameplay, dark storytelling, and extensive lore that draws from literature, mythology, and philosophy.

 Labbotomy Corporation, released in 2018, is a monster management simulator where players run a facility containing dangerous creatures called abnormalities. The game is infamous for its steep learning curve and willingness to punish players, often requiring multiple playthroughs to understand its mechanics and story. Limbbus Company, released in 2023, is a gotacha game that continues the universe's story with a turn-based combat system.

 Despite being a mobile game with monetization, it maintained the series reputation for challenging content and dense narrative. The Project Moon community is known for creating extensive memes, theories, and artwork around the game's characters and abnormalities. References to iconic creatures like the flesh orchard, mountain of smiling bodies, and nothing there became recognizable within certain gaming circles.

 The phrase the experience became a meme referring to the game's tendency to traumatize players through dark story beats and sudden difficulty spikes. The series attracted attention for its unique Korean indie game aesthetic and willingness to explore mature themes without holding back, creating a niche but passionate fan base that produces analysis videos, fan projects, and endless speculation about the interconnected lore.

Black Mesa is a fan-made remake of the original Half-Life game rebuilt from the ground up using Valve's Source engine. The project began development in 2004 by a team of volunteer developers and modders who wanted to modernize the classic 1998 shooter with updated graphics, improved voice acting, and enhanced level design.

 The mod became somewhat legendary in gaming circles for its exceptionally long development time. What started as an ambitious fan project turned into an 8-year endeavor, spawning countless jokes and memes about whether it would ever actually release. The phrase, "When Black Mesa comes out," became internet shortorthhand for something that would never happen.

 Black Mesa finally launched as a free mod in September 2012. Though it was initially incomplete and missing the game's final chapters set in the alien world Zen, despite the missing content, it received overwhelmingly positive reception for its quality and faithfulness to the source material.

 In 2015, the project transitioned to a full commercial release on Steam early access with Valve's blessing, allowing the development team to work on it professionally. The complete version with the Zen chapters didn't arrive until 2020, making the total development cycle roughly 15 years. The final product was praised as one of the most ambitious and successful fan remakes in gaming history, effectively becoming the definitive way to experience the original Half-Life for many players.

Reply Girls was a YouTube phenomenon from the early 2010s where certain female content creators would post video responses to popular videos, but with a specific strategy in mind. The videos featured low cut tops and camera angles deliberately positioned to showcase cleavage with the actual video content being minimal or non-existent.

 The thumbnails were the main draw. Users scrolling through video responses would see the suggestive images and click, generating views and ad revenue for the creators. The practice became so widespread that it sparked significant controversy within the YouTube community with many users accusing reply girls of gaming the system and cluttering thevideo response section with what amounted to clickbait.

 YouTube eventually took action in 2012 by removing the video response feature entirely with reply girls being cited as one of the major reasons for the decision. The term became synonymous with loweffort content designed purely for views rather than providing any actual value or commentary. Several channels were particularly notorious for this strategy, including channels that would pump out dozens of these response videos daily to maximize their reach across trending content.

Are you winning, son? Is a web comic turned image macro meme that originated in 2014 from a four panel comic by artist Lel 9. The original strip depicts a father walking into his son's bedroom to ask if he's winning at his video game, only to reveal the son is playing an adult visual novel. The format exploded in popularity around 2020 when users began creating variations that replaced the gaming setup with increasingly dark or ironic scenarios.

The father's innocent question became a vehicle for commentary on depression, isolation, and the disconnect between parents and their struggling children. Edits ranged from wholesome father-son bonding moments to panels depicting the son in various states of existential crisis or engaging in concerning behavior.

 The meme resonated particularly during quarantine periods when many people found themselves isolated and struggling with mental health. The father figure became a symbol of oblivious optimism or genuine concern depending on the edit while the son represented internet users projecting their own difficulties onto the format.

 The phrase itself became shorthand in online communities for checking in on someone's well-being, though often with an ironic or melancholic undertone. Variations spawned countless spin-offs, including animation memes, musical remixes, and crossover edits with other popular internet formats. Kenny Lauderdale was a YouTube channel active in the mid2010s that covered internet mysteries, alternate reality games, and creepy unexplained phenomena.

The channel gained a dedicated following for its investigation style videos exploring topics like haunted locations, conspiracy theories, and bizarre online content. The channel became particularly known for its coverage of various internet rabbit holes and obscure mysteries, often diving deep into lesserknown corners of the web.

 Kenny Lauderdale would document his research process and present findings in a straightforward documentary format that resonated with viewers interested in the strange and unexplained. The channel went dark around 2016 or 2017 and stopped uploading entirely. Some speculation emerged about why the creator stopped making content, with various theories ranging from loss of interest to personal issues to more conspiratorial explanations.

 The abrupt sessation of uploads without explanation added an ironic layer to a channel that specialized in unsolved mysteries. Zamira, also known as Zotaku, is an American YouTuber and animator who became widely recognized for popularizing the Egg Dog meme. Starting his channel in 2014, he originally created gaming content focused on Nintendo titles like Mario Kart and Super Smash Brothers.

 In March 2019, Zamsire posted a computer animated video titled Meet Egg Dog, which introduced the internet to a three-dimensional model of a dog shaped like an egg. The character design was inspired by a viral photo of a Pomeranian named Pom Pom that had been groomed into an egg-like shape by Instagram user groomer_andrea.

While the original groomed dog photo had already circulated online, Zamseir's animated version launched Egg Dog into full meme status. His Egg Dog animations typically feature the character in various scenarios, stretching itself tall, dancing, [music] and interacting with food items like strawberries and baguettes.

 The videos lean into absurdist humor with minimal dialogue and simple upbeat music. The character quickly became merchandised, spawning plushies, collectible figures through YouTubes, and an active Discord community built around the meme. Zamsire collaborated with musician CG5 in May 2021 for a video titled How to be an Egg Dog.

 The creator continues to produce egg dog content alongside other internet humor animations. Qualcop, real name Jordi Vandenbusha, is a Dutch gaming YouTuber who gained prominence in the early 2010s, posting gameplay videos of Grand Theft Auto 5, Minecraft, and various other titles. His channel accumulated over 15 million subscribers through collaborations with other gaming creators and energetic commentary.

 In 2023, Qubblecop made headlines by announcing he was replacing himself with an AI generated version. The AI clone was designed to replicate his voice, mannerisms, and video style, allowing the channel to produce content around the clock without his direct involvement. The artificial Quelblop could supposedly create videos autonomously by analyzing trends,playing games, and generating commentary that mimicked the real creators personality.

 The move sparked debate across the YouTube community about authenticity, the future of content creation, and whether audiences would accept fully synthetic personalities. Some viewed it as innovative automation, while others saw it as a disturbing precedent that undermined the personal connection between creators and their audiences.

 Queblcop defended the decision by claiming it freed him from burnout and allowed him to focus on business operations while maintaining channel output. Critics pointed out the content quality declined noticeably and engagement metrics dropped as viewers realized they were watching an algorithm rather than a person. Lugini, also known as Logan Hugini Clark, is a YouTube animator who creates musical parodies of video games.

 The channel gained popularity in the early 2010s by taking well-known songs and rewriting the lyrics to summarize video game plots and gameplay. Typically featuring simple flash style animations of the game's characters singing along. Undertale the musical is one of these parodies created after the release of Undertale in 2015.

 The video follows the channel's standard format, condensing the game story into a musical number while hitting the major plot points and character moments that made Undertale a cultural phenomenon. The El Hugeny style became recognizable for its straightforward approach to game summarization through song, appealing to both fans who wanted to relive the story and newcomers curious about games they hadn't played.

 The Undertale entry specifically resonated with the game's massive fan community who were already creating tons of fan content, including music remixes, animations, and alternate universe stories. These video game musical parodies represent a specific era of YouTube content where simple animation techniques combined with pop culture music created an accessible format for gaming commentary and recap content.

Alignment charts are a meme format that takes the nine alignment system from Dungeons and Dragons and applies it to basically anything. The original system categorizes characters on two axes, lawful to chaotic on one side and good to evil on the other, creating a 3x3 grid with combinations like lawful good, chaotic neutral, or neutral evil.

 On the internet, people started making these charts for everything from breakfast cereals to video game characters to different ways of eating pizza. The humor comes from the often absurd or surprisingly accurate categorizations. For example, someone who eats pizza with a fork might be lawful evil, while someone who eats the crust first is definitely chaotic evil.

 The format exploded around the mid2010s and became a universal language for categorizing literally any set of items or behaviors. You'll find alignment charts for dog breeds, coffee orders, pasta shapes, and even different types of internet users themselves. The meme works because everyone has slightly different interpretations of what makes something lawful versus chaotic or good versus evil, which leads to endless debates in the comments about whether someone got it right.

Damn Daniel was a viral video meme from 2016 featuring high school student Daniel Lara and his friend Josh Holtz. Josh filmed a series of short Snapchat videos over the course of a week complimenting Daniel's outfits with enthusiastic commentary. Each clip started with Josh saying, "Damn Daniel," in various exaggerated tones while Daniel walked through their school campus.

 The most famous video featured Daniel wearing white Van sneakers, prompting Josh to say, "Damn Daniel, back at it again with the white Vans." The phrase immediately became the meme's signature catchphrase. The videos were compiled and posted to Twitter in February 2016 where they exploded overnight. Within days, the compilation video had over 45 million views.

 The phrase became inescapable across social media, spawning countless remixes, parodies, and references. Daniel and Josh appeared on the Ellen Degenerous show, where Ellen gifted Daniel a lifetime supply of Vans shoes. The brand capitalized on the unexpected publicity, and the meme became one of the defining viral moments of 2016.

 The popularity was intense, but brief, following the typical life cycle of internet trends. By mid 2016, the phrase had already become p, though it remains a nostalgic reference point for mid-W10's internet culture. 24 hours of walking as a woman in NYC, also known as 10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman is a viral street harassment awareness video from 2014.

 The video was produced by Rob Bliss Creative in partnership with Halabach, an anti- street harassment organization. The footage shows actress Shosana Roberts walking silently through various New York City neighborhoods for 10 hours while a hidden camera captured over 100 instances of cat calling, unwanted comments, and men following her.

 Thevideo was edited down to under 2 minutes and quickly racked up millions of views, sparking widespread debate about street harassment and women's experiences in public spaces. The video became controversial almost immediately. Critics pointed out that the editing disproportionately featured men of color while white men making similar comments were largely absent from the final cut, leading to accusations of racial bias.

Others questioned the authenticity of certain interactions and whether some participants were aware of the filming. Roberts herself became the target of online harassment and received threatening messages following the video's release, including specific threats that forced her to temporarily leave her home.

 The controversy expanded to include debates about what constitutes harassment versus compliments, whether saying hello to strangers is inherently problematic, and the ethics of the video's production methods. Berries and Cream is a viral commercial and internet meme originating from a Starburst candy advertisement that first aired in 2007.

 The commercial features a character known as the little lad portrayed by actor Jack Fervor, who appears dressed in Victorian era clothing and performs an eccentric dance routine while enthusiastically singing about berries and creamflavored Starburst. The original ad campaign was relatively short-lived, but the absurdest nature of the character's appearance, mannerisms, and catchy jingle made it memorable enough to circulate as a novelty clip online throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s.

 The meme experienced a massive resurgence in 2021 when Tik Tok users rediscovered the commercial and began creating their own versions of the little lad dance. The trend exploded across the platform with thousands of users recreating the dance moves and lip-syncing to the original audio. The revival became so significant that Starburst brought back the little lad character for new commercials and Jack Fervor himself joined Tik Tok to participate in the trend.

 The phrase berries and cream itself became shorthand for unexpected nostalgia and the cyclical nature of internet culture where obscure or forgotten content can suddenly become relevant again years later through new platforms and audiences. Jack Films, real name Jack Douglas, is a YouTube comedy creator who has been on the platform since 2006, making him one of the site's longestr running content creators.

 He's best known for his series Yesterday I asked you, abbreviated as Y, A Y, where he asks his audience a question and features their responses in the next day's video. The format became one of YouTube's most recognizable recurring series and has spawned hundreds of episodes. Before Y, he ran Your Grammar Sucks or YGS, where he read poorly written YouTube comments for comedic effect.

 Jack Films gained significant attention in 2023 when he became involved in a public dispute with reaction channel SSN i PR WF. He criticized her content for lacking transformative commentary, arguing it constituted free booting rather than fair use. The situation escalated when ss nip pfed his home address on her Instagram story, leading to her receiving a temporary YouTube strike.

 His channel also features parody music videos, comedy sketches, and various series where he pokes fun at internet trends and other creators. His wife Aaron frequently appears in his content. He's known for his self-deprecating humor about his large forehead, which has become a running joke in his community. I'm Alex, also known as Alex Elmsley, is a British commentary and drama YouTuber who rose to prominence in the late 2010s as part of the UK YouTube commentary scene.

 He was closely associated with creators like Willne, James Marriott, and Mimuis, regularly appearing in collaboration videos and podcasts. His content primarily consisted of commentary on internet drama, reaction videos, and discussions about other content creators. He gained a substantial following for his casual conversational style and his willingness to cover controversial topics within the YouTube community.

 In 2019, Alex became involved in significant drama when he and others publicly accused fellow YouTuber Sleso of misconduct. The situation later became complicated when additional context emerged, leading to widespread criticism of how the allegations were handled and presented. Alex himself later faced serious allegations regarding inappropriate interactions with underage fans.

Multiple individuals came forward with accusations spanning several years, including claims of manipulative behavior and inappropriate conversations. These allegations led to public statements from former friends and collaborators, distancing themselves from him. The controversy effectively ended his presence in the UK commentary community with many of his former collaborators publicly cutting ties.

 His channel activity significantly decreased following the allegations and he largelydisappeared from the YouTube commentary scene that he had once been a prominent part of. Cass Vanipole is a Dutch YouTuber and animator known for his historical and political commentary videos. His channel gained attention in the late 2010s for animated content covering European history, geopolitics, and cultural topics, often presented through a satirical lens.

 His animation style is simplistic and deliberately crude, featuring stick figure-like characters and basic shapes. This low-budget aesthetic became part of his brand identity. Vanipole's videos typically focus on European politics, historical events, and cultural observations, frequently addressing topics like immigration, nationalism, and European Union politics.

 The channel attracted controversy for its political commentary, which critics labeled as far-right or nationalist. Supporters argued his content represented alternative perspectives on European issues that mainstream platforms avoided. His videos sparked debates about free speech, political bias on YouTube, and the line between political commentary and extremism.

 Vanipole's channel faced multiple strikes and temporary suspensions from YouTube throughout the early 2020s. These actions fueled discussions about platform moderation and alleged censorship of political content creators. His community saw him as a victim of algorithmic bias, while detractors claimed the suspensions were warranted.

 His distinctive Dutch accent and deadpan delivery style became recognizable features of his content. The channel maintained a dedicated following despite platform restrictions with fans migrating to alternative platforms when videos were removed. Benjamins, also known as the founding father gift guy, is a content creator and streamer who dresses up as a timetraveling Benjamin Franklin, complete with colonial era costume and powdered wig.

 He first gained attention in 2020 when a clip of him playing Call of Duty War Zone went viral on Reddit where his Benjamin Franklin persona and catchphrase get jammed on caught people's attention. What made Benjamuns a widespread internet phenomenon was his strategic upload of thousands of gifts to platforms like Gy and Tenor starting in 2023.

 These reaction gifts featuring him in colonial attire, recreating popular meme templates began appearing in the built-in GIF keyboards on phones and social media platforms. By 2025, people across the internet started noticing they kept seeing this guy in a white wig whenever they searched for gifts, often having no idea who he was. Benjamins claims his gifts account for around 1% of all gifts used worldwide with over 60 million daily uses.

 [music] This omnipresence led to mixed reactions online with some users coining the term colonizing gifts and expressing annoyance at how frequently his face appeared in their search results. Others found the whole situation amusing, particularly when people would post screenshots asking, "Who is this guy and why do I see him everywhere?" In July 2025, Benjamins was temporarily banned from some platforms, which he responded to by saying he would use the extra time to make even more annoying gifts.

 He's also collaborated with major streamers including Amaranth, XQC, Jinxy, and Queso, and continues creating gaming content, vlogs, [music] and live streams across multiple platforms. The Voros twins, also known as the Dainci twins, are Chris and Patrick Voros, Hungarian Canadian identical twin brothers who became internet famous in August 2020 through a Tik Tok video.

 The pair were answering trivia questions when they were asked who painted the Mona Lisa. When the answer Leonardo da Vinci appeared on screen, they both exclaimed in confusion, "Dainy," the clip went massively viral, racking up millions of views and spawning countless memes about people's last two brain cells.

 The twins became the face of the Hmbo archetype and inspired reaction videos across social media platforms. While many viewers assumed the brothers genuinely didn't know who Da Vinci was, the twins later revealed they were in on the joke the entire time. They're actually professional wrestlers who have been creating content for over 15 years, deliberately playing up exaggerated versions of themselves for comedic effect.

 They asked interviewers not to explicitly call the video fake because they didn't want to ruin the fun for everyone. The twins have continued making comedy content and working as a tag team in various wrestling promotions, including Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling, where they won the tag team championship in 2020. More recently, in 2024, allegations surfaced that they had been stealing jokes and sketches from another content creator named Marie Pax over a 3-year period.

Smash or Pass, also known as Smash or Pass Challenge. This is an internet game format where participants are shown images of people, characters, or sometimes objects, and asked to choose whether they would hypothetically engagewith them romantically, indicated by saying smash or decline, indicated by saying pass.

 The format originated on YouTube around 2014, and quickly spread across Tik Tok, Instagram, and Twitter. Content creators began making videos rating celebrities, fictional characters, and eventually expanded to rating everything from food items to household appliances for comedic effect. The trend peaked multiple times throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s, with variations including animated character editions, celebrity editions, and ironic versions featuring increasingly absurd subjects like different types of bread or mathematical

equations. Some iterations became controversial when creators made videos about real non-ceelebrity individuals without consent or when underage participants engaged with the trend. Platform moderation has since implemented stricter guidelines around these videos. The format evolved into a broader meme template where Smash became internet shortorthhand for expressing approval of anything, not just in a romantic context.

Mimatic is a mobile app and website launched in 2011 that allows users to easily create memes using preset templates and customizable text. The platform became popular for making meme creation accessible to people who didn't have photo editing skills or software like Photoshop. The app includes a library of popular meme formats and lets users add their own images.

 What made Mumatic notorious on the internet was its watermark. Every meme created with the free version included a small made with mumatic tag in the bottom left corner. This watermark itself became a meme. Users on Reddit and other platforms would mock memes bearing the mumatic signature, treating it as a mark of loweffort content or identifying someone as a casual meme creator rather than a dedicated editor.

 The watermark sparked debates about meme authenticity and gatekeeping in online communities. Some meme purists considered Mumatic Memes to be inferior, while others defended the app for democratizing meme creation. The watermark could be removed by paying for the premium version, but many users either didn't know or didn't care enough to upgrade.

 Ironically, memes making fun of the mumatic watermark became their own category of content with people creating meta jokes about hiding or embracing the signature. Clock Tower is a survival horror video game series that started in 1995 on the Super Famicom in Japan. The first game follows Jennifer Simpson, a teenage orphan trying to escape from a mansion while being hunted by Scissor Man, a deformed child wielding giant scissors.

Unlike most horror games of the time, Clock Tower had no combat system. Players could only run, hide, and use the environment to temporarily stop their pursuer. The game used a point-and-click interface and featured a panic meter that affected Jennifer's ability to escape. The series became a cult favorite in Western horror gaming communities, particularly after the PlayStation Port and its sequel, Clock Tower 2: The Struggle Within.

 Scissor Man himself became one of the more recognizable horror game villains. with his design and chase sequences being frequently referenced in internet discussions about early survival horror. The games featured multiple endings based on player choices and exploration, [music] encouraging repeated playthroughs.

 This combined with the relatively obscure nature of the original Super Famicom release made Clock Tower a frequent topic in retro gaming circles and YouTube retrospectives. The franchise has largely remained dormant since the mid 2000s, with occasional spiritual successors and indie games attempting to recapture its specific brand of helpless chase-based horror.

No More Heroes is a hacken/action game series created by Goici Suda, also known as Suda 51, that debuted on the Wii in 2007. The game follows Travis Touchdown, an otaku assassin who fights his way up the ranks of the United Assassins Association to become the number one killer. The series gained a cult following online for its extreme violence, meta commentary, and deliberate subversion of video game tropes.

 Travis constantly breaks the fourth wall. The game mocks players for wasting time on side activities, and boss battles often end with existential dialogue about the meaninglessness of virtual violence. The games became particularly popular in internet gaming circles for their punk rock aesthetic and refusal to take themselves seriously.

 Pseuda 51's intentionally edgy and provocative storytelling style resonated with communities on forums like NeoGF and later gaming Twitter where the series is frequently cited as an example of a game design. The third mainline entry, No More Heroes 3, released in 2021 after over a decade gap. Continuing the series tradition of satarizing both gaming culture and its own fan base, the games have maintained relevance in internet discussions about Luda narrative dissonance and whethervideo games can meaningfully critique their own medium while still being video

games. Board.com was an early 2000s time-wasting website that served as a directory for random entertainment content. The site featured flash games, personality quizzes, jokes, riddles, and links to other amusing content scattered across the web. It functioned as a one-stop destination for people looking to kill time during work or school, essentially aggregating the most sharable and entertaining material available online at the time.

 Users could browse through different categories or simply click through random content until something caught their attention. The site represented a pre-social media approach to finding entertainment online. Back when discovery meant clicking through directories rather than scrolling through algorithmically curated feeds, board.

com competed with similar platforms like Stumble Upon and various flash game portals that dominated the mid2000s internet landscape. While the site still technically exists today, it became largely irrelevant as social media platforms like Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter took over the role of providing endless entertainment and time-wasting content.

 The death of Flash Player in 2020 also rendered much of its original content library obsolete. Super Meat Boy is a brutally difficult indie platformer released in 2010 by Team Meat. The game stars a cube of animated meat attempting to rescue his girlfriend Bandage Girl from the villainous Dr. Fetus across hundreds of increasingly punishing levels.

 The game became one of the defining titles of the indie game boom in the early 2010s. Featured prominently in the documentary Indiegame the Movie, which chronicled its chaotic development, Super Meat Boy was known for its precise controls, instant death mechanics, and the ability to immediately respawn after failure, leading to a gameplay loop where players would die hundreds of times per level while slowly perfecting their runs.

 The game gained significant attention for its dark humor, references to classic Nintendo platformers and unlockable characters from other indie titles like Braid and Alien Homminid. Its success on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam helped prove that independent developers could compete with major studios. The character design and art style became iconic in internet gaming circles, spawning countless fan animations and speedrunning communities.

 Team Meat's outspoken developers frequently engaged with fans online and weren't afraid to publicly criticize platforms or industry practices, [music] adding to the game's cult status. Little Nightmares is a horror puzzle platformer video game series developed by Tarsier Studios and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment.

 The first game released in 2017 and follows a small child named Six wearing a yellow raincoat as she navigates through a massive underwater vessel called the MA filled with grotesque distorted adult figures trying to capture her. The game became popular in the indie horror gaming community for its distinctive art style, creepy atmosphere, and minimal storytelling that leaves much open to interpretation.

 The visual design emphasizes the contrast between tiny, vulnerable children and massive deformed adults playing on childhood fears and feelings of helplessness. Little Nightmares spawned extensive lore discussion and theory crafting online with players analyzing every detail to piece together the story of Six and the nightmarish world she inhabits.

 The game's ambiguous ending and dark themes led to debate about Six's true nature and whether she's actually the protagonist or something more sinister. A sequel, Little Nightmares 2, released in 2021 and expanded the universe with new protagonist Mono. Though Six still plays a major role, the game's twist ending generated massive discussion and heartbreak among fans, cementing the series reputation for emotionally devastating storytelling without using a single word of dialogue.

Ugandan Knuckles refers to a meme and VR chat avatar that dominated the internet in early 2018. The character itself is a crudely drawn red version of Knuckles from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Originally created by YouTube user Gregzilla in a parody review video. The meme exploded when VR chat players began using this avatar on mass, speaking in exaggerated mock Ugandan accents while repeating phrases like, "Do you know the way?" and "Show me the way.

" Groups of players would swarm around others making clicking sounds with their tongues, referring to certain players as my queen, and following them around the virtual space. The behavior became so widespread that it essentially took over VR chat servers for several weeks. Players would encounter dozens of these avatars at once, all speaking in unison and overwhelming voice chat channels.

The meme referenced a Ugandan action film called Who Killed Captain Alex? And incorporated vocal mannerisms from a Ugandan film commentary series. Thephenomenon drew significant criticism for what many viewed as racist mockery of African accents and culture. VR Chat communities became divided between those who found it funny and those who considered it offensive harassment.

 The meme also sparked broader discussions about acceptable behavior in virtual reality spaces and whether the anonymity of VR encouraged poor conduct. By February 2018, the meme had largely died out due to a combination of oversaturation, platform moderation, and public backlash. Ben Drowned, also known as Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge, is a creepy pasta and web series created by Alexander Hall under the username Jedusible in September 2010.

 The story follows a college student who purchases a used copy of The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask from an old man at a yard sale. After starting the game, the narrator discovers a save file belonging to someone named Ben. Strange things begin happening during game play. The game glitches in unnatural ways. Characters reference the narrator by name, and the Ben character appears to be watching and manipulating the experience.

 The story reveals that Ben was a boy who drowned, and his spirit now haunts the cartridge. What set Ben drowned apart from other creepy pastas was the accompanying video evidence. Jeducible uploaded footage of the haunted gameplay to YouTube, showing the disturbing glitches and anomalies described in the written story. The videos featured reversed music, the happy mask salesman following the player, and the elegy of emptiness statue appearing in unexpected locations.

 The project later expanded into an alternate reality game called The Moon Children, involving hidden websites, codes, and elaborate puzzles for the community to solve. Ben Drowned became one of the most influential creepy pastas of the early 2010s, helping establish the format of using multiple media platforms to tell horror stories.

 The character of Ben, typically depicted as Link with realistic bleeding eyes, became an iconic figure in internet horror culture. Smile.jpg, also known as Smile. DG or Smile.jpg, is a notorious creepy pasta image that circulated in the early 2000s. The image depicts a Siberian husky with an unnaturally wide grin displaying human-like teeth against a dark background.

 According to the accompanying creepy pasta story, anyone who views the image becomes cursed with recurring nightmares featuring the dog. The only way to break the curse involves spreading the word by showing the image to another person. The original story follows a reporter investigating cases of people who had supposedly gone mad after viewing the file.

 The image gained traction on forums and image boards as users would post it to deliberately unsettle others. Multiple versions exist, including the more commonly shared edited photo and allegedly a more disturbing original that most claim has been lost to time. The creepy pasta became part of the foundational horror content that defined early internet culture, spawning countless imitations and becoming referenced across horror communities.

 Some versions of the story claimed the image originated from a 1990 bulletin board system, though this backstory was likely fabricated to add Mystique. The phrase spread the word became synonymous with the image, often appearing in discussions as a reference to the curse mechanics. Oversimplified is a YouTube channel that creates animated history videos explaining complex historical events through simplified narratives and stick figure animations.

 The channel run by Stuart Webster covers topics ranging from the American Civil War to World War II, breaking down complicated political and military conflicts into digestible 20 to 40minute videos. The channel became massively popular in the late 2010s, gaining millions of subscribers through its distinctive humor style that includes running gags, recurring characters, and modern references mixed into historical storytelling.

 Videos typically release every few months with each upload generating tens of millions of views and spawning countless memes across Reddit and other platforms. Oversimplified format has influenced an entire genre of educational YouTube content with numerous channels attempting to replicate the formula of combining simple animation with comedic historical narration.

 The channel's catchphrases and jokes, particularly those about historical figures having daddy issues or events happening because someone did something and this angered their father, have become widespread internet references. The long gaps between uploads have become a running joke in the community with fans creating elaborate theories about why videos take months to produce despite their seemingly simple animation style.

The Mandela effect describes when large groups of people share the same false memory about an event or detail from the past. The term comes from people incorrectly remembering that Nelson Mandela passed away in prison during the1980s when he actually lived until 2013. Classic examples include people remembering the Baron Stain Bears spelled with an E instead of an A, the Monopoly man having a monle when he never did, and the line from Star Wars being, "Luke, I am your father.

" when it's actually, "No, I am your father." Some believe these shared false memories are evidence of parallel universes or timeline shifts where people are remembering things from alternate realities they previously inhabited. Others point to CERN's large hadron collider experiments as potentially causing reality glitches.

 The more mundane explanation involves how human memory works with our brains filling in gaps based on expectations and similar patterns we've seen before. The internet amplified the phenomenon by letting people discover others shared their same incorrect memories, turning individual mistakes into collective experiences.

Ice cream challenge, also known as the ice cream licking challenge. This refers to a viral trend from 2019 where people filmed themselves opening ice cream containers in grocery stores, licking the ice cream, then placing it back on the shelf. The challenge started after a video of a woman licking Bluebell ice cream in a Texas Walmart went viral, garnering millions of views.

 The trend sparked immediate health concerns and copycat incidents across the United States. Several participants faced criminal charges, including tampering with consumer products, [music] which can carry federal penalties of up to 20 years in prison. Bluebell and other ice cream manufacturers began adding plastic seals to their products in response.

 The original woman who started the trend was identified as a minor and avoided jail time, though adult copycats received jail sentences and fines. Some stores increased security around frozen food sections and installed additional cameras. The challenge led to discussions about food safety and the lengths people go to for internet fame.

Kidnamed finger, also known as Mike Airman Finger or simply finger, is an absurdest meme format that emerged from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fan communities in 2021. The meme centers around the character Mike Airman Trout, played by Jonathan Banks, who becomes inexplicably referred to as finger in increasingly nonsensical image macros.

The format typically features classroom scenarios where a teacher announces something like, "All right, class. Today we're going to fingerpaint," followed by an ominous image of Mike Airman trot labeled kidnamed finger. The humor stems from the complete lack of logic and the deadpan presentation of Mike's serious character in these bizarre contexts.

 The meme exploded across Reddit, particularly on the okay buddy chicainery subreddit, which specializes in ironic Breaking Bad universe content. It became so widespread that it spawned countless variations, including kidnamed paint, kidnamed homework, and other increasingly abstract iterations that push the format to its limits.

 The meme represents a particular brand of Gen Z humor that embraces the nonsensical and celebrates jokes that deliberately don't make sense. Some variations layer multiple formats together, creating dense, nearly incomprehensible mashups that require deep knowledge of internet culture to parse. Zach Dilms is a YouTube channel that pumps out animated short form educational content primarily through YouTube shorts and Tik Tok.

 The channel features simple stick figure animations paired with quick facts, what-if scenarios, and bite-sized science explanations. The content formula involves taking complex scientific concepts or hypothetical situations and breaking them down into 15 to 60-second videos. Topics range from what would happen if the earth stopped spinning to explanations of bizarre animal facts.

The channel gained massive traction during the YouTube shorts boom of the early 2020s, accumulating millions of subscribers through the platform's aggressive short form algorithm push. The animations are intentionally basic, focusing viewer attention on the narration rather than complex visuals. Some viewers have noted the channel's tendency to recycle content across platforms and occasionally present oversimplified explanations that border on misinformation.

 The rapid production schedule and algorithm focused approach has made it a prime example of the content farm phenomenon that emerged with short form video platforms. Squidward's self- removal, also known as Red Mist. This is a creepy pasta story from 2011 about a supposed lost episode of Spongebob Squarepants. The story describes an unaired episode where Squidward ends his own life after a failed clarinet concert.

 The narrative claims a Nickelodeon intern witnessed this disturbing footage during a routine episode review. The supposed episode featured hyperrealistic eyes, distorted audio, and brief flashes of real crime scene photos. The creepy pasta gained massive traction on forums and YouTube,spawning countless recreations and fan animations.

 Some versions claim the episode was created by a disgruntled animator seeking revenge on the studio. In 2016, Nickelodeon actually referenced the story in an official Spongebob episode called Spongebob in Random Land, where they briefly showed Squidward opening a door to find the Red Mist version of himself. This canonical acknowledgement only fueled more speculation about whether elements of the original story had any truth to them.

 The tale became a cornerstone of lost episode creepy pastas, inspiring similar stories about other cartoons. Various supposed screenshots and clips have circulated online, though all have been proven fake or fan-made. R/ami the [ __ ] also known as AITA, is a Reddit community where users post stories about personal conflicts and ask the internet to judge whether they were wrong in the situation.

 People vote using acronyms like YTA for you're the [ __ ] NTA for not the [ __ ] and ESH for everyone sucks here. The subreddit launched in 2013 and quickly became one of Reddit's most popular communities with over 14 million members. Posts range from mundane family disputes about wedding invitations to bizarre scenarios involving inheritance drama and workplace conflicts.

 The community has spawned countless YouTube channels and Tik Tok accounts that narrate the most outrageous stories, often with Minecraft parkour footage playing in the background. Critics argue many stories are creative writing exercises rather than real situations. The subreddit's moderators have acknowledged that verifying authenticity is basically impossible.

 Some users allegedly post fake stories specifically to test what moral judgments they can get the community to support. The format has become so recognizable that AATA has entered mainstream internet vocabulary with people using the phrase even outside Reddit to frame their personal dilemmas. R/TFU, also known as Today I [ __ ] Up, is a Reddit community where users share stories about their personal mistakes and mishaps.

 The subreddit launched in 2012 and became one of Reddit's most popular storytelling forums. Posts typically begin with TI ifu followed by a brief summary of the screw-up. Despite the name suggesting sameday events, most stories happened weeks, months, or even years earlier. The community has a running joke that posts starting with obligatory this didn't happen today have become more common than actual recent events.

 The subreddit gained mainstream attention when several posts went viral outside Reddit, including the coconut incident of 2017 and various workplace disasters that made international news. Some stories became so infamous they're referenced across the internet with just their titles, like the guy who pretended not to know what potatoes were at his girlfriend's parents' dinner.

 Critics regularly accuse the subreddit of being filled with creative writing exercises rather than true stories. The more outrageous and perfectly timed the consequences, the more likely commenters are to call fake. This skepticism intensified after several high-profile posts were proven fabricated, including one about accidentally destroying a company's entire database that turned out to be viral marketing.

 The moderators instituted strict rules about bodily function stories after the feed became overwhelmed with bathroom disasters. They also banned posts about intimate mishaps on weekdays, creating NSFW weekends to contain the flood of bedroom blunders. FaZe Clan, sometimes just called FaZe, is one of the most prominent esports organizations and content creation groups in gaming culture.

 Founded in 2010 as a Call of Duty trickshotting team on YouTube, FaZe evolved from uploading montages of no scope sniper kills into a multi-million dollar brand. The organization expanded into competitive esports, fielding professional teams in Counterstrike, Valerant, Fortnite, and other titles while simultaneously building a content house model where members live together creating videos and streams.

 FaZe became synonymous with a particular brand of gaming lifestyle content, mixing gameplay with vlogs, pranks, and flex culture. Their roster has included major streamers and internet personalities, turning the phase name into a status symbol within gaming circles. The organization went public on the NASDAQ in 2022 through a spa merger, though the stock price collapsed from $10 to under 50 within a year.

 FaZe has faced numerous controversies, including the Save the Kids token scandal, where several members promoted an alleged charity cryptocurrency that crashed immediately after launch, gambling site ownership conflicts, and various member departures over contract disputes. The organization filed for bankruptcy protection, but was acquired and restructured in 2023.

Nicole Arbor is a Canadian YouTuber and comedian who gained widespread notoriety in 2015 for her video Dear Fat People.The video featured Arbor delivering what she claimed was comedic commentary about overweight individuals, though she framed it as motivational tough love. The 6-minute video went viral immediately, garnering millions of views and sparking massive backlash across social media platforms.

 Many viewers and fellow content creators accused her of bullying and fat shaming under the guise of comedy. The controversy intensified when reports emerged that she had been fired from a film project due to the video, though Arbor disputed these claims. Prior to the incident, Arbor had built a following through her self-described cheerleader from hell persona, creating videos that mixed comedy with provocative social commentary.

 She frequently uploaded content addressing various groups through her Dear series format. The Dear Fat People controversy led to her temporary suspension from YouTube, though the platform later stated this was due to copyright issues rather than the content itself. Arbor claimed the suspension was censorship and compared herself to various historical figures who faced persecution for their views.

Following the incident, her channel experienced both subscriber gains from those who supported her stance and significant losses from critics. She continued creating content but never reached the same level of mainstream attention again. Yung, also known as Jonathan Leandoor Hustad or Jonathan Leandor 96, is a Swedish rapper who emerged from the depths of internet culture in 2013.

 Born in [clears throat] Stockholm, he gained viral fame as a teenager through music videos uploaded to YouTube, particularly Ginsang Strip 2002, which featured him and his sad boys crew drinking Arizona Iced Tea in abandoned locations around Stockholm. His cloud rap style, characterized by autotuned vocals over ethereal beats, helped define the sad boy aesthetic that dominated certain corners of the internet throughout the 2010s.

 The music combines trap influences with melancholic themes, creating what fans call emotional rap or cloud rap. Lean's influence extends beyond music into fashion and internet culture. His aesthetic of bucket hats, oversized clothing, and references to Arizona tea, Nintendo 64 games, and prescription medication became visual shortorthhand for a specific type of internet melancholy.

 The Sad Boys movement he created with producers Yung Good and Yung Sherman spawned countless imitators and helped establish the visual language of vapor wave and early Soundcloud rap. His fan base developed an almost mythological status on platforms like Tumblr and early Twitter where his lyrics about feeling empty in Swedish suburbs resonated with teenagers worldwide.

 The phrase sad boys itself became internet vernacular, spawning merchandise, memes, [music] and an entire subculture of emotional expression through ironic detachment. Dave Blunts is a rapper from Delaware who became an internet sensation in late 2024. The artist gained viral attention for his performances where he remained seated throughout his sets, often while connected to oxygen support.

 Blunts first started gaining traction on Tik Tok and Instagram with his track The Cup, which features his distinctive deep voice and melodic trap style. His rise to mainstream awareness came after a performance at JuiceWLD day in Chicago, where footage of him performing while seated with Supplemental Oxygen went viral across social media platforms.

 The internet's reaction has been mixed with some celebrating his dedication to performing despite his physical limitations, while others express concern for his health. Memes featuring blunts have spread rapidly, particularly comparisons to various fictional characters and edited videos set to his music.

 His weight, reported to be over 500 lb, has become a central topic of discussion online. Various internet communities have created fan edits, remixes, and reaction content surrounding his performances and music videos. The phrase Dave Blunt's type beat became a trending search term as producers began creating instrumental tracks mimicking his style.

Dave Microwave, also known as Davo Microavo or David Murphy, was an Australian YouTuber who gained a following in the mid2010s for his experimental videos where he microwaved various objects to see what would happen. His channel featured everything from toys and electronics to food items being destroyed in increasingly elaborate microwave setups.

 The videos had a raw, unedited quality that made them feel authentic compared to more polished destruction channels. Dave became something of a cult figure in the weird side of YouTube with his thick Australian accent and casual approach to potentially dangerous experiments. His most popular videos included microwaving airbags, glow sticks, and spray paint cans, often resulting in spectacular failures and occasional fires.

 In 2018, Dave passed away at age 29. His channel remains online as a time capsule of early YouTube's more chaotic era whencreators could film themselves doing genuinely dangerous things in their backyards without much oversight. The channel represents a specific moment in internet history when amateur scientists and backyard experimenters could build audiences by simply pointing a camera at controlled chaos.

All my fellas, also known as all my homies or the fellas meme. This refers to a viral animation trend that exploded on Tik Tok and other social platforms in 2024. The format features simple animated characters dancing to music, typically representing someone's friend group or squad. The original animation shows four cartoon figures with exaggerated movements doing synchronized dance moves.

 Users quickly began creating their own versions, replacing the characters with everything from anime protagonists to historical figures to vegetables with googly eyes. The audio usually paired with these animations comes from various hip-hop and electronic tracks, though the most common version uses a catchy beat that became synonymous with the meme itself.

Creators would customize the characters to represent their actual friends, adding inside jokes through clothing choices, accessories, or specific dance moves. The trend spawned countless variations, including all my fellas hate versions where the characters would collectively reject something, and crossover edits where the animated figures would appear in unexpected contexts like serious movie scenes or news broadcasts.

 Some versions gained millions of views by featuring increasingly absurd character choices like making all the fellas different types of bread or extinct animals. The format became a quick way to signal group identity and shared interests across the internet. Hot linking, also known as inline linking or leeching, is when someone embeds an image or file from one website directly into another site by using the original files URL instead of uploading it themselves.

 This means every time someone visits the page with the hot linked content, the original website has to serve that file using their own bandwidth and server resources. Back in the early 2000s, when bandwidth was expensive, this was considered one of the cardinal sins of web etiquette. Site owners started fighting back with creative countermeasures.

 They would detect when their images were being hotlined with different images, often containing embarrassing or shocking content. The most famous example is probably the goatsy replacement strategy where web masters would swap hotlin images with that particular shock image. Some sites would replace hot linked images with messages saying, "Stop stealing my bandwidth or pictures of the site owner giving the middle finger.

" eBay famously had an issue in the mid200s where sellers were hotlinking product images from other sites only to have those images changed to completely different products or inappropriate content. The practice led to the development of hotlink protection scripts and referral checking systems that most hosting providers offer today.

 Sites like Photobucket and Image Shack built their entire business models around providing image hosting specifically to avoid hotlinking issues. The Gamer from Mars is a YouTube content creator who produces long- form video essays about internet culture, mysteries, and online controversies. Starting his channel in the early 2010s, he became known for deep dive documentaries covering everything from obscure internet history to YouTube drama and conspiracy theories.

 His content often explores forgotten or lesserk known corners of the internet, including coverage of lost media, defunct websites, and internet personalities who vanished from the public eye. The channel gained particular attention for videos documenting the rise and fall of various YouTubers and analyzing internet phenomena that mainstream media overlooked.

 The Gamer from Mars has covered topics ranging from creepy pastas and ARGS to more serious subjects like online cults and internet related crimes. His documentary style typically features extensive research, archived footage, and a narrative approach that treats internet culture as legitimate subject matter worthy of historical documentation.

 The channel has occasionally faced criticism for covering sensitive topics or individuals who later became involved in controversies. Though the creator maintains a largely neutral documentarian approach to his subjects, his work has helped preserve and document numerous aspects of internet history that might otherwise have been forgotten or lost to time.

Anna Kachion, also known as Anna K, or one half of the Red Scare podcast duo. She's a Russian-American cultural commentator who co-hosts the controversial podcast Red Scare with Dasha Necrosova, which started in 2018. The podcast gained attention for its contrarian political takes that don't fit neatly into traditional left or right categories.

 Kacan became known for her criticism of mainstream liberalfeminism and what she calls performative wokeness. She's often associated with the so-called dirt bag left and later the post-left movement. Her online presence expanded beyond the podcast through Twitter, where her provocative statements regularly go viral and spark debates.

 She's been criticized for platforming controversial figures and making inflammatory comments about body image, mental health, and political correctness. The Red Scare podcast became part of a broader downtown Manhattan cultural scene that includes artists, writers, and media figures who position themselves as alternatives to mainstream culture.

 Some view her as an intellectual provocator, while others see her as promoting harmful ideologies. She's also known for her appearances on other podcasts and her influence on a certain corner of extremely online discourse that blends irony, politics, and cultural criticism in ways that intentionally blur sincerity and satire. Nick Mks, also known as Nick Colchef, is a professional streamer and content creator who built his following through competitive Call of Duty and Fortnite gameplay.

 He became one of the highest earning streamers on Twitch before signing an exclusive deal with Kick in 2023, worth reportedly $50 million. Known for his aggressive play style and controller gameplay in a mouse and keyboard dominated competitive scene, Nick Merks proved that console players could compete at the highest levels. His MFAM community, short for Merks family, became one of the most loyal fan bases in streaming.

 The streamer found himself at the center of controversy in June 2023 when Activision removed his Call of Duty operator bundle from their store following his comments about LGBTQ content in schools. This sparked debates about corporate responses to creator statements and the boundaries between personal views and business partnerships.

 His move from Twitch to Kick represented one of the largest creator acquisitions in streaming history. part of Kick's strategy to challenge Twitch's dominance by signing established creators with massive guaranteed contracts. West Cole, also known as Luis Villa, is a Colombian streamer who became one of the most controversial figures in Spanish-speaking streaming communities.

Starting on platforms like Facebook Gaming and later moving to kick, West Cole built his following through provocative content and deliberate boundary pushing behavior. His streams often featured inflammatory commentary about other content creators, particularly female streamers, which led to multiple platform bans and public feuds.

 The streamer gained international notoriety after several clips of his most extreme moments went viral on Twitter and Reddit, exposing non-speakers to his content. West Cole has been accused of promoting harmful ideologies to his predominantly young male audience with critics pointing to his statements about relationships and women as particularly problematic.

 His supporters claim he's playing a character for entertainment while detractors argue his influence on impressionable viewers crosses ethical lines. The Colombian authorities have investigated him multiple times for various incidents, including alleged threats made during streams. His presence in the streaming world represents a broader debate about platform moderation and the responsibilities of content creators with large audiences in Latin American streaming spaces.

Coffeezilla is a YouTube investigator who exposes crypto scams, NFT rugps, and influencer fraud. Starting his channel in 2018, Coffeezilla became known for his deep dive investigations into internet scammers and fake gurus. His content features a distinctive film noir aesthetic with him portrayed as a detective character operating from a virtual basement office.

 He's exposed numerous high-profile cases including Save the Kids Token, multiple Jake Paul controversies, and various pump and dump schemes. His investigations have led to actual legal consequences for some subjects, with several facing lawsuits or criminal charges following his reporting. The channel gained massive traction during the crypto boom of 2021 and 2022 when NFT scams were everywhere.

His SPF and FTX coverage brought him mainstream attention beyond just the YouTube sphere. Some crypto influencers have attempted to sue him for defamation. Though these cases typically go nowhere, he's become something of a boogeyman figure in the influencer scam world with shady projects often preemptively blocking him on social media.

H3H3 Productions is a YouTube channel created by married couple Ethan and Hila Klene in 2011. The channel gained massive popularity through reaction videos and comedy sketches that called out bizarre trends, scams, and controversial YouTubers. The Kleins became known for their critical commentary on prank channels, particularly their videos exposing staged pranks and highlighting problematic content creators.

 Their Vape Nation video from 2016 became one of themost recognizable memes of that era with Ethan's exaggerated character spawning countless imitations. In 2017, they launched the H3 podcast, which expanded their content beyond reaction videos into long- form interviews with internet personalities, comedians, and controversial figures.

 The podcast has hosted everyone from Post Malone to Jordan Peterson, often generating headlines for heated debates and unexpected moments. The channel has been at the center of numerous controversies and feuds with other creators including Keemstar, Trisha Pis, and Ryan Kavanaaugh. Their lawsuit with Matt Hos over fair use in 2016 became a landmark case for YouTube creators with the Klein's winning after a year-long legal battle funded partially through community donations.

 The Frenemies podcast with Trisha Pis brought massive viewership, but ended dramatically in 2021 amid disputes over profits and crew treatment, creating one of YouTube's most documented breakups. DA Games, also known as Diamond Armada Games, is a YouTube channel run by musician and voice actor Will Ryan. The channel gained massive popularity in the mid2010s, creating original songs inspired by indie horror games, particularly Five Nights at Freddy's and Bendy and the Ink Machine.

 Ryan's distinctive rock and metal style combined with game themed lyrics attracted millions of subscribers who would eagerly await each new game inspired track. Songs like Build Our Machine and Gospel of Dismay became anthems within their respective fandoms, often surpassing tens of millions of views.

 The channel expanded beyond music into animated music videos, let's plays, and voice acting content. Ryan also composed official soundtracks for several indie games, blurring the line between fan content, and official game music. DA Games became synonymous with the indie horror game music scene on YouTube with many younger fans discovering rock and metal genres through these gaming crossovers.

Cupcakes refers to a My Little Pony fanfiction written in 2011 that became one of the most infamous pieces of fan content in the Brony community. The story depicts the character Pinkie Pie luring Rainbow Dash to her basement, where extremely graphic violence takes place, all under the guise of making special cupcakes.

 The fanfic gained notoriety for its stark contrast to the wholesome source material, turning a cheerful children's show into something deeply disturbing. It spread rapidly through the fandom and spawned countless reaction videos, animated adaptations, and response stories attempting to provide alternate endings or explanations.

 The story became such a phenomenon that it essentially served as a right of passage for many in the brony community during the early 2010s. References to it became shortorthhand for dark fan content that subverts innocent source material. Various content creators on YouTube made readings and animations of it before most were removed for violating community guidelines.

 Its cultural impact extended beyond the pony fandom, becoming an example often cited when discussing how online communities can transform children's media into adult horror content. Big Chungus refers to an image of an obese Bugs Bunny that became a viral meme in late 2018. The image originates from a 1941 Mary Melody's cartoon called Wobbit Twubble, where Bugs briefly inflates himself to mock Elmer Fud.

 The name Big Chungus was coined by a GameStop manager who created a fake PlayStation 4 game cover featuring the Rotund Rabbit as a joke for a co-orker. After being posted to Reddit, the image exploded across social media platforms. The meme peaked when people started creating fake big chungus video game covers, merchandise concepts, and edited movie posters.

 It became particularly popular in deep fried meme formats and ironic gaming circles where the absurdity of the character's appearance combined with the nonsensical name created perfect meme material. Warner Brothers actually tried to trademark Big Chungus in 2020, likely recognizing the commercial potential of the meme. The character even made official appearances in mobile games like Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem.

This is the ideal male body, commonly associated with peak performance, and you may not like it. This meme format originated from a 2016 Twitter post featuring a heavy set male character with the caption, "This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like." The original image showed competitive strongman and powerlifter Robert Oburst, though many versions incorrectly attribute it to various video game characters or other figures.

 The phrase quickly became a copyp pasta and reaction image template across social media. People began applying the caption to increasingly absurd images from cartoon characters with exaggerated proportions to inanimate objects and abstract shapes. The meme serves as both genuine body positivity messaging and ironic commentary on unrealistic beautystandards.

 Notable variations include edits featuring dadba game characters like Bob from Tekken Wario or King Day. The format experienced multiple resurgences, particularly when paired with images of unconventional male figures in media or screenshots from character creation screens with slider settings pushed to their extremes. The meme's flexibility made it perfect for both sincere appreciation of different body types and [ __ ] posting about what constitutes physical perfection.

 It remains a go-to response when discussions about fitness, attractiveness, or optimization get too serious online. R/Meir L, also known as me in real life, is a subreddit dedicated to self-deprecating memes and painfully relatable content. The community posts images and memes that capture everyday struggles, social awkwardness, and existential dread with a comedic twist.

 The subreddit gained massive popularity in the mid2010s as users shared increasingly absurd yet somehow universally relatable content. Posts typically feature screenshots of text conversations, reaction images, or surreal memes accompanied by the phrase me Earl to indicate the poster relates to the content on a personal level.

 The community became known for its unique culture of upvoting literally anything, including blank images, random objects, and coordinated campaigns to push bizarre content to Reddit's front page. This led to various spin-off subreddits like me_l to me Iiral forme Iiral and me Iiral but with specific themes.

 The subreddit also popularized several meme formats including the Wednesday frog depression memes disguised as humor and the communism memes that dominated the space for several months. Members often refer to each other as me too thanks in response to particularly relatable posts about social anxiety or life disappointments. Apple Bottom Jeans refers to the opening lyrics from Floor Rita's 2007 hit song Low featuring Tep Pain.

 The full line, Apple Bottom Jeans, Boots with the Fur, describes a woman's outfit at a club and became one of the most recognizable song lyrics of the late 2000s. The phrase exploded into meme culture almost immediately after the song's release. Internet users began creating remixes, mashups, and parodies featuring the lyrics.

 The song became inescapable on early YouTube, MySpace, and dance compilation CDs sold at gas stations, Apple Bottom Jeans was also an actual clothing brand created by the rapper Nelly in 2003. Designed specifically for women with curvier figures, the brand peaked in popularity around the same time as Florita's song. Though the two weren't directly connected, the lyrics spawned countless variations and jokes across social media platforms.

 People would complete the verse in unexpected ways or insert the lyrics into completely unrelated conversations. Tik Tok brought the meme back in the 2020s with users lip-syncing to increasingly distorted versions of the song. The whole club was looking at her became another memorable line from the same verse that achieved its own meme status.

Together, these lyrics represent a specific era of club music and early internet culture that many users remember with ironic fondness. That wasn't very cash money of you. This phrase emerged as a popular meme format in 2018 and became a staple of internet humor. The expression serves as a comedic way to call out disappointing or uncool behavior, playing off the slang term cash money, which means something cool or awesome.

 The meme originated from hip hop culture where cash money represented success and positive vibes. By adding that wasn't very to the phrase, internet users created an ironic way to express mild disappointment or mock disapproval. The meme originated from hip hop culture where cash money represented success and positive vibes. By adding that wasn't very to the phrase, internet users created an ironic way to express mild disappointment or mock disapproval.

 The format gained traction on Twitter and Reddit, where people would respond to stories of betrayal, minor inconveniences, or genuinely terrible behavior with this understated reaction. The humor comes from the contrast between the casual, almost polite phrasing, and whatever transgression is being addressed. Variations include, "That was very cash money of you for positive actions," [music] and increasingly elaborate versions that incorporate other outdated slang terms.

 The phrase peaked around 2019, but remains a recognizable part of meme vocabulary, particularly when someone wants to express disapproval while maintaining a light-hearted tone. Pizzagate. This refers to a conspiracy theory that emerged during the 2016 United States presidential election. The theory falsely claimed that high-ranking political figures were running a child trafficking operation out of Comet Pingpong, a pizza restaurant in Washington DC.

 The conspiracy originated from leaked emails that theorists claimed contained coded messages about illegal activities. Theseinterpretations spread rapidly across social media platforms and message boards, particularly Fores and Reddit. In December 2016, a man drove from North Carolina to the restaurant and fired an assault rifle inside the building while investigating the claims.

 No one was injured, but the incident brought mainstream attention to the dangers of online conspiracy theories. Reddit banned the Pizzagate subreddit for violating anti-doxing policies after users posted personal information of people they suspected were involved. The theory has been thoroughly debunked by law enforcement and fact-checkers with no evidence supporting any of its claims.

 The term became synonymous with how false information spreads online and the realworld consequences of internet conspiracy theories. It's often cited as an early example of politically motivated disinformation campaigns on social media platforms. Trash Doves was a Facebook sticker pack created by artist Sid Wiler that went viral in February 2017.

 The stickers featured a purple dove character in various poses and emotions. But one particular animation of the dove aggressively headbanging became an internet phenomenon. The headbanging dove sticker spread across Facebook comment sections at an explosive rate. Users would spam the animation repeatedly in threads, often completely derailing conversations with walls of purple birds thrashing their heads back and forth.

 The meme peaked when Thai Facebook users adopted it on mass, associating it with various political meanings and conspiracy theories. Some groups claimed the dove represented political movements or contained hidden Nazi symbolism, though these interpretations were largely unfounded internet speculation. Within weeks, trash doves went from beloved sticker to annoying spam that Facebook groups started banning.

 The backlash was swift and decisive with many users reporting anyone who posted the dove. The phenomenon burned out almost as quickly as it started, becoming one of the most meteoric rises and falls in Facebook meme history. The Russian Sleep Experiment is a creepy pasta horror story that first appeared on the creepyp pasta wiki in 2010.

 The story describes Soviet researchers in the late 1940s keeping five political prisoners awake for 15 days using an [music] experimental gas stimulant. According to the fictional account, the test subjects were locked in a sealed chamber and monitored through microphones and thick glass port holes. After 5 days without sleep, the subjects started showing signs of paranoia and stopped talking to each other.

 By day nine, they began screaming uncontrollably. On the 15th day, when researchers finally opened the chamber, they discovered the subjects had torn chunks of flesh from their own bodies and consumed them. The prisoners begged not to be put to sleep and violently resisted being removed from the gas. The story became one of the most widely shared creepy pastas on the internet, spawning countless YouTube readings, short films, and even a 2015 novel adaptation.

 Many people initially believed it was based on real Soviet experiments, though it's entirely fictional. The orange tinted image often paired with the story actually shows a Halloween prop called Spasm created by Morbid Enterprises. The creepy pasta has been translated into multiple languages and remains a cornerstone of internet horror fiction despite being over a decade old.

WTFU, short for where's the fair use, was a campaign that exploded across YouTube in February 2016. The movement started when prominent creators began receiving copyright strikes and content ID claims on videos that clearly fell under fair use provisions, particularly reviews, critiques, and educational content.

 The hashtag gained massive traction after YouTuber Doug Walker, also known as the Nostalgia Critic, released a video titled, "Where's the fair use?" that outlined how the platform's automated copyright system was being weaponized against creators. Within days, hundreds of YouTubers joined the campaign, sharing their own experiences of having monetization removed or entire channels terminated despite following fair use guidelines.

The controversy centered around YouTube's content ID system, which allowed copyright holders to automatically claim or block content containing even seconds of their material, regardless of transformative context. Film studios, music labels, and even individual companies were issuing claims on mass, often targeting negative reviews or critical analysis of their products.

 Major creators like I Hate Everything, Your Movie Sucks, and Channel Awesome documented losing thousands of dollars in ad revenue from illegitimate claims. The situation became particularly heated when it was revealed that claimants could monetize disputed videos during the appeal process, essentially profiting from content they didn't create while the actual creator received nothing.

Logan Paul tasering a dead rat refers toa February 2018 video where the YouTuber used a taser on a deceased rat he found while filming content. This happened just weeks after his infamous Aayoki Gajara Forest controversy, adding to the mounting criticism of his content choices at the time.

 The video showed Paul discovering the rat, then proceeding to shock it with a taser while his friends watched and filmed. The incident became part of a larger pattern of controversial content that led to YouTube temporarily suspending his ad revenue and removing him from their Google preferred program. Animal rights groups condemned the video, calling it disrespectful and inappropriate, especially given his massive young audience.

 The footage was later removed from his channel, but clips and reactions spread across Twitter and Reddit, becoming another example of influencer behavior gone wrong that internet users point to when discussing the early days of YouTube's creator accountability issues. Phil Swift is the CEO and spokesman for the Flex Seal family of products.

 He became an internet sensation in the mid2010s through his enthusiastic infomercials where he demonstrates the waterproofing capabilities of Flex Tape and other products. His most famous demonstration involves sawing a boat in half and repairing it using only Flex Tape, then riding it across water. The phrase, "That's a lot of damage," became one of his signature catchphrases after he would intentionally destroy objects before fixing them.

 The Jontron video, Waterproofing My Life with Flex Tape, from 2017 catapulted Phil Swift into meme status. Internet users began creating edits and remixes of his commercials, often exaggerating the destructive demonstrations or Phil's enthusiasm to absurd levels. Phil Swift has embraced his meme status, appearing at conventions and collaborating with content creators.

 The Flex Seal Company has leaned into the internet culture surrounding their products, even referencing popular memes in their official marketing. Some internet users have jokingly created a cult-like following around Phil Swift, treating him as an almost divine figure capable of fixing any problem with Flex products.

 Deep fried memes and surreal edits featuring Phil Swift remain popular in meme communities. Gnosticism, also known as Nossis or the Gnostic tradition. This refers to a collection of religious ideas from the first few centuries after Christ that believed the material world was created by a false god called the demiurge and that secret knowledge could free the human spirit from this prison of matter.

On the internet,nosticism has become a major talking point in conspiracy forums, occult communities, and philosophy discussion boards. The concept of hidden knowledge and reality being a prison resonates with modern ideas about simulation theory and the Matrix films, which borrowed heavily from Gnostic concepts.

 Online, you'll find Gnostic ideas mixed into discussions about the Archons, which are supposedly interdimensional beings that feed on human suffering. Some conspiracy theorists claim that world governments and corporations are controlled by these archonic forces. The Nagamadi texts discovered in Egypt in 1945 contain most of the surviving Gnostic writings and are frequently referenced in internet discussions about suppressed religious knowledge.

 These texts present alternative versions of biblical stories, including the idea that the serpent in Eden was actually trying to help humanity gain knowledge. Gnostic memes and references appear throughout Chan culture, Reddit's occult communities, and YouTube channels dedicated to esoteric knowledge. The red pill, blue pill concept from the Matrix directly parallels the Gnostic choice between ignorance and nosis.

Bongo Cat is an animated cat meme that first appeared in May 2018. The original animation showed a simple white cat slapping its paws on a table to the beat of music. Created by Twitter user Stray Rogue, the cat started as a simple GIF of a cartoon feline boopping its paws. Within days, other users began editing the cat to play various instruments, starting with bongos, which gave the meme its name.

 The meme exploded when users synced Bongo Cat to popular songs, making it appear to play keyboards, guitars, and other instruments. The cat's simple design made it easy to edit and recreate, leading to thousands of variations. Nintendo even acknowledged the meme when Bongo Cat versions of their game soundtracks went viral. The format became so popular that it spawned interactive websites where users could make Bongo Cat play instruments with their keyboard.

 At its peak, Bongo Cat videos regularly hit millions of views. With some creators using the format for full song covers, the meme remains a wholesome piece of internet history that still appears in streams and videos when content creators want to add a cute musical element. Copy pasta refers to blocks of text that get copied and pasted repeatedly acrossthe internet.

 The term combines copy paste with pasta playing on the Italian food naming convention that became popular in internet culture. These text blocks spread through forums, social media, comment sections, and chat rooms. Users copy the entire text and repost it, often without any changes. The practice started on image boards like 4chan in the early 2000s and spread to Reddit, Discord, Twitch chat, and basically everywhere else online.

 Some copyp pastas are meant to be funny, while others are creepy pastas, which are horror stories designed to unsettle readers. Then there are spam copy pastas that flood chat rooms, especially during live streams. The most successful copy pastas have a specific formula. They're usually absurd, emotionally charged, or contain bizarre scenarios that make people want to share them.

 Many include intentional spelling errors or weird formatting that becomes part of their identity. Copy pastas can also serve as inside jokes within specific communities. Twitch has its own collection. Gaming communities have theirs, and certain subreddits develop unique ones that only make sense within that context.

 They're basically the internet's version of chain letters, except people spread them ironically rather than out of fear that something bad will happen if they don't. Disappointed black guy. This entry refers to a reaction image and video meme that gained popularity in 2017. The meme features a man named Tedrrell whose disappointed facial expression was captured during a video where he was pranked by having his friend pretend to find money on the ground.

 The original video shows Tedrell's friend excitedly claiming he found $20, only to reveal it was a prank. Tedrell's immediate shift from excitement to visible disappointment became the perfect reaction content for social media. The meme spread rapidly on Twitter and other platforms with people using Tedrell's disappointed expression to react to various letdowns, broken promises, or anticlimactic moments online.

 The format typically pairs the image or video clip with captions describing disappointing situations. Tadrell himself eventually embraced the meme status, even creating merchandise and making appearances based on his internet fame. The meme remains a staple reaction format, particularly effective for expressing that specific feeling of being let down after getting your hopes up.

Mark Dice, also known as Mark Schulus, is a conservative media personality and author who gained prominence on YouTube in the late 2000s. He produces videos analyzing mainstream media coverage, celebrity culture, and various conspiracy theories involving secret societies and the Illuminati. Dice became known for his street interview videos where he would ask people basic questions about American history or current events to highlight public ignorance.

 He also staged several pranks, including petitions to repeal the Bill of Rights and ban the American flag, which many people signed without reading. His YouTube channel has accumulated over 1.8 million subscribers despite multiple demonetization periods and content restrictions. He's written several books about the Illuminati, Bohemian Grove, and media manipulation.

DICE has promoted theories about occult symbolism in entertainment, false flag operations, and alleged media coordination. He's been banned from various social media platforms temporarily, and has had ongoing disputes with other content creators and mainstream journalists. His videos often feature him reviewing news clips with commentary, typically criticizing liberal politicians and media figures while drinking from his signature coffee mug that he sells as merchandise.

The Needle Drop, also known as Anthony Fantano, or the internet's busiest music nerd. This is the YouTube channel of music critic Anthony Fantano, who reviews albums across virtually every genre imaginable. He's become one of the most influential music critics online. Known for his bald head, yellow flannel shirts when he likes an album, and red flannel for negative reviews.

 Fantano rates albums on a scale from 0 to 10 with his rare 10 out of 10 scores becoming major events in online music communities. His not good reviews have become legendary for their brevity and brutality. The channel started in 2009 and has grown into a cultural force that can significantly impact an artist's streaming numbers.

 He spawned countless memes from strong seven to a light eight to his alter ego Cal Chuchesta, a character with a pompador wig and fake teeth who reviews meme rap. His review of Lil Pump's self-titled mixtape while dressed as Lil Pump went viral across the internet. In 2017, a Fader article attempted to paint him as gateway content to the alt-right, which he strongly refuted and led to widespread backlash against the publication.

 The controversy highlighted tensions between traditional music journalism and YouTube critics. His influence has become sosignificant that artists regularly reference his reviews in their music with some even creating entire diss tracks about him. Drake notably called him out during a concert and various rappers have responded to his criticism through social media beef.

ASDF movie is an animated web series created by British YouTuber Tomska, real name Thomas Rididgewell. The series began in 2008 and features stick figure characters in rapidfire sketches with absurdest humor and dark comedy. Each episode typically runs 1 to 3 minutes and consists of unconnected gags that often end in unexpected violence or nonsensical punchlines.

 The animation style is deliberately simple, using basic stick figures and minimal backgrounds. The series became a cornerstone of early YouTube animation culture and spawned countless memes, including I like trains, everybody do the flop, and I baked you a pie. Tomska has released 14 main episodes as of 2024 with various spin-offs and deleted scenes compilations.

 The series has accumulated over 1 billion views across all episodes. The creator has been open about using the series as a creative outlet during periods of depression, particularly after the passing of his friend and collaborator Ed Gould in 2012. Tomska continued to create content while dealing with mental health struggles, which he's discussed in various videos and podcasts.

 The ASDF movie songs created in collaboration with musicians like The Living Tombstone became viral hits in their own right, [music] extending the series reach beyond just animation fans into broader internet culture. Dankpods is an Australian YouTube channel focused on audio equipment reviews, vintage iPods, and what the creator calls nuggets, cheap knockoff MP3 players from sketchy online retailers.

 The channel gained popularity in the early 2020s for its chaotic energy and distinctive filming style. Using a green iPad on a drum kit stand, the host reviews everything from high-end audio file headphones to dollar store earbuds, often testing them on hilariously terrible MP3 players that barely function. Running gags include the appearance of Frank the Snake, the one grit sandpaper used to destroy particularly awful products, and the scarlet fire test track that gets blasted through every piece of audio equipment. The channel also features a

recurring segment called Cashies Special, where the host buys random electronics from Australian thrift stores known as Cash Converters. Beyond just reviews, DankPods has become known for deep dives into iPod history, repair tutorials, and showcasing bizarre bootleg Apple products from the early 2000s.

 The creator later expanded into DankPods Plus for longer content and garbage time for automotive content. The channel helped revive interest in iPod modding and collecting with prices for classic iPods notably increasing after certain videos gained traction. Me at the zoo. This is the first video ever uploaded to YouTube. Posted on April 23rd, 2005 by YouTube co-founder Jawed Kareem.

 The 19-second clip shows him standing in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo. In the video, Kareem talks about how elephants have really long trunks, and that's about it. The video quality is grainy, the audio is rough, and the content is completely mundane. Yet, it holds legendary status as the video that started it all.

 The upload predates YouTube's public launch by several weeks and has accumulated over 300 million views. The comment section has become a time capsule of internet culture with people returning year after year to leave their mark on this piece of digital history. Dance Till You're Dead, also known as Dance Till You're Dead or Heads Will Roll remix.

 This is a viral meme video from 2016 featuring various animated characters dancing frantically to an electronic remix of Ya Ya's song Heads Will Roll. The remix was created by DJ Atrak and became an internet sensation when paired with surreal animations of meme characters like the orange shirt kid, Shrek, and various stock 3D models performing increasingly chaotic dance moves.

 The video gained millions of views across YouTube and spawned countless remixes and variations. People began using the audio to create their own versions featuring different characters from video games, anime, and other memes. The frantic energy and repetitive dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance dance till you're dead lyrics made it perfect for

[ __ ] posting and absurdest humor content. The meme experienced a resurgence on Tik Tok in 2020 where users would recreate the chaotic dancing or use the audio for various comedy skits. McDonald's Mulan Zetuan sauce incident also known as Zetuan sauce riots. This refers to the October 7th, 2017 chaos that erupted at McDonald's locationsacross America when the fast food chain severely underestimated demand for a limited re-release of their Zettoan teriyak dipping sauce.

 The sauce originally debuted in 1998 as a promotional tie-in for Disney's Mulan. It disappeared after the promotion ended and remained forgotten until April 2017 when the adult swim show Rick and Morty featured it prominently in their season 3 premiere. In the episode, Rick Sanchez goes on an unhinged rant about how his entire character arc is motivated by getting more of the discontinued sauce.

The reference turned Sichuan sauce into an instant meme. Fans bombarded McDonald's social media demanding they bring it back. McDonald's responded by sending show creator Justin Royland a jug of the sauce and announced a 1-day limited return on October 7th. They massively miscalculated. Most locations received fewer than 20 packets for hundreds of customers who showed up.

People waited in lines for hours only to leave empty-handed. Police were called to multiple locations as crowds became hostile. Videos surfaced of people jumping on counters, chanting angrily, and harassing employees. The few who got sauce packets immediately listed them on eBay for hundreds of dollars.

 One packet allegedly sold for over $15,000. McDonald's apologized and brought the sauce back properly in February 2018 with 20 million packets. Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion, originally known as Spooky's House of Jump Scares, is an indie horror game released in 2014. The game features a cute cartoon ghost named Spooky, who challenges players to make it through 1,000 rooms in her mansion.

 Despite its adorable art style and seemingly harmless premise, the game becomes progressively more disturbing as players advance through the rooms. What starts with cardboard cutout jump scares evolves into encounters with hostile creatures called specimens, each with their own backstory and unique mechanics. The game gained popularity through YouTube let's play videos and streaming content with creators drawn to its deceptive nature and the contrast between its cute aesthetic and genuinely unsettling moments. The developer changed the name

from House of Jump Scares to Jump Scare Mansion in 2017 due to copyright concerns. The game spawned several DLC additions including Kamari Hospital and the Dollhouse adding new specimens and expanding the lore. A sequel, Spooky's Dollhouse, was released as a separate virtual reality experience. The game's community has created extensive wikis documenting all 14 main specimens and the various secret rooms and Easter eggs hidden throughout the mansion.

50 C party, also known as the 50 C army or Wumao Dong in Chinese. This refers to internet commentators allegedly hired by the Chinese government to post progovernment messages on social media and forums. The name comes from claims that these posters receive 50 cents in Chinese currency, about half a UN, for each comment they make.

 These commentators supposedly flood discussions about China with positive messaging while drowning out criticism. They operate on both Chinese platforms like Waybo and Western sites, including Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. A 2014 Harvard study estimated around 488 million fake posts per year were being generated by these accounts.

 The posts typically praise government policies, distract from controversial topics, or attack critics of the Chinese Communist Party. The term has become a common insult in Chinese internet culture where users accuse each other of being paid shills. Some actual government employees have claimed the 50 cent payment story is outdated, saying many are now regular government workers posting as part of their job duties rather than freelancers paid per post.

Josh Hutcherson whistle, also known as the Josh Hutcherson whistle edit. This refers to a viral video meme that exploded across Tik Tok and other platforms in 2023. The format features actor Josh Hutcherson's face, typically from his Hunger Games era, being edited into random videos with uncanny morphing effects.

 The edits are accompanied by a specific whistle tune from Floor Rita's 2012 song Whistle, creating an instantly recognizable audio cue. The meme started when Tik Tok user Judge Edits began creating surreal videos where Hutcherson's face would slowly emerge from walls, morph out of other people's faces, or appear in increasingly bizarre contexts.

 The format gained massive traction with thousands of creators making their own versions, editing Hutcherson into everything from nature documentaries to cooking videos. The actor himself eventually acknowledged the meme, expressing both confusion and amusement at his unexpected internet fame. The whistle edit became so widespread that hearing the tune alone would trigger comments about Josh Hutcherson appearing, turning it into a form of internet rick roll, where users would bait others into watching the morphing face edits.

Sienna May Gomez is a Tik Tok contentcreator who gained millions of followers in the early 2020s for her body positivity videos and dance content. She frequently collaborated with other members of the Hype House collective. In May 2021, her friend and fellow creator Jack Wright accused her of inappropriate touching and unwanted advances while he was intoxicated or unconscious.

 The allegations went viral across social media platforms. Gomez initially denied the accusations through a representative and later released her own video response titled My Truth, attempting to refute the claims. Jack Wright subsequently posted an 18-minute video detailing his experiences, which garnered over 20 million views.

 The controversy led to Gomez losing brand partnerships and stepping back from social media for several months. She returned to posting content, but never regained her previous follower count or engagement levels. The situation became a widely discussed example of accountability culture on Tik Tok and sparked broader conversations about consent and power dynamics among young influencers.

Teleport is an internet animator and artist known for creating shortlooping animations featuring anime style characters. Active since the late 2010s, Teleport gained popularity on Twitter and YouTube for their distinctive art style that combines smooth animation with suggestive humor. Their content typically consists of brief animated loops, often just a few seconds long, that play with viewer expectations through visual tricks and transformations.

 The animations frequently feature female characters in situations that tow the line of platform content policies without crossing into explicit territory. Teleport's work became particularly recognizable for the contrast between innocentlooking character designs and unexpectedly spicy scenarios. The artist maintains anonymity, rarely showing their face or revealing personal information, which has added to their mystique within animation communities.

 The content has spawned numerous memes and reaction images across social media platforms. With certain animations becoming widely shared despite or perhaps because of their borderline nature, Teleport has cultivated a dedicated fan base that appreciates both the technical skill of the animations and the cheeky humor embedded within them.

Webtune, also known as Line Webtune, is a South Korean digital comics platform that launched globally in 2014. The platform specializes in vertical scrolling comics optimized for mobile reading, fundamentally changing how web comics are created and consumed online. Originally developed by Neighbor Corporation, Webtune popularized the Manua format outside of Korea, introducing Western audiences to series like Tower of God, The God of High School, and Lore Olympus.

 The platform operates on a premium model where readers can access chapters for free on a weekly schedule or pay to read ahead using a virtual currency called coins. What sets Webtune apart is its creator program that allows independent artists to upload their own series and potentially get featured or even contracted as web tune originals.

 This has created a new generation of web comic creators who specifically format their work for vertical mobile scrolling rather than traditional page layouts. The platform has faced criticism for its monetization practices and the pressure it puts on creators to maintain grueling weekly schedules.

 Some artists have reported burnout from the demanding production timeline, while others have complained about the revenue split and lack of creative control once they sign exclusive contracts. Webtune has also become a major source for adaptation material with numerous series being turned into Kdramas, anime, and even Netflix productions.

 The platform's algorithm-driven discovery system and comment culture have created their own ecosystem of trends, inside jokes, and reader expectations that influence how stories are written and marketed on the platform. R/unpopular opinion is a subreddit on Reddit where users post opinions they believe are unpopular or go against mainstream thinking.

 The subreddit operates on an upvote downvote system that's intentionally reversed from typical Reddit behavior. Users are supposed to upvote posts they disagree with and downvote posts they agree with. Theoretically pushing genuinely unpopular opinions to the top. The subreddit became notorious for hosting opinions that range from harmless food preferences like putting ketchup on steak to more divisive social and political takes.

 Many users have pointed out the irony that truly unpopular opinions often get downvoted into oblivion while mildly controversial but secretly popular opinions rise to the top. Common posts include statements like preferring warm soda, sleeping with socks on or thinking certain beloved movies are overrated. The community has over 30 million members and spawned several spin-off subreddits including r/the10th dentist which attempts to fixthe voting system issues.

 Critics argue the subreddit often becomes an echo chamber for opinions that are actually quite popular among certain demographics, just not openly discussed in polite company. The moderators have had to ban certain topics entirely, including posts about politics, gender issues, and other subjects that tend to generate more heat than light.

Grabify, also known as Grabify Link Logger or IP Logger, is a web-based service that creates trackable links designed to harvest information from anyone who clicks them. When someone clicks a Grabify link, the service captures their IP address, device information, operating system, browser details, and approximate geographic location.

 The link then redirects to whatever destination the creator specified, making the tracking process invisible to most users. People typically disguise these links as something enticing or urgent to trick targets into clicking. The shortened URLs often masquerade as links to videos, images, or important documents. Discord servers, gaming forums, and social media platforms became common hunting grounds for these tracking links in the late 2010s.

 While Grabify markets itself as a legitimate analytics tool, it gained notoriety as a weapon for doxing, stalking, and harassment campaigns. Bad actors use the harvested IP addresses to launch further attacks, including DDoS attempts or swatting incidents. The service operates in a legal gray area since IP addresses are technically public information.

 However, many platforms now automatically flag and remove Grabify links as malicious content. Various browser extensions and security tools specifically block these tracking domains. Multiple copycat services emerged offering similar IP grabbing functionality under different names creating an endless game of whack-a-ole for security teams and platform moderators.

Key logging also known as keystroke logging or keyboard capturing is the practice of recording every key pressed on a computer keyboard. This can be done through software programs or hardware devices attached between the keyboard and computer. Originally developed for legitimate purposes like troubleshooting technical issues and monitoring employee productivity, key loggers quickly became a favorite tool for cyber criminals.

These programs run silently in the background, capturing everything from passwords and credit card numbers to private messages and emails. Hardware key loggers are physical devices that look like innocent USB adapters or keyboard cable extensions. Software versions spread through malicious downloads, email attachments, or infected websites.

 Some are so sophisticated they can capture screenshots, record microphone audio, and track mouse movements. Parents use them to monitor their children's online activity. Employers install them to track worker productivity. Law enforcement agencies deploy them in criminal investigations, but most commonly hackers use them to steal personal information and commit identity theft.

 Modern anti virus software can detect most key loggers, but new variants appear constantly. Some operating systems now include virtual keyboards specifically to combat key logging attempts on sensitive information like banking passwords. The mere existence of key logging technology has created a persistent paranoia in internet culture where any unexplained computer behavior might be attributed to hidden surveillance.

Dude, stop. This is a puzzle video game released on Steam in 2018 that deliberately frustrates players by encouraging them to break the rules. The game presents simple puzzles where the obvious solution is usually wrong and you're meant to do the opposite of what you're told. The narrator character becomes increasingly angry as you disobey instructions, creating a meta commentary on gaming conventions and player behavior.

 Each puzzle can be solved correctly or incorrectly with the game actually rewarding wrong answers with achievements. The title itself comes from the narrator constantly pleading with the player to stop messing things up. It gained popularity among streamers and YouTubers for its comedic reactions and unconventional gameplay that challenges typical gaming logic.

The game spawned a sequel called Please Don't Touch Anything. Continuing the theme of reverse psychology puzzle solving. Seal lining. This term describes a form of trolling where someone persistently demands evidence and explanations while maintaining a facade of civility and reasonleness.

 The seal liner typically enters conversations uninvited, asks endless clarifying questions, and requests proof for even basic statements, all while insisting they're just trying to have a civil debate. The name comes from a 2014 Wondermark comic strip by David Malkey, where a sea lion follows people around demanding they justify their dislike of sea lions.

 The sea lion in the comic remains superficially polite while relentlessly harassing the characters, even followingthem into their home. This tactic exhausts the target by forcing them to spend enormous amounts of time and energy responding to bad faith requests for evidence. The sea liner can then claim victory when their target eventually gets frustrated or stops responding, pointing to this as proof the other person had no real argument.

The behavior became particularly associated with certain online movements in the mid2010s where coordinated sea lioning campaigns would target individuals on social media platforms. Multiple people would simultaneously demand sources and explanations, overwhelming their targets with seemingly reasonable but ultimately disingenuous requests for dialogue.

Elgoo, also known as Google Mirror or Google Backwards, is a mirrored version of the Google search engine where everything appears in reverse. Created in 2002 by All Too Flat, the site displays all text backwards and reverses the entire page layout from right to left. When you type in the search box, your text appears in reverse as you type it.

 The search results themselves are also completely mirrored. The site gained popularity as a workaround for accessing Google in countries where the search engine was blocked or restricted. Since Elguji operated from a different domain, it could bypass certain internet filters and firewalls that specifically targeted google.com. Beyond its practical use for circumventing censorship, Eluji became an internet novelty and spawned various other mirror sites and backwards versions of popular websites.

 The creator also made other Google parody sites, including Google Gravity and Google Underwater. The site still functions today as both a piece of internet history and an occasional tool for those facing regional restrictions. Kindergarten is an indie puzzle adventure game released in 2017 by Conman Games and Smash Games.

 The game places players in a seemingly innocent kindergarten setting where they control a student navigating through multiple loops of the same school day. What appears to be a cute pixel art game about elementary school quickly reveals itself as something much darker. Each character has hidden agendas and deadly secrets.

 The cafeteria lady serves questionable meat products. The janitor hides bodies and students mysteriously disappear. The game gained significant attention online for its stark contrast between childlike aesthetics and mature themes. Players solve puzzles by collecting items, completing quests, and uncovering the disturbing truth behind Kindergarten's facade.

 Multiple endings exist depending on which storylines players pursue. A sequel, Kindergarten 2, was released in 2019, expanding on the original's dark humor and puzzle mechanics. Both games became popular with streamers and YouTubers who were drawn to the unexpected tonal shifts and shocking plot twists. The series sparked discussions about appropriate content ratings and whether the cute art style might accidentally attract younger audiences to mature content.

 Some platforms briefly debated its classification due to the juxtaposition of elementary school settings with violent outcomes. R/ Doge lore is a subreddit dedicated to creating narrative memes and comics featuring Doge, the iconic Sheba Enu dog from the early 2010s meme. The subreddit emerged in 2018 and transformed the simple, "Wow, such Doge meme into an entire fictional universe with recurring characters and storylines.

" The community developed an extensive cast beyond the original Doge, including characters like Ches, a speechimpaired version of another Sheba Enu, who adds the letter M to random words, Walter, the bull terrier who loves firet trucks and monster trucks, and Big Bro, DOA's muscular older brother. There's also Perro, a crying dog, and Karen, DOA's ex-wife who took the kids.

 What started as simple image macros evolved into elaborate multi-panel comics exploring themes ranging from childhood nostalgia and family dysfunction to existential dread and historical events. The subreddit became known for its wacky and uncharacteristic format where Doge and friends are placed into increasingly absurd or emotionally complex situations.

 The community developed its own internal mythology and running gags, including Doge's feet obsession, various Vietnam War flashbacks, and the mysterious disappearance of Doge's son. These narratives often blend ironic humor with genuine emotional storytelling, creating a unique space where meme culture meets amateur graphic novel creation.

Cottage core, also known as farmcore or country core, is an internet aesthetic that romanticizes rural living and traditional crafts. The trend exploded on Tumblr, Instagram, and Tik Tok in the late 2010s and early 2020s, featuring imagery of flower gardens, homemade bread, prairie dresses, and cozy cottages.

 The aesthetic centers around escaping modern life through pastoral fantasies of self-sufficiency, foraging mushrooms, keeping chickens, and readingby candle light. It gained massive traction during the 2020 lockdowns when people were stuck inside scrolling through idealized countryside content. Critics have pointed out that Cottage Corps often glosses over the harsh realities of rural life and farm labor.

Some have noted its tendency to romanticize a version of the past that never really existed. While others have called out certain corners of the community for promoting tradife ideology under the guise of aesthetic posts, the trend spawned countless sub aesthetics, including dark cottagecore, goblin core, and fairycore.

 At its peak, the cottagecore hashtag had billions of views across platforms with everyone from Taylor Swift to Animal Crossing incorporating the vibe into their content. Reanimated collabs, also known as reanimation collaborations or reanimated projects. These are largecale collaborative videos where dozens or sometimes hundreds of animators each claim a short segment of an existing cartoon or animated movie and recreate it in their own art style.

 The segments get stitched together into one complete video that maintains the original audio, but features wildly different animation styles every few seconds. The trend exploded on YouTube in the mid2010s with projects like the Kirby reanimated collab and various Spongebob episode recreations. Shrek Retold from 2018 became one of the most successful examples, featuring over 200 artists and garnering millions of views.

 These projects typically get organized through Discord servers or Twitter calls where animators claim their desired scenes on a first come, first served basis. The final products range from professional quality animation to intentionally crude MS paint drawings with the chaotic mix of styles being part of the charm.

 Some reanimated collabs have faced copyright strikes from the original content owners, though many remain up due to transformative fair use arguments. The format peaked around 2019 to 2020, but continues with dedicated communities reanimating everything from classic Disney films to obscure cartoon episodes. Spitfire Audio is a British company that creates virtual instrument libraries and sample packs for music producers and composers.

 Founded in 2007 by composers Christian Henson and Paul Thompson, the company became known for recording real orchestras at Abi Road Studios and Airir Studios in London. The company gained internet notoriety through Christian Henson's YouTube channel, where he shares production techniques and behindthe-scenes content. Spitfire became somewhat of a meme in music production communities for their dramatic marketing videos featuring sweeping orchestral sounds and British accents describing minute details of violin bow techniques. Their lab series

offers free instruments that became popular with bedroom producers, while their premium libraries can cost thousands of dollars. The company faced criticism in 2021 when they released a $49 piano library that some users claimed was inferior to free alternatives. Christian Henson's autism diagnosis videos and his openness about mental health resonated with many in the music production community.

 The phrase spitfire audio sound became shorthand for overly cinematic and dramatic music in inappropriate contexts, like using a full orchestra for a Tik Tok video about making sandwiches. Dark Deception is a horror maze game developed by Glowstick Entertainment that first released in 2018. The game puts players in the role of Doug Howser, a mortal trapped in a nightmare realm where they must collect soul shards while being chased by various monsters through different themed mazes.

 The game gained traction in the horror gaming community for its unique blend of Pac-Manstyle gameplay with survival horror elements. Each level features different antagonists like the murder monkeys, Agatha the Spider, and Gold Watchers, all with their own chase mechanics and jump scares. Dark Deception became particularly popular among horror game streamers and YouTubers during the late 2010s and early 2020s.

 The game's Chapter 4, featuring the JoyJoy Gang, animatronic characters clearly inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's, helped boost its visibility in the indie horror scene. Glowstick Entertainment also developed dark deception monsters and mortals, a multiplayer party game featuring characters from the main game alongside crossover content from other indie horror titles.

 The developers have maintained a steady release schedule for new chapters with the game's lore expanding through hidden notes and secret endings that have spawned numerous theory videos across gaming channels. Freedom Tunes is a YouTube channel created by animator Sheamus Coughlin in 2013. The channel produces animated political satire videos featuring simplified character designs and commentary from a libertarian perspective.

 The animations typically feature recurring characters like Dr. Strawman and depict political debates through exaggerated scenarios.Coughlin's content often satarizes both major political parties while promoting libertarian viewpoints on topics like taxation, government regulation, and individual liberty. The channel gained significant traction during the 2016 election cycle with videos critiquing various political candidates and policies.

 Freedom Tunes has collaborated with other political commentary channels and libertarian organizations, appearing at conventions and producing sponsored content for groups like the Foundation for Economic Education. Some of the channel's most popular videos include parodies of political debates, animated reactions to current events, and educational content about economic concepts presented through comedy.

 The simple art style became part of the channel's signature with intentionally basic animation allowing for quicker production of topical content. The channel has faced demonetization issues on YouTube due to political content guidelines, leading Coughlin to utilize alternative funding methods, including Patreon and merchandise sales.

Trevor Henderson is a Canadian horror artist who creates disturbing creature images that spread across social media platforms. Henderson gained widespread recognition in the late 2010s for his photorealistic monsters edited into everyday photographs. His most famous creation is Siren Head, a 40ft tall skeletal creature with sirens for a head that supposedly lurks in rural areas.

The creature became a viral sensation, spawning countless fan games, creepy pastas, and even bootleg merchandise. Other notable creations include cartoon cat, a twisted version of old rubber hose animation characters, long horse, an infinitely long skeletal horse creature, and bridgeworms, fake parasites that supposedly hide under bridges.

 Henderson typically posts these images on Twitter and Instagram with cryptic captions suggesting the creatures are real. His work blurs the line between digital art and found footage horror. Many younger internet users initially believed these creatures were genuine cryptids or urban legends rather than original creations. This confusion led to Henderson's monsters being incorporated into various SCP entries and creepy pasta wikis without attribution.

 The artist has stated his work is inspired by horror media like Silent Hill, the works of Junjiito and Analog Horror series. His creatures often follow specific rules within their fictional universe with some being benevolent like Longhorn, while others like Cartoon Cat are depicted as realitybending threats. Bar/Bossfight is a Reddit community dedicated to images that look like video game boss encounters.

 Users post photos of everyday objects, animals, or people that appear intimidating or bizarre enough to be final bosses in an RPG. The subreddit thrives on creative naming conventions with titles following the format of boss name, title of doom, like Gerald, defender of the lawn for an angry goose photo. The community has spawned countless memes across social media platforms with particularly popular posts becoming reaction images and copypasta material.

 The aesthetic of turning mundane situations into epic gaming moments resonates with internet cultures tendency to gify everything. Two Builders, Two Tools, short for Two Builders, Two Tools, is Minecraft's oldest anarchy server, running continuously since December 2010. The server has no rules, no moderators, and allows hacking, griefing, and any client modifications players want to use.

 This lawless environment has created a unique culture of destruction and creation where massive builds can take months to complete only to be obliterated within hours of discovery. The server gained mainstream attention through YouTuber FitMC's dramatic documentaries about its history, including tales of backdoor exploits, coordinate leaks, and the infamous spawn region that new players must escape from.

 Veterans use exploits to travel millions of blocks from spawn, building secret bases in the digital wilderness. The queue to join can stretch to over a thousand players with wait times exceeding several hours unless you pay for priority access. Flash talk refers to the trend on Tik Tok where users create seizure-inducing videos with rapidly flashing lights and colors.

 These videos often use specific audio tracks and editing techniques to create hypnotic or disorienting visual effects. The trend has sparked significant controversy due to the potential harm to photosensitive viewers and those with epilepsy. Multiple creators have faced backlash and platform strikes for posting these videos without proper warnings.

 The phenomenon highlights Tik Tok's ongoing struggle with content moderation and the platform's algorithm potentially promoting harmful content for engagement metrics. It do go down, also known as Robert, it goes down. This entry refers to a viral Vine video from 2014 featuring two men on a boat approaching a damn spillway.

In the video, one person warns hisfriend Robert that the water ahead doesn't drop off, saying, "It don't go down." Robert immediately corrects him with the now famous response, "It do go down." As they realize they're heading toward a waterfall. The clip became one of Vine's most memorable videos before the platform shut down in 2017.

 The phrase it do go down evolved into a meme format used to contradict someone's incorrect assumption about a situation. The original video has been reposted across social media platforms millions of times and spawned countless remixes, reaction videos, and references in other content.

 The two men in the video were reportedly fine and the boat didn't actually go over the edge despite how the footage appears to end. Susan Bole's audition. This refers to the April 2009 Britain's Got Talent performance that became one of the first truly massive viral videos of the late 2000s. Susan Bole, a 47-year-old Scottish singer, walked onto the stage to visible eye rolls and skepticism from both judges and audience members.

 She then performed I Dreamed a Dream from Le Miserab, instantly transforming the atmosphere and creating one of the most watched YouTube clips of all time. The video accumulated over 100 million views within 9 days of being uploaded, setting records for the platform at the time. The clip became a cultural phenomenon about not judging books by their covers and spawned countless reaction videos, parodies, and memes.

 Bole went on to release multiple albums and became an international recording artist. Though her initial audition remains what she's most known for online, the video represents a pivotal moment in reality TV virality and helped establish the template for surprise talent show moments that would dominate social media feeds throughout the 2010s.

The Escapists is a prison escape simulation game released in 2014 by Moldy Tove Studios. Players control an inmate who must craft tools, follow prison routines, and plan their escape while avoiding guard detection. The game gained significant popularity through YouTube let's play videos and Twitch streams, where content creators would attempt increasingly creative and ridiculous escape methods.

 Its pixel art style and sandbox gameplay made it perfect for streaming content, leading to countless compilation videos of failed escape attempts and glitches. The game spawned multiple sequels, including The Escapists 2, which added multiplayer co-op escapes. It also received crossover content with The Walking Dead and other franchises.

 Internet culture embraced the game's crafting system, which became a meme due to its absurd combinations like making a grappling hook from dental floss and a razor blade. The guard AI also became notorious for its unpredictable behavior, leading to numerous clips of guards completely ignoring obvious escape attempts or going into lockdown over minor infractions.

 Speedrunners discovered various exploits that allowed escapes in under 60 seconds on certain maps, turning what was meant to be a methodical planning game into a chaotic sprint. Whimsical, also known as DJ Toenail ambulance beat, is a haunting ambient track that circulated through obscure music forums in the early 2010s.

 Created by the enigmatic DJ Toenail, the track became infamous for its unsettling combination of reversed hospital sounds, distorted emergency sirens, and what many listeners describe as subliminal whispering underneath the main melody. The original upload appeared on a now defunct Soundcloud account in 2011 before spreading to liinal space communities and creepy pasta forums.

 The track gained notoriety when users began reporting strange physical sensations while listening, including sudden nosebleleeds, temporary tonitis, and vivid dreams about medical emergencies. Some internet sleuths claimed the audio contained binaural frequencies designed to induce anxiety responses, though this was never confirmed.

 DJ Toonail themselves remained completely anonymous, communicating only through cryptic timestamps in their track descriptions. Their entire catalog disappeared from the internet in 2013 with only lowquality rips of whimsical surviving on obscure filesharing sites. The track experienced a brief resurgence when Tik Tok users discovered it in 2021.

 using it as background music for uncanny valley content before it was reportedly removed for violating community guidelines. Wingstop Girl refers to Tik Tok creator Kay Gilbert who went viral in 2023 for her energetic customer service videos while working at the chicken wing chain. Her signature greeting wing stop what we getting and distinctive vocal delivery sparked thousands of imitations across social media platforms.

 The original videos showed Gilbert taking drive-thru orders with an exaggerated enthusiasm and specific speech pattern that became instantly recognizable. Her content quickly spread beyond Tik Tok to Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube with users creating remixes, autotuneversions, and parody videos mimicking her style.

 The trend raised discussions about service workers becoming internet content without their control. Though Gilbert herself embraced the viral fame and continued creating content, some viewed the trend as celebration of her personality, while others criticized it as mockery of retail workers. Gilbert eventually left her Wingstop job and transitioned to full-time content creation, capitalizing on her viral moment through brand partnerships and sponsored posts.

Cleveland Miniar video, also known as the Cleveland Street Racing video. This refers to surveillance footage from Cleveland, Ohio that captured a fatal street racing incident in 2017. The video shows two cars racing at extreme speeds when one vehicle loses control and strikes a smaller car, resulting in the immediate death of the uninvolved driver.

 The footage became widely circulated on shock sites and forums dedicated to graphic content. What made this video particularly notorious in internet circles was the stark contrast between the casual nature of illegal street racing and its devastating realworld consequences captured in real time. The incident led to criminal charges against both racing drivers and sparked renewed discussions about street racing enforcement in Cleveland.

 The video continues to surface periodically on various platforms despite removal efforts often accompanied by warnings about its disturbing content. The smaller vehicle in the footage, which some refer to as the mini car, was simply an unfortunate bystander caught in the path of reckless drivers. Myanmar coupe dance instructor videos, also known as the coupe aerobics video.

This refers to a viral video from February 1st, 2021, where fitness instructor King Hanin Wai was recording her regular morning aerobics routine in Napia, Myanmar's capital city. Behind her, a convoy of military vehicles can be seen approaching a roadblock leading to Parliament. What she didn't know was that she was accidentally documenting the exact moment Myanmar's military began their takeover of the government.

The stark contrast between her energetic dancing to upbeat Indonesian music and the military coup unfolding in the background created one of the most surreal pieces of internet content. The video exploded across social media platforms with many initially believing it was edited or fake. King Hin Wai later posted previous videos from the same location to prove she regularly filmed there.

 The footage became both a meme template and a historical document, spawning countless remixes, edits, and parodies. Some versions synchronized her movements to different songs, while others inserted the dancing footage into other historical events. The instructor herself continued posting fitness videos and embraced her unexpected internet fame, though she later participated in protests against the military government.

What the dog doing is a catchphrase that became a widespread meme across social media platforms in the early 2020s. The phrase originated from a Vine video where someone films their dog doing something unusual or unexpected and asks the titular question. The meme gained massive traction on Tik Tok and Twitter where users would comment the phrase on videos featuring dogs behaving strangely or doing seemingly random activities.

The deliberately incorrect grammar became part of the meme's charm, spawning countless variations and remixes. The phrase evolved beyond just dogs with people using it to comment on any animal or even humans doing bizarre or unexplainable things. Audio clips of people saying the phrase in various tones and accents became popular sound bites for video content.

 The meme represents a specific type of internet humor that celebrates the absurd and random nature of pet behavior. particularly the inexplicable things dogs do when they think no one is watching. Mirror run challenge. This was a social media trend from around 2016 where people would run while looking at themselves through their phone's front-facing camera instead of looking where they were going.

 Participants would record themselves sprinting at full speed while staring at their own face on the screen. The challenge predictably resulted in countless compilation videos of people running straight into walls, poles, parked cars, and other obstacles. Some attempts ended with participants tripping over curbs or falling down stairs.

 The trend gained traction on Vine and later migrated to Tik Tok and Instagram. Several variations emerged, including the backwards mirror run and the eyesc closed mirror run, each adding extra layers of danger to an already questionable activity. Multiple schools and organizations issued warnings about the challenge after reports of broken phones, minor injuries, and property damage.

 The trend experienced brief revivals in 2018 and 2021, usually accompanied by fail compilations that racked up millions of views. Doxing refers to the practice ofresearching and publicly broadcasting someone's private personal information on the internet. This typically includes real names, home addresses, phone numbers, workplace details, family member information, and social security numbers.

 The term originated from 1990s hacker culture where dropping docs or documents on rivals became shortened to doxing. What started as rivalries between hackers evolved into a widespread internet phenomenon used for harassment, intimidation, and revenge. Common methods include searching through social media profiles, public records, data breaches, reverse image searches, and cross-referencing usernames across platforms.

 Sometimes people unknowingly dox themselves by sharing too much personal information across different accounts. The practice gained mainstream attention during Gamergate in 2014 and has since become a common tactic in online disputes, cancel culture campaigns, and targeted harassment. SWAT often follows doxing incidents where false emergency calls send police teams to victims homes.

 While some argue doxing serves as accountability for public figures or exposes wrongdoing, it frequently targets innocent people, their families or cases of mistaken identity. Multiple countries have enacted specific anti-doxing legislation, though enforcement remains challenging due to jurisdictional issues and the difficulty of removing information once it spreads online.

Instagram reels graphic content incident. This refers to multiple instances throughout 2022 and 2023 where extremely graphic and disturbing content bypassed Instagram's moderation systems and appeared on users reals feeds. The content included uncensored footage of real life violence, self harm, and other deeply disturbing material that would automatically play as users scrolled through their feeds.

 The incidents primarily occurred due to bad actors exploiting Instagram's algorithm and moderation gaps. Users would upload the graphic content with innocuous thumbnails or misleading tags, allowing the videos to slip through automated detection systems before gaining millions of views. Many of these videos remained on the platform for hours or even days before removal, traumatizing unsuspecting users, including children.

The situation became particularly severe in late 2022 when coordinated groups began mass uploading shock content, specifically targeting the real's algorithm during peak usage hours. Instagram faced significant backlash for their slow response times and inadequate content moderation with some users reporting permanent psychological distress from unexpectedly viewing the material.

 The platform eventually implemented stricter upload filters and increased human moderation teams, though similar incidents continue to occur sporadically. Oh no, our table. It's broken. This refers to a viral Tik Tok video from 2021 featuring a young boy who accidentally breaks a glass table. After the table shatters, the child delivers the now iconic line, "Oh no, our table.

It's broken." in an unexpectedly calm and theatrical manner. The original video was posted by user Trap House Latino and quickly spread across social media platforms. The boy's deadpan delivery and dramatic pause between oh no and our table made it instantly memeable. Within weeks, the audio became a popular sound on Tik Tok with millions of users lip-syncing to it or using it as background audio for their own videos about breaking things.

 The phrase entered internet vernacular as a way to react to any minor inconvenience or mishap with exaggerated calmness. The video spawned countless remixes, including autotune versions, metal covers, and mashups with other popular memes. Some creators edited the boy into historical disasters or movie scenes for comedic effect.

 The original uploader later revealed the boy was his younger cousin, and the broken table incident was genuine and unscripted. Bring a friend for my homeboy. This is a social media phrase that became popular around 2018 on Instagram and Twitter. The meme format involves people posting photos with captions asking their followers to bring a friend for their single buddy when making group plans.

 It started as a wingman tactic where someone in a relationship would try to help their single friend by turning regular hangouts into potential matchmaking opportunities. The phrase spawned countless variations like, "I'm taken but my homeboy single and pull up with a friend for the homie." The meme evolved into both sincere attempts at matchmaking and ironic posts where people would use increasingly ridiculous photos of their friends or even fictional characters.

 Some versions featured pets, anime characters, or historical figures as the homeboy in need of companionship. It became a staple of black Twitter culture and spread across various social media platforms with people using it as a caption format even when they weren't actually trying to set anyone up. The phrase represents how modern datingculture merged with social media group dynamics.

Crack Kid, also known as Crazy Frog Kid or Super Crazy Kid, refers to a viral video from the mid 2000s featuring a young person displaying extremely hyperactive behavior. The video shows the child making rapid movements, unusual sounds, and energetic gestures that viewers found both entertaining and concerning.

 The footage first appeared on early video sharing platforms and quickly spread across forums and message boards. The original context of the video remains unclear with some claiming it was staged for comedy while others believed it captured genuine hyperactivity. The video became a staple of early YouTube compilation videos and reaction content.

 It spawned numerous remixes, particularly ones set to electronic music and techno beats. The child's movements were often synced to songs like Crazy Frogs Axel F. Internet users created various theories about the video's origins, ranging from claims about sugar rushes to more concerning speculation about the child's well-being.

 The actual identity of the person in the video has never been definitively confirmed, and multiple individuals have claimed to be the crack kid. Over the years, the video represents a darker side of early viral content where children became involuntary internet celebrities. It raised questions about consent and the ethics of sharing videos featuring minors behaving in ways that could attract mockery or concern.

How it should have ended is a YouTube channel and animated web series that creates comedic alternate endings for popular movies and TV shows. Started in 2005 by Daniel Baxter and Tommy Watson, the channel produces short animated parodies that poke fun at plot holes and suggest more logical or humorous conclusions to well-known films.

 The animations feature a simple art style with characters drawn as caricatures, often exaggerating their most recognizable features. Two of their most popular recurring segments are the super cafe where Superman and Batman sit in a diner discussing recent superhero movies and the villain pub where various antagonists gather to commiserate about their defeats.

 The series gained significant traction with their parodies of major blockbusters like the Dark Knight, Avatar, and various Marvel and DC films. The channel has collaborated with other YouTube creators and even received acknowledgement from filmmakers and actors whose work they've parodyied. Their videos typically highlight logical inconsistencies or missed opportunities in movie plots, presenting solutions that are either surprisingly practical or intentionally absurd for comedic effect.

 The channel has over 10 million subscribers and continues to release new content shortly after major film releases. guy pointing at himself. Also known as the pointing at self meme or double finger point guy. This refers to a stock photo that became a popular reaction image across social media platforms in the late 2010s.

 The image features a man in business casual attire pointing at himself with both index fingers, usually with an exaggerated expression of surprise or acknowledgement. The meme gained traction as a way for internet users to indicate themselves when relating to a post or situation. It's commonly paired with captions like me when or used to highlight personal callouts in group scenarios.

 The format became particularly popular on Twitter and Instagram for self-deprecating humor. The stock photos origin traces back to various photography databases, though the specific model and photographer remain largely unknown to most meme users. Some variations include edited versions where the man points more aggressively or has his expression altered for comedic effect.

 The meme saw a resurgence during 2020 when people began using it to acknowledge their own questionable behavior during lockdown. It's often combined with other reaction images in multi-panel formats to create elaborate scenarios about personal accountability or lack thereof. The Vietnamese butcher, also known as the butcher of Hanoi, or the human meat shop story.

 This refers to an urban legend that spread through various internet forums in the mid200s about a butcher shop in Vietnam that allegedly served human meat to unsuspecting customers. The story typically describes a tourist who discovers the truth after finding suspicious items in their meal or witnessing something disturbing in the shop's back room.

 The tale gained traction on sites like something awful and early Reddit with users sharing increasingly elaborate versions that included fake newspaper clippings and doctorred photos. Some versions claimed it was based on real events from the Vietnam War era, while others placed it in modern-day Saigon or Hanoi. The story follows classic urban legend patterns similar to other cannibalism myths that appear in various cultures, playing on xenophobic fears about foreign food practices. No credible evidence has eversurfaced to support any version of the

story, and Vietnamese communities have repeatedly debunked it as harmful stereotyping. Various creepy pasta authors have expanded on the original tale, adding elements like cursed meat that transforms consumers or connections to organ harvesting rings. The story peaked in popularity around 2012 when a particularly graphic version went viral on Facebook before being removed for violating community guidelines.

Super Liiminal is a firstperson puzzle game released in 2019 that uses forced perspective as its core mechanic. Players manipulate objects by picking them up and changing their perceived size based on how close or far they appear, turning tiny chest pieces into massive blocks or shrinking entire rooms down to toy size.

 The game takes place inside a dream therapy program called Somnisculpt where the player character has become trapped in their own subconscious. Each level represents a different stage of sleep, progressing through various dream states, while a soothing AI voice provides passive aggressive commentary about your performance.

 Superliminal gained fame through streaming platforms when content creators discovered its mindbending puzzles and surreal environments. The game's standout moments include falling through infinite loops of the same room, walking through impossible geometry, and the infamous soda machine section that breaks the fourth wall.

 The developer Pillow Castle Games spent 7 years perfecting the perspective mechanics after the concept went viral from a 2013 tech demo. Internet communities particularly latched onto the game's meta commentary about game design itself with the AI narrator directly addressing common player behaviors and expectations.

 The game's ending sequence where players literally break free from the confines of the testing facility became a popular meme format often paired with captions about escaping various realworld situations. Duck Season, also known as Duck Season VR. This is a 2017 virtual reality horror game by Stress Level Zero that starts as a nostalgic recreation of the classic Nintendo game Duck Hunt.

 Players shoot ducks on a virtual television screen inside a 1980s living room setting. The game takes a sinister turn when the dog from the hunting game begins stalking the player through the house. Depending on player choices, there are seven different endings, ranging from mundane to deeply disturbing.

 The game entered the mainstream for its psychological horror elements hidden beneath childhood nostalgia. The dog character becomes increasingly threatening throughout gameplay, appearing in windows, behind doors, and eventually entering the player's virtual home. Multiple [clears throat] YouTubers and streamers popularize Duck Season through reaction videos and theory discussions about the game's lore.

 The narrative hints at themes of childhood trauma and the corruption of innocent memories. The PC version released in 2017 includes a nonVR mode, making it accessible to players without virtual reality headsets. The game spawned numerous fan theories about connections between the dog character and the player's missing father figure.

Ice Cream is a horror mobile game series developed by Kaplarian's horror games that gained massive popularity through YouTube gaming channels and streaming platforms. The games follow Rod, an evil ice cream truck driver who kidnaps children and freezes them with supernatural powers. Players must rescue their friend Charlie and other neighborhood kids while avoiding detection from Rod as he patrols in his ice cream van.

 First released in 2019, the series spawned eight main games, and multiple spin-offs. The franchise became a staple of horror gaming content aimed at younger audiences with countless gameplay videos, fan animations, and theory videos flooding YouTube. The games tap into childhood fears about stranger danger, and corrupted childhood symbols.

 The juxtiposition of a traditionally happy ice cream truck with horror elements made it particularly effective for content creators looking for family-friendly scares. Ice Cream joined other mascot horror games like Hello Neighbor and Baldi's Basics in dominating mobile horror gaming and YouTube's algorithm during the late 2010s and early 2020s.

At Dead of Night is a horror video game that gained viral popularity through YouTube and Twitch streamers in 2020 and 2021. The game combines liveaction footage with pointandclick gameplay, creating a unique hybrid between an interactive movie and a survival horror experience. Players control a teenage girl named Maya who becomes trapped in a remote hotel with her friends.

 The hotel owner, Jimmy Hall, is a disturbed individual with split personalities who hunts the player throughout the building. The game uses full motion video segments featuring real actors with the antagonist, Jimmy, played by the game's own developer, Tim Fallen. What made this indie game explode acrossthe internet was its perfect formula for streaming content.

 The jump scares, chase sequences, and unpredictable AI created countless clipworthy moments. Major gaming YouTubers and streamers like Markiplier, Jack Septic, and Cororex Kenshin played through the game, generating millions of views. The game's ghostly subplot involves Maya using a spirit board to communicate with past victims trapped in the hotel, uncovering the dark history through paranormal investigation segments.

 These sections provided lore hunters with plenty of material to theorize about Jimmy's backstory and the supernatural elements. The photorealistic graphics from the live-action filming gave the game an uncanny valley effect that many players found more unsettling than traditional 3D horror games. The actor's exaggerated performance as Jimmy became somewhat mimedic with his creepy smile and bizarre dialogue spawning reaction images and inside jokes within horror gaming communities.

Sam Onella Academy is a YouTube channel that creates educational comedy videos using crude stick figure animations drawn in MS Paint. The channel covers obscure historical events, weird scientific facts, and bizarre stories from throughout history, all presented with dark humor and intentionally terrible drawings.

 The creator, whose real name is Sam, became known for videos about topics like medieval torture devices, bizarre historical figures, and strange animal facts. His distinctive narration style combines academic information with Gen Z humor, and occasional profanity, making learning about things like the Emu War or Terrar, the man who ate everything, surprisingly entertaining.

 The channel went on hiatus for about 2 years starting in 2020, leading to countless where did Sam Onella go posts across Reddit and YouTube comments. When Sam finally returned in 2022, the comeback video got millions of views within days. Samella has become something of a meme within educational YouTube circles with his poorly drawn characters and deadpan delivery spawning countless reaction images and inside jokes.

 The phrase, "Hey kids," which starts most of his videos, has become synonymous with about to learn something weird and disturbing drawn in MS Paint. Kinito is a psychological horror game disguised as a nostalgic virtual assistant program from the early 2000s. Created by developer Troy_en in 2024, the game presents itself as a friendly desktop buddy featuring Kito, a pink axelottle character who wants to be your best friend.

 The game starts innocently enough with Kito asking you questions and playing simple mini games. But things take a dark turn when Kito begins accessing your actual computer files, pulling information from your system, and using your real name without you telling it. The program creates personalized scares based on the data it collects, making players question what's part of the game and what's actually happening to their computer.

 Kito Petet became a streaming sensation with content creators recording their reactions to the game's fourth wall breaks. The game features multiple endings, including a secret true ending that requires players to dig through corrupted file sequences and hidden codes. Some players reported the game creating actual files on their desktop and refusing to close normally.

 Though these are scripted events designed to blur the line between fiction and reality, the character Kito has become something of an internet icon, spawning fan art that ranges from cute interpretations to deeply unsettling body horror versions. The game taps into the uncanny valley of early 2000s digital aesthetics mixed with modern indie horror sensibilities.

Fear, also known as First Encounter Assault Recon, is a horror firstperson shooter game from 2005 that became legendary in internet gaming circles for its advanced enemy AI and psychological horror elements. The game follows Point Man, a member of a special forces unit investigating paranormal threats, who encounters Elma Wade, a psychic girl in a red dress who became one of gaming's most recognizable horror icons.

 Fear gained internet fame for several reasons. The enemy AI was so sophisticated that soldiers would flip tables for cover, communicate with each other, and flank players in ways that felt unnervingly intelligent for the mid 2000s. This led to countless forum discussions and YouTube compilations showing off the AI's tactical behavior.

The game spawned numerous memes, particularly around Elma's jump scares and the infamous ladder scene where she suddenly appears. Players would share reaction videos and screenshots of these moments, turning them into early YouTube gaming content staples. The multiplayer mode included something called slow-mo, which let players enter bullet time, creating chaotic matches that looked like scenes from the Matrix.

 Clips of these matches circulated widely on early gaming forums and video sites. Fear also became known for being a PC performancebenchmark. Tech enthusiasts would use it to test their new graphics cards, and running Fear at max settings became a bragging right in PC gaming communities. Epic Meal Time is a YouTube cooking show that launched in 2010 and became an instant viral sensation for creating absurdly caloric meals loaded with bacon, fast food, and alcohol.

 Created by Harley Morenstein and his crew in Montreal, Canada, the show pioneered the extreme food genre on YouTube with episodes featuring meals containing tens of thousands of calories. The show's signature style involved aggressive narration, copious amounts of Jack Daniels, and the iconic phrase, "Bacon strips and bacon strips.

" At its peak in the early 2010s, Epic Meal Time was pulling in millions of views per episode and spawned countless imitators trying to recreate their formula of meat, cheese, and masculine energy. The channel faced significant changes when several original members left to pursue other projects, with some citing creative differences and concerns about the lifestyle the show promoted.

Glasses, one of the most recognizable members who never spoke on camera, departed in 2013 under mysterious circumstances that fans still speculate about. While the channel continues to upload, its cultural relevance peaked around 2012 when extreme food content saturated YouTube and viewers moved on to other trends.

Scary Teacher 3D is a mobile stealth game where players control a student pulling pranks on their mean teacher, Miss T. The game gained internet notoriety, not just for its gameplay, but for spawning thousands of bizarre animated YouTube videos targeting children. These videos feature the game's characters in increasingly strange scenarios with clickbait thumbnails showing pregnant teachers, giant needles, and other surreal imagery.

 The content farms producing these animations pump out multiple videos daily, accumulating millions of views despite their lowquality and nonsensical plots. The game itself involves sneaking into Miss T's house to set up pranks as revenge for her harsh treatment of students. Players complete mini games and puzzles while avoiding detection.

 The simple premise somehow transformed into an entire YouTube subgenre of animated content that algorithm pushes to kids recommended feeds. The videos often feature broken English titles and storylines involving the teacher in situations completely unrelated to the original game. Common themes include the teacher getting married, having babies, or transforming into various objects.

 These animations became so prevalent that scary teacher 3D content is now considered part of the larger Elsagate adjacent phenomenon. Kerrion is a reverse horror video game released in 2020 where you play as a biomass monster escaping from a research facility. The game flipped the typical horror formula by making you the creature hunting down terrified scientists and security guards.

 Players control a writhing mass of teeth and tentacles that grows larger by consuming humans, gaining new abilities like shooting spikes or turning invisible. The pixel art style and fluid animation of the creature became popular in gaming circles for how disturbing yet satisfying the movement looked. The game sparked discussions online about whether playing as the monster made people uncomfortable or if they enjoyed the power fantasy.

 Some players created elaborate theories that the creature was actually the victim, citing environmental storytelling elements showing unethical experiments. Speedrunners discovered you could clip through certain walls using the creature's tentacles, leading to runs where the monster basically teleports through the facility in under 30 minutes.

 The developer Phobia Game Studio embraced these exploits rather than patching them out. Psychon Noka, also known as Psycho Nouka or simply Psycho, is a Japanese indie horror game developed by Habu Pain. The title roughly translates to psycho stalker in English. Released in 2017, the game follows a protagonist trapped in a school while being hunted by Psycho Chan, a Yandere school girl armed with a knife.

 The game play revolves around stealth, puzzle solving, and avoiding detection while trying to escape. The game gained significant traction through YouTube let's play videos and streaming content, particularly among horror gaming channels. Its anime inspired visuals combined with psychological horror elements created a unique niche in the indie horror scene.

 Psycho Nosutoa spawned multiple sequels and updates, including a multiplayer mode where players can control either the survivor or Psycho herself. The character Psycho Chan became something of an internet icon within horror gaming communities, often appearing in fan art and memes related to Yandere culture. The game success led to discussions about the romanticization of obsessive behavior in anime inspired media, though most players recognize it as campy horror entertainment rather than serious commentary.Halflife VR, but the AI is self-aware,

also known as HLV AI or HalfLife VR AI. This is a comedy web series created by streamer Wer Radio TV in 2020. The series features Wayne playing Halflife in virtual reality while his friends voice the non-player characters as if they've suddenly gained self-awareness. The NPCs realize they're in a video game and start questioning Gordon Freeman's actions, breaking the fourth wall constantly.

 Characters like Benry, Dr.Kummer, Tommy, and Bubby became instant fan favorites with their bizarre personalities and unpredictable dialogue. The series exploded on YouTube and Twitch, spawning countless memes, fan animations, and even its own fandom wiki. Benry, in particular, became iconic for his passport joke and ability to sing sweet voice that manifests as colorful orbs.

 The improvisational nature meant no one knew what would happen next, creating genuine reactions and organic comedy moments. The series helped popularize the format of self-aware video game characters that dozens of other creators have since adopted. Wayne later created a sequel series using HalfLife 2 with mostly the same cast returning to voice new characters.

Doors is a Roblox horror game that exploded across YouTube and Tik Tok in 2022. Players navigate through procedurally generated hotel rooms while avoiding various entities that can instantly end their run. The game features creatures like rush, seek, and figure that each have specific mechanics players must learn to survive.

 Content creators latched on to doors for its jump scares and unpredictable gameplay that made for viral reaction videos. The game's simple premise of reaching door 100 while dodging monsters created an addictive loop that spawned countless speedruns, challenges, and theory videos. Doors became one of Roblox's most played experiences with billions of visits, proving that horror content on a platform primarily aimed at younger audiences could achieve mainstream success.

 The game's entities became internet icons, spawning fan art, memes, and entire wikis dedicated to documenting every mechanic and Easter egg. Updates like the Hotel Plus and collaborations with other Roblox games kept the community engaged long after the initial viral wave. The developers capitalized on the success by adding rare entities, secret rooms, and achievement systems that encouraged repeated playthroughs.

Peter Theal Antichrist lectures also known as the Stanford religion lectures or Theel's Gerardian Theory Talks. This refers to a series of lectures given by billionaire tech investor Peter Theel at Stanford University where he discussed philosopher Renee Gerard's theories about Christianity, mimedic desire, and the apocalypse.

 The lectures gained notoriety online after clips surfaced showing Theel discussing how Silicon Valley innovation might be preventing societal collapse and how technology serves as a kind of modern substitute for religious salvation. The conspiracy angle emerged when internet theorists began analyzing Theel's statements about acceleration, his interest in life extension technology, and his funding of seasteading projects.

 Some online communities interpreted his philosophical positions, particularly his views on monopolies and creative destruction as having apocalyptic undertones. The lectures became a recurring topic on tech conspiracy forums after Theel's involvement with Palunteer, a data analytics company named after the all-seeing orbs from Lord of the Rings.

 combined with his early Facebook investment and his stated belief that democracy and freedom might be incompatible. These talks fueled speculation about his ultimate goals. Clips from the lectures continue to circulate on alternative video platforms, often edited with ominous music and red string conspiracy graphics connecting his statements to various biblical prophecies and technistopian predictions.

Richard Hania, also known as Richard Host. Richard Hania is a political commentator and writer who gained prominence in online discourse during the late 2010s and early 2020s. He runs the center for the study of partisanship and ideology and writes on topics ranging from foreign policy to cultural issues.

 Hania became a fixture in certain corners of political Twitter for his contrarian takes and datadriven arguments about social phenomena. His writing often challenges mainstream narratives on both left and right. In 2023, reporting revealed that Hania had previously written under the pseudonym Richard Host for various far-right publications between 2008 and the early 2010s.

 These writings contained significantly more extreme positions than his public persona suggested. Following the revelation, Hania acknowledged his past writings and [music] claimed his views had evolved. The controversy sparked debates about redemption, platform responsibility, and whether people should be held accountable for anonymous online content from their past.

 His work continues togenerate discussion in online political spaces with supporters praising his willingness to challenge orthodoxies and critics pointing to his controversial history. Jared Pike's dream pools, also known as Pike's Impossible Pools. This refers to a series of computerenerated videos showcasing increasingly elaborate and physicsdefying swimming pool designs created by digital artist Jared Pike.

The videos began appearing around 2021 and quickly gained traction for their surreal, liinal space aesthetic, featuring endless water slides, impossible geometry, and pools that seem to extend into infinite voids. What started as relatively normal pool designs gradually evolved into architectural fever dreams with [music] water flowing upward rooms within rooms and structures that would collapse instantly if built in reality.

 The videos are entirely CGI but presented with such casual matterof fact narration that many viewers initially believed they were real architectural proposals. The comment sections became their own phenomenon with viewers creating elaborate lore about the pools existing in back rooms style alternate dimensions or being blueprints for pools that could only exist in dreams.

 Some users claim to have recurring dreams about swimming in these impossible structures after watching multiple videos. Pike himself has leaned into the mystique, never-breaking character and continuing to present each design as if it were a legitimate construction project, complete with fake client testimonials and building permits for structures that violate the laws of physics.

Greek fire, also known as Bzantine fire or sea fire. This was an incendiary weapon used by the Bzantine Empire starting around the 7th century. The substance could burn on water and was deployed through early flamethrower devices mounted on ships. The exact chemical composition remains unknown to this day since the Bzantines kept it as a closely guarded state secret.

 The formula disappeared when Constantinople fell in 1453, making it one of history's most famous examples of lost technology. Internet forums and history channels have spawned countless theories about what Greek fire actually contained. Some claim it was an early form of napalm using crude oil and quick lime.

 Others suggest pine resin, sulfur or salt peter combinations. The mystery has made it a recurring topic in threads about ancient technologies that supposedly surpassed modern capabilities. The fact that multiple nations tried and failed to recreate Greek fire for centuries afterward only adds to its legendary status online. Bzantine texts describing enemies fleeing in terror from ships breathing liquid fire have become popular copypasta material in military history forums.

Andre Turba is a Romanian British YouTube animator and commentary creator who gained prominence in the late 2010s. His channel features animated videos where his cartoon avatar breaks down internet drama, YouTube controversies, and social issues. Turba's content became known for covering major YouTube events like the Totty Westbrook and James Charles feud, the downfall of various content creators, and platformwide issues affecting creators.

His animation style uses minimalist character designs with exaggerated expressions to illustrate complex situations and controversies. The channel grew significantly during YouTube's commentary boom, reaching millions of subscribers through videos that simplified complicated internet drama into digestible animated stories.

Turbia often positions himself as a neutral observer in his videos. Though some viewers have criticized this stance as fence sitting on important issues, his content has covered everything from individual creator controversies to broader topics like cancel culture, platform censorship, and the ethics of content creation itself.

Rare Pepe refers to unique or limited edition variations of Pepe the Frog memes that became digital collectibles starting around 2014. The concept began on forums like 4chan and Reddit, where users would create increasingly elaborate and bizarre Pepe images, declaring them rare and warning others not to save or share them to preserve their value.

 The meme evolved into a parody of trading card culture with watermarks reading do not steal and fake certificates of authenticity. Some creators made elaborate Pepe variations featuring the character as historical figures in different art styles or in increasingly absurd situations. By 2015, actual rare Pepe trading cards were being sold on eBay.

And in 2016, the Rare Pepe wallet became one of the first blockchainbased digital art projects, predating the NFT boom by several years. Some rare Pepes sold for thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. The phenomenon spawned countless variations including Sad Pepe, Smug Pepe, and the ultra rare Pepe Sylvia crossover.

 The entire concept served as both genuine digital art marketplace and satire of artificial scarcity in digital spaces where copyinga file takes seconds. Laughing Jack is a creepy pasta character created by deviant art user Snuffbomb in 2013. The story follows a young boy named Isaac who receives a mysterious Jack in the box containing a monochrome clown that becomes his imaginary friend.

 The character starts as a colorful, friendly companion, but gradually transforms into a sinister black and white entity after years of abandonment and witnessing Isaac's descent into violence. In the modern timeline of the story, Jack returns to befriend Isaac's son, leading to disturbing events involving candy that turns into dead insects and self harm encouragement.

 The character design features a tall clown with long black hair, a pointed nose, sharp teeth, and striped sleeves extending into claw-like fingers. Laughing Jack became one of the more recognizable creepy pasta villains alongside Jeff the Killer and Slenderman during the early 2010s creepy pasta boom.

 Multiple sequel stories expanded the lore, including the origin of Laughing Jack, which detailed the character's creation by an angel named Jack the Ripper. The character spawned countless fan works, cosplays, and even inspired a female counterpart called Laughing Jill, created by the community. Alraa Francis Bolowski. This name appears in various internet rabbit holes and mystery forums, though concrete information about who or what Alrada Francis Balowski actually represents remains scarce.

 Some forum posts from the early 2010s mentioned the name in connection with unexplained genealogy records and census data that seemingly leads nowhere. The name gained traction in internet mystery communities when researchers noticed it appearing in multiple unrelated contexts. Sometimes listed as a witness in old newspaper archives.

 Other times as a property owner in records that don't match up chronologically. Some theorize it's a placeholder name used in database systems similar to how John Doe functions. Others believe it's connected to early internet ARGs that never fully materialized or were abandoned before completion. The most persistent theory links the name to a series of cryptic posts on obscure message boards between 2008 and 2011 where someone claiming to be documenting temporal inconsistencies would sign off as AFB.

Main character syndrome refers to the tendency of some people to view themselves as the protagonist of reality while everyone else exists as supporting characters or NPCs in their personal narrative. The term gained traction on Tik Tok and Twitter in the early 2020s when users began documenting people who exhibited self-absorbed behaviors in public spaces.

 Someone with main character syndrome might film themselves crying in an airport, stage elaborate proposals in busy restaurants, or have loud phone conversations about their personal drama on public transit. The behavior stems from a belief that their experiences are inherently more significant than those around them. The phenomenon became particularly visible during the pandemic when isolated individuals returned to public spaces with heightened desires for attention and validation.

 Social media algorithms that reward engagement and controversy only amplified these tendencies, creating a feedback loop where increasingly outrageous behavior gets more views. Some psychologists suggest the syndrome reflects deeper issues with narcissism and social media dependency, while others argue it's simply the natural evolution of a culture that tells everyone they're special from birth.

 The term has spawned countless reaction videos with creators filming themselves encountering main characters in the wild or parodying the behavior for content. Steve Cuts is a British animator and illustrator known for creating dark satirical animations about modern society. His work typically features stark [music] black and white art with splashes of color depicting humans as rats or showing dystopian visions of technology addiction [music] and environmental destruction.

 His most viral animation, Are You Lost in the World Like Me? Shows people glued to their phones while the world falls apart around [music] them. The video gained millions of views across social media platforms and became a common reference point in discussions about phone addiction. Another popular work, Man, depicts the history of humanity's relationship with nature in 3 minutes, showing humans systematically destroying the environment.

 The animation ends with humanity literally consuming itself. His animation style draws heavy inspiration from 1930s, rubber hose animation mixed with modern digital techniques. Many of his videos feature no dialogue, relying entirely on visual storytelling and atmospheric music to convey their messages about consumerism, [music] social media, and modern life.

 The animations frequently get shared on Reddit and other platforms whenever discussions about technology addiction or environmental issues come up. His work has been both praised for itsartistic merit and criticized for being too heavy-handed with its messaging. McMansion, a derogatory term for oversized suburban houses built from the 1980s onward that try to look expensive but come off as tacky and poorly designed.

 These houses typically feature random architectural elements thrown together without cohesion, like multiple roof types, fake columns, and windows that make no sense. The term combines McDonald's with mansion, suggesting mass-produced homes that lack authentic craftsmanship or taste. Online, McMansions became prime mockery material through sites like McMansion Hell, where architectural critic Kate Wagner dissects their design failures with brutal commentary and red annotations.

The houses often have lawyer foyers, unnecessary turrets, Pringles can columns, and more garage doors than a person could ever need. They represent the peak of suburban excess and became shorthand for everything wrong with American housing development. Internet communities love sharing the worst examples they find on real estate listings, turning house hunting into a sport of finding the most ridiculous architectural choices.

Momento mori is a Latin phrase meaning remember you will die or remember death. In internet culture, the phrase became widely known through Unis anis, a YouTube channel created by Markiplier and Crank Gameplays in November 2019. The channel uploaded one video every day for exactly 1 year with the premise that all content would be permanently deleted after [music] 365 days.

 Each video featured a timer counting down to the channel's deletion date. The phrase momento my served as the channel's motto and appeared throughout their content. True to their word, the creators live streamed the channel's deletion on November 13th, 2020, removing over 4 million subscribers and hundreds of videos from existence.

 The deletion stream peaked at over 1.5 million concurrent viewers. The phrase spread across social media as fans created tribute art, memes, and compilations trying to preserve memories of the channel. Some viewers archived videos against the creators wishes, leading to debates about digital preservation versus respecting artistic intent.

Beyond Unis anis momento mori appears in various internet communities as a reminder about mortality often posted in threads about dangerous activities or existential discussions. >> [music]