An Internet meme, or meme, is a cultural item that spreads across the Internet, primarily through social media platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit. Internet memes manifest in a variety of formats, including images, videos, GIFs, and other viral content. Key characteristics of memes include their tendency to be parodied, their use of intertextuality, their viral dissemination, and their continual evolution. The term "meme" was originally introduced by Richard Dawkins in 1972 to describe the concept of cultural transmission.
Thomas Wade Brennaman is an American television sportscaster, currently the lead announcer for CW Sports college football games. He is the son of former Cincinnati Reds radio sportscaster Marty Brennaman. He served as a play-by-play commentator for Fox Sports since its inception in 1994 through 2020, the television voice of the Arizona Diamondbacks from 1998 to 2006, and as the voice of the Cincinnati Reds from 2007 through 2020. His career with the Reds and Fox Sports ended abruptly when he was caught on a hot mic making a homophobic statement during a game broadcast. His on-air apology, in which he interrupted himself to call "a drive into deep left field by Castellanos", became an internet meme. Since leaving the Reds, he has served as a commentator for the Roberto Clemente League and for Chatterbox Sports.
The clipboard is a buffer that some operating systems provide for short-term storage and transfer within and between application programs. The clipboard is usually temporary and unnamed, and its contents reside in the computer's RAM.
4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, music, history, technology, anime, physical fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Registration is not available, except for staff, and users typically post anonymously. As of 2022, 4chan receives more than 22 million unique monthly visitors, of whom approximately half are from the United States.
An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of a number of English-language imageboards.
Encyclopedia Dramatica is an online community website, centered around a wiki, that acts as a "troll archive" and its community members frequently participate in harassment campaigns. The site hosts racist material and shock content; as a result it was filtered from Google Search in 2010. The website's articles lampoon topics and current events related or relevant to contemporary internet culture in an encyclopedic fashion. It also serves as a repository of information and a means of discussion for the hacker group known as Anonymous. Encyclopedia Dramatica celebrates its subversive "NSFW" "troll site culture" and documents internet memes, events such as mass organized pranks, trolling events called "raids", large-scale failures of internet security, and criticism by those within its subculture of other internet communities which are accused of self-censorship in order to garner positive coverage from traditional and established media outlets. The site hosts numerous pornographic images, along with content that is misogynistic, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic.
Nairaland is a Nigerian English-language internet forum. Founded by Nigerian entrepreneur Seun Osewa on March 8, 2005, it is targeted primarily at Nigerian domestic residents and is the 6th most visited website in Nigeria.
A rage comic is a short cartoon strip using a growing set of pre-made cartoon faces, or rage faces, which usually express rage or some other simple emotion or activity. They are usually crudely drawn in Microsoft Paint or other simple drawing programs, and were most popular in the early 2010s. These webcomics have spread much in the same way that Internet memes do, and several memes have originated in this medium. They have been characterized by Ars Technica as an "accepted and standardized form of online communication." The popularity of rage comics has been attributed to their use as vehicles for humorizing shared experiences.
Nicholas Alexander Castellanos is an American professional baseball right fielder and third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played for the Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds.
Steven Blake Crowder is an American-Canadian conservative political commentator.
A creepypasta is a horror-related legend which has been shared around the Internet. The term creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories that are intended to frighten readers. The subjects of creepypasta vary widely and can include topics such as ghosts, cryptids, murder, suicide, zombies, aliens, rituals to summon supernatural entities, haunted television shows, and video games. Creepypastas range in length from a single paragraph to extended multi-part series that can span multiple media types, some lasting for years.
8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan, is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. The site has been linked to white supremacism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, racism and antisemitism, hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings. The site has been known to host child pornography; as a result, it was filtered out from Google Search in 2015. Several of the site's boards played an active role in the Gamergate harassment campaign, encouraging Gamergate affiliates to frequent 8chan after 4chan banned the topic. 8chan is the origin and main center of activity of the discredited QAnon conspiracy theory.
/pol/, short for Politically Incorrect, is an anonymous political discussion imageboard on 4chan. As of 2022, it is the most active board on the site. It has had a substantial impact on Internet culture. It has acted as a platform for far-right extremism; the board is notable for its widespread racist, white supremacist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, misogynist, and anti-LGBT content. /pol/ has been linked to various acts of real-world extremist violence. It has been described as one of the "[centers] of 4chan mobilization", a title also ascribed to /b/.
Pepe the Frog is a famous comic character and Internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Designed as a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body, Pepe originated in Furie's 2005 comic Boy's Club. The character became an Internet meme when his popularity steadily grew across websites such as Myspace, Gaia Online, and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, he had become one of the most popular memes used on 4chan and Tumblr. Different types of Pepe memes include "Sad Frog", "Smug Frog", "Angry Pepe", "Feels Frog", and "You will never..." Frog. Since 2014, "§ Rare Pepes" have been posted on the "meme market" as if they were trading cards.
r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit in the late 2010s.
In Internet culture, shitposting or trashposting is the act of using an online forum or social media page to post content that is of "aggressively, ironically, and trollishly poor quality". Shitposts are generally intentionally designed to derail discussions or cause the biggest reaction with the least effort. It may even sometimes be orchestrated as part of a co-ordinated flame war to render a website unusable by its regular visitors.
Ramon Veroy Confiado, professionally known as Mon Confiado, is a Filipino character actor, theater actor and businessman who has appeared in both mainstream and independent films. He is the son of late veteran actor Ángel Confiado from a second family.
/b/, also called random, is an anonymous imageboard on 4chan. It was the first board created during the establishment of the platform in 2003, and it then stood for "anime/random". While /b/ permits discussion and posting of any sort of content, the community etiquette is to self-limit discussion on /b/ of those topics that are specialties or the focus of other boards on 4chan. /b/ is one of the most popular imageboards on 4chan, next to /pol/. Due to its popularity and notoriety, it overshadows the website with a bad reputation. The Washington Post described /b/ as "an unfathomable grab-bag of the random, the gross and the downright bizarre".
"A drive into deep left field by Castellanos" is a phrase spoken by Thom Brennaman, a play-by-play announcer for the Cincinnati Reds, during a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals on August 19, 2020. Brennaman had been replaced in the middle of the broadcast for a hot mic gaffe in which he said "one of the fag capitals of the world." He gave an on-air apology later on, during which Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos hit a home run; Brennaman interrupted his apology to call the home run, describing the hit as a "drive into deep left field by Castellanos" before continuing. The surreal nature of the apology gave it notoriety in baseball internet culture and has led to its use as a copypasta.
