"Every time you masturbate... God kills a kitten" is the caption of an image created by Chris Darden on the Fark website in 2002 that quickly became an internet meme. [1] [2] The image features a kitten being chased by two Domo, the animated mascot of Japanese public broadcaster NHK, and has the tagline "Please, think of the kittens", [3] which is a play on the phrase "think of the children".
The phrase originally appeared as the headline "Fact: Every Time You Masturbate, God Kills a Kitten. How Many More Have to Die?" with a kitten photo on the cover of The Gonzo , a satirical publication produced by students at Georgetown University, in 1996. [3]
The phrase later appeared in the form that brought it viral fame: as a caption of an image created by a member of the Fark website in 2002, which features a kitten being chased by two Domo mascots. [4] [3]
According to a 2007 New York Times Magazine article on Domo-kun, "Any major exhibition on the history of clowning around on the Internet would have to include [this image]". [5] The article also described the meme itself as "resembling a public-service ad, with text that is sophomoric, funny and not worth printing here," adding "it has been referenced and forwarded so many times." [5] A 2006 article from ICv2 stated, "Domo is probably best known outside Japan for his unauthorized appearance in a faux public service announcement that intones 'Every time you masturbate...God kills a kitten.' Needless to say this phony PSA is quite out of character with Domo's image in Japan." [6]
In 2003, actor Dudley Sutton produced a one-man comic show, Killing Kittens, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, based on the Internet phrase. [7]
XXXchurch.com used the retouched kitten image in a 2005 e-mail campaign. [8] Westwinds Community Church held events which included presentations by Craig Gross, the founder of XXXchurch.com, which soon became the target of criticism from the church's community. Fox News quoted Jay Porter, an individual who used to attend the church; Porter stated "'God kills a kitten every time you masturbate' is not an advisable message to direct at children". [9]
In 2006, The Independent published an article which briefly referenced a "sex club called Killing Kittens", a name inspired by the phrase. [10] Later, in 2014, The Guardian reported about Emma Sayle, the founder of Killing Kittens, detailing it as a company which organizes sex parties for young models and actors. [11] When asked about the name of her company, she stated, "it's cyber-slang – every time someone masturbates, God kills a kitten. It's about pleasuring yourself, so it fits quite nicely with our brand." [11]
When appearing in the media, the phrase is sometimes varied. For example, in 2003, Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee maintained a screensaver that showed kittens chased by vengeful ninjas, and the cut line, "Every time you masturbate, a ninja chops the head off a kitten." [12]
"All your base are belong to us" is an Internet meme based on a poorly translated phrase from the opening cutscene of the Japanese video game Zero Wing. The phrase first appeared on the European release of the 1991 Sega Mega Drive / Genesis port of the 1989 Japanese arcade game.
Domo is the official mascot of Japan's public broadcaster NHK, appearing in several 30-second stop-motion interstitial sketches, which are shown as station identification in between the channel's programming. The character is a furry monster that is boxy and brown and often has his big mouth wide open.
An Internet meme, or simply meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms, such as YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations. Characteristics of memes include their susceptibility to parody, their use of intertextuality, their propagation in a viral pattern, and their evolution over time. The name is from the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972.
An image macro is a piece of digital media featuring a picture, or artwork, with some form of text superimposed. The text frequently appears at the top and bottom of the image. Image macros were one of the most common forms of internet memes in the 2000s, and often featured witty messages or catchphrases, although not all image macros are necessarily humorous. LOLcats, which are images of expressive cats coupled with texts, are considered to be the first notable occurrence of image macros. Advice animal image macros, also referred to as stock-character macros, are also highly associated with the image macro template.
"Every Sperm Is Sacred" is a musical sketch from the film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. A satire of Catholic teachings on reproduction that forbid masturbation and contraception, the song was released on the album Monty Python Sings and was nominated for a BAFTA Music Award for Best Original Song in a Film in 1983.
Harambe was a western lowland gorilla who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo. On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was violently grabbed and dragged by Harambe. Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe. The incident was recorded on video and received broad international coverage and commentary, including controversy over the choice to use lethal force. A number of primatologists and conservationists wrote later that the zoo had no other choice under the circumstances, and that it highlighted the danger of zoo animals near humans and the need for better standards of care.
Sexuality has a role within the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In its standards for sexual behavior called the law of chastity, top LDS leaders bar all premarital sex, all homosexual sexual activity, the viewing of pornography, masturbation, overtly sexual kissing, sexual dancing, and sexual touch outside of a heterosexual marriage. LDS Leaders teach that gender is defined in premortal life, and that part of the purpose of mortal life is for men and women to be sealed together in heterosexual marriages, progress eternally after death as gods together, and produce spiritual children in the afterlife. The church states that sexual relations within the framework of monogamous opposite-sex marriage are healthy, necessary, and approved by God. The LDS denomination of Mormonism places great emphasis on the sexual behavior of Mormon adherents, as a commitment to follow the law of chastity is required for baptism, adherence is required to receive a temple recommend, and is part of the temple endowment ceremony covenants devout participants promise by oath to keep.
Fark is a community website created by Drew Curtis that allows members to comment on a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. The site receives many story submissions per day and approximately 100 of them are publicly displayed on the site, spread out over the main page as well as topical tabs that are organized as entertainment, sports, geek, politics and business). Curtis says the stories are selected without intentional political bias, but that he tries to run both far-left and far-right articles.
XXXchurch.com is a website developed by Live Free Ministries promoting a Christian ideology to try to help men with pornography and sex addiction. The website was launched in 2002 and relaunched/rebranded in 2021 when it became part of Live Free Ministries, a New Jersey-based 501(c)(3) non-profit.
A lolcat, or LOLcat, is an image macro of one or more cats. Lolcat images' idiosyncratic and intentionally grammatically incorrect text is known as lolspeak.
Domo TV is a stop-motion animated children's television series produced by NHK and Nickelodeon's Nicktoons network. The series consists of 26 two-minute episodes that were aired on Nicktoons in the United States and on Nickelodeon networks internationally. It was the Nickelodeon brand's first anime project and the second series after Kappa Mikey to be branded as a Nicktoons Network original program.
Something Awful (SA) is an American comedy website hosting content including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. It was created by Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka in 1999 as a largely personal website, but as it grew, so did its contributors and content. The website has helped to perpetuate various Internet phenomena, and it has been cited as an influence on Internet culture. In 2018, Gizmodo placed it as 89th on their list of "100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It".
The Gonzo is an undergraduate satire/humor publication founded in 1993 at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
National Masturbation Day, also known as International Masturbation Day, is an annual event held to protect and celebrate the "right to masturbate". The first National Masturbation Day was May 28, 1995, after sex-positive retailer Good Vibrations declared the day in honor of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, who was fired by President Bill Clinton in 1994 for suggesting masturbation be part of the sex education curriculum for students.
Images and videos of domestic cats make up some of the most viewed content on the World Wide Web. ThoughtCatalog has described cats as the "unofficial mascot of the Internet".
Pepe the Frog is a 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.
On many occasions spanning over a century, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have taught that adherents should not masturbate as part of obedience to the code of conduct known as the law of chastity. This denomination within Mormonism places great emphasis on the sexual behavior of Mormon adherents as a commitment to follow the law of chastity is required for baptism, and adherence is required to receive a temple recommend, and is part of the temple endowment ceremony covenants devout participants promise by oath to keep. A 2011 church manual quotes former church president Spencer W. Kimball who taught that the law of chastity includes "masturbation ... and every hidden and secret sin and all unholy and impure thoughts and practices." Before serving full-time missions, young adults are required to abandon the practice as it is believed to be a gateway sin that dulls sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Ghost. The first recorded public mention of masturbation by a general church leader to a broad audience was in 1952 by apostle J. Reuben Clark, and recent notable mentions include in 2016, 2019, and 2021.
In Internet culture, a Milkshake Duck is a person who gains popularity on social media for some positive trait but is later discovered to have a distasteful history or to engage in offensive behavior. The term has been connected to cancel culture, a perceived trend of social media, sometimes resulting in celebrities being ostracized and careers abruptly derailed by publicized misconduct.
Wojak, also known as Feels Guy, is an Internet meme that is, in its original form, a simple, black-outlined cartoon drawing of a bald man with a wistful expression.
Serbia Strong or Serbia Stronk is a nickname given to a Serb nationalist, anti-Croat and anti-Muslim propaganda music video from the Yugoslav Wars. The song has spread globally amongst far-right groups and the alt-right as an internet meme.
