ROFLCon | |
---|---|
Status | Retired |
Genre | Internet culture |
Venue | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Location(s) | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
Country | United States |
Inaugurated | 2008 |
Attendance | ~600 in 2008 |
Organized by | Harvard University Students |
Website | roflcon.org |
ROFLCon was a biennial convention of internet memes that took place in 2008, 2010 and 2012, featuring various internet celebrities. All three events were at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ROFLCon was first organized by a group of students from Harvard University led by Tim Hwang. [1] [2] According to Hwang, the inspiration for the conference was the September 23, 2007 meetup of fans of xkcd with its creator, Randall Munroe, in a park in North Cambridge, Massachusetts. [1] [3]
The name "ROFLCon" comes from the internet slang "ROFL", short for "rolling on the floor laughing", and "con", short for "convention".
The first ROFLCon was first announced in late 2007, and took place on April 25–26, 2008. [4]
Various internet celebrities attended, such as the authors of the webcomics xkcd , Questionable Content and Dinosaur comics , Jay Maynard "The Tron Guy", Christopher "moot" Poole, Leeroy Jenkins, The Brothers Chaps, and many others. [1] [5]
Attendance was open to the public after pre-registration and a fee. The primary events of ROFLCon were moderated panel discussions with the Internet celebrities, and question and answer sessions with the audience. Several guest speakers gave talks on issues pertaining to internet culture. The convention ended with the "ROFLConcert", featuring live performances by Group X, Leslie Hall, Lemon Demon, Trocadero and Denny Blaze.
ROFLCon II [6] took place from April 30 to May 1 at MIT. Passes were available from $45 for a student to $500 for a "Mystery Pass." [1] ROFLCon III [7] took place on May 4–5, 2012, [8] announced as the final ROFLCon. [9]
goatse.cx, often spelled without the .cx top-level domain as Goatse, is an internet domain that originally housed an Internet shock site. Its front page featured a picture entitled hello.jpg, showing a close-up of a hunched-over naked man using both hands to stretch open his anus and expose his red rectum lit by the camera flash.
William J. C. Amend III is an American cartoonist. He is known for his comic strip FoxTrot.
References to Wikipedia in popular culture have been widespread. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with individuals vandalizing or modifying articles in nonconstructive ways. Others feature individuals using Wikipedia as a reference work, or positively comparing their intelligence to Wikipedia. In some cases, Wikipedia is not used as an encyclopedia at all, but instead serves more as a character trait or even as a game, such as Wikiracing. Wikipedia has also become culturally significant with many individuals seeing the presence of their own Wikipedia entry as a status symbol.
Randall Patrick Munroe is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of the webcomic xkcd. Munroe has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006. In addition to publishing a book of the webcomic's strips, titled xkcd: Volume 0, he has written four books: What If?, Thing Explainer, How To, and What If? 2.
Leeroy Jenkins is a player character created by Ben Schulz in Blizzard Entertainment's multiplayer online video game World of Warcraft.
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.
Clover Hill High School is a public secondary school located in Midlothian, an unincorporated community in Chesterfield County, Virginia, United States. It is part of Chesterfield County Public Schools and is located at 13301 Kelly Green Lane. The school opened in 1972 and moved to its present location in 2010.
xkcd, sometimes styled XKCD, is a webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the name of the comic is not an initialism but "just a word with no phonetic pronunciation".
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, anime, fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Registration is not available and users typically post anonymously. As of 2022, 4chan receives more than 22 million unique monthly visitors, of which approximately half are from the United States.
The Game is a mind game in which the objective is to avoid thinking about The Game itself. Thinking about The Game constitutes a loss, which must be announced each time it occurs. It is impossible to win most versions of The Game. Depending on the variation, it is held that the whole world, or all those who are aware of the game, are playing it at all times. Tactics have been developed to increase the number of people who are aware of The Game, and thereby increase the number of losses.
The Create a Comic Project (CCP) is a youth literacy program and webcomic created by John Baird. The program uses comics, many taken from the Internet, to encourage children to write their own narratives. The program began in November 2006 at the main branch of the New Haven Free Public Library as an after-school program. The project has since worked with several other groups, including the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, Braddock Carnegie Library, and the Pittsburgh YMCA. Baird has presented the results of his work on the project at several conventions and conferences, including South by Southwest Interactive and SXSWedu. The project has been praised for its work in engaging children in learning by Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson, Professor Mirta Ojito of Columbia University, and Arne Duncan, the US Secretary of Education.
4942 Munroe, provisional designation 1987 DU6, is an asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 3 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 February 1987, by Belgian astronomer Henri Debehogne at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile, and later named after American cartoonist and former NASA roboticist Randall Munroe.
"Time" is the 1,190th strip of Randall Munroe's webcomic xkcd. Beginning with a single frame published at midnight on March 25, 2013, the image was updated every 30 minutes until March 30, 2013, and then every hour for 118 days, ending on July 26 with a total of 3,102 unique images. Each image represented a single frame in a larger story.
Average Homeboy is the creation and alter ego of Cleveland-based AV artist Denny Hazen.
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a 2014 non-fiction book by Randall Munroe in which the author answers hypothetical science questions sent to him by readers of his webcomic, xkcd. The book contains a selection of questions and answers originally published on his blog What If?, along with several new ones. The book is divided into several dozen chapters, most of which are devoted to answering a unique question. What If? was released on September 2, 2014 and was received positively by critics. A sequel to the book, titled What If? 2, was released on September 13, 2022.
Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words is a 2015 illustrated non-fiction book created by Randall Munroe, in which the author attempts to explain various complex subjects using only the 1,000 most common English words. Munroe conceptualized the book in 2012, when drawing a schematic of the Saturn V rocket for his webcomic xkcd.
Notable events of 2005 in webcomics.
Notable events of 2013 in webcomics.
"[citation needed]" is a tag added by Wikipedia editors to unsourced statements in articles requesting citations to be added. The phrase is reflective of the policies of verifiability and no original research on Wikipedia and has become a general Internet meme.