Top 10 Internet Memes

Rickrolling is one of the most widespread internet memes. It involves tricking people into clicking a link to a music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The URL can be masked using services like TinyURL.com and said to be relevant to the topic at hand. If a person falls for the trick, he is said to have been rickroll'd.

Real-Life Rickrolling

Rickrolling has become so popular that it has spread outside the internet, too. On April 4, 2008, many blogs asked their readers to vote "Never Gonna Give You Up" for the 8th inning sing-along at Shea Stadium for the New York Mets season. The Mets posted a web poll to select a song, and left a blank field for write-ins. To the great surprise of the organizers, Rick Astley's song was the winner with more than five million votes. It was played during the home opener and greeted with a shower of boos (see New York Mets Rickroll'd on YouTube) from a crowd of 55,000 people.

Similarly in November 2008, Rick Astley was nominated for Best Act Ever at the MTV Europe Music Awards after the online nomination form was flooded with votes. However, during the actual show, the Best Act category was treated like a joke (see MTV EMA rickrolled on YouTube), with Perez Hilton announcing that "MTV had been rickroll'd" instead of actually awarding Rick Astley.

Rickroll Video on Youtube

If you've never been rickrolled in your life, now is the time. Click the video below and enjoy (over 12 million happy viewers!):

Want to create your own funny THIS IS SPARTA poster with King Leonidas' face on it? Use this template.

THIS. IS. SPARTA!!! is a meme inspired by the brutal and overly dramatic movie "300" where the Spartan king Leonidas shouts the line before killing a Persian messenger. The whole dialogue goes like this:

Messenger: Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.
King Leonidas: [to himself] "Earth and water"?
[Leonidas unsheathes and points his sword at the Messenger's throat]
Messenger: Madman! You're a madman!
King Leonidas: Earth and water? You'll find plenty of both down there.
Messenger: No man, Persian or Greek, no man threatens a messenger!
King Leonidas: You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city steps. You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same!
Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!
King Leonidas: Madness...?
[shouting]
King Leonidas: This is Sparta!
[Kicks the messenger down the well]

The meme has been modified many times; you must have seen people posting things like THIS. IS. INTRAWEBZ! and such. Basically anything can be (and has been) used to replace the last part of the line. This web fad has also inspired a number of silly images and videos. You can see one of the most famous creations below: a "This is Sparta" techno remix, which has gotten over 20 million views on YouTube (edit: the original video has been removed due to terms of use violation; you can still see one of the many other versions below):

All Your Base Are Belong To Us (also known as "All Your Base", "AYBABTU", or just "AYB") is an Engrish (broken English) phrase originating from the opening cut scene of the European Sega Mega Drive version of Zero Wing, a rather poorly translated Japanese video game by Toaplan.

AYBABTU became so popular not because of the game itself (indeed, most people spreading the meme never actually played Zero Wing), but because of various message boards (starting with SomethingAwful.com) and fan-made flash clips. The meme survived to this day thanks to occasional appearances in media, video games, T-shirts and webcomics. Some of these references are listed below.

All Your Base References

• On April 1, 2003 seven people placed signs all over Sturgis, Michigan that read, "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." They claimed to be playing an April Fool's joke; however, the police chief Eugene Alli said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat depending on what someone interprets it to mean."
• In February 2004, North Carolina State University students made the phrase appear in a news ticker on a live broadcast if News 14 Carolina channel.
• On June 1, 2006, YouTube was taken down temporarily for maintenance. The phrase "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US" appeared as a placeholder while the site was down. Some users believed the site had been hacked, so the host later added a message: "No, we haven't been hacked. Get a sense of humor."
• On September 22, 2008, on the MSNBC show Countdown, Princeton Professor and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman said that the proposal presented to the US Congress concerning the federal bailout of failed financial institutions was the equivalent of US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson saying, "All your decisions are belong to me."

Transcript of the Original Zero Wing Opening

In A.D. 2101
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha ha ha ha ....
Operator: Captain !! *
Captain: Take off every 'ZIG'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
Captain: For great justice.

Several other phrases from the dialogue above (such as "for great justice" or "main screen turn on") have also been widely used in various instances of geek humor.

All Your Base Video

You can watch a techno remix of All Your Base Are Belong To Us which contains the original cut scene from the Zero Wing game as well as a lot of instances where this meme had been used, both online and in real life:

Leeroy Jenkins is a character in the wildly popular machinima video "A Rough Go" which is taken during a World Of Warcraft guild raid. In the video, the guild (called "PALS FOR LIFE") is making detailed plans on how to beat the Rookery room in the Upper Blackrock Spire (instanced dungeon that takes a lot of players to beat) while one of them - Leeroy - is away from his computer. All the raid is wiped spectacularly when he returns to his PC and just charges into the room without any preparation while shouting "Leeroy Jenkins!" into the microphone.

The video and the character have later become extremely popular (to the point of being mentioned in a TV show) and achieved the internet phenomenon status.

You can watch the original Leeroy Jenkins YouTube video below:

The real name of the player who created Leeroy is Ben Schultz. After Leeroy became a celebrity in the World of Warcraft, poor guy couldn't even play the game properly on his character because people kept sending him in-game messages 24/7. The internet meme since then had spread from gaming to online and mainstream media.

Leeroy Jenkins References

• Blizzard later added an attainable title of "Jenkins" to WoW players who could kill 50 of the famous dragon whelps from the movie within 15 seconds, with the achievement "Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy!" being attained for the same feat.
• In Bioware's FPS/RPG video game Mass Effect, there is a character named Jenkins who at the very beginning charges in to attack the enemies and promptly dies.
• Leeroy Jenkins was mentioned as part of a clue on the November 16, 2005 episode of the TV show Jeopardy! as part of their college week tournament.
• There is a Leeroy Jenkins card in the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.
• PC Gamer UK magazine had released an article about the video, titled "The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins" in August 2005.
• For more info on Leeroy Jenkins, visit http://coolest.character.ever.com
• There are several Leeroy Jenkins parodies and fan videos. Click here to watch one of them.

Before you go, watch the catchy fan-made Leeroy Jenkins techno remix:

IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAND! is one of the most popular anime memes. It originates from the English dub of the Dragon Ball Z (DBZ) anime which is famous for it's painfully long, over-the-top fights with a lot of "powerups" and screaming. People often use this meme when numbers or levels of some sort are involved.

It's Over Nine Thousand Original Transcript

Nappa: "VEGETA! What does the scouter say about his power level?"
Vegeta: "IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND!" *crushes scouter*
Nappa: WHAT, NINE THOUSAND!?

You can watch an excerpt from the original DBZ "over 9000" scene below:

Loituma Girl, also known as "Leekspin" is a combination of a 4-frame animation loop taken from a Japanese anime Bleach and a gibberish part (all the words are made up) of a traditional Finnish folk song "Ievan Polkka" (sometimes misspelled Levan Polka) sung by the Finnish quartet Loituma. The song is taken from the band's debut album Things of Beauty (1995). The animation comes from the second episode of Bleach, and features Inoue Orihime twirling a spring onion in her hand. In the anime, jokes are often made about Orihime since she likes to cook weird and often inedible stuff.

This web fad quickly became popular and hundreds of websites and blogs started linking to the flash animation of Loituma Girl. The Finnish band Loituma were shocked to see the massive amount of traffic to their website and thousands of fan letters from around the world and even more confused when they saw the animation.

Watch the Loituma Girl original animation on YouTube below:

Loituma Girl References

• In early 2009 Weetabix Limited - a UK food company - used the song in an advert for their "ready brek" cereal.
• In April 2007 Eneco - a Dutch power company - used the song of Loituma Girl in its TV commercial for "ecostroom" (green energy).
• In May 2007, Wrigley's used this song in an ad on German TV for their "Extra" gum.
• The Dutch company Artiq Mobile launched a website where people could upload home-made Loituma girl spoof videos and compete for a prize of 500 euros.
• BBC's "The World" radio program covered the animation and noted the clip's trance-inducing qualities. Patrick Macias described the animation as follows: "This is basically a joke for someone who spends all of their time staring at a computer, made by people who spend all of their time staring at a computer. It's possible to read deeper meanings into it, but it sort of defeats the purpose because in the end it's just this hypnotic clip of animation.

Loituma Girl Vocaloid Adaption

One of the promotional videos for Yamaha's voice synthesizer and singer program Vocaloid featured Hatsune Miku (the anime-style mascot character for the software) waving a green onion and performing the Ievan Polkka using Vocaloid's digital singing synthesis. This "Leek Girl" video has got hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube:

What What (In The Butt) is a music video by Samwell, a gay African-American singer. He became an internet celebrity when the video was upload on YouTube and achieved millions of views. The video has numerous references to homosexuality.

What What (In the Butt) References

• In episode 1204 of South Park titled "Canada On Strike" the boys posted a viral video on "YouToob" of Butters performing the "What What (In the Butt)" song. Various other web fads such as the Tron Guy, the Star Wars kid, and Chocolate Rain were also featured.
• "What What (In the Butt)" was an official selection at the Milwaukee International Film Festival and the Mix Brasil Film Festival.
• The video was featured in episode #53 of ADD-TV in Manhattan.
• In April 2008 Samwell appeared on the BBC television show "Lily Allen and Friends" and performed a live version of "What What (In the Butt)".

Watch the original What What (In The Butt) YouTube video below: