Chris Crocker is a 21-year-old Internet celebrity most famous for his ‘Leave Britney Alone’ rant.
Crocker has a YouTube video channel where he posts videos which are really "monologues about life" and often deal with what it’s like being an openly gay and effeminate teen in a "small-minded town" in the Bible Belt.
He lives with his grandparents who home-school him after he was bullied too much at school. His grandmother occasionally appears in his videos.
His videos have received over 153 million views on YouTube alone. Although he has produced dozens of videos, Crocker gained the most fame from his viral video tearfully defending Britney Spears.
The video received international media attention, hundreds of parodies, criticism and even death threats.
His strange, over-the-top rant is bizarrely captivating. Mascara runs down his cheeks, and he looks totally distraught as he yells “You’re lucky she even performed for you” He also lashes out at gossip columnists such as Perez Hilton, and reality TV star Simon Cowell, who criticized Britney Spears' onstage music performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas.
Fame!
The video received worldwide attention and earned Crocker interviews on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, The Today Show, Maury, The Howard Stern Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Ryan Seacrest's KIIS-FM morning show. YouTube named it one of the top videos of 2007 and Wired magazine named it their top video of 2007.
Nearly 2000 people have posted video responses and parodies, including ones by Perez Hilton, Jimmy Kimmel, National Lampoon Inc., Rove McManus, Joe Cartoon and Charles Firth.
Actor Seth Green made a parody to promote his she Robot Chicken. He calls for people to "leave Chris Crocker alone!"Other parodies include one of a George W. Bush impersonator begging people "to leave General Petraeus alone" (a reference to the Iraq War).
Most memes I quite enjoy. Some can get a bit much. But there’s one meme that drives me absolutely crazy. It’s the sound of a man pretending to be a motorbike combined with a not-so-cute animation of a crazy frog.
The Crazy Frog is an incredibly annoying animated character which was actually created to market a ring tone.
In 1994, a young Swedish student Daniel Malmedahl recorded himself mimicking the sound of a two-stroke combustion engine and posted it on a website. It became an instant hit – and a meme in it’s own right. People added the sound to flash animations and spread them virally. Click here to see the famous ‘Insanity Test’ featuring the sound effect.
Daniel got to perform his sound effect live on Swedish TV, further spreading the popularity of the sound.
Then another Swede, Erik Wernquist, had a brain wave – he created a 3D frog animation, aptly named ‘The Annoying Thing’, to accompany the sound track.
But it was some genius at a German ringtone company called Jamba! who really ruined it for the rest of us. He saw the animation and just knew it would make him a lot of money as a downloadable ringtone. The ‘Crazy Frog’ ringtone was advertised on TV quickly earned approximately £14 million from download sales.
But it didn’t stop there – unfortunately, someone decided to turn it into a dance track.
The Crazy Frog spawned a worldwide hit single with a remix of ‘Axel F’, which reached the number one spot in the United Kingdom, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia and most of Europe. The subsequent album Crazy Frog Presents Crazy Hits and second single ‘Popcorn’ also enjoyed worldwide chart success, and a second album entitled Crazy Frog Presents More Crazy Hits was released in 2006. (Aagghh!)
Not surprisingly, you can also kit yourself out with Crazy Frog merchandise, including toys, and Playstation 2 video games.
Luckily, the Crazy Frog craze has died down for now. But you never know when that little frog may rear his ugly head again.
Of course, if you don't like the little guy as much as me, you'll enjoy this site!
When Ghyslain Raza was just 15, he became world famous – but he probably could have lived without all the attention.
In 2002, Ghyslain took a video of himself clowning around, swinging a golf ball retriever around as if it were a weapon (presumably, a lightsaber). The video tape was forgotten about, until someone stumbled upon it and thought it would be funny to post the video online.
Initially, the video was shared on the Kazaa network (a peer-to-peer file sharing network). The original was then edited to include text, sound effects music and even a lightsaber effect on the golf ball retriever.
Gaming and Star Wars sites began posting the newly edited video, so that it spread quickly. Other people made their own remixes and edits until the Star Wars Kid was relatively famous. Here’s a selection of some of the best star wars videos.
But Ghyslain Raza wasn’t enjoying the attention. He was teased so badly at school, that he dropped out and finished the semester at a children's psychiatric ward.
Now his parents are suing the families of the four classmates who digitized and published the video. Ghyslain's parents say their son was so humiliated that he may be marked for life by the experience.
But not everyone was tormenting the poor kid: an internet petition to get Raza a cameo role in Star Wars Episode III received more than 140,000 "signatures." (However, although George Lucas sympathised with the young man's plight, he was not include in the movie.) And almost $5000 USD was raised to buy Ghyslain an iPod.
And they too have a huge internet phenomenon behind them.
The very popular ‘Ask A Ninja’ series describes what it is to be a ninja by answering questions posed to him by mere mortals.
Uncyclopedia lists a few of the weapons used by ninjas: “swords, kantanas, shuriken, sticks, knives, shuriken, kunai,a banana, ... a really sharp pencil, a really dull pencil, pudding, an easter egg, rolled up newspapers, bubble gum, ferrets, numbers, kunai, hp deskjet 970Cse color printers, a trombone, a travel size websters dictionary, a lamp shade, 1950's porno flicks, a wiimote, a Guitar Hero Guitar, a pikmin, your arm, a pokeball, a rabid rabbit, another ninja, tree trunks, chainsaws, pimp canes, pies, a soup spoon, your face (after they ripped it off), the guitar solo from Metallica's Seek and Destroy, laser vision bears, peoples social lives that Blizzard stole with World of Warcraft, a cereal box, and Axl Rose - pretty much anything except a gun (actually, a ninja could use a gun, but they find throwing the bullets to be more deadly and visually appealing; or they might just kill you by throwing the gun at you)."
The Ninja phenomenon may have started with the website ‘Real Ultimate Power’ – this humour site was created by Robert Hamburger (as a fictional, 13-year-old character with the same name) According to Hamburger, there are three Ninja facts:
1. Ninjas are mammals. 2. Ninjas fight ALL the time. 3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.
Not to be outdone by the pirates, the ninjas have started an online movement to celebrate International Creep Like a Ninja Day on 5 December.
Dragonball Z is an animated Japanese TV show (an anime), which has been dubbed into many languages and has become popular in many countries around the world. The English translation of the show can be somewhat clumsy and comical.
The ‘Over 9000’ meme originally came from an episode of the Dragonball Z in which Vegeta (one of the show’s ‘bad guys’) is asked "Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his power level?" and Vegeta responds "It's over 9000!". This rather nonsensical statement gained internet fame when the clip was ‘remixed’ and placed on YouTube by a fan.
‘Over 9000’ has become a phrase used to describe impressive power or skill or something that’s really awesome (or 'made of win'). For example – “That game is over 9000” or “My level of awesomeness is over 9000!”
And of course, many YouTube Videos have sprung up featuring the catchphrase in different ways including a Southpark and Myst parody. Interestingly, in the original Japanese version, Vegeta actually says "Over 8000" but the American dubbers chose 9000 because it worked better with the lip movement of the characters on screen.
A similar clip from Dragonball Z features the character Piccolo saying "The balls are inert".
To celebrate April Fools Day, Google announced a partnership with Virgin called 'Virgle' - apparently a joint venture with the goal of establishing a permanent human settlement on Mars! If you want to be chosen as one of the first settlers to join the Mars colony, check out the blog:
Practically a real life superhero, the Techo Viking is strong, bold and mysterious.
This video was captured at the F**k Parade in Berlin. This techno parade through the streets is actually a protest march, demonstrating against the Love parade... but that’s another story.
As ravers dance down the streets, a video was taken of the 'Techo Viking' coming to the rescue of a girl who is accosted by a passerby. The video has been remixed with different soundtracks including Michael Jackson’s 'Beat it'.
My opinion - you can't help but find this guy interesting, good to watch
The dramatic hamster is actually a dramatic prairie dog.
This simple five-second clip of a prairie dog turning his head to face the camera paired with dramatic music took the net by storm. Many people have made spoof videos and tributes to the funny clip. Visit dramaticprairiedog.com to see some of them.
The clip comes from a Japanese TV show called 'Hello! Morning'.
Ever wonder how a couple of dancing badgers became such a hit or why captioned cats suddenly started appearing in your inbox? Ever heard of something being 'Over 9000' or 'Made of Win' and wondered what it meant?
This blog explores memes and other internet phenomena that have taken the web by storm. Check out the Starwars Kid, LOLcats, Dramatic Chipmunk and Peanut Butter Jelly Time to name but a few.
Let me know what you would like to see next on this site...
On the request list so far: Shoop da Whoop, Bert is Evil, 300, Obi wan force push, goatse (been avoiding that one) Mr T ate my balls...
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