Flash Mob - Blue Team

Assignment #3: King of the Battle

Chuck Norris Facts by Tyler Brandt

ABOUT:

The Chuck Norris Facts first became popular on the Internet in early 2005. The inspiration for the fad began because Conan O'Briens Chuck Norris Jokes on his show Late Night with Conan O'Brien. This all happened because on "May 12 2004, NBC merged with Vivendi Universal Entertainment. A deal which lead to Conan O’Brien’s popular running gag of the Walker Texas Ranger lever."

The idea of facts first began with Vin Diesel from his role in the movie "The Pacifier" and the forum SomethingAwful. Ian Spector created a website about it and it took off, the website had 20,000 hits on the first day.

After the Vin Diesel effect had worn off Spector looked for a new target and the winner was Chuck Norris by a landslide.

"Chuck Norris facts are humourous examples about how much of a man Chuck Norris is. They cover everything from his strength, endurance, virility, attitude or anything else that would make him awesome."

"Chuck Norris himself was flattered by the facts but never took them too seriously. He even wrote a response. He said his favorite was “They once tried to carve Chuck Norris’ face into Mount Rushmore, but the granite wasn’t hard enough for his beard” on The Best Damn Sports Show Period.""

POPULARITY:

Basically, this meme was most popular during the summer of 2005 into early 2006. There was an initial explosion of popularity that has largely leveled off.

Even though the popularity never reached the initial height of when it first hit the internet, there were other small rises during over the years. Particularly there was another small peak in popularity at the end of 2007 when a book was published entitled: The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 facts about the World's Greatest Human

OTHER MEMES:

• The Chuck Norris Facts have taken off in a wide variety of forms, in examples: In India actor Rajinikanth has taken on a similar form as Chuck Norris.

• Another example that I know well is a famous cyclist that is known for his strength and toughness and a site has been created with facts about him.
• Examples of these facts: "Jens doesn’t shiver unless it’s from a loss of blood. Even then, he keeps on riding"

http://www.cyclingtips.com.au/2010/06/what-would-jens-do/

• Chuck Norris has even been used by Politicians: most notably Mike Huckabee:

MY OPINION:

I think that this format became so popular because it was something new, funny and ironic.

Sources:

1) http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/chuck-norris-facts

2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris#Chuck_Norris_facts

3) http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=Chuck%20Norris%20Facts&cmpt=q

Kim Jong-Un Looking at Things by Johan A. G. Kringlen

Kim Jong-un looking at things is a meme that emerged late December, 2011. Basically, Kim Jong-un looking at things is exactly that, pictures of North Korea's leader looking at things, without no given context.
Here’s an example:

Most of the pictures show Kim Jong-un with either some military personnel or as in the above picture, with his father. In most cases there is no apparent ‘event’, other than that he is looking at something. This ranges from a guitar, some dirt and weapons to armored vehicles.

When did it become popular?

Some historic background: North Korea's much riddled and loved leader, Kim Jong-il, died 17. th December 2011. To step up as new leader was his son, Kim Jong-un. Soon after, the meme appeared. It became fairly popular, and claimed to be the best new site by deathandtaxesmag.com. Even so it seems to be losing popularity, which is illustrated in the table below.

Why did it become popular?

To understand why the meme became popular, we have to look at how it originated. North Korea has a history of weirdness, chosen to be mostly isolated from the rest of the world, there has been little outreach to it's neighboring nations, or any else for that matter. This vow of silence has only been broken periodically when they've felt like shooting up a military missile.

Its former leader Kim Jon-il has been parodied on many occasions. Maybe most known is the Team America movie, a puppet-action-comedy movie by the creators of South Park. Here he is the main villain, and coordinator of a terrorist scheme. But perhaps more importantly, he also starred as a meme, called Kim Jong-il looking at things. As you might imagine, it looks a lot like the one discussed here.

Now there is a new leader, and everyone has their eyes on Kim Jong-un. Although there is a lot to be said about his father, Kim Jong-un is more unknown to the public. So popularizing a meme dedicated to him looking at random things is amusing and also lets us get to know him.
It seems as if the role of leader of North Korea brings several implications, having a meme with your name followed by the phrase ‘looking at things’ is one of them.
Lets face it, we need some comic relief when it comes to North Korea. And who better to fill that role than the new, heaven-born, Supreme Leader?

Kim Jong-Un Looking at Things by Jung Yong Kim

The video is North Korea's potential next leader made his debut at the largest military parade in the country's history, in front of reporters from 18 different countries including the U.S. this video is uploaded at the start of year 2010 by You Tube with user UBC. It has at this date(3/3/2012) 13,737 views:

Kim Jong –Un

For other people named Kim Jung –Un, see Kim Jong-Un (disambiguation).This is a Korean name; the family name is Kim.Kim Jong-un also romanised as Kim Jong-eun or Kim Jung-eun, (born 8 January 1983

The meme Kim Jong –Un “Looking at Things” is very popular when Kim Jong-Un, 25, has been formally named as the hermit kingdom’s next reader. So who is Kim Jong-Un? Kim Jong-Un was born in 1983 as the third and youngest son of the current North Korea leader Kim Jong-Il. Over the past two years Kim Jung Il suffered from a stroke and had plans to put his Swiss –educated third son in place as eventual of North Korea. However, people didn’t know who he was because he used the name “Pak Chol” to hide his identify and he pretended to be the son of.

Memes:

• The meme represents Kim Jong-Un looking at broad of interests.
• The meme intrigued people since Kim Jong-Un is appointed the head of North Korea.

Looking at guitar:
Looking at a big cheese:
Looking at a target:
Looking at tomato plants:
Looking at a blue table cloth:

This meme is influenced by Kim jung Il’s looking at things:

My Opinion

I came from South Korea. What with the announcement of Kim Jong Un as his father’s successor and this display of cooperation it seems that the yo-yo like relationship between the South Korea and North Korea. It is assumed that he was involved in the bombardment of Yeonpyeong and the Cheonan sinking to strengthen his military credentials and facilitate a successful transition of power from his father. We will have to keep an eye on this young man and prepare for his reckless acts.

I think North Korea spread out like these pitchers continually because they want to show us about Kim Jong Un’s power.

Google insight:

All Your Base Are Belong to Us by Ida Aasland Boyum

All your base are belong to us, often shortened as AYBABTU, was one of the first popular Internet memes. It emerged from a Japanese shoot-'em up arcade game called Zero Wing from 1989. In the English version of this game, “All your base are belong to us” appeared in the opening scene, as a bad translation for “all of your bases are under our control”. This kind of bad translation is popularly called engrish, which often can be found on east-Asian signs, known for their wrong grammar and spelling. There's even a website called engrish.com, where there are many examples of this. The meme probably became so popular because it was one of the first of its kind reaching media.

Since Google Insights only shows charts from 2004, I couldn't find a proper graph of the meme's popularity before that. The AYBABTU-phrase first became popular around 1998/1999 on the Rage Games forums. In 2000 a video response to this meme was posted on Overlock.org, as maybe the first video response on the Internet in history. In 2000 it spread widely on online discussion forums (as TribalWar forums and SomethingAwful), as animated pictures of street signs, banners, package labels, etc. “All your base are belong to us” really became mainstream in 2001, when it also got a lot of attention in the media, both on television and in newspapers:

There are great numbers of photos and video responses of this meme on YouTube and different photo- and discussion forums. Some examples:

A video combined with another meme; Chocolate Rain:

AYBABTU combined with the Philosoraptor, an advice animal meme:

The expression All your base are belong to us can indicate victory or an exclamation of superiority. It has also been used as a cheat code in many games like Empire Earth, Warcraft III and Quake III for instant victory or other goods.

Many of the animated All your base pictures were photoshopped. This was relatively new at the time, and it contributed to establish this tool as the main medium for memes.

Sources:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=all%20your%20base%20are%20belong%20to%20us
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us
http://www.flixxy.com/internet-meme-all-your-base.htm

Kim Jong-Un Looking at Things by Jaeyoung Lee

The popularity of “Kim Jong Un looking at thing” meme originated from Kim Jong Il’s version of “Looking at things/stuff”. People’s interest and perception of dictatorship towards to North Korea were always strong that North Korea is the one and only existing communism country since the unification of Germany in 1990. Considering the recent death of Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un’s appearance as successor became important issue not only within the North Korean society but also as global world.

I was able to find many videos and photos of Kim Jong Un Looking at things on the internet. I have strong idea that this “meme” became so popular that not just because people’s general interests and overall curiosities about Kim Jong Un (North Korea) but also it represents the media maker’s intension to show off Kim Jong Un’s political engagement to every aspects (education, military, science and technology) in North Korea as former successor of Kim Jong Il. Last but not least, not to be offensive towards to North Korea, in my opinion, Kim Jong Un’s (including Kim Jong Il and general North Korean governors) funny physical appearance such as sunglasses, chubby figure, and double-chinned face may be one of the other sub-reasons why this had become a famous meme.

The photos are mostly Kim Jong Un looking at something (object or person). Unlike Kim Jong Il’s meme, we can easily find Kim Jong Un’s smiley face when staring the things. The location of photo varies, however in most of photos, Kim Jong Un is usually accompanied by few of his henchman. As mentioned previously, the series of image connotes (implies) his active political movement in North Korea. Moreover, in most cases, Kim Jong Un is Looking at things while he is listening to explanation from his man which also suggests his authority and power as a leader. The images often released by North Korea media maker and its goal is to emphasize Kim Jong Un’s humanistic characteristics and his suitability as a new leader of North Korea.

According to “Google Insight” interest research, starting with Kim Jong Il’s version of meme, Kim Jong Un’s Looking at things began to gain its media attention since the November 2011. Public interest on this particular meme peaks in December, the month that former leader, Kim Jong Il passed away. And its interest did not last very long but gradually faded out.