Best Internet Memes Of 2008
If you spend a lot of time on the Internet you will almost certainly have come across one of the memes that appeared this year. So as a round up of the years events I thought that I would do a list of the best memes of 2008.
But first, what is a meme? The term was created by biologist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins in 1976 to describe a unit of cultural information that acts like a gene. A good meme will start off as an idea, which people will send to their friends. This is then copied and changed into other themes, sometimes quite different form the starting point. It can remember the “all your base are belong to us” thing from a while back then you get the idea.
Has X happened yet?
As far as I know this started around September with the first run of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Someone bought a domain called www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com and put a page containing the word “No”. Presumably this would be updated as events unfolded, but this was really a dig at those people who thought that the LHC could ever destroy anything at all.
This has grown into all sorts of things, including whether it is christmas yet, whether it is 2009 yet or even if tables should be used for layout.
The Fail Blog
This meme involves adding the word “fail” to embarrassing, ironic, or compromising photos or short videos. The term can “epic fail” also be used when the photo is particularly embarrassing. I can’t mention fail without mentioning the Fail Blog (which can be found at failblog.org), which is a great place to find lots of examples of this meme. The oposite of “fail” is “win”, which can also be used as the term “epic win”.
Although I’m sure that this meme was around in 2007 it has really taken off this year. It even seems to have broken away from the internet and is now being used in everyday speech. Only the other day I was listening to a podcast and one of the speakers said the phrase “that was just an epic fail”.
Rickrolling
This is the practice of giving someone a seemingly legitimate link to a related resource, only for it to be a link to a Rick Astley song, typically Never Gonna Give You Up. I must admit that I have clicked on a link once or twice during 2008 and been presented with Rick Astley. Officially, this meme started out on 4chan in May of 2007, but it was not until 2008 that it appeared on the rest of the internet, and even on a news broadcast.
IT’S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAND!
This is a meme that was started by the anime Dragon Ball Z. Well, not really started but first appeared in. I think the credit for taking this phrase and creating the meme probably goes (again) to 4chan. The scene goes like this:
Nappa: “VEGETA! What does the scouter say about his power level?”
Vegeta: “IT’S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND!” *crushes scouter*
Nappa: WHAT NINE THOUSAND!?
This has been used on lots of other themes, including the USA stock exchange and even Oprah Winfrey.
Do you have a favourite meme from the past year? If so, then share it with us.
Philip Norton
Lead Developer, Research and Development
