The Internet Yes-And's Absurdity
Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 9:45 pmAbout 2:45 PM yesterday, a new meme was born on the web, 'When Obama Wins...'. In it, people make up silly statements of what might happen when Obama wins. The first few good ones were as follows:
When Obama Wins is darn near to the meme, Barack Obama is your New Bicycle and its sister, Hillary Clinton is your New Bicycle (which has an entertaining new twist as of late, check it out). This kind of optimism spawned other cross-bred memes like the ObamaRoll and YesWeCanHas. Its like the Internet culture is Yes-And'ing itself. Like when LOLCats spawned a million other memes such as OmNomNomNomNom.com and I Has A Bucket But I can't help but keep thinking this has something to do with Ninjas.
Ninjas are the Real Ultimate Power. As per fictional character Robert Hamburger in March of 2002,
I'm not the first person to ask questions like these, Nick Douglas discussed this idea back in January when he looked into the history of many memes. Most of the ones you and I know are references to previous inside jokes, much like how When Obama Wins started, just popularized. Essentially, an inside joke the whole world can share in.
But the more important lesson from The Real Ultimate Power is contained in its own site. It contains a self-referencing parody which replaces all "Ninja" references with "Hippos", by effectively showing how merely changing subject on a carefully planned but apparently nonsense page can actually be equally funny and more adequate for more than one subject. The lesson here is that ninjas aren't funny. Chuck Norris isn't funny. The absurd structure is just as funny (if not funnier) than the content.
The big question I want to ask is this: Is the Internet essentially the world's biggest freeze game? And its title is "Absurd Characterization"? Somebody lays out a premise, THE WORLD responds with their absurdity-painting one liner. Everybody laughs. Callbacks are made. Ideas are combined. And eventually, a new freeze game (meme) replaces it.
Either that, or the Internet is the world's biggest inside joke.
Throw-away meme links I believe are relevant to the discussion, but didn't fit in my diatribe:
http://yourethemannowdog.com/
http://www.timecube.com/
Through the magic of Twitter, by 5PM today, Buzzfeed.com had caught on enough to deem this an official meme. This has got to be a record on speed, and Twitter is most certainly the technology that made it possible (and the technology that spawned it via a typo).When Obama wins... unicorns will crap ice cream and pastries
When Obama wins... Best Buy will have Wiis in stock.
When Obama wins... we will all receive jetpacks.
When Obama wins... the cylons lose.
When Obama wins, your drunken MySpace photos will disappear.
When Obama Wins is darn near to the meme, Barack Obama is your New Bicycle and its sister, Hillary Clinton is your New Bicycle (which has an entertaining new twist as of late, check it out). This kind of optimism spawned other cross-bred memes like the ObamaRoll and YesWeCanHas. Its like the Internet culture is Yes-And'ing itself. Like when LOLCats spawned a million other memes such as OmNomNomNomNom.com and I Has A Bucket But I can't help but keep thinking this has something to do with Ninjas.
Ninjas are the Real Ultimate Power. As per fictional character Robert Hamburger in March of 2002,
This site became one of the first viable Internet memes, primarially through the guide on How To Commit Seppuku with a Frisbee. This website started the whole joke about Pirates vs Ninjas. Which has spawned a whole line of Internet phenomena such as robots vs cowboys vs monkeys, Ask a Ninja, Chuck Norris Facts, and eventually The Ultimate Showdown. This kind of absurdism explosion is what paved the way for many other memes, including When Obama Wins.Ninjas can kill anyone they want! Ninjas cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this ninja who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the ninja killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a ninja totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.
I'm not the first person to ask questions like these, Nick Douglas discussed this idea back in January when he looked into the history of many memes. Most of the ones you and I know are references to previous inside jokes, much like how When Obama Wins started, just popularized. Essentially, an inside joke the whole world can share in.
But the more important lesson from The Real Ultimate Power is contained in its own site. It contains a self-referencing parody which replaces all "Ninja" references with "Hippos", by effectively showing how merely changing subject on a carefully planned but apparently nonsense page can actually be equally funny and more adequate for more than one subject. The lesson here is that ninjas aren't funny. Chuck Norris isn't funny. The absurd structure is just as funny (if not funnier) than the content.
The big question I want to ask is this: Is the Internet essentially the world's biggest freeze game? And its title is "Absurd Characterization"? Somebody lays out a premise, THE WORLD responds with their absurdity-painting one liner. Everybody laughs. Callbacks are made. Ideas are combined. And eventually, a new freeze game (meme) replaces it.
Either that, or the Internet is the world's biggest inside joke.
Throw-away meme links I believe are relevant to the discussion, but didn't fit in my diatribe:
http://yourethemannowdog.com/
http://www.timecube.com/