My Favorite Internet Memes

Those weird catch-phrases and viral videos that are annoying yet alluring at the same time that become embedded in (geek) pop culture. They spread like uhh… a meme, and those of you who have spent any significant time on the internet will instantly recognize most of these. Here are my favorites in no particular order.

Badger Badger Badger

Also known as the “Badger song” or the “Badger dance,” the original meme is a looping flash animation by animator Jonti Picking, who went on to produce the show, Weebl and Bob. The animation became wildly popular after its release and has spawned numerous follow-ups, remixes, and parodies.

Here is the original cartoon here
This is SPARTAAAAA!!!

The marketing team for the movie, 300, must have known the gold they were given when this, now infamous line, fell into their laps. Almost from the moment the line and the accompanying scene were viewed in the movie’s trailer, photoshoppers and other “creative” minds released altered photos, animated GIFs, and parodies. Although the humor of this meme has dwindled significantly, it still makes me smile every time.

Since there isn’t any single image or video, type “this is Sparta” into google images for a look.

It’s OVER 9000!!!

Funimation’s first dub of the anime, Dragonball Z is famous for its overacting. YouTube user, Kajetokun made a point of it in his famous video showcasing the line several times in various styles and degrees of over-the-top randomness. Since the video’s release, “It’s OVER 9000!!!” has been spotted in almost every internet message board from many a wise cracking poster, and has spawned numerous parodies.

Kajetokun has gone on to make more memes in his familiar editing style, however none have come close to 9000’s popularity.

Here’s Kajetokun’s version here

Caramelldansen

Swedish for “Caramell dance,” Caramelldansen is the title for a Swedish techno song by music group, Caramell. The original Caramelldansen meme was a looping GIF animation of characters, Mai and Mii from the Japanese visual novel, Popotan, doing a dance swinging their hips with their hands above their heads, imitating rabbit ears, which featured the speedycake remix of the Caramelldansen song. Since its release, the original track of the song, has gone virtually unnoticed in favor of the speedycake remix, and many artists copied the dance animation and featured other characters from various anime or video games.

Many fans of the meme have mistakenly interpreted the dance seen in the animations to be the actual Caramell dance referenced in the song. However, they are completely unrelated.

The meme as well as the song, known collectively as the “uma uma dance” are very popular in Japan, particularly because parts of the song sound Japanese and are misheard as ridiculous words and phrases.

The original animation here

Super Smash Brothers Brawl version here

Desu

Commonly known as a mere Japanese copula or a word that links a subject and predicate in a sentence. But in the hands of the internet, desu is arguably one of the most annoying Internet memes out there. The meme originated because the character, Suiseiski from the anime, Rozen Maiden, would end every one of her sentences with the word. Fans of the show imitated her, and it wasn’t long before images, GIFs, and videos featuring desu prominiently spread throughout the internet.

My favorite desu video here

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Before the term “internet meme” no word or phrase could explain the popularity of All Your Base or AYB as it’s known today. The story behind this infamous phrase and the mega popular flash animation that followed starts with the Sega Genensis game, Zero Wing. Developed by Toaplan, Zero Wing’s introduction scene was translated from Japanese to English so badly that it instantly caught the attention of numerous video game-related message boards, resulting in mockery that took the form of photoshopped images, displaying the phrase in every imaginable place and a humorous voiceover. All these things came together in a flash cartoon which launched All Your Base into the American mainstream.

The original video took the internet by storm and is still one of the only internet memes to break through into the mainstream, garnering stories from Time magazine, Fox News, and the LA Times, as well as many others.

The video that started it all here

News story about AYB here