Heh, I just couldn’t help but jump on the bandwagon for this one!
So this is just a testament for how easy viral ideas spread. The whole “I was X until I took an arrow to the knee” started off in Skyrim, when guard NPCs would just randomly spout off cookie cutter lines, this being one of them, to the point that it be came ridiculous and funny. Of course, like anything else on the internet, eventually it went viral, ruined the brains of many people, and is chanted in an almost cult-like fashion in every game, forum, vent, or whatever people use to communicate with now a days.
It’s interesting though, how the marketing community has latched on to this and use the hive mind of the internet against them. Just look at stuff like ” Nope, Chuck Testa” that was an engineered viral advertisement. While the results and actual ROI may be intangible, the effect and success of an artificial viral meme (which I shall now name here and forever more a “meme retro virus”) is beyond amazing. To put it another way, those evil marketing dudes basically duped the internet into accepting an advertisement as one of their own. It’s like a scientist trying to get in good with the gorillas by becoming one of their tribe… well, more like a parasite really. While however harmless and amusing this is anecdotically (it’s a word now), I think there are some real and serious implications to this. What I mean is, it’s attempting to not only advertise through a new channel, but socially engineer though it as well. Put another way, if you are able to spread ideas easily, like a virus, which were engineered for a specific purpose, then who knows how you can propagandize that message. While a just terrible terrible movie, Inception did get one thing right; the seed of an idea is the most destructive force of all. Ok, the movie wasn’t all that bad, but it had some real horrid moments… anyways, off track! My point to all of this is not some sort of foil hat message of fascist doom, rather a warning to all the users of the “interwebs” that their fun little games they like to play may be turned against them for unsavory and possible malicious reasons. Sure, “long cat is long” or “y u no man” may not cause the downfall of internet society, make you buy the latest sports drink, or turn you into anti-communist crusaders, but the fact remains that the internet as a communal entity is highly susceptible to influence that can spread with the ease and speed of a virus. So… um… just be careful out there! There’s no immunizations for memes just yet…
Oh! And also… HAPPY BELATED COFFIN COMICS 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! +9 days…
Example; averavge brony VS. cloppers
bronies b4 ponies! word!
Funny, I’ve written a thesis paper about it.. 100 pages of how ads can change you. The funny thing is it looks as if you’ve already read it ;P
Well, Gordon Freeman did get transported to eastern Europe in Half-Life 2, maybe he learned polsky there. XD
If so, I’d have even more respect for the guy (difficult as hell with literaly twenty ways of saying a numeral like ‘two’. You should try it sometimes)
great minds think alike!
but yeah, ads can be pretty evil… at their root, they are trying to socially engineer a response, that is, make your brain say “I want to buy this”. if the government did this with propaganda posters, they’d be in deep turd water, but for whatever reason, it’s ok for companies to do this.
I saw the title in my RSS and facepalmed before I even got here, haha.
As far as ads that go viral, I think that there is that level that goes all the way across stupid and reaches funny from the other side, but it’s kinda tricky to reach when that’s what you aim for.
On the other hand, I’m generally hard to sell to. I keep adblockers up, don’t watch a lot of tv, and when I do, I tend to check twitter, or chat with the people around me and pretty much block out ads. At worst, I get vague cravings for twix bars I never act on.
Some memes are good for breaking the ice or remembering old, or not so old, times, most are just for trolling, and I love trolling as long as I’m the one trolling.
Sorry for saying this, but twitter and interactive chat are not actually part of the TV.
I like the rage faces and advice animals; forever alone is currently my favorite because a few weeks ago some comic made me notice that after valentines day there would be a stock clear out of chocolate, yum…. cheap candy.
For people with those crazy apple tvs it can be :p
I meant, literally sitting on the couch with people watching a show, and when commercials interrupt it, I usually try to block them out by talking to the people on the couch with me (who knew face to face talking was interactive?) or if alone, I whip out my phone and read twitter or something or play solitaire when I run out of things to read until the show I was watching comes back. I am aware non of this was duct-taped to my television, because it would make the screen hard to see. When I really want to watch this one show/movie and commercials come on, I stop looking at the tv.
TL;DR I watch television infrequently, but when I do I make a point of ignoring the commercials because they annoy me.
Hopefully the thing I typed at 2am when I was exhausted is now upgraded with 100% more clarity (although I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about advertisements the whole way through past the first sentence).
ya know, I saw a commercial for some new tv that not only connects to the internet, but can also run apps! so you can play angry birds on the big screen! sigh… what next? playing angry birds on your ti83 calculator?
“…or turn you into anti-communist crusaders…”
Oh how I wish we had something that could do that over the internet….
I wanna be a crusader, and burn everiything on the pyre, yay! fire!
(Did I mention I’m insane?).
lol, something tells me I should keep you both away from matches…
Aquilles, hahahahaha.
If I had comed up with that joke I would be envied by everybody, grrrr. I WOULD HAVE BEENASKED FOR AUTHOGRAPHS!! GRAAH!!! Why didn’td I come up with that!??!!?
oh, well, Shawn, can you give me your authograph?
Why is Aquilles using, ehem, so much chest armor? To match the skirt?
heh, well maybe when I do the next round of conventions I’ll be in your home town! >D
I based his outfit on some painting (it’s one the ones on the wiki page)… but uh… I kinda made his skirt thing a bit longer…
It could… But someone will notice, and the internet does not appreciate being taken advantage of. :P
heh, seems like something that anonymous group would retaliate to.
In real life, the internet takes advantage of YOU!
In most cases of memes, the actual meaning is filtered out and what remains is the absurd. Nothing harmful about a random absurd phrase in my book.
I really like watching the “know your meme” series to learn the etymology and origins of the different things… pretty interesting stuff about how crazy things get out of control.