Memes. According to the first entry on urbandictionary.com (the front runner of all things legitimate) a meme is considered "an idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behavior that spreads throughout a culture...by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)." Because I'm a giant nerd and I work with giant nerds, I'm here to introduce you to some of these more Internet-based cultural phenomenons and help spread geekdom through the Interwebs. If you've found yourself running into a meme on several occasions but are too lazy to simply look up where it came from, send me an e-mail and I'll feature YOUR meme in my next post.
I'm starting off my first meme article with one of my most favorite of all memes. In order to give full credit for the existence of this amazing rumor, we have to go back to the Bob Saget roast in August of 2008 when Gilbert Godfried made a fighting comeback as a "funny person" by insisting time and time again that though there's a rumor rolling around (there wasn't) that Saget was a rapist and murderer (I guess he might be) it's entirely untrue and the rumors should be squashed (and they were, and given to Glenn Beck) immediately. It seemed as though Godfried's comic genius was going to continue unrecognized and un-meme'd by our fellow Internet brethren, until it was picked up and given a spin in a discussion thread on fark.com. For those of you new to the Internet, Fark is a website compiled of strange, funny, political, television-related, geek-centered, or just crazy, odd news headlines, linking to the original article, and then is discussed in the many forums by devoted Farkers.
So, someone added a little pizazz to Godfried's original joke, and it took off, the way only future memes can. Soon, people everywhere demanded Beck to admit or deny his rape and murder trends of 1990.
I think the most amazing part of this meme is the degree to which it got to Glenn Beck. Shortly after the Fark explosion, a website was created called www.didglennbeckrapeandmurderayounggirlin1990.com. Within days, Beck had hired a pack of lawyers to tear this website to pieces and have it removed from the web forever. In October of 2009, Beck lost his case and the website remains to this day to be viewed by people who can still giggle over the liklihood that Glenn Beck Raped and Murdered a Young Girl in 1990.
**For a deeper look into this meme (and an uncited but very helpful source for this article) visit www.knowyourmeme.com. But please don't surf around on there too much or I won't have anything to write about next time.**
Reading the word 'meme' repeatedly in this article is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm open to synonyms, but I don't believe they've been created yet.
ReplyDeleteIt's not really a criticism against this article, just one of society in general.
ReplyDeleteI want the other one I mentioned!!!! But yes, he did do this.
ReplyDeletei just watched that gottfried video on knowyourmeme. his best work since problem child! i can't believe i had never heard of the word "meme" before this. i definitely feel 45-years-old.
ReplyDeleteMaddie, you're too busy eating kosher bagels in Time Square to worry about memes.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, Maddie, I'm here to bring you everything you've desperately ignored. I decided if it got to me, it may as well get to all OYIT.
ReplyDeleteYou start out pretty advanced in the cannon of internet meme for us over 45 year olds. But the more we know about Glenn Beck raping and murdering a young girl in 1990 the better.
ReplyDelete