NEDM (2005)

Background

In July 2005, a video of a cat being burned alive was uploaded to the forum site ogrish.org, evoking strong reactions from other forum users as well as the administrators. Following an official investigation led by the site, the Belgian teenager who uploaded the video was eventually arrested and the man who actually commited the crime eventually turned himself in.

Shortly thereafter, a YTMND site was created out of the video featuring music from the PC game DOOM.

YTMND user Titanium-Gecko was outraged to find that some users had given the site 5 stars. He then proceeded to under-rate any sites created by users that had done so. Included was user Spotz, who explained that he had 5 starred the video only because he thought the use of DOOM music was ironic, not because he condoned the burning of kittens.

The response by Gecko: "Okay Spotz. Since you do not “condone” burning kitten your sites have been 3’D until further notice. Still… nothing justifies 5’ing burning kittens. Not even Doom music."

And thus the iconic catch-phrase was born. NEDM, as stated above, basically means that NOTHING justifies animal cruelty (though specifically cats). It is an acronym for “Not Even Doom Music”, relating to the aforementioned story. NEDM (not even Doom music) was then posted as a comment on many other sites, something started by user moheevi. It spread, and soon, the meaning was lost.

Happycat

Happycat, as the cat is commonly known, is usually associated with lolcats, as it was one of the first to be captioned with “I can has cheezburger?”

The cat in question seems to be the mascot of the Happy Cat Pet Food Company in Russia, which seems to be agreed upon by YTMND users.

The Meme

The face of happycat (as shown above) is usually accompanied by the song “We Interupt This Program” by Coburn, which was taken from a previous Rave-related YTMND site. The song usually has NEDM said by a text-to-speech program edited in for whatever reason.

Another popular additive is a comment about chapstick in photoshopped images, which comes from this image (supposedly a cat that was rescued from an air vent):

Another trait of the meme is to create a logo of NEDM based off of the original DOOM logo, as shown by this YouTube video:

Because of the confusion as to the true meaning of NEDM, some began using it in an unrelated context, usually by starting it within a video in which somebody says ‘anything’. As soon as ‘any’ is said, ‘DM’ immediately follows, as shown by this remix (which is also related to the recent “Bonk/Boink” youtube fad):

Other Videos/Remixes

Soviet Russia Reversal (Featuring Anakin from Star Wars Episode III):

You Are A Meme [NEDM]

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