Row Row Fight the Powah (2008)

Origin

The “Row Row Fight The Powah” catchphrase is the altered line of the “Raw Raw Fight The Power” lyric and can be initially found in three differents songs, all from the same anime: Tengen toppa Gurren Lagann.

- “Libera Me” From Hell, see the video above, which is the original song.
- 2 versions of the anime soundtrack called “Rap wa Kan no Tamashii da! Muri wo Toushite Douri wo Kettobasu! Ore Tachi dai Gurren Dan no Theme wo Mimi no Ana Kappo Jitte yo”

First one here:

Second one there (IWASAKI TAROU REMIX):

Here are the catchy lyrics:

DO THE IMPOSSIBLE
SEE THE INVISIBLE
ROW! ROW!
FIGHT THE POWER!

TOUCH THE UNTOUCHABLE
BREAK THE UNBREAKABLE
ROW! ROW!
FIGHT THE POWER!

First sight of jokes on the lyrics

Even if the meme in itself was launched during the context exposed below, jokes about the lyrics were already on 4chan’s /a/ board in september 2007, so right from the start of the anime release in the US, as this archive shows:

[ Caution: 4chanarchive, NSFW content ahead ]

http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=6111155&inline_imaeg=1

Context of meme

The followings informations come mainly from Encyclopedia Dramatica.
I’ll sum it up as worthwhile as I can.

On september 10th, 2008, it was the day that the Large Hadron Collider was to be fired up.
As a result, Moot, beloved (ahem) 4chan creator, décided to make fun of all the fear surrounding media, about the possibility for the LHC to generate small black holes that could end all life on earth.

He renamed the board Positron Uprising with a direct link to the single service website http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/ and he word-filtered everything that could be written on /b/ by “Row Row Fight the Powah” while the Iwasaki Tarou remix version of the music from The Tengen toppa Gurren Lagann series was playing endlessly in the background.

A large picture example of what resulted is available here

Moreover, a website named http://www.rowrowfightthepowah.com/ was even created and was used to redirect to some obscure forums but it eventually went down.

Here’s an archive example of what happened:

[ Caution: 4chanarchive, NSFW content ahead ]

http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=84597946&x=ROW+ROW+FIGHT+THE+POWAH

Consequences and Evolution

This “meme” wasn’t really welcome by /b/tards. The constant stream of the same catchphrase eventually broke down /b/ and /b/tards spread to all the others 4chan boards. Needless to say, it became… nasty.
But, in the meantime, it allowed variations to follow and spread too.
The first one was the /v/ retaliation or V-rage:

An awesomely funny webcomic was made by an anonymous, soon followed by flash animations depicting the civil war that occured between the /v/ board and /b/.
The webcomic is available there: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Rage

Then, it combined itself with other memes such as demotivational:

Or Boxxy:

Even Girugamesh:

Behold, the remix of the remix !
http://static.4chan.org/flash/b/redux.mp3

The meme also reached YTMND the same day it took off from 4chan, although it didn’t gather as much views:

• http://rowrowfightthepower.ytmnd.com/

• http://rowrowfightthepowah.ytmnd.com/

Going Mainstream

January 2009, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph held an online competition to design the new Union Jack for their flag, after a controversy about the Welsh Dragon requested into the design. Partyvan.info was the winner, presenting a flaming skull with Gurren Lagann sunglasses logo. It was also entitled: “It’s about doing the impossible and fighting the power.”

Britain flag poll

Today’s Evolution

Recently, a new trend involving the “Row row fight the powah” line started appearing on internet and consisted in adding the Kamina’s sunglasses (Kamina is the main character’s “big brother” in the series) in drawn pictures or altered photographs:

All these images are titled with the “Row row fight the powah” catchphrase.