Themed Avatar Months/Weeks

About:

Themed Avatar Months, originating from social gaming website Kongregate, is a participatory event only taking place on forums. The purpose is to get as many people as he possibly can to use a certain themed avatar for an entire month, which immediately created a goal of overpowering the previous avatar thread. While the original intention of this was meant to be nothing more than a light-hearted forum activity, many users have gotten quite serious over it. Ever since it's first appearance in August of 2007, this soon-to-be spread internet user-powered activity found itself with many variations.

Origin:

On August 1st, 2007, long-time Kongregate user and site moderator JudeMaverick started using Kongregate administrator Greg McClanahan's (greg's) well recognized 'G' avatar (From Kongregate's logo), mainly as a joke. Two days later, on August 3rd, 2007, JudeMaverick was told by Kongregate Co-Founder Emily Greer that August was, incidentally, the month that Greg became Kongregate's "Community Manager". Seeing this as special occasion, JudeMaverick created a thread titled August- Greg Month! as a means to celebrate the renown Kongregate administrator. There was even a game created for the occasion titled Let's Message Greg!, which managed to get over 12,000 plays. While the thread wasn't originally created with the intention of having users use greg's avatar, user Trojan made the suggestion as the thread's 25th post, and nearly everybody followed. With nearly 1,000 posts, the first, and very successful, Greg Avatar Month wasn't actually closed until September 1st, 2010.

First Kongregate Variation:

It wasn't until over a year later on September 9th, 2008, that user RetroTV (Along with Former Administrator damijin) created a thread titled Kong needs moar rainbows., thus resulting in Rainbow Avatar Month. While this was intended to be an avatar week, it quickly gained popularity and was extended to cover the entire span of September.

_{An assortment of Rainbow Avatars from an avatar request thread.}

Notable Kongregate Variations:

This trend picked up very quickly throughout late 2008 and 2009, and resulted in many other avatar months/weeks and variations. Even the original two avatar months were carried out year-to-year by a different each year user keeping the tradition alive. A full list of major avatar themed months and weeks can be found below:
Theme – Duration – Years it has occurred

• Greg – Month – 07 08 09 10
• Rainbow – Month – 08 09 10
• Boxxy – Month – 09 10
• Anime/Manga – Month – 09
• Circle – Week – 09
• Steal an Admin/Mod Avi – Week – 09
• Upside Down – Week – 09
• Blue and Red – Week – 09
• Mustache – Week – 09
• Fox and Wolf – Week – 09
• Top Gun – Week – 09
• Billy Mays – Week – 09
• Terry Kennedy – Week – 09
• Jindo – Week – 09
• Anti-Rainbow – Week – 10
• Banana – Week – 10
• Pokemon – Week – 10
• Be Yourself – Week – 10
• Doodle God – Week – 10

_{There's many other variations which either didn't make it past a few posts, or got deleted.}

On Other Sites:

• KnowYourMeme
• Jiggmin's Village
• Muse
• EvaGeeks
• Anivide
• Allan's Forum
• Truth and Beauty Bombs
• Incognito
• Mrs. Nesbit's