UNITIИU

About

UNITINU (also spelled UNITIИU) is a series of mirrored images in which each subject has been photoshopped to appear quite ridiculous in bilateral symmetry. Also see: Woll Smoth and Face Swapping.

Origin

The palindromic name UNITINU comes from the first instance of such mirrored images, which shows the former US state secretary Condoleezza Rice raising her hand at a UN Security Council meeting on August 11th, 2006.

The original photograph, taken by Getty Image photographer Stephen Chernin^[1], shows a strong and determined Miss Rice casting a vote on behalf of US government for the passage of UN Resolution 1701^[2]. As a result of mirroring, the name plate “United States” was turned into a palindromic word “UNITINU.”

Spread

The photoshopped image (henceforth known as UNITINU) first appeared on 4chan’s /b/ (random) board^[3] in late 2006 and spread to related imageboards like /v/ (videogame) board^[4]. Throughout 2007, the fad also caught on with other online art communities like DeviantArt^[5] and YTMND^[6], where dozens of such mirrored images were uploaded with the tag “UNITINU.”

On October 17th, 2007, a steam community group and a Team Fortress 2 server was set up under the domain Unitinu.net^[10]. The first Urban Dictionary^[7] entry for “UNITINU” was submitted in April 2008:

A meme from late 2006, UNITINU refers to “funny” mirrored images. The most notable of these images is a photo of Condoleeza Rice raising her arms and looking like an evil horde dictator, with the word UNITINU in front of her on the podium.

In addition, there are several Facebook pages and groups dedicated to the original UNITINU image, including “All Hail UNITINU”^[8] and “OBABO”^[9].

The Nation of Unitinu

Inspired by the strange mirrored image of Condoleeza Rice, many others began adding onto the mythology of UNITINU by photoshopping other political leaders and officials in the same manner.

h4 Search Interest

External References

^[1]LIFE Magazine – Stephen Chernin (Getty Images)

^[2] Wikipedia – UN Resolution 1701

^[3] 4chanarchive – /b/ search results for UNITINU

^[4] 4chanarchive – /v/ search results for UNITIИU

^[5] DeviantArt – UNITIИU

^[6]YTMND – Search Results for UNITINU

^[5] Urban Dictionary – UNITIИU

^[8] Facebook – All Hail UNITINU

^[9] Facebook – OBABO

^[10] Unitinu.net – UNITINU

^[11] Tumblr – Tagged Results for UNITINU