Monthly Review: October 2012

Monthly Review: October 2012

U.S. Presidential Debate Memes

The 2012 U.S. Presidential Debates saw several notable "meme" moments latched on to by viewers online. Mitt Romney's statements about cutting funding to the Public Broadcasting Service during the first debate spawned the Mitt Romney Hates Big Bird meme. Joe Biden's constant laughter during his vice presidential debate against Paul Ryan inspired Laughing Joe Biden image macros and a Twitter account. An intimidating photograph of Mitt Romney's son Josh taken during the second presidential debate became the subject of the Menacing Josh Romney image macro series. Finally, Obama's "Horses and Bayonets" comeback to Mitt Romney's military criticisms ignited a slew of Tumblr blogs, Twitter feeds and image macros.

PETA’s Pokemon Black & Blue

Pokémon Black and Blue is a Pokémon parody videogame released by the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in order to protest animal cruelty. The playable flash game pitted the pocket monsters against well-known humans found in the game with non-violent offensive moves such as "Group Hug" and "Educate." Within hours of its release, several Facebook groups and Reddit threads were made in protest, however Tumblr came through with fan art illustrations of the PETA versions of the Pokemon characters.

2012 Hurricane Sandy

After Hurricane Sandy made landfall on the east coast of the United States on October 29th, the internet came together sharing both parodies of the storm and ways to help those harmed by it. Google's Crisis Response Team composed a map to help track evacuation alerts and government agencies provided real-time updates via specialized Twitter accounts. Several newscasts went viral, as did photoshopped images and tweets with fabricated rumors about the damage around New York City.

Go Home, You're Drunk

Go Home, You Are Drunk is an expression used to point out someone else’s failure or misplaced objects, similar to other well-known dismissive statements like You’re Doing It Wrong and Buzzkilling. The phrase is typically featured in image macros in which the subject is performing a task incorrectly or found in an out-of-place position.

Weird Twitter

Weird Twitter refers to a loosely connected group of Twitter users who are known to experiment with spelling, punctuation and format for humor or poetry. The style of writing can be considered surrealist by participants in the group, with subject matter ranging from creating absurd scenarios to attempting to describe abstract feelings by choosing words for their “verbal aesthetic appeal.” However, many of the accounts are grouped together by the same desire to reinterpret the “realness” of life in ways people do not always get to experience.