Meme Research

30,902 total conversations in 4,546 threads

A meme research breakthrough.

Last posted Dec 16, 2009 at 12:59PM EST. Added Dec 14, 2009 at 09:50PM EST
38 posts from 15 users

Today I discovered something that I had missed over and over before. It's the lynch-pin to a HUGE amount of memes that have missing, uncertain, or just plain wrong origins.

I can't believe I've actually gone this long without having found it until today. The appropriate amount of facepalm here would be considered a self-inflicted concussion.

But I'm not giving it away just yet.

First, can you name where all of the following memes have been sighted in 2003, the year BEFORE 4chan?

Fapping
Kthxbye
Noes
Bunchie
Varg (of the band Mayhem, used as an unofficial mascot)
pwned
ROFL (also as a pic of waffles)
Goatse, Tubgirl, and Lemon Party
"Photochop"
Domo-Kun
Cliche Kitty (the kitties often spotted with Domo)
Kittah
Yiff
Zombie Jesus

Ytmnd?

GIF?

Fark?
Something Awful?
Facepunch?

Those were famous pre-4chan sites.

A lot of memes started on Something Awful.

the suspense is …..murder

I do believe the answer is Fark or Something Awful.

Never heard of Fark.

Oh, yeah, pwned started when a little kid misspelled Owned on Warcraft 3!

Three more hints

#1. I'm referring to only one incarnation of this forum, but it has existed on at least three different websites between 1997 to today. All three of them currently exist separately, but all go by the same name.

#2. SomethingAwful and this forum had a bit of a rivalry in 2003.

#3. I'm going to paraphrase one of the UrbanDictionary entries so that it basically says the same thing: "Only here do people look at a picture of a nude woman, and begin talking about Pokemon."

Newgrounds?
Albino Black Sheep? no…

1) DOmo is from Japan. 2chan…
2) Kthxbai is from Yu gi oh abridged
3) Noes? 4ch/a/n, maybe
4) Bunchie… uhhh
5) Varg… okei never heard of it
6) pwned is just a mispell of owned as p is just right beside o, but where exactly they got that, i dunno
7) ROFL (rolling on the Floor Lauging…) this is one of the older chatspeak
8) Goatse, there's this Awful Guy who went to Something Awful and posted that Awful pic…
Lemon Party is a site for… homo… I'm not sure with tubgirl, but I bet it's from Something Awful
9) Fapping? I am twelve, what is this?
10) Cliche Kitty, prolly started with 2chan too
11) Kittah Caturday?
12) Yiff… a badly mispronounced sound of woof? I'm kinda sure that's what 4chan /b/tards call those furries
13) Zombie Jesus… I dunno, maybe a variation of Lol Jesus?

Is it 2chan/2channel?

@Bunny, I said "passed through" not necessarily originated. These are all just some of the in-jokes that they felt were appropriate to mention in their FAQ. Most of these memes that I've mentioned are things that eventually became 4chan memes, but were important to this forum prior.

The forum I've been talking about has only been mentioned once in the entire MemeDB so far, and that was just today. It has only been mentioned on ED 7 times.

Feel free to continue guessing. I've been gathering materials for a new parent entry that a few of these will be filed under.

I'm honestly kind of surprised that nobody has the answer. I feel like there have been hints about this all over the site and I only put it together now.

You mentioned the Bunchie, and you also mentioned it has been only written once here, today… is it eatpoo?

well with your intellect compared to ours it will take us over nine thouasand years to figure it out

Oh, wait, it's genmay, isn't it?

yay!!!!~!2w

i wanna know Chris!!!!!!

Chris is talking about genmay.com (sorry to spoiler)

oooooooooooooohhhhhh. whats that?

I already wrote that, Tomberry.

bawww I lost. lol.

i lost the game

Yes it is! Genmay or General Mayhem.

And whether Emeralds5hey is aware of it or not, I think he helped to steer my attention over to Genmay. (There is no spoon.)

I'll admit total ignorance of Genmay before today, but when I found it, it was like the key that linked together so much. When I was in high school (spring '99 – winter '03), I casually browsed Something Awful, Newgrounds, albinoblacksheep, occasionally Stileproject, and some ebaumsworld. Enough to see All Your Base happen all over the place.
But I had never been to Genmay. I may have stumbled across the General Mayhem section of Stile Project once or twice, but I don't think their's started until 04.

Basically, HardOCP was started in 1997.
I'm not sure when exactly Hardforums began. But their General Discussion board was called General Mayhem. In 2002 (either due to bandwidth costs, people getting out of hand, or both) Hardforums closed down General Mayhem. The users themselves created Genmay.com, the new (at the home) time of General Mayhem.
A ton of memes made their way through Genmay, and plenty were born there. "The Internet is Serious Business" originated there. But then to find out that Fapping, kthxbai, noes, pwned, ROFL (waffle) and more all had been big parts of their community prior to 4chan, that was kind of mindblowing. A lot of the jokes were common between them and SomethingAwful, but today many things that we assume are 4chan memes (ie: just part of Caturday) began much prior.

I'm going to be working on a General Mayhem parent entry tomorrow.
So, I'll leave you with this thread that changed my whole perspective:
http://www.genmay.com/showthread.php?t=118675

Also, if anybody here knows a thing or two about genmay, let's hear it. As a genmay noob I could use the help.

they made a slingshot with condoms and a broom

Lolwut?

4chan would have stolen many memes' credits then ?

For some reason, this makes me so… happy.

So 4chan isn't the mother of all memes? I'm so happy I could cry!

It's not that 4chan stole anything. It's that everybody's a noob relative to some other point. This is where a lot of the first memes to hit 4chan (and contribute to what we know as 4chan's culture) came from.

4chan was hardwired for something like Caturday to develop from the beginning. "Kittah" pronounced as Eric Cartman pronounces it, was the "official animal of Genmay" in the Genmay FAQ.

Noes, Yiff, Fap, kthxbye. The fact that all of these were common Genmay-speak, at a time that I hadn't been seeing them used on [edit: Something Awful] is huge. Fap appears on genmay before it appears on SA. I haven't gotten to the rest yet.

Considering HackerOnHacker's love for Varg, and the fact that he was the unofficial mascot of the forums, I wonder if she's familiar with genmay.

Anyway, this is going to fill in a LOT of missing pieces.

4chan is still where memes echo the loudest and mutate the quickest.
4chan is still unique for the sake that the threads expire so quickly. If you post something that no one responds to within 15 minutes, your thread 404's. It must be bumped to survive, so your post must be attention-grabbing if it's going to last very long at all.

The speed, the temporariness, and the anonymity of it all are really what 4chan is all about. And I think that those things have been large factors in why some old memes have proliferated and mutated, while other memes like "10k desk" was an in-joke only relevent to Genmay, and it didn't survive on 4chan.