Rule 34

About

Rule 34 is an internet adage in the "Rules of the Internet" list of protocols and conventions which asserts that "if something exists, there is porn of it." The concept is often playfully illustrated in fan art and fanfictions in which fictional TV and cartoon characters engage in sexual behavior, in a similar vein to Ruined Childhood memes.

Origin

According to the Lurkmore Wiki,^[3] Rule 34 originated from a comic posted on the website Zoom-Out,^[4] which was cached by Google as early as October 5th, 2004. In May of 2009, Something Awful^[5] user Electric Eggs posted a thread titled “Ask me about inventing Rule 34”, in which he claimed to have created the comic with his sister after learning the adage in an IRC chatroom.

Spread

On March 30th, 2006, the first Urban Dictionary^[6] definition for "Rule 34" was submitted by user Nukeitall, who claimed the adage was commonly used on a variety of message boards. On October 12th, the rule was included in the original "Rules of the Internet" list submitted to the Internet culture wiki Encyclopedia Dramatica. Rule 35 was created as an addendum to the rule, which clarified that if porn on a subject did not currently exist, it would be created.^[2]

Rule 34: There is porn of it, no exceptions.
Rule 35: If no porn is found at the moment, it will be made.

In May of 2007, the Rule 34 database was launched on Paheal.net^[1] with a searchable archive of Rule 34 images. On August 20th, the webcomic Xkcd published at comic titled “Rule 34”, which illustrated a hypothetical sexual scenario involving a woman and a guitar.

On February 17th, 2008, an anonymous 4chan^[10] user started a thread on the /b/ board titled "Rule 34 thread", which accumulated over 365 responses prior to being archived. On August 24th, 2009, the Internet humor site Holy Taco^[9] published a post titled "25 SFW Rule 34 Images", which featured several notable demotivational posters of the rule.

On October 23rd, 2009, The Telegraph^[7] published an article titled "Internet Rules and Laws: The Top 10, From Godwin to Poe", which mentioned Rule 34's prevalence in online fanfiction. On August 6th, 2010, a TV Tropes^[8] page for the rule was created, which compared it to the tropes "Brain Bleach", "Sexy Whatever Outfit", "Freud Was Right" and "Fetish Fuel." As of June 15th, 2012, a Facebook^[11] page for "Rule 34" has accumulated over 6,400 likes.

Drypiss' 18th Birthday

On November 14th, 2018, streamer @drypiss posted a video to Twitter in which he celebrated turning eighteen, the legal age to consume pornography, by looking up Rule 34 pictures.^[12] The video, which is NSFW, gained over 2,600 retweets and 9,200 likes (shown below).

The video struck viewers as wholesome, as they remembered their excitement at being able to watch porn legally. These responses were covered by The Daily Dot.^[13]

Rule 63

An expanded edition of the Rules of the Internet included Rule 63, which asserted that for every character, there is an opposite-sex version of that character. The rule often manifests itself in a similar fashion to Rule 34, with fan art depicting the gender-swapped characters engaging in sexual behavior.

Related Memes

Mistakes Into Miracles

Mistakes Into Miracles refers to a notable Rule 34 meme trend sparked by a DeviantArt post^[16] made on November 22nd, 2008, by user spongygirl92. The image (shown below) depicts SpongeBob Squarepants and a pregnant Sandy Cheeks walking together with the caption, "Mistakes into Miracles," written above them.

The concept of the two SpongeBob characters' forbidden love started being remixed into videos and other image macros that involved different, odd-couple cartoon character romances, expecting their own offspring in separate, Rule 34 universes. One notable example is of Shrek and Sonic.^[17] A notable video example was uploaded to YouTube^[18] on June 10th, 2010 (shown below), and it has received roughly 286,200 views as of December 2021.

Who's Getting the Best Head?

On August 10th, 2008, a notable Rule 34 image, which would later become the Who's Getting the Best Head? meme template, was posted to the Rule 34^[14] website by user the_Godfather. The NSFW image (shown below) depicts Alvin and the Chipmunks receiving oral sex from the Chipettes on a couch.

The image was later used in an image macro that captioned it, "Who's Getting The Best Head?" with the chipmunks labeled one through three. The meme can be accessed through a Reddit^[15] post to r/ComedyCemetary from October 2018 (shown below).

Ankha Zone

Ankha Zone is another notable Rule 34 meme created first seen online on January 28th, 2021 via a now-deleted tweet.^[19] The meme revolves around a video/GIF that was included within this tweet of Animal Crossing character Ankha having sexual relations with a Villager. A video of it was uploaded to YouTube^[20] on February 2nd, 2021, by YouTuber Brad R. Lee. The video (shown below) received roughly 7.7 million views over the course of ten months.

Ankha Zone, starting notably in September 2021, became a trending meme across platforms, like on TikTok. For instance, on September 12th, 2021, TikToker^[21] like @justjoshy18 posted a video (shown below) that received roughly 7.4 million plays over three months' time.

Inspired by Ankha Zone, a new trend called That Cat Is Not Dancing started with a YouTube video posted on September 18th, 2021, by YouTuber^[22] Memotic. The video amassed 3 million views and 163,000 likes over three months.

Aunt Cass Checks Your Browser History

Another notable rule 34 meme was also created in late 2021 called Aunt Cass Checks Your Browser History which is a larger variant of the original Busty Aunt Cass trend. Aunt Cass is a character from the Pixar film Big Hero 6 who was remixed into a video posted on September 26th, 2021, by an animator on Newgrounds^[23] called Redmoa.

The video gained more attention after Redmoa posted it to his Twitter,^[24] where it gained over 48,000 likes and 8,500 retweets in two months. However, the tweet has since been deleted. Regardless, users began remixing the video on YouTube, making meme edits. For instance, YouTuber Arcade Assassin posted a video (shown below) on November 12th, 2021, that added in the Bonk sound and meme at the end of it. The video gained roughly 422,700 views over two months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

According to Google Insights, "rule 34" is the most searched set of keywords from the Rules of the Internet.

External References