About: Forced Meme.

Cracked.com's Craptions is a daily photo caption contest. On July 28th, 2006, Cracked user Gonz submitted a photo of a polar bear gnawing on the corner of a block of ice containing apples.

• Cracked Craption: Polar Bear

A number of different captions were submitted, and for a while, "STAY CALM, I'M GOING FOR HELP!" was in the lead.

Then, a random Anonymous registered for a new account under the name wtf just to submit the caption "how does a polar bear know what apples is??"

According to ED, the random Anon then spammed 4chan with the image and caption, adding "im gonna post this everyday till you like this."

Soon after, the caption "how does a polar bear know what apples is??" rose to the top-voted spot on the list. Although it has not been clearly documented, it is likely that the caption rose to popularity due to the image being forced on 4chan.

When users of Cracked's "Pointless Waste of Time" forum found out that their photo captioning contest had been coopted by Anonymous, the were outraged.

• PWOT thread discussing their dismay at seeng a Craption co-opted by 4chan.

Spread

The "How does a bear know what apples is??" meme has since popped up in other forums.

• Harmony Central
• Ultimate Guitar
• GameFaqs

Google Insights

Photo Origin

The original image is an Associated Press photo of a Polar Bear named Ghogo in Osaka Japan, which appeared on the CBBC children's news website.

• CBBC photojournal "Summer Heatwave" July 19th, 2006.