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Milkshake Duck
Part of a series on Internet Slang. [View Related Entries]
Related Explainer: What Does 'Milkshake Duck' Mean? The Meme Explained
About
Milkshake Duck is an internet slang term referring to a representation of a viral internet star who is briefly adored by the public prior to the discovery of their distasteful or offensive past.
Origin
On June 12th, 2016, Twitter user @pixelatedboat[1] posted a tweet about the internet's love for "Milkshake Duck," followed by the revelation "we regret to inform you the duck is racist" (shown below). Within one year, the tweet gained over 22,700 likes and 9,600 retweets.
Spread
On January 9th, 2017, Tumblr user Pleated Jeans[3] highlighted @pixelatedboat's tweet in a listicle titled "15 Twitter Jokes Everyone Should Read."
On June 11th, Urban Dictionary user Disnaem created an entry for "Milkshake Duck," defining it as a person who rapidly becomes famous for something wholesome before they are "revealed as a deeply flawed character with terrible opinions and/or a shady past" (shown below).
The Last Night E3 2017 Reveal
At the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) on June 11th, 2017, the upcoming cyberpunk neo-noir game The Last Night was unveiled (shown below).
That evening, Twitter user @ponettplus tweeted that their excitement for the game had dissipated after discovering that the lead developer was previously a GamerGate supporter who noted he was working on a game that "takes place in a future where 'progressivism' has spiraled out of control" (shown below).
Meanwhile, Twitter user @Xythar tweeted a screenshot of user @9_volt88 reacting to the news about the game, noting "This is the fastest Milkshake Duck I've ever seen take place IRL" (shown below). Additionally, a post titled "'The Last Night'" (Milkshake Duck incarnate)" was created on NeoGAF.[4] Also that evening, GaintBomb senior editor Alex Navarro tweeted "we are now milkshake ducking at speeds heretofore unseen by man."[5]
Meanwhile, @pixelatedboat[6] thanked The Last Night developer for celebrating the tweet's one-year anniversary "in style" (shown below, left) followed by game developer Zoe Quinn tweeting that she was "100% for never letting it go when a developer participated in GamerGate" (shown below, right).[7]
In response, Soret tweeted that the game is not "against feminism or any form of equality" but that it did "challenge techno-social progress as a whole" (shown below).[8]
Word of the Year
On January 15th, 2018, the Australian dictionary Macquarie Dictionary announced that their Committee's Choice "Word of the Year" is Milkshake Duck. In a blog post,[9] they wrote:
"The Committee's Choice for the 2017 Word of the Year is milkshake duck. This is an absolute winner! Even if you don’t know the word, you know the phenomenon. Milkshake duck stood out as being a much needed term to describe something we are seeing more and more of, not just on the internet but now across all types of media. It plays to the simultaneous desire to bring someone down and the hope that they won’t be brought down. In many ways it captures what 2017 has been about. There is a hint of tall poppy syndrome in there, which we always thought was a uniquely Australian trait, but has been amplified through the internet and become universalised."
Several media outlets reported on the announcement, including Mashable,[11] BBC,[12] The Guardian,[13] The AV Club[14] and more.
In response to the announcement, @pixelatedboat tweeted, "I'm so sorry." The tweet[10] (shown below) received more than 1,500 retweets and 11,000 likes.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Twitter – @pixelatedboat
[2] Urban Dictionary – Milkshake Duck
[3] Pleated Jeans – 15 Twitter Jokes Everyone Should Read
[4] NeoGAF – The Last Night
[5] Twitter – @alex_navarro
[6] Twitter – @pixelatedboat
[7] Twitter – @UnburntWitch
[9] Macquarie Dictionary – The Committee's Choice for Word of the Year 2017 goes to…
[10] Twitter – @pixelatedboat's Tweet
[11] Mashable – 'Milkshake Duck' is the perfect word of the year for 2017
[12] BBC – Milkshake duck: The Australian word that went 'universal'
[13] The Guardian – Milkshake duck announced as Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year
[14] The AV Club – Dictionary declares "milkshake duck" its word of the year, thus ending the term's usefulness
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![Milkshake Duck The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! '5 seconds later" We regret to inform you the duck is racist Milkshake Duck is an Internet meme that describes phenomena that are initially perceived as positive, only to soon after be revealed as deeply flawed.2 The meme was started by Twitter user Ben Ward, an Australian cartoonist using the online handle "pixelatedboat" on June 12, 2016. The Twitter joke describes a fictional Internet viral phenomenon of a duck that drinks milkshakes, subsequently discovered to be racist. Ward described the Twitter message as "a pretty good joke summing up a recent trend" where popularity that comes via the Internet can be quickly washed away by discovering something troubling in a person's past. When asked in 2017, Ward was unsure what actually inspired him to make the joke, but recalls it was partially influenced by the Chewbacca Mask Lady viral phenomenon.[3][4] The term had some use prior to June 2017, in particular with Ken Bone during the 2016 United States Presidential debate, who was discovered to have a questionable Reddit history after his appearances.4 The term gained greater use in June 2017, as noted by the Oxford Dictionaries. The demonstration of the independently-developed video game The Last Night was a highlight of Microsoft's press conference during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 due to its stylish cyberpunk visuals. However, one of its creators, Tim Soret, had been found to have previously spoken in support of the Gamergate controversy in 2014, which led several to criticize his views a day later and tarnished the game's image. Though Soret apologized the next day and stated his views on Gamergate had since changed, the "milkshake duck" term was quickly applied to the game. Criticism over the game and the subsequent controversy over social media led to wider adoption of the term.35]](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/list/001/296/310/fcb.png "Wikipedia")
