Pirates vs. Ninjas
About
Pirates vs. Ninjas, is an online debate about which side would win in a hypothetical battle versus the other. There have been several single topic blogs, videos, and images inspired by the competition.
Origin
On April 17th, 2003, Robert Hamburger decided to parody the legendary characters on his website RealUltimatePower.[1] Hamburger's site is often credited as the origin of the 'Ninja vs. Pirate Meme'.
On RealUltimatePower, Hamburger would post "PumpUp Scripts" or ideas for Ninja movies, often fought against Pirates. The following is an excerpt from The Ultimate Battle script:
Dark smoke fills the scene and pump up music slowly gets louder. The audience sees a ninja and his girlfriend eating at a super expensive restaurant. The girlfriend is so hot that steam is coming out of her mouth or hair. Some old idiot is sitting by the couple. The idiot is giving the girlfriend "the eye" and popping like 16 boners. But the ninja sees the boners and the music really pumps up. The audience knows this guy is dead meat for sure. But out of nowhere, the old idiot pulls off his jacket to show that he is a pirate with lasers and everything. The ninja is like yeah right who cares and then pops the biggest boner ever, bigger than the biggest blackest boner alive. The ninja's boner smashes the entire restaurant. Every single one of the pirate's boners explodes while making a whistling sound. The ninja looks back at his girlfriend. She smiles and they pork.[2]
Spread
Since its not-so-humble beginnings, content on realutlimatepower.net was referenced by parody sites, and mainstream media such as video-games and anime. For example, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game released for Xbox Live Arcade has an achievement called "Real Ultimate Power".
Search
According to Google Insights, searches for pirates vs ninjas came after Real Ultimate Power in June 2005.
Atari Game
While "Real Ultimate Power" was one of the first places for Pirates and Ninjas to be discussed on the internet, it was not the first time Pirates and Ninjas have been depicted as enemies. In 1989 Atari produced the arcade game (later ported to home computers) Skull & Crossbones, which allowed the players to play as pirates fighting against ninjas.
CBS What's Trending Report
On May 17th, 2011, CBS What's Trending[3] released their first what's trending episode report that included an analysis on Pirates vs Ninjas online traffic animated by Column Five Media.[4] They found that pirates and ninja searches have remained relatively similar, with the exception of new Pirates of the Caribbean movie releases.
Videos
The Ninja vs. Pirate meme is practically omnipresent among online forums, so it comes as no surpise that there are a number of Ninja vs. Pirate videos on Youtube.
More videos can be found in the video gallery below.
External References
[2] RealUltimatePower – The Ultimate Battle
