The internet can be a very strange place sometimes. Internet Meme’s are definitely a conjuration of the internt age combined with traditional urban legend and folklore. While people once told stories around the campfire, now people spread these hoaxes and rumours through the internet via email, websites and message forums. Many times these pranks or hoaxes can sweep the internet like wildfire. The examples I’ll highlight here are probably two of the most widely spread internet memes that have sprung up in recent years. While internet memes can be amusing and fun, there is often a sadder side to the story.
From Wikipedia (which is an Internet Meme in it’s own)
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A typical Internet meme is simply a digital file that gets passed from one user to others using whatever formats and transmission means are readily available on the Internet (for example, email, blogs, social networks, instant messaging, and the like). Usually, what is passed is either the content itself or a link (such as a hyperlink) to where the content may be found. The content might be in text, video, image, or other format, and might consist a joke, a rumor, an amusing picture, a video clip, animation, or graphic, or an offbeat news story.
Many memes are urban rumors, fraud schemes, slander, or false news stories that are either planted deliberately to become a meme, evolve by mistake or rumor, or that jump from an offline source to the Internet. |
Many Internet Meme’s are quite amusing and can be considered the very core of Viral Marketing on the internet. However, many internet meme’s are tragic at the very core of their existence. Take for example the following two examples:
LooterGuy
The actual photo that has become the internet meme of LooterGuy is a picture of an African American male looting some Heineken after Hurricane Katrina. When or where the original photograph emerged is a mystery but LooterGuy has turned up in many a discussion forum and there is even a website devoted to photochopped images of him LooterGuy : An American Hurricane Hero. The tragedy of this meme is that some poor guy who was grabbing himself some free brews after surving one of the United States most significant natural disasters of the century probably doesn’t even know that he’s an unintentional internet celebrity. Hell, the poor guy probably doesn’t even own a computer or have access to the internet. The photo at the right is a parody of “LooterGuy” with San Francisco Giant’s slugger and home run king Barry Bonds. I must admit the LooterGuy site has some very creative photochops and amazingly it’s allegedly seen over 20 million hits. The creator of the site has even interviewed on the radio. Those two facts alone exhibit the power of internet meme’s to attract an unparallelled audience.
Brian Peppers
Brian Peppers has become another internet meme that is tragic by it’s very nature, yet the person is a real person, however the stories, urban legends and photochopped images of the real Brian Peppers have been circulating the internet for several years now. So much in fact, it seems new Brian Peppers images are turning up in the strangest of places. The real truth is that Brian Peppers is/was a patient in a nursing home who was allegedly charged with fondling a nurse and was put on trial in the state of Ohio for molestation. The urban legend grew and the story eventually turned into a hoax that he had been incarcerated for raping and murdering two teenage girls. Brian Peppers has become a favorite target of internet hoaxes, pranks and has become a source of viral marketing for bands, artists and general counterculture related websites. Although many of the pictures are pretty funny, the sad fact remains that this is a real person who is disabled and is definitely unaware of his celebrity status on the internet’s shadowy realms. Photochops of Brian Peppers have even turned up on the infamous Ebaum’s world website.
Here’s a few Brian Peppers pages:
While internet memes can be amusing and often time addicting, it is important to remember that more often than not there is a real person who is being made the butt end of a viral marketing joke. The real truth is that avoiding these memes is like trying to drive by an accident on the highway without looking.
That being said, here’s a few of my photochops….
Brian Peppers being awarded the Medal of Honor from George Bush
Brian Peppers Chilling with Prince Charles
Brian Peppers Replaces Joe Torre as NY Yankees Manager
(notice LooterGuy in the stands)
