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List of Internet phenomena

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An Internet phenomenon (sometimes called an Internet meme) occurs when something relatively unknown becomes increasingly popular, often quite suddenly, through the mass propagation of media content made feasible by the Internet; however, the popularity of the phenomenon usually wanes as rapidly as it was acquired: the Internet's lack of physical boundaries leads to a much faster and wider spread of information and ideas, especially when the subject is based around humor or curiosity. It is nearly impossible to accurately measure the depth of a phenomenon's popularity, and different groups of Internet users may participate in spreading the phenomenon more than others. Some people point to these sort of Internet phenomena as good examples of memes, or neta. In William Ford Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition an interesting kind of Internet phenomenon—"the footage"—plays an important role.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Internet phenomena include:

People

  • Henry Earl - Famous for his repeated incarcerations for public drunkenness and mug shot photos.
  • Ellen Feiss - A teenage girl featured in an Apple Computer advertisement, whose slurred speech and disoriented eyes provoked speculation that she was under the influence of illicit drugs
  • Elena Filatova - under the nickname KiddOfSpeed posted photographs of her alleged motorcycle trips in the area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
  • William Hung - A Chinese college student at UC Berkeley who auditioned for the 2004 series of American Idol and had already been laughed at on TV rose to even more fame through the Internet with his audition getting more widespread exposure as well as remix
  • Andy Milonakis - A man in his late 20s with the appearance and voice of a 14 year old boy via a growth hormone defect, who rose to fame after releasing home webcam recordings of freestyle raps, silly and funny videos, and short films (such as the "Crispy New Freestyle" and "The Superbowl Is Gay") on the Internet. He even has his own MTV show now.
  • Marguerite Perrin - a woman on the FOX program Trading Spouses whose obesity, maniacal rantings about gargoyles and psychics, and proclamations of religious superiority quickly made her an overnight punchline.
  • Jennifer Ringley - Created the website, Jennicam, in which people could watch her via webcam and had her own internet program, "The Jenni Show".
  • Whatevia Santiago - The given name to American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson's cousin by members of the Survivor Sucks internet forum. "Whatevia" is noted for refusing to clap for her cousin's performance of Elton John's "The Circle of Life," despite the performance being regarded as the evening's best. She has been digitally added to various important events to showcase her apathy (Whatevia's real name is Kiana).
  • Seanbaby - A sarcastic, sadistic, and foulmouthed guy who reviews video games and talks about hostess snacks in comics, the Superfriends, and other oddities.
  • The Star Wars Kid - a video digitally edited numerous times of a Québecois teenager (Ghyslain Raza) pretending to be Darth Maul
  • Robert Tilton - An American televangelist whose preachings were dubbed with farts in a series called The Farting Preacher.

Videos

Animation-based

Anime

Images

Websites

Advertising

See also

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