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Apple deems Pepe 'objectionable' and bans the frog from its App Store
Pepe the Frog is an amphibia non grata at the Apple App Store, according to a rejection letter sent to a developer. The letter, which the developer posted to r/The_Donald subreddit (because of course he did), argues that Pepe is "considered objectionable content" and is therefore banned from appearing in any app in the Apple ecosystem.
Pepe the Frog is dead, but that won't stop 4chan
You have to sympathize with Matt Furie. The Boy's Club artist created Pepe the Frog as a positive, mellow character, but the amphibian got hijacked by the "alt-right" and became virtually synonymous with bigotry despite attempts to save him. So now, Furie is taking the next logical step: he's declaring Pepe dead. If you picked up Fantagraphics' Free Comic Book Day offering on May 6th, you saw a strip where Boy's Club characters mourned Pepe as he rested in an open casket. It's no doubt a hard decision for Furie (would you want to kill one of your cherished characters?), but arguably an important one -- he's effectively acknowledging that the internet has taken control of his creation.
Imgur adds chat so you never have to leave the meme factory
A long-awaited feature has finally made it into the mobile versions of content discovery site/meme emporium Imgur. In a blog post today, the Imgur team announced that chat, messaging and notifications are now available on the gif-heavy social network, while the messaging features of its desktop site are getting an overhaul as well.
Expect more vote suppressing misinformation on Election Day
While the internet is filled with sources providing accurate and unbiased information aimed at getting informed voters to the polls on Tuesday, some corners of it are taking an alternate approach. A Buzzfeed report cites 4chan posters cooking up various memes and campaign-lookalike graphics intended to confuse and mislead potential Hillary Clinton voters. We've seen a preview of this with Twitter ads that promoted a "vote by text message" hoax and it appears there could be similar efforts in store for tomorrow.
This Halloween, dress as a sexy meme
Christmas may be the "most wonderful time of the year," but Halloween is the high holiday of sexy costumography. If you want to stand out from the legions of alluring nurses, librarians and teachers, take some inspiration from the most seductive subject of all: internet memes! Show off your switchblade skills with a slinky Crab with a Knife costume, rock some socks as a toothsome hipster Ariel or just melt hearts with a sultry Doge outfit. There's no meme too obscure, no reference too random that you can't add your own sexy spin to it. Except maybe Pepe the Frog. Planning to dress up as a meme this Halloween? Share your pics with us on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #Hallomemes
Pepe the Frog's creator is using positive memes to #SavePepe
What do you do when your most well-known creation gets transformed into a hate symbol through bigoted memes? For Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe the Frog, you fight back with memes of your own. Furie announced last week that he's teaming up with the Anti-Defamation League, which labeled Pepe as a hate symbol last month, to promote positive messages of the frog under the #SavePepe hashtag.
Memes made the presidential debate great again
There's something magical about an inside joke. A good inside joke reminds friends that no matter what happens, you'll always have that moment when you were completely in sync, united by laughter and happy tears. Memes, meanwhile, are inside jokes on a massive scale. Memes remind the people involved of happier times, when an entire country or group of disparate people shared a moment of levity, something to laugh about, something adorable to bond over. Throughout the cutthroat 2016 presidential election, citizens of the United States have been in dire need of a uniting force. And, during last night's second presidential debate, the people found their common ground in an affable, red-sweatered meme named Ken Bone.
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey secretly funds pro-Trump 'meme magic'
Just in case you were wondering what Palmer Luckey does with all that Facebook money, a The Daily Beast article reveals what he's been up to lately. The outlet says Luckey confirmed he is behind the Reddit pseudonym "NimbleRichMan," providing financial backing to an organization claiming it's proven that "shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real." The Reddit profile has been deleted, but the group's original announcement is archived here.
'Futurama' gets its own quote search engine
Ever since The Simpsons got an encyclopedic search engine through Frinkiac, many TV fans have been wondering one thing: where's the Futurama version? Relax, it's here. The creators of Frinkiac have launched Morbotron, a quote search tool that lets you dig through every season of Fry's adventures (complete with 861,414 screenshots) to create meme-worthy pictures and animated GIFs. You can find every moment that Professor Farnsworth has good news, Morbo proclaims doom for the human race, or Bender invites someone to bite his backside.
Recommended Reading: Crying Jordan has taken over the internet
The Evolution of theMichael JordanCrying Face Meme Laura Wagner, NPR If you've been paying attention to Twitter over the last few months, especially sports Twitter, you've certainly noticed Michael Jordan's crying face pasted on a variety of images. Meant to visualize that "welp" moment of disappointment, the Crying Jordan meme has taken over the internet, and NPR has the story of its evolution.
You say advertising, I say block that malware
The real reason online advertising is doomed and adblockers thrive? Its malware epidemic is unacknowledged, and out of control. The Forbes 30 Under 30 list came out this week and it featured a prominent security researcher. Other researchers were pleased to see one of their own getting positive attention, and visited the site in droves to view the list. On arrival, like a growing number of websites, Forbes asked readers to turn off ad blockers in order to view the article. After doing so, visitors were immediately served with pop-under malware, primed to infect their computers, and likely silently steal passwords, personal data and banking information. Or, as is popular worldwide with these malware "exploit kits," lock up their hard drives in exchange for Bitcoin ransom. One researcher commented on Twitter that the situation was "ironic" -- and while it's certainly another variant of hackenfreude, ironic isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe what happened.
Laugh the pain away with 2015's best infosec memes
As you might guess, infosec memes aren't as straightforward as Pizza Rat or Left Shark. That's because most of the time they run on one part inside jokes and two parts hacker history. They're usually technical, and they communicate an intimate knowledge of the slow-roasted levels of hell only understood by an information security professional.Recently, infosec coughed up two particularly transcendent and painfully hilarious memes.
Microsoft wants to make you funnier in online chats
Do you constantly struggle to make jokes? Are you one of the millions of folks who wishes they could be spontaneously funny when communicating via the internet? Microsoft Research has some news (PDF) for you. The company's developed a web-based chat system dubbed "Cahoots" that analyzes text in your messages and suggests memes and reaction GIFs based on context and perceived emotion of the sender. It can even auto-generate memes on the fly using existing templates (think QuickMeme). Images were culled from I Can Haz Cheeseburger, Bing and ReactionGIFs.com and at the end of the study, some 738 of Amazon's Mechanical Turks found Cahoots pretty useful. No word's been given about the system actually reaching the public, so in the meantime you might want to start marathoning comedy specials on Netflix to bone up on your timing. [Image credit: See-ming Lee æææ SML/Flickr]
Facebook now supports GIFs, so go knock yourself out
It's hard to believe, but that bastion of instant gratification, Facebook, has never supported GIFs (except via a kludge). But that appears to be fixed and you can now express your joy or add some comedy to posts on the social network. You just need to add a GIF link from Giphy, Imgur and other sites to your status updates, and it'll play inline like magic (uploads won't work, however, as TNW spotted). We're not sure when Zuckerberg and Co. turned the feature on, though it doesn't seem to work yet on mobile apps and may take some time to roll out to your neck of the woods. Meanwhile, here's a little inspiration.
In Russia, posting celebrity memes can land you in court
Russian meme lovers have to be extra careful who to show their masterpieces to, because the image macros can apparently get them sued. Roskomnadzor, the country's agency responsible for controlling the internet, media and telecommunications, has recently announced that it's illegal to post memes depicting public figures unrelated to their character or identity. Yes, the agency means celebrity memes, including (okay, more like especially) ones featuring Putin. According to The Washington Post, this isn't exactly a new policy: Roskomnadzor merely "updated" its personal data laws, following a lawsuit filed by Russian singer Valeri Syutkin.
Raspberry Pi helps old school pinball machine spew internet cliches
Pinball machines have been created from a single meme, so why not base one on, say, all of them? Liberty Games decided to refurbish an old and busted "Baby Doll" machine with all the cats, doges and "winter is coming" memes they could wedge in, while giving it a tech spit-shine with a 3D printer and Raspberry Pi. First they spiced up the play field with 3D-printed Grumpy Cat, Doge and Actual Advice Mallard figurines and new graphics. All the old mechanical relays were then wired to a Pi to to play meme videos on an LCD screen for certain actions -- like a Rickroll if you lose. We're not sure if the experimental game is actually for sale, but if so, shut up and take my money!
Watch this: YouTube recaps some of 2014's best moments
With this year finally coming to a close, YouTube wants to make sure you haven't forgotten about the memes, moments and people that stood out throughout 2014. Using some of its most popular content creators, the website has posted its YouTube Rewind video covering the past 12 months, which has become a tradition for the Google-owned site since a few years ago. Dubbed Turn Down for 2014 (because TD4W, amirite?), the video mashup plays to the tune of hit songs like All About That Bass, Fancy, Happy, Let it Go and, of course, Turn Down for What. YouTube also revealed its Top 10 list of music videos, one that was topped by Katy Perry's Dark Horse and sits just shy of 716 million total views.
JibJab is back with a personalized GIF maker
Wise to the fact that even your mom is over animated e-cards, a denizen of an internet past is trying to reinvent itself. JibJab -- which rose to fame a a purveyor of political satire and "Starring You" video gift cards -- is today launching JibJab Messages, an iOS app that lets you personalize GIFs with your friends' faces, filters, and meme-style text.
Now you can catch Cat Fact fever from your phone
Did you know that a group of cats is called either a "clowder" or a "glaring?" No? Well, if someone decides to target you with the new Cat Facts app for Android, you'll know a lot more about cats than that. See, you can anonymously send a series of trivia about our feline friends to anyone you want through the app. You don't even have to make an effort at sending a stream of annoying cat texts everyday, as you can schedule the app to send out automatically. Cat Facts, for the unaware, is a popular meme that began on Reddit (the seemingly endless source of memes, reaction GIFs and controversies) a couple of years ago.
Watch this rundown on the 'Pre-history of Online Video'
Hokay, so here we go: before the likes of Leroy Jenkins, that kid David who went to the dentist and Keyboard Cat blew up on YouTube, there wasn't exactly a centralized place to check out the latest videos your friends were talking about. Instead, those of types clips went viral via email and at places like eBaum's World, or, in the case of StrongBad Emails, on a sort of network all their own. In the clip below Hank Green, host of Crash Course and brother to The Fault in Our Stars author John Green, gives a quick rundown of what online video was like prior to YouTube. We highly suggest watching it; it's worth your time, we promise. And if you've been online for as long as we have, it's likely to bring back a few fond internet memories. Should the video not satiate your thirst for nostalgia, however, perhaps a Homestar Runner chaser (...or three, or four) will do the trick.
