Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with meme

Do you remember a picture of a naked melting person?

sergeant sandwich — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:29:55 -0800

I'm looking for back story on a somewhat disturbing photograph which was circulating around the internet around 10-15 years ago. Trouble is, I no longer have a copy of the file, and can't find it. The photo in question was an internet meme from back before they were called that. It could best be described as "face-down naked melting woman". I say melting because.. well, that's what it looked like. A big puddle of skin, with feet; sort of like what you'd get if people were made of wax and one was made to lie face down in the sun.

The melting person (who for some reason, we thought was a woman, but it was hard to tell) was completely naked, face down in the middle of what I recall to be a city street, possibly cobblestone. It was daylight, and the photo was taken from behind at what looked like about a distance of 40-50 feet. We called her Melta.

Does this ring a bell for anyone? I've been searching the internets high and low for a copy of the picture, with every possible combination of search terms I can think of, and I've crawled up and down sites like rotten.com and ogrish until I couldn't take it anymore. Not for the lulz, but because for nearly half my life now, I've been absolutely mystified by the origin of this photo. I need some sort of explanation.

Our best guess was that it was a photograph of a suicide jumper who had been overweight and the impact was so violent that the flesh liquefied and spread out like a puddle.

But I don't think flesh does that in reality, and there was absolutely no split skin, no blood or gore or anything at all, no cops standing around, no rubberneckers gawking, in fact nobody else in the picture at all. No other visual clues that would be indicative of a suicide scene. And why would they be completely naked? It just.. it didn't look like a suicide to me, and this explanation never quite held water for me.

The only other conceivable explanation for this picture is that a person who had recently lost a great deal of weight, and therefore had very loose skin, was running down the street buck naked and tripped and fell on their face. But then this is weird enough as it is.

Anyway, I'm hoping someone at least remembers this picture. Better yet would be a link to it somewhere. But what I'm really looking for here is to learn Melta's story. If you can help me scratch this fifteen-year itch, I will be forever grateful.

Original slipped mask?

skwt — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:43:47 -0800

Where does the "mask fell off" expression/meme from this comment come from, if anywhere? Google gives 13 300 for "mask fell" and 11 300 for "mask slipped", and if you look at the context in the first page of hits from both of those links they're all using it in the same sense.

Specifically, "the latex mask fell off and we get to stare directly into the machine's dead eyes" reminds me of Terminator or something? Is this an intentional reference or is this just a very common image of a robot/android? It sort of feels like half a Terminator reference but equally half not.

It sort of seems like it's almost too common to have an identifiable origin, but it's just specific enough that it might have a really satisfing "a-ha" one.

Thanks

What to do with a meme-ish domain name?

wendell — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:17:47 -0800

Hi, I'm Wendell, and I'm a Domain Name addict. And I just registered DRINKSYOURMILKSHAKE.COM with the intent of setting up something like isyournewbicycle.com but I'm open to other ideas. Feel free to aim your long straw at me...

Ultimate spoiler: you are God. Sound familiar?

Curry — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:55:02 -0800

Anyone recall seeing a Web page that said something like "Ultimate Spoiler: You are God"? I have a vague yet nagging recollection of a page, either one-off gag or part of a spoiler aggregate site, that professed the ultimate spoiler for life, i.e. you are god. My extended and thorough searching hasn't produced any leads. Sound familiar to anybody?

When did boys start pretending the floor is made of lava?

23skidoo — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:56:45 -0800

I am 34 and grew up in Texas. I just heard a coworker ten years my junior say "Well, boys liked to pretend that the floor is made of lava." I totally knew what he was talking about. How old is this meme? How widespread is it? Google gives me lots of stuff about a band named that, and an album named that. I don't need to know about either of those things.

Explain the unexplainable.

roofus — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:16:44 -0800

Does anyone know the back story to this supposedly "unexplainable" image?

Where can I see "The Swirl" gross out video?

wackybrit — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 01:33:25 -0800

Where can I find the video all these people are watching? It's supposedly called "The Swirl." "The Swirl" is supposedly a gross video similar to the extreme "2 girls 1 cup" video that's been going around lately, and there are a whole bunch of "reaction" videos on YouTube including this one. I've Googled for many variations of "swirl" and gross video but am still unable to find the original video.

A blog was set up at Blogspot (swirlreactions.blogspot.com) with reactions to the video but that site no longer exists and I can't find it in Google cache or Archive.org to see if it had a link to the original. Any ideas on finding this video to watch?

P.S. Don't bother Googling for the other video I mentioned if you're at work or want to eat sometime in the next year.

You know who else ___? Origin?

luser — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:21:29 -0800

What's the origin of the meme "You know who else [does something]" with the standard answer (or implied answer) being Hitler but often replaced by something else? The farthest back I go with it is Freaks and Geeks, Joe Flaherty's character used to say it and I think the daughter did a few times as well.

Kill me before the curiousity does?

myrrh — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:07:13 -0800

The significance of a blank white 1" button? I'm told not to ask. It's not a Grant Morrison reference, is it?

The other day I was walking through the supermarket and spotted a girl wearing a blank 1" button... yknow, like the kind punk bands have been selling since the dawn of time. Only. Blank. White. I smiled and said "is that a blank wh--" and she smiled and said "Sorry, if you don't know, I can't talk to you about it."

So I imagine anyone on here will be equally unable to tell me, right?

Anyone care to very carefully steer me in the right direction before my curiousity causes me to lose any more sleep over this? I respect this sort of game, whatever it is, so I'm reluctant to ask, but it really is driving me nuts. Thanks.

Help me find character-driven 'crazes'!

fishfucker — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:23:47 -0800

In order to assist with a business plan, I'm looking for examples (within the last 5 years) of character-driven memes or products that "came out of nowhere" and rapidly built wealth for their creators (and/or licensors). A couple that have already been mentioned are the 'Crazy Frog' phenomenon (which sold a poopload of ringtones), and to some degree 'Harry Potter' (which, well, most of us know what happened with). Although I'm only concerned with, say, post-2000 events, classic examples would include the 'Cabbage Patch Kids' or the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. I am also tangentially interested in examples involving gaming in some fashion, like the story of Desktop Tower Defense.

These examples should help demonstrate that it is possible to build wealth from character development.

I'm sure that there are numerous counter-examples (due to most of these situations being cases of great execution or perfect timing or both), but, while interesting, these are decidedly less useful for my purposes. Additionally, I'm not particularly interested in examples that do not include a character at the root of their success: 'the iPod' would not be an answer I am interested in.

Thanks for your time!

Where the heck does it come from, oh my!

Happy Dave — Tue, 01 May 2007 11:44:52 -0800

Where does the sentence structure 'Something, something and something, oh my!' come from? I'm seeing this everywhere and it's been bugging me. All over the web, I keep seeing variants on 'X, X and X, oh my!' Some examples right here on Ask Me. What's the origin of this phrase? I've been googling in much the same way I did when I figured out what 'All your X are belong to us' and 'I'm in ur X verbing ur Y' memes, but I got nada.

I | <3 ?

lostburner — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 16:52:44 -0800

What is the origin of the "I | ___" phrasing? I've seen this cropping up with increasing frequency on the web. It seems to be the same usage as "I (heart) ___", but with a bar instead (shift-backslash on a US keyboard). It doesn't make sense to me. "I bar New York"? "I caret New York"? "I or New York"? This question may not make a lot of sense if you haven't seen it, and I can't exactly search for examples, but maybe you folks have seen it around.

Lost Puppy

MtDewd — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:00:32 -0800

This photo just showed up in a coworker's email. A little searching shows this cartoon. You can also buy the costume. Which came first & how can you tell?

Are memes just the extended phenotype?

whatgorilla — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 22:46:11 -0800

How are memes anything other than an extension/expression of the extended phenotype? And I mean "phenotype" in the generalized-Richard Dawkins-sense. It seems the meme meme is taken so seriously by so many, but I can't figure out how they are anything other than an interesting thought experiment/model.

Could someone please step off the meme-wagon and explain it to me--are memes anything other than an extension/expression of the extended phenotype?

I'm confused about this, so I hope I'm not sounding like an idiot--please forgive me if I do. Be gentle.

anyone know the origin of this phrase?

exlotuseater — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 21:04:00 -0800

Where does the phrase "I fuc*ing concur." come from? Where does the phrase "I fucking concur." come from?

Is it from a book? Or is it an internet meme? What?

Where did the phrase "strangely intriguing" get popularized?

hidinginabunker — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 16:45:11 -0800

Where was the phrase "strangely intriguing" popularized? I know this is kind of asking a lot but I feel like there was some specific use on a television show or maybe in a movie that was particularly funny and started this tiny meme a spreadin'. Can anyone remember any recent uses of the phrase "strangely intriguing" in popular culture? Just curious since I keep noticing it being used by many people with very different tastes.

Creating the definitive audio meme collection

c:\awesome — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:39:27 -0800

I'd like to create the definitive musical collection of internet memes for my own personal library. I need your help finding the real gems. The ones I have so far are:

1. The Grape Lady Techno Remix

2. Steve Ballmer's Developer Remix

3. KKKramer (NSFW)

4. One Bank

I'd consider including the Picard song too, but it's too short... maybe as a hidden track. I don't care how old they are, but newer memes would be preferred... unless, of course, you know where I can find the "I Like Sex" song by Mahir.

I'm also not looking for songs that were used in a video meme (i.e. the Numa Numa song, the song that "Where the Hell is Matt" dances to, the Asian Backstreet Boys, etc.), because those songs aren't original to the meme. I'd like this to be limited to only original meme audio.

Thanks!

Help My Cat Be in a Blank While Blanking a Blank

andoatnp — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:20:05 -0800

I have a cat, a camera, and decent photoshop skills. Help me come up with clever things to do that fit into the meme about the cats doing things that is all over the internet. I recently moved into an apartment that contains a cat. I also recently came across the phenomenon of ceiling cat, who is apparently watching me masturbate. What are the best suggestions of the most outlandish, absurd, sublime, subtle, or transcendenta67l scenes I can pose with the cat to be turned into the meme about the cat being somewhere and doing something.

I'm down to make props, costumes, and I have a standard apartment with all the stuff an apartment is likely to contain. Is there a ceiling cat-like scene that you were hoping existed? Because I will make it happen.

P.S. All suggestions must be kitty safe.

I am in ur webz, aksin ur questins

Plutor — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 06:09:16 -0800

MemeFilter: What is the origin of the "I am in ur [something], [doing something]" meme? It usually uses JeffK-esque spelling ("ur", and a lot of z-endings). Some examples inside. A London meetup photo that inspired the question.
A forum thread with a whole lot of examples

Killer bunnies

arielmeadow — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 16:37:21 -0800

Can anyone tell me what this animated gif is lifted from?

Ironically, I'm OK with cuecumbers.

DragonBoy — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 07:10:05 -0800

The pickle phobia video hit my office yesterday and now everyone is offering opinions on why someone would be afraid of pickles. Look, there's After watching the video I think it is obvious that Maury's producers were up to some psychological preparations with the girl but others in the office swear that a phobic reaction like that isn't too outlandish. I say poppycock but before I staunchly defend my belief that everything on daytime TV is faked, I want your opinion. Fake? If not, how would one become afraid of something to this extent?

Where can I find these giant plastic cups?

Mark5four0 — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:50:20 -0800

Where can I find these giant plastic cups? My friend recently sent me the "Office Memo, bring your own cup to the company picnic" email ( i know it's a couple months old) It's accompanied by this picture Beer
The first thing I thought of was, Wow, I need to get those cups! They look like Giant Solo party cups, they have the ridges on the side and everything. Does anybody out there have the info?

The " " War(s) - 2001 - 2012

trinarian — Tue, 30 May 2006 15:40:45 -0800

What are your guesses as to what "the War in Iraq" be known as in ten years? Having just taught a high school American History class, it became very appearent how we don't really have a name for what's going on in Iraq. "Operation Iraqi Freedom," like "Infinite Justice" (that's a lotta freakin' justice...) before it were too silly for the monikers to catch on. "The War in Iraq" meme sounds too immediate to stick around after we withdraw.

I collectively call everything post-9/11 the "Terror Wars" as I think once this thing winds down it'll less about Iraq and more about how broadly the U.S. extended itself. It's extremely unlikely my students and I will carry the same cultural weight as the news media and all the veterans.

I have a suspicion "The Second Gulf War" will be the preferred meme, but it seems silly to name the entire affair after a body of water that only one Iraqi village, Umm Quassr, touches. Kuwait was a Gulf state, Iraq barely qualifies.

Bonus question: When was the "Second World War/World War Two" first called such?

Which Came First?

fidgets — Sat, 27 May 2006 21:41:18 -0800

X3/internetsfilter: *SPOILERS*Question about a line in the new Xmen movie as related to an internet meme.*SPOILERS* Scene in X3, Juggernaut is chasing Kitty Pryde inside Alcatraz in order to get to Leech. Juggernaut gets pulled into the floor, looks up at Kitty, and amazingly enough out comes: "Dont you know who I am?! IM THE JUGGERNAUT BITCH!"
!!
So which came first, the meme or the line? It cant be a coincedence...
Does anybody know?

Getting permission to use a likeness in merchandise?

keswick — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 10:56:57 -0800

I have a great idea for a meme with assorted merchandise involving a deceased musician and his likeness. How do I pitch this to the appropiate person so that I might profit legitimately and what are the typical terms of such an arrangement?