This question, it vibrates?

May 27, 2006 7:11 PM

Origin of "This _____, it vibrates?"
posted by porpoise to Society & Culture (26 answers total)

Best answer: This probably belongs on metatalk, but originally it was about that ill-conceived Harry Potter vibrating broom toy.
posted by fvw at 7:15 PM on May 27, 2006

Best answer: People were making tons of jokes about it in a thread, then someone posted that about it, and it became a meme.
posted by delmoi at 7:16 PM on May 27, 2006

Best answer: and all the rest are here too.
posted by HuronBob at 7:18 PM on May 27, 2006

Best answer: Harry Potter broomstick thread. Here's the wiki list of MeFi injokes.
posted by Dr. Zira at 7:18 PM on May 27, 2006

Best answer: Many people (e.g.)posted links to the Harry Potter Nimbus Broom. Which vibrates.
posted by Grangousier at 7:18 PM on May 27, 2006

Response by poster: I'm aware of the phrase being used and how it's being used - but is the quote appropriated from a movie like "The goggled, they do nothing!"?

Or is it just from the Harry Potter broom? I seem to recall that the phrase predated the, er, toy.
posted by porpoise at 7:28 PM on May 27, 2006

Response by poster: goggleS
posted by porpoise at 7:28 PM on May 27, 2006

Best answer: So, let me get this straight... the toy broom... it vibrates?
posted by crunchland at 12:09 AM EST on September 5

The vibrating brroooom story was triple-posted, at least. It became a comedy. Crunchland may have been posting tongue in cheek.
posted by theora55 at 7:38 PM on May 27, 2006

porpoise- While it's not the answer to this question, the phrase- "The goggles, they do nothing!" is from The Simpsons. More specifically, it's from the episode in which Milhouse plays Fallout Boy in the Radioactive Man movie (Radioactive Man, Season 7 - 2F17). Rainier Wolfcastle (star of the McBain movies) plays Radioactive Man and is splashed with (real) acid. He's wearing goggles to protect his eyes, but as he says, "the googles do nothing!" According to wikipedia, this was misquoted to become part of Slashdot culture.
posted by JMOZ at 7:59 PM on May 27, 2006

Best answer: It was posted more than thrice, I think. It was a sort of record-setting day on Mefi; Matt could not delete a Vibrating Broom post without another springing up in its stead.
posted by cortex at 8:02 PM on May 27, 2006

Cortex has it. "This broom, it vibrates?" makes sense as a joke only when you realize the story had been posted to the front page umpteen times and deleted umpteen-minus-one times. You may have had to be there, but it was hilarious at the time, and stuck as a MeFi in-joke.

Has nothing to do with the goggles thing.
posted by mediareport at 8:19 PM on May 27, 2006

Oops, on rereading that MeTa thread, strike the umpteen-minus-one thing. I'd forgotten that Matt deleted the first one as not funny, which was why it kept getting reposted by folks who didn't know it had already been deleted. I think rhyax had the most accurate summary at the time.
posted by mediareport at 8:25 PM on May 27, 2006

For the curious, the four (!) deleted "Harry Potter Nimbus 2000" threads:
one two three four
posted by Silune at 8:46 PM on May 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this question and the link to Mefi in-jokes. Never understood the Pepsi Blue thing. I often felt like the only one who liked the product.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 9:31 PM on May 27, 2006

mediareport writes "I think rhyax had the most accurate summary at the time."

A lot of old names in that thread we don't see anymore.
posted by Mitheral at 9:38 PM on May 27, 2006

Response by poster: Ok, so you guys are serious.

"This ___, it vibrates" was a Metafilter original.

Seriously?

Like, no kidding?

You're not yankin' my crank or anything?

The fucking useage is more prevalent on /. and (Total/)Fark than around here. (And I swear I've heard non-internet friends use the joke in RL.)

<shrug> Well, there have been numerous other things that I've been mistaken about.

Yes, I realize that the goggles thing is entirely different.

I'm going to sit on this for a bit before marking best answers... (no, I still don't believe you guys, but - you're probably more reliable than my brain. Scratch it up to my sleep deprivation exacerbating my suspicious nature.)

No.

Seriously?
posted by porpoise at 9:40 PM on May 27, 2006

YA SRSLY!
posted by slater at 12:10 AM on May 28, 2006

While it's true that it's easy to assume that an Internet injoke originated locally when it really didn't, sometimes it really did. I know that's obvious, but it's worth saying. You can probably find evidence that would satisfy you with some Google searches.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:58 AM on May 28, 2006

I guess it's possible the person who started it here had seen/heard it first somewhere else. Or that it's really not that unusual a construction, and has been "invented" a number of times in different places. *shrug* But now you at least know what started it here.
posted by mediareport at 6:33 AM on May 28, 2006

While it's true that it's easy to assume that an Internet injoke originated locally when it really didn't, sometimes it really did.

Wait, are you saying that the vibrates thing has shown up in other places? I thought it was MeFi only.
posted by Mid at 3:20 PM on May 28, 2006

A quick search suggests the usage is largely confined to mefi, and interestingly is cited as an example of an in-joke in wikipedia.
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:37 PM on May 28, 2006

Ah, yes. The wiki history shows a "kindall" adding that factoid on January 26, 2006. That's a mefite, right?
posted by Mid at 7:50 PM on May 28, 2006

Yes.
posted by kindall at 8:46 PM on May 28, 2006

last night a jerry kindall saved my life
posted by cortex at 8:54 PM on May 28, 2006

I p0wn3e you, kindall!

not really
posted by Mid at 12:25 PM on May 29, 2006

That was Elton John, cortex.
posted by kindall at 7:10 PM on May 29, 2006