Two sites that have recently gone viral share one thing in common, they were created by a spouse for the sole purpose of documenting their partner’s strange and entertaining behavior for the world to see… and hey, maybe make some t-shirt sales while they’re at it.
Sleep Talkin’ Man
First up is Sleep Talkin’ Man. The story goes that Adam, a mild-mannered Brit started talking in his sleep last year after an especially stressful period and hasn’t really shut up since. After amusing friends and family with accounts of her husband’s ridiculous and often obscene nocturnal ramblings, Karen decided to start a blog to share the joy with the rest of the world. And since then they’ve been featured on The Today Show and ABC News, have gained over 35,000 Facebook fans and 15,000 Twitter followers. Not too shabby, right?
It’s not hard to see why Sleep Talkin’ Man became so popular, it’s easily one of the funniest blogs out there right now. Also, (non-British) people like to read things in their mind with their fake British accents. Don’t deny it.
A few choice samplings:
“Hey, don’t… don’t say anything. Why don’t you put it in an email, then I can ignore it at my pleasure.”
“No, not the cats. Don’t trust them. Their eyes. Their eyes. They know too much.”
“Yes, I can get away with wearing leather chaps. Just not on a windy day.”
“I made this picture using pasta… F*ck you, it IS artistic!”
“Please just walk away. I don’t want to have to stand here and say something so awesome that I’ll have to remember it the rest of the day. Thank you!”
“I can’t control the kittens. Too many whiskers! Too many whiskers!”
Cryingwife.com
The basic premise of Cryingwife.com is that a man watches movies with his wife and then interviews her while she basically loses it and offers blubbering recaps like “I thought Luke died. But then he didn’t die and not only didn’t he die but he took his dad home and he…but I just feel really bad.”
Here’s the video that started it all, and has racked up over 400,000 views to date.
The husband’s attempts at consoling his wife are oddly touching, and thankfully for their marriage he seems to find her emotional reactions to movies funny and endearing. Nevertheless, he has come under fire for posting these videos but he’s quick to point out that his wife is completely aware of the site and has a good sense of humour about the whole thing.
A few excerpts from their FAQ:
Q. Do you ever get annoyed with her crying?
A. Ha! Not at all! I think it’s really cute. She’s crying about Darth Vader! What’s not to love?
Q. Does she have any deep rooted issues that’s causing these kinds of breakdowns?
A. Naw. It would be a concern if she was always like this. She’s not. She just really gets into the characters and the story.
You can watch the rest of the videos here.
P.S. Apologies for the long absence of blog updates. I put my relationship through the Europe test and then promptly relocated across the country.
By now you must know the story of Falcon Heene, aka Balloon Boy. His dad had created a crazy helium flying contraption, the balloon was set free, and the world worried for hours about 6 year old Falcon until the empty balloon landed and Falcon was found hiding in the attic. Somewhere in there the TV show Wife Swap was involved.
Right, about that…
Well, now that we know little Falcon is safe and sound (and we question the integrity of the Heene family) the Internet has wasted no time in turning this into a full-fledged internet meme. Seriously, there’s a t-shirt:
Countless Imma let you finish jokes:
A theme song:
Hallowmeme: Dress Up Like Your Favourite Meme!
October 14, 2009
It’s a struggle coming up with a Halloween costume every year, and if you’re anything like me you start off months ahead with good intentions of being the hit of the party but end up throwing something lame together at the last minute. And let’s be honest, that’s not gonna win you any best costume prizes.
Well, the time has come to redeem yourself for half-assed costumes of Halloweens past. Know Your Meme‘s got your back, and they’ve come up with a handy meme costume builder!
My top picks are Kanye West & Taylor Swift (added bonus: the person dressed as Kanye gets free license to be an ass all night long), Vince “ShamWow Guy” Shlomi (same), Kimberly Vlaeminck, and of course Three Wolf Moon.
And for a last minute meme costume, might I suggest Dick in a Box?
Recurring Meme: The Lip Dub
October 1, 2009
The lip dub is a relatively old meme, but one that gets revived from time to time when a new video gains notoriety. The most recent lip dub video to take the internets by storm was filmed by a large group of communications students at UQAM during frosh week. It probably doesn’t hurt that the song they used in their video is inanely easy to sing along to (or lip synch, in this case) and doesn’t seem to be losing popularity any time soon.
What really sets this lip dub apart is the scale of the production. Filming a video in one take is no small feat and when you factor in 172 people over the course of 5 minutes… well, it’s a logistical nightmare. So it’s pretty impressive that this group of students were able to shoot the video in a little over two hours, without knowing how many people would show up ahead of time.
The history of lip dubs:
The term lip dub was first coined by Jakob Lodwick, the founder of Vimeo, in 2006. He later went on to direct a lip dub of Flagpole Sitta’ in the Connected Ventures office, which includes College Humor, Vimeo, and Busted Tees. This lip dub went on to spark many imitation office lip dubs, and not surprisingly, compelled a lot of people to send in resumes in the hopes of working at Connected Ventures. To date it’s received over 2 million views, making it the best know and most watched lip dub ever.
What makes a good lip dub?
There are a few general rules to follow if you want to make a great lip dub.
- Choose a catchy, well-known song
- Film the video in one take
- Choose an interesting location and take advantage of the space (hallways, stairs, etc)
- Have young, attractive people in the video (this is not necessary if you’re making another form of meme-worthy office video: the senior management rap video)
The Europe Test
August 18, 2009
What happens when a blogger from Toronto goes on a trip to Europe for two weeks? Well, if he has a girlfriend who happens to be a really poor listener, he may just get dumped over the course of countless frantic voice mails and emails while he’s away. And then of course, he makes a video sharing all of these ridiculous communications for the benefit of strangers on the internet. Needless to say, they’re not together anymore.
This video has already been viewed nearly half a million times, and it even spawned a new entry in urbandictionary.com:
Three Keyboard Cat Moon Update!
July 21, 2009
The internet has spoken, and it wants its Three Keyboard Cat Moon t-shirts like, yesterday. Luckily, Threadless was listening and the t-shirt is now available:
In a matter of days, it’s become Threadless’ highest score ever, most votes ever, and most “I’d Buy It’s” ever. This tee is so ridiculous and amazing that we’re printing it now before the end of our scoring period!
Go internets! Now I just hope this shirt will cover my girth.
Related posts: Memetastic T-shirt: When Keyboard Cat Met Three Wolf Moon, Current Obsession: Keyboard Cat
The most amazing shirt ever has been submitted to Threadless, and if the sheer amount of comments are any indication, this shirt should be available on Threadless very soon.
Behold, Three Keyboard Cat Moon:
So why is this awesome?
To appreciate the genius of this t-shirt you should already be familiar with Keyboard Cat, but it also requires you to be aware of the Amazon phenomenon that is Three Wolf Moon.
At first glance it doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. It probably reminds you of a socially awkward classmate that you sat next to in math class. (On an unrelated note, I used to sit behind a guy in grade 11 math class who rotated 5 Metallica shirts on a constant basis. I ended up keeping a chart of which shirts he wore on which days. My personal favourite was the cartoon one.)
But, something tipped this shirt over into internet memedom. The following review is arguably responsible for sales of this shirt to increase by 2300%, as well as spawning hundreds of other ironic reviews.
This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to ‘howl at the moon’ from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn’t have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn’t settle for the first thing that comes to him.
I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.
Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the ‘guns’), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.
And thus, Three Keyboard Cat Moon is born. Internet meme perfection, or near perfection, anyway. One suggestion has been echoed by many Threadless commenters:
“If only the cats were wearing 3 wolf moon shirts!”
Related posts: Three Keyboard Cat Moon Update!, Current Obsession: Keyboard Cat
Breaking Meme: Auto Tuning
June 2, 2009
You can probably thank T-Pain Andy Samberg for this one, but the latest meme to hit the internets is auto-tuning for comedic effect.
In fact, here’s a video of Andy Samberg and T-Pain auto-tuning their way into our collective heart. (Okay, technically only T-Pain is auto-tuned.)
But sure, auto-tuning a parody song on SNL isn’t really that much of a stretch, is it? Well, leave it to the internet to take things…let’s be honest, probably one step too far.
The Background
Well, we can thank Cher for introducing the world to the auto-tune effect way back in 1998 with her single Life After Love. More recently it’s been revitalized by rappers T-Pain and Kanye West, because let’s be honest, everything sounds better auto-tuuuuned.
Additional Info
Vince Shlomi (aka Vince Offer), the man shilling Slap Chop and best known for his ShamWow! commercials, was arrested earlier this year for battering a prostitute after she bit his tongue and, allegedly, wouldn’t let go.
Related memes: Chocolate Rain
Current Obsession: Keyboard Cat
June 1, 2009
By now you may have heard of Keyboard Cat, after all he’s been featured on CNN, The Daily Show, The MTV Movie Awards, and new videos are popping up every day. The premise is deceptively simple, really. Keyboard Cat sits at the sidelines, keyboard at the ready, and watches as someone unwittingly sets themself up for pain, failure, and general embarrassment, at which point he happily plays his ditty, effectively ushering them off the stage. Nothing left to see here, folks. Move it along.
It’s absurd, it’s stupefying, it’s downright life-affirming.
The Background:
So, I hate to break it to you, but Keyboard Cat is actually dead. The original video was filmed twenty years ago by Charlie Schmidt, a performance artist, and featured his cat Fatso playing two songs. (Actually, I’m kind of surprised that the second song hasn’t caught on. I think )
Charlie Schmidt uploaded the video of Fatso to YouTube in 2007, but Keyboard Cat first hit the masses on February 2nd, 2009 when Brad O’Farrel posted the first Keyboard Cat video, as we know it.
What You Need to Know:
Is it appropriate to send to coworkers?
For the most part, depending on how brutal the fail preceding keyboard cat is.
Will your mom like it?
She may not get it, but if she’s anything like my mom she’ll probably start to nod her head along to the music and the idea of a cute cat playing a keyboard will fill her with joy.
Why is it popular?
The Keyboard Cat meme panders to the internet’s love of both fail and funny cats. Basically, it’s the modern equivalent of America’s Funniest Home Videos minus the terribly scripted jokes.
Anything else?
If you’re feeling creative you can contribute to the keyboard cat compendium with Auto Keyboard Cat. But you may want to act quickly, it’s only a matter of time before Keyboard Cat will be all played out.
Related memes: Lolcats
