Internet meme

Screenshot: KnowYourMemeWendy’s says it has no plans for surge pricing, though the internet expressed quite a bit of outrage when it seemed like the fast food chain absolutely did. It briefly seemed like you might be bidding on a Baconator, shorting a Jr. Vanilla Frosty, or even buying the dip on a Biggie Bag. But rest assured, your 4 for 4 is safe.Luckily, there are an abundance of memes to remember this historic moment. Here are the best memes that came out of the Wendy’s surge pricing fiasco. Screenshot: …

Beware the apes, Reddit told the world in its IPO documents, though not in such explicit terms. Put simply, the company warned potential investors that one of its subreddits, the infamous r/WallStreetBets, could make its stock price and volume extremely volatile—and there’s little Reddit can do about it.Robinhood App Lays Off 9% of StaffReddit listed r/WallStreetBets as one of the possible risks to investing in the company in its S-1 form on Thursday, referencing the subreddit’s role in the meme stock craze of 2021, where…

For the last two decades, some of the weirdest and most creative things on the internet played out in images and GIFs. There have always been terrible memes, but for years, memes as a category were consistently funny, useful, inspiring, and even thought-provoking. They crossed over into all of the furthest reaches of our culture, serving as communal glue that invited us all to participate in a recognizable and easily adapted conversation. But judging by what we saw in 2023, it’s clear that the golden age of memes is over.…

Google released a new top-level domain that lets website creators throw .meme at the end of their URL on Tuesday, and I for one am already terrified of the websites about to be created.Like It or Not, Your Doctor Will Use AI | AI UnlockedInternet users can create domains with .meme starting today as part of Google’s early access period, but it will cost you extra. The price drops to its base annual fee on December 5th, when the domain becomes publicly available, but domains are already getting snatched up. Google says…

Last week, Stability AI announced a new tool called Stable Video Diffusion, a model that turns images into AI-generated videos. It was only a matter of minutes before people jumped on it and started flooding the world with more content from the robotic abyss.For less creative internet users hoping to drum up clicks (can you imagine such a terrible creature), the most obvious use of this tool is to plug memes into the thing. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened on Twitter—aka X—where a variety of meme-to-video AI…

The news from the war in Ukraine tends to focus on physical battles, but there’s another front in the conflict that gets less attention: the tubes of the internet. Russia’s overall strategy involves a vast disinformation campaign, but over the last year, an army of shitposters has started fighting back. It’s a loosely organized but extremely online coalition that calls itself NAFO — short for the North America Fellas Organization — and it’sfighting a meme war against the Russian invasion. NAFO is less of a group than a…

Can you make a meme into a movie? More to the point, would you watch a half-hour mockumentary about a 2015 Facebook meme?Ernie Hudson | First FandomsThat’s the idea behind Sir Isengord’s Theory of the Magnificent Spinning Quasi Table, a new film from director Dyland Mars Greenberg. Sir Isengord tells the story—in a roundabout, nearly nonsensical way—of a professor who traps his consciousness in a little black box after his death in the 1800s. Sir Isengord and the Theory of the Magnificent Spinning Quanto Quasi Table -…

In the blink of an eye, Wall Street Bets’ once-favored trading app burned a hole in one of meme stock traders’ favorite gambles, AMC Entertainment. On Monday, the stock trading platform briefly and erroneously told users that the company had suddenly gone belly up.Robinhood App Lays Off 9% of StaffRobinhood confirmed in a Monday tweet that around 1:45 p.m. that day, the platform “experienced a technical issue” that created a banner on the AMC Entertainment listing declaring it bankrupt. The trading platform claimed it…

Screenshot: Gizmodo / TwitterSince the beginning of Elon Musk’s reign at Twitter, he’s threatened to remove the legacy verification—signified by a white check in a blue circle beside the account name—that predated his tenure. Musk even set April 1st as the date for the purge, which came and went without any changes, either because of ineptitude or a half-effort April Fools joke. But on April 20th—4/20, lol, ugh—he actually did it.Nearly all of the estimated 407k legacy verified Twitter accounts lost their check marks. The…

Seth Phillips, AKA Dude With Sign, in 2021.Image: Scott Roth (AP)The company behind the viral Dude With Sign meme is suing an Oregon chocolate company, alleging copyright infringement. FJerry LLC, also behind the popular @fuckjerry Instagram account, claims the copyright for the specific Dude holding the particular Sign, accusing JEM Organics of using the Dude’s face for posts, and the meme-making company is demanding $150,000 in damages.Nobody’s Really Watching ReelsDude With Sign is actually Seth Phillips, a New York…