Owling refers to the act of sitting in a perched position while looking off into the distance as to mimic the posture of an owl. The fad was created as a response to another photo fad called “planking”.
Origin
A thread was posted to Reddit[1] on July 11th, 2011, entitled “Seems to be an increase in planking photos, so…” featuring a demotivational stye image macro of a woman perched on railing with the caption “OWLING because planking is so two months ago”.
Spread
On July 12th, 2011, the story was posted on Salon[2], HuffPo Urlesque[9], NowPublic[4]. and BuzzFeed[5], even spawning a few user-generated images on Tumblr[6] and Reddit.[7]
Cat Breading, also known as Breading Cats, is a photo fad that involves taking pictures of cats with slices of bread placed around the neck. The name of the series is meant to be a pun for “inbred.”
Origin
The original cat bread photo was posted to both Reddit[1] and Tumblr[3] on August 2nd, 2011, where it received over 51,000 notes in six months. It was reshared on humor blogs Tastefully Offensive[4] and Bits and Pieces[5] the same day. On the 19th of that month, it was posted to the pics subreddit[2], receiving 8,095 up votes and 6,964 down votes.
Spread
That same month, examples of inbred cat photos were posted onto Uproxx[17] and a Facebook page[6] was launched to compile in-bread cat images. On October 2nd, Tumblr blogger lightrup[7] posted a photoset of her cat in bread, which accumulated over 11,000 notes in three months. Another photo was posted to the blog When Parents Text[12]in December 2011.
On January 31st, 2012, Gawker published an article[8] describing the practice of breading cats as a “hot new internet meme.” Throughout the day, two follow up articles were posted with relevant tweets[9] and submitted photographs[10]of cats with bread hats.
The same day as the Gawker posts, cat breading was featured on the International Business Times[13], Metro[14], the Tosh.0 blog[15], and humor site The FW.[16] On February 1st, the photos hit Australia’s Herald Sun[18], Kansas City’s Fox 4 News[19], and fashion blog Refinery29.[20]
Notable Examples
South Park Appearance
On March 28th, 2012, South Park aired an episode titled “Faith Hilling”[26] parodying photo fad memes. During the episode, a pair of men investigating the spread of photo fads find that cats shown partaking in cat breadiing are doing it themselves and thus creating their own feline photo fad. This leads the investigators to believe the cats are evolving and are a threat to humans.
iOS Game: Bread Kittens
On November 21st, 2012, mobile gaming startup Bake450[21] released a game titled Bread Kittens[22], in which the player battles stray cats that have been brainwashed due to tainted food. The player can also rescue cats by placing different types of bread around the opponent’s head, similar to Pokemon’s method of capturing new monsters with Pokeballs. The game was featured on VentureBeat[23] and Pocket Gamer UK[24] following its release. Within 5 days, the game received the highest rating of 5 stars out of 326 reviews. Bake450 also maintains a Facebook fan page[25] for the game, providing players with tips on how to capture new cats.
Yao Ming Face (sometimes referred to as “Fuck That Guy” or “Dumb Bitch”) is a rage comic-style contour drawing of the professional basketball player Yao Ming wearing a hearty smile. The image is typically used as a reaction face to convey a dismissive attitude towards someone else’s input in online discussions, then usually following something that one ups their input.
Origin
The drawing is based on a stillshot photograph of Yao Ming captured from a post-game press conference in May 2009. At :18 in the video below, the athlete is seen making the face after his teammate Ron Artest leaves the site of interview.
On July 11th, 2010, a Reddit[1] post was submitted by artist “downlow”[2] which featured numerous drawings he had created for rage comics that were never used, including the Yao Ming drawing. In the same thread[3], downlow confirmed that the drawing was based on a screen capture of Ming from the press conference in May.
Redditor alkalait replied to the thread remarking that it appeared as if Yao Ming was saying “bitch please.”
Spread
On August 31st, 2010, the face was included in an updated rage template image post in the f7u12 subreddit.[15]Redditor wallish[16] replied to the thread referring to the face as “Asian Laughing Guy.”
On September 13th, 2010, a rage comic featuring the Yao Ming face accompanied by the caption “dumb bitch” was submitted to the f7u12[17] subreddit by Redditor fifa10. The image was often referred to as “dumb bitch” until February 19th, 2011, when a rage comic titled “I let my 7 year old cousin use the rage editor and this is what she made” by Redditornagem reached the front page of the f7u12 subreddit, accumulating 3,990 up votes prior to being archived. Redditor chotheamazing replied to the post calling the Yao Ming drawing “fuck that shit face guy.”
In April of 2011, a series of rage comics were submitted to the f7u12 subreddit[17][18], using the Yao Ming face as a response to discovering spiders. The comics typically end with the Yao Ming face setting fire to an entire house in order to destroy a single arachnid. While several spider burning rage comics did appear before hand the one first associated with the Yao Ming face was by Redditor punkhobo. The original comic was the following one
On May 23rd, "dumbbitch"" was replaced with “fuckthatshit” for the Yao Ming face label in the Reddit[14] rage face comment icons list. The meme has since spread to Tumblr[7], FunnyJunk[12] and MemeBase.[4] Several Facebook[11]pages have been created for the rage face, the most popular of which “Yao Ming (Face)”[10] has accumulated 44,628 likes as of February 16th, 2011.
A female version of the meme has also been sighted
Usage
The “dumb bitch” varieties are often used in misogynistic jokes in rage comics, while “fuck that” versions tend to express a more flippant attitude towards an unworthy remark made by someone else. The reaction image can be used with a tone similar to that of the Are You Serious? Face.
Left to right: Dumb Bitch, Fuck That
Notable Examples
Rage Comics
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Imitations
The face is often imitated by users on Reddit[9], who upload pictures of themselves next to the original Yao Ming drawing.
Derivative: Fuck No Guy
“Fuck No” Guy is a derivative image of “Fuck That” Guy which portrays Yao Ming with a similar but far more disgusted/horrified expression. The face comes from a rage comic made by Reddit user wholemilk[8] in a thread titled “Son, you forgot to take out the trash” posted on October 6th, 2010.
True Story is a rage comic character based on a black and white contour drawing of How I Met Your Mother character Barney Stinson (played by actor Neil Patrick Harris) smiling smugly while holding a wine glass. Often accompanied by the text “true story,” the character can mostly be found in the final panel of a rage comic to either indicate or falsely claim that it is based on a true story.
Origin
The colloquial expression “true story” has been used as an affirmative statement to corroborate one’s claim or allegation. Online, one of the earliest archived instances of this was posted on three separate Usenet newsgroups on November 2nd, 1995.[9] The post contained a diatribe criticizing the logic of seasoned posters who were complaining about an influx of newbies to Usenet. As an aside, author David Sewell used an example from his real life with a “true story” disclaimer, comparing the actions of a professor complaining about a student playing loud music to the way the older Usenet users were acting towards newcomers.
(True story: a professor at a private university complained to the Dean of Students about a student who every day would blare music from his dorm room right across from the professor’s afternoon class; the kid protested loudly that this practice was “part of his culture” and that the professor had no right to try to suppress it. Now where have we heard that argument lately…?)
An Urban Dictionary[3] definition for the phrase used in this manner was submitted nearly ten years later on June 20th, 2004. “True Story” gained much of its catchphrase status through the character Barney Stinson from the TV sitcom series How I Met Your Mother[1], which began airing in 2005. Throughout the show, Stinson frequently uses the expression “True Story” as an ending to theories or stories that are for the most part probably false or nonsense.
In Rage Comics
On February 2nd, 2011, Redditor acodemaster posted a thread titled “My submission for the ‘True Story’ Panel – Neil Patrick Harris”[2], suggesting a still shot (shown below, right) of Stinson from “Do I Know You?,” the first episode ofHow I Met Your Mother’s fourth season, be used for the rage face. Though many submissions were posted, the winning photo (shown below, left) was created by Redditor vorin.
Spread
The character was added to All The Rage Faces[15] on September 11th, 2011. The “True Story” character quickly took off on the f7u12 subreddit, which has more than 12,000 results[14] for the phrase as of September 2012, and numerous rage comics based on the character have been featured across other internet humor blogs, including Memebase[5], FunnyJunk[7] and 9gag.[8] The popularity of the phrase also led to an image macro generator page on DIYLOL.[4]Related merchandises featuring the “True Story” character can be also found on Zazzle[6] and Etsy.[16]
Additional rage comics using the character continue to be shared on Memebase[10], Rage Comic Archive[13] and Tumblr[11], where users will also simply use the image as a reaction face in a text post. A Facebook fan page[12] for the character has more than 157,000 likes as of September 2012.
Notable Examples
The reaction image is primarily used in the final panel of rage comics to re-emphasize the statement made in the preceding panel. On the f7u12 subreddit, such posts have been typically titled with the tag “[True Story].”
