Memorable Memes: Sharing some laughs

 Smiling baby with toys photo by Petr Kratochvil

Merriam Webster defines “meme” as “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture."

Yesterday, I received a collection of one-liners that as Internet memes have been transmitted via e-mails, and along the way, folks added their own commentary creating a meme complex, which as an end result provided some humorous puns,

There are numerous sites where you fashion your own meme and hope it goes viral via social networks or e-mails. One such online presence is MemeCreator, where you simply press the “create” button at the top of the page, and add your own appropriate pun to the picture of the goofy-looking “Lame Coon.”

The memes below are all real groaners so smile and share. Remember laughter doesn’t cost anything, and it doesn’t hurt  to spread the joy.

 

-I changed my iPod's name to Titanic.

It's syncing now.

-When chemists die, they barium.

-Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

-I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid.

He says he can stop any time.

-How does Moses make his tea?

Hebrews it.

-I stayed up all night to see where the sun went.

Then it dawned on me.

-This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian

club, but I'd never met herbivore.

-I'm reading a book about anti-gravity.

I just can't put it down.

-I did a theatrical performance about puns.

It was a play on words.

-They told me I had type-A blood,

but it was a Type-O.

-PMS jokes aren't funny; period.

-Why were the Indians here first?

They had reservations.

-We’re going on a class trip to the Coca-Cola factory.

I hope there's no pop quiz.

-I didn't like my beard at first.

Then it grew on me.

-Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost

her job because she couldn't control her pupils?

-When you get a bladder infection urine trouble.

-Broken pencils are pointless.

-I tried to catch some fog, but I mist it.

-What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?

A thesaurus.

-England has no kidney bank,

but it does have a Liverpool .

-I used to be a banker,

but then I lost interest.

-I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

-All the toilets in New York's police stations have been stolen.

The police have nothing to go on.

-I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

-Haunted French pancakes give me the crêpes.

-Velcro! what a rip off!

-A cartoonist was found dead in his home.

Details are sketchy.

-Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!

-The earthquake in Washington obviously

was the government's fault.

Advertising with cats: 'Catvertising'

"Mr. Kitty" photo by Paula Slade

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.” ~ Garrison Keillor ~

Whether you call it categorically correct, or a purrfect passion for the pulse of the populace, a very bright creative team of advertising professionals known as John St. have tapped into something very unique in terms of making products memorable, including their own firm.

Based in Toronto, John St.’s mottos is, “We exist to make our clients’ brands unignorable,” and in doing so they count some pretty impressive companies as clients, from corporations such as Tetley Tea and Kraft Foods, to Mitsubishi Motors and Moosehead.

On November 10, 2011, John St. uploaded a video on their YouTube Channel, which has become a viral sensation with almost 1,500,000 page views – it’s titled: “Catvertising.”

According to John St., the video was created, “To stay on top of the ever-changing advertising landscape,” and in their effort to deliver on that promise, they declared that they had, “opened the world's first cat video division. With production, filming and seeding all in-house.”

There’s no denying the worldwide popularity of Felis silvestris catus, better known as the domesticated cat.  One has only to look no further than the runaway success of Lolcats, and Nyan Cats, along with the number of cat videos that are constantly uploaded to YouTube.

IMHO, John St.’s video is certainly humorous, albeit with an ever so slight, tongue-in-cheek delivery.  However, it definitely promotes what was promised.  Even if it’s a spoof,  “Catvertising” has put their name on the map in an “unignorable” way.

Thanks to John St. for this delightful infomercial.

Extreme controversy: Donald Duck versus Glenn Beck

“Only in his wildest dreams could an actual suicide bomber do as much damage to this country.” ~ Keith Olbermann ~ (Referring to political commentator Glenn Beck.)

If you’re sitting in a packed movie theater and someone yells, “Fire,” when there is no fire, that’s not exercising free speech; it’s considered dangerous and in this case, a criminal act.

Political commentators like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh clapperclaw their brand of “fire” over the airwaves on a daily basis, mesmerizing the masses and polarizing both political left and political right.

This is free speech and it is what our country is all about.

However, the video below, which surfaced October 2, appears to do a great job at discerning commentator fire, from that which is reality.

Said video, “Right Wing Radio Duck," created by Jonathan McIntosh, is a brilliant and technologically astounding remix of classic Donald Duck cartoons (circa 1930’s to 1960’s) with the fear-mongering verbal gymnastics of Glenn Beck.

As a social commentary, it hits the mark spot on. (No wonder the video has begun to go viral, chalking up over a half million hits in three days.)

IMHO, the message speaks for itself. It definitely makes me want to take that free bus ride to Washington, D.C. on October 30 and witness first-hand Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.”

If anyone’s going, could you save me a seat?



Glenn Beck photo by David Shankbone; CC 3.0

New on the Social Network Scene

When a video goes ”viral” on the Internet, it explodes on the scene with the force of a one megaton PR campaign. The reach of said video goes everywhere and is accessible by everyone.

For bloggers, if the video's message and content is convincing enough, it is often embraced and winds up on blogs and/or in mailboxes around the globe, but mainstream media may pick up on it as well and might be fooled into accepting it as gospel, unless they go directly to the source for further background.

During the first week in April, there were some very credible and geeky websites that fell for the concept of “Fluttering” (a form of “Nanoblogging”) – supposedly the ultimate step after “Twittering” (the social network tool, which has rapidly become famous for tracking every move of the famous, not-so-famous, wanna-be-famous, and infamous in 140 characters or less.)

Nanoblogging (as portrayed in a "mockumentary" tongue-in-cheek video from Salon Magazine) offered anyone who is attached to their computers or iphones, multiple opportunities to keep their friends and followers informed of their every move by utilizing a sparse 26 characters of alphabet communications – somewhere between “Twittering” and texting… you remember texting don’t you?

That’s right, 26 characters to stay informed on everything - in every one of your social contact’s lives.

Amazing!!! But, it was all a mirthful joke, which many in technology geekdom took seriously, two days after April Fools Day!

I won't embarrass anyone by sending you to their blogs or websites but suffice to say in less than a week the video was viewed over 400,000 times.

A stroke of genius by Salon. What do you think? Maybe we are actually glimpsing the future?