Hi there,

I have to do a report 'bout internet phenomena and as you might all know you can talk about that for weeks. So I can't show all crazy stuff, which is there in the internet, in that 15 minutes presentation. That's why I will upload this presentation as a blog entry, so that everyone, especially that guys from my class, can read it once more. Here we go:

Table of Contents

1. What is it?
2. How do internet phenomena work?
3. Types of internet phenomena
   1. Self Promotion
   2. Images
   3. Websites
   4. Fun movies
   5. Game spoofs
   6. Parodies
   7. Competetions
   8. Interesting Content
4. How do we react to that?
5. Some common internet phenomena you might all know ;)
6. Sources

What is it?

Internetphenomena or a so called “hype” is some kind of data, which spreads quickly over the whole internet, becoming very popular. That can be a movie, a piece of music, a text, a program or even a person.

Anyway, an Internet Phenomenon is also a message. Usually you go out to the internet and want to present a message. Some messages, or mostly the way the messages is presented, are that notably, that everybody will remember it for weeks. Yeah … weeks or maybe months, cause internet phenomena are only a temporarily hype.

If you can’t figure out, what I mean, maybe some Real Life Phenomena will help you to understand what exactly a phenomenon is.

Internet Phenomenon

• YuGiOh-Cardgame
• Pokémon (also card game, video games, anime show)
• Tamagotchi

How do internet phenomena work?

If you want to know how they work, you have to understand how the Internet and the people interact. The Internet is a high speed way for your ideas and messages. You can communicate with everyone, everywhere. Even with Bots. Anyway … So you can access nearly the whole world from your home computer. This is how the Internet “works”.

Maybe you have an idea, which is innovative and revolutionary. There is no better way to present that stuff in the internet, if you want to reach million of people. This is how the internet phenomena “work”.

They will see it, they will love it and they will spread it all over the internet. And this is, how the people work!

Types of internet phenomena

Self Promotion

Self Promotion are created by presenting you as a message. If you’re interesting enough to be an internet phenomena you will be one! Most popular sites to present yourself are Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and some famous persons are Magibon, Chris Crocker, that verizan bastart or Chuck Norris.

Images

Images or image editing are very popular, cause it’s easy to create one of them and it’ even easier to share it with the world, because of its small file size. Famous examples are the ORLY-owl or LOLcats.

Websites

Websites can also be an internet phenomena. In fact, this seems natural, because websites are a essential part of the internet. And websites will help other websites to get famous by the setting links on their page. But usually websites are famous because of their content. Some examples: youtube.com, google.com

Fun movies

Fun movies are perhaps the most popular type and maybe even the best way to illustrate your idea. This so called vids were spread rapidly, because nothing moves a human better than humour. Some famous representatives: Achmed the dead terrorist, Charlie the unicorn, Zidane vs. Materazzi, Lama with hats

Game spoofs

Game spoofs are some kind of fun movies, making fun of a popular game, like Mario, Zelda or final fantasy. Some well known spoofs might by: pokemon spoof, real legend of Zelda, silent hill chibi edition. But not only movies were offered. There are only some games making fun of their famous parents. Most notably game is probably “Mario asshole”, which is a nearly unbeatable version of super Mario world. A player wrote this about the game: “this game gives you a reason to hate life”.

Parodies

Parodies or imitations are internet phenomena, which take the originally internet phenomena and modify it to make fun of it or provide a different message. The list of phenomena is probably endless, here some examples: Zidane vs. Materazzi, 2Girls1Cup-Reaction, 2Girls1Cup-Lovesong, all the spoofs, Canon Rock played by Funtwo …

Competetions

Competetions create often a hype. Someone does anything highskilled, like playing a really hard song on guitar without and everyone wants to better. Or maybe the rotate pencils with their hands or do some other stuff with their hands, like cup stacking or coin flipping. Anyway tha main idea is to be the best at this. So everyone tries it out hoping that he will soon post a video, which shows how high skilled he is. Some major internet-sports: Penspinning, Daft Hands, Fingerskateboarding.

Interesting Content

A very important type, because it is included by every other type, is interesting content. It doesn’t matter how good your video, text, website or whatever is. It is nothing without the information. A good example for a interesting information and a crappy presentation is 2Girls1Cup. For some reason it is really a interesting video, cause million of people have seen it though the got told what will happen.

How do we react to that?

There are different types of reaction depending on the internet phenomena itself and of course our own attitude to the presented message. For example if you see a so called competition-internet phenomena and you’re extremely ambitious, so you will probably join that process of becoming an phenomenon. Or if you don’t like nasty and kinky stuff you wont like 2Girls1Cup. and you might not see it more than 1 time.

But there is one thing that all reactions have in common. No matter if you like it or not. One day or other you well tell somebody what you saw. This is how the game works. People will always spread things which keeps them busy.

Also a often happening reaction is to reproduce the idea you saw. In some case you will create an internet phenomena on your own.

Some common internet phenomena you might all know ;)

Self Promotion

• Magibon
• Chris Crocker
• Marie Digby

Fun Movies

• Achmed the dead terrorist
• Lamas with hats
• Charlie the unicorn
• Zidane vs. Materazzi
• Loutima Girl
• ASDF Movie

Competetions

• Penspinning
• Daft Hands
• Fingerskateboarding

Game Spoofs

• Real Legend of Zelda
• Mad Mario
• Pokemon Spoof
• Mario Asshole
• Silent Hill: Chibi Edition
• College Saga

Sources

http://www.youtube.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORLY
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_phenomena
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Main_Page