memes

Smooth landing in wacky JetBlue job-quit affair?

Once upon a time, a weird news story was just a weird news story. Now, thanks to the Web, it's an international sensation and everyone can be a part of it: a reality-show-hungry couple claiming their kid flew away in a balloon; a strange, dead animal washing ashore; an oddball clan of Alaskans getting improbably close to the White House.

This week, it was the ridiculous story of Steven Slater, a JetBlue flight attendant who cursed out an uncooperative passenger over the intercom, activated the plane's emergency slide, and escaped with a beer in hand. Not only is … Read more

Oops: 'FML' meme now plastered on NY subway

NEW YORK--File this under "not particularly serious news, but hilarious."

This week, an alteration in New York City transit signs to address forthcoming route changes have placed an unfortunate Internet acronym on a heavily trafficked subway station: Displays that list the color-coded subway services running at the 14th Street-6th Avenue underground station now display a bold "FML."

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA, may or may not have been aware that this is an acronym for "f*** my life," a profane exclamation of disgruntlement that arose in Web forums, in text messages, and on … Read more

Stupid frat prank becomes runaway Web phenom

It might be the new Rickroll. It might not. But a new Internet meme has popped up that could be worth a second look: "icing," an unusually inane and relatively harmless fraternity drinking game centered on the consumption of Smirnoff Ice, the sugary bottled malt beverage that's become classified as the ultimate "girly drink."

"The rules are simple: hand a Smirnoff Ice (the warmer/more disgusting the flavor, the better) to a friend (your "bro"), and he must get down on one knee and chug the malt beverage, regardless of location and … Read more

Top 5 Internet Memes

This was definitely one of the most fun top 5s we've done here at CNET. There are piles of memes built up over the past 30 years or so of Internet usage. Sadly we could not include them all. We kiss Mahir, but he didn't make the list.

So what did? Only the biggest memes ever to infect the world zeitgeist. Only most pernicious mental constructions ever to permeate the hive mind. So watch the top 5 then come back here and post your answer to the lame prize question in the comments below. We'll choose one … Read more

YouTube gives up on original 'Rickroll'

UPDATE (10:46 a.m. PT): The Rickroll is back. Scroll down for more details.

In what's either the saddest or most fantastic news of the week, the YouTube video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" has been deemed a copyright violation.

Yes, that means the cheesy '80s pop video with tens of millions of views--the center of the "Rickrolling" Internet phenomenon--is no more.

It's not quite clear when it was removed, but the blog Neowin noticed it early Wednesday. "Never Gonna Give You Up" comes from the Astley … Read more

Sites that help you find hot topics across the Web

The Web is a great place to learn about hot topics, but Internet memes can't be spotted so easily unless you have some help. On topics ranging from tech to general interest, you can find what's hot at any moment with the following resources.

Find your memes

Blogrunner The New York Times' Blogrunner sifts through all the news hitting blogs across the Web, finds the hot topics, and lists them on the site. The most popular stories at the time are listed at the top of the Blogrunner page. Those that are either older or on their way up are listed below the top stories.

I was happy with the amount of content Blogrunner provides. Unlike some sites that focus solely on one topic, Blogrunner lists politics, world news, tech news, religion, and several other topics to find the hot stories in each category. Sifting through the stories is simple. And thanks to a fine design, you should be happy with the experience. It's not the best tool in this roundup, but it's pretty good.

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed is a user-generated topic finder. The site asks its users to find funny, outrageous, or interesting content across the Web that appeals to a wider audience. The topics they find should have the goal of starting a meme on the Web.

BuzzFeed is filled with funny or outrageous videos and images. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you're trying to find the hottest news at any moment, you probably won't have much luck with BuzzFeed. If you're just looking for some entertainment, you might like BuzzFeed. Your mileage will vary.… Read more

Rival Twitter aggregator apps square off

There's some chest-thumping going on over at TweetMeme, a service that rounds up "retweets" of popular links--much like Digg buttons--and aggregates them into a central site. A rival site, ReTweet, just announced its impending launch, and TweetMeme thinks the two are too similar.

More specifically, according to a blog post by TweetMeme's Nick Halstead, ReTweet's "retweet button Javascript and the Wordpress plugin code seemed to have been directly copied from ours." He said that TweetMeme is "seeking further legal advice."

Halstead says he was spurred by a commenter on a TechCrunch … Read more

The top 10 songs the Web brought back

There's a lot to love about silly Internet memes and fads, and one reason is that they can dig up something old and make it cool again. Music is no exception: anything from a '70s rock anthem to a '90s one-hit wonder can be given new life if the YouTube or 4chan hordes get their hands on it.

The complication is that, thanks to the rise of user-generated content, a song can suddenly become in-demand again without any kind of official marketing push (like placement on a movie soundtrack, for example). And that's an interesting issue for the … Read more

YouTube pulls audio from greatest music video ever

This is really quite sad.

Citing copyright concerns, YouTube has deleted the audio from a hosted video that depicts the Internet meme "Keyboard Cat" showing up in a vintage TV after-school special and then embedded in the foreground of the '80s-era music video for the song "You Make My Dreams" by pop duo Daryl Hall and John Oates. It was an extremely awesome match, because the musical feline fit into the minimalist Hall & Oates video a little too well.

The audio appears to have been deleted on behalf of music label Warner Music Group. "… Read more