Kilroy Was Here

Kilroy was here is an American popular culture expression, often seen in graffiti. Its origins are debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle—a bald-headed man (possibly with a few hairs) with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with the fingers of each hand clutching the wall—is widely known among U.S. residents who lived during World War II.

The Oxford English Dictionary says simply that Kilroy was “The name of a mythical person.”

One theory identifies James J. Kilroy (1902–1962),an American shipyard inspector, as the man behind the signature. During World War II he worked at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he claimed to have used the phrase to mark rivets he had checked. The builders, whose rivets J.J. Kilroy was counting, were paid depending on the number of rivets they put in. A riveter would make a chalk mark at the end of his or her shift to show where they had left off and the next riveter had started. Unscrupulous riveters discovered that, if they started work before the inspector arrived, they could receive extra pay by erasing the previous worker's chalk mark and chalking a mark farther back on the same seam, giving themselves credit for some of the previous riveter's work. J.J. Kilroy stopped this practice by writing "Kilroy was here" at the site of each chalk mark. At the time, ships were being sent out before they had been painted, so when sealed areas were opened for maintenance, soldiers found an unexplained name scrawled. Thousands of servicemen may have potentially seen his slogan on the outgoing ships and Kilroy's apparent omnipresence and inscrutability sparked a legend.

In the postwar United States the mischievous face and the phrase became a national joke. The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but where it turned up. The major Kilroy graffiti fad ended in the 1950s, but today people all over the world still scribble the character and "Kilroy was here" in schools, trains, and other similar public areas.

Dramatic Chipmunk

Dramatic Chipmunk, also known by the more accurate title Dramatic Prairie Dog, is a popular Internet comedy viral video. The video is a five-second clip of the "chipmunk" (actually a prairie dog) turning its head while the camera zooms in and dramatic music is played.

The video became widely known through uploads on YouTube and CollegeHumor on June 19, 2007. An earlier and identical version, titled as Dramatic Look, had been uploaded to YouTube on June 6, 2007.

The clip of the prairie dog is from the Japanese television show Hello! Morning featuring Mini Moni. The clip has a prairie dog inside a transparent box being shown to the hosts in the studio. CollegeHumor also released a longer clip under the title Undramatic Chipmunk, showing how the video looked in the original Japanese version.

The music used in Dramatic Chipmunk is taken from the score of the 1974 film Young Frankenstein, and was composed by John Morris. It uses three dramatic chords, and has a rumble of thunder in the background. The "chipmunk" turns its head and stares at the camera while the music is played.

Since its release, the video has received tens of millions of views. People Magazine named the Dramatic Chipmunk as one of The 10 Wildest YouTube Stars of 2007.

Winnebago Man

Winnebago Man is a 2009 American documentary feature film directed by Ben Steinbauer that follows the Internet phenomenon created by a series of twenty-year-old outtakes from a Winnebago sales video featuring profane outbursts from the salesperson, Jack Rebney. Originally intended as an inside joke, the video spread across the globe first on VHS tape then via YouTube and other online video sites, earning the salesman the title of "The Angriest Man in the World". The documentary explores the story of the clip’s origin and how, two decades later, it affects the man who never even knew it existed.

The film premiered at The South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas on March 14, 2009, and opened theatrically on July 9, 2010 at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York, before expanding nationally.

A sixty minute version of Winnebago Man was aired in the UK on BBC Four on August 30, 2010 as part of the Storyville series of documentaries.

The documentary starts with Steinbauer's obsession with a widely circulated viral video featuring outtakes from an RV commercial shoot, centered around a cantankerous pitchman who regularly becomes outraged and flustered, cursing in colorful mannerisms. Steinbauer researches the video, and discovers that it had been circulating on VHS long before it appeared on the Internet.

Steinbauer ultimately tracks down the infamous "Winnebago Man": Jack Rebney. Steinbauer visits Rebney at his home in a remote mountain area in California. Steinbauer is surprised to find Rebney to be calm, congenial, and very articulate -- in contrast to his reputed ornery manner. Rebney at first claims ignorance about his own popularity on the Internet. Steinbauer returns home somewhat disappointed.

Later, Rebney begins contacting Steinbauer. He admits that he has always been aware of the video and its notoriety, and is petulant over it. Rebney expresses deep bitterness about the current (2005-2007) state of affairs in America. Steinbauer discovers that Rebney was once an accomplished news broadcaster, and that Rebney still wishes for his political opinions to be heard. Rebney invites Steinbauer for a second visit.

Shortly afterward, local papers report that Rebney has gone missing for some time. After he is safely returned home, Rebney reports the ordeal to Steinbauer. When Steinbauer makes his second visit to Rebney's home, Rebney explains that he is now blind.

Despite Rebney's cantankerous (albeit articulate) protests, Steinbauer takes him to the Found Footage Festival in San Francisco. There, fans have lined up for a sold-out screening of the original videos featuring Rebney. The fans describe Rebney's positive impact on them. During the screening, the Festival organizers invite Rebney on stage as a special guest, where he wittily engages the audience. After the screening, Rebney meets several fans who request autographs and express to him how viewing the old footage cheers them up after a hard day.

Later that night, Rebney muses to an old friend that, counter to his expectations, his fans are "clever, quick, observant people."

The next day, the filmmakers and Rebney's friend drive him back home. There, Rebney's friend tells him, "You made a lot of people happy this weekend." Rebney replies by acknowledging that he takes some small degree of pride in how, for many people, he represents the human condition in the face of adversity.

"Paul is Dead"

"Paul is dead" is an urban legend alleging that Paul McCartney of The Beatles died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike and sound-alike.

The legend hinges on supposed hints among the Beatles' many recordings and presumed to be deliberately placed by The Beatles or others. Hundreds have been cited at various times; they include statements heard when a song is played backwards, symbolic interpretations of obscure lyrics, and ambiguous imagery on album covers. Some of these have become well known, such as the fact that McCartney is the only barefooted Beatle on the cover of Abbey Road, or the belief that Lennon says "I buried Paul" in a slow, deep voice over the final refrain of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (Lennon later said the phrase is actually "cranberry sauce").

It is often unclear how many proponents of this story spread it as a joke, as opposed to a real conspiracy theory. The rumour has been the subject of much sociological examination, since its development, growth, and rebuttal took place very publicly.

A claim that a hoax was perpetrated by The Beatles themselves, either as a joke or to stimulate record sales, has been denied by the band members.

Single Bullet Theory

The Single-Bullet Theory (or Magic-Bullet Theory, as it is commonly called by its critics) was introduced by the Warren Commission to explain how three shots fired by Lee Harvey Oswald resulted in the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. The theory, generally credited to Warren Commission staffer Arlen Specter (now a U.S. Senator), posits that a single bullet, known as "Warren Commission Exhibit 399" (also known as "CE399"), caused all of the non-fatal wounds in both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally. (The fatal head wound to the President was caused by a bullet other than this alleged "Single Bullet").

According to the single-bullet theory, a one-inch-long copper-jacketed lead-core 6.5-millimeter rifle bullet fired from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository passed through President Kennedy’s neck and Governor Connally’s chest and wrist and embedded itself in the Governor’s thigh. If so, this bullet traversed 15 layers of clothing, 7 layers of skin, and approximately 15 inches of tissue, struck a necktie knot, removed 4 inches of rib, and shattered a radius bone. The bullet that is supposed to have done all this damage was found on a stretcher in the corridor at the Parkland Memorial Hospital, in Dallas, after the assassination. The Warren Commission found that this stretcher was the one that had borne Governor Connally. This bullet became a key Commission exhibit, identified as CE399. Its copper jacket was completely intact. While the bullet's nose appeared normal, the tail was compressed laterally on one side.

In its conclusion, the Warren Commission found "persuasive evidence from the experts" that a single bullet caused the President's neck wound and all the wounds in Governor Connally. It acknowledged that there was a "difference of opinion" among members of the Commission "as to this probability", but stated that the theory was not essential to its conclusions and that all members had no doubt that all shots were fired from the sixth floor window of the Depository building.

All Your Base are Belong to Us

"All your base are belong to us" is a broken English phrase that was central to an Internet phenomenon, or meme, in 2000-2002, with the spread of a Flash animation that depicted the slogan. The text is taken from the opening cut scene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing,by Toaplan which was poorly translated by Sega of Europe.

On February 23, 2001, Wired provided an early report on the phenomenon, covering it from the Flash animation to its spread through e-mail and Internet forums to T-shirts bearing the phrase.

On April 1, 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven people aged 17 to 20 placed signs all over town that read, "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." They claimed to be playing an April Fool's joke, but most people who saw the signs were unfamiliar with the phrase. Many residents were upset that the signs appeared while the U.S. was at war with Iraq, and police chief Eugene Alli said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat depending on what someone interprets it to mean."

In February 2004, North Carolina State University students and members of The Wolf Web in Raleigh, North Carolina exploited a web-based service provided for local schools and businesses to report a weather-related closing to display the phrase within a news ticker on a live news broadcast on News 14 Carolina.

The phrase or some variation of lines from the game has appeared in numerous articles, books, comics, clothing, movies, radio shows, songs, television shows, video games, webcomics, and websites. Notable mentions include:

• On June 1, 2006, the video hosting website YouTube was taken down temporarily for maintenance. The phrase "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US" appeared below the YouTube logo as a placeholder while the site was down. Some users believed the site had been hacked, leading the host to add the message "No, we haven't been hacked. Get a sense of humor."
• On September 4, 2009, Google's main search page image was changed to that of a UFO beaming up the second 'o' in 'Google'. On the same day, Google's twitter page posted the message, "1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19." ("ALL YOUR O ARE BELONG TO US."). Despite much speculation about alien conspiracies, Google turned out to be simply honoring Zero Wing's 20th anniversary

Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law is a humorous observation coined by Mike Godwin in 1990, and which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions, the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.