Ascended Meme



Sometimes media subjected to Memetic Mutations catches the eye of the people responsible for that media, and they decide to actually put it in. Note that this is not about references to unrelated memes, which would just be a Shout-Out.

Can be an in-joke for an Ascended Fanboy character, or a Promoted Fanboy who makes sure it'll be in the show. Can also be a result of Approval of God, where the creator would approve of fanworks and memes derived from the source material.

A Sister Trope of Ascended Fanon, Continuity Nod, Mythology Gag (the latter two are references to things that were in the show).

Compare Watch It for the Meme, Appropriated Appellation, Pandering to the Base, Forced Meme, Official Fan-Submitted Content.

Not to be confused for a show making a Forced Meme itself.

Advertising

 * If you watch TV late at night, you can see the ordinary Vince Offer Slap Chop commercial has been replaced by this wonderful gem, though, presumably due to rights issues, the bits from Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo are sadly replaced with some new footage of break-dancers.
 * And the other Vince Offer commercial for ShamWOW towels has been replaced by this.
 * A 2009 Envirofone advert for recycling old mobile phones, featured in particular one big Cockney guy shouting "WONGA!" who has become a frequent subject for mash-ups. The meme turned ascended with the company now completely focusing their adverts on the said person, now dubbed Mr Wongaman.
 * The Snickers commercial wherein a football player gets a concussion and thinks he's Batman was referenced by Tampa Bay Rays player Will Rhymes after he got nailed with a pitch.

Anime and Manga
""It's not even a line my character says, but I've been saying it all weekend"."
 * Wayne Grayson, voice of Joey in Yu-Gi-Oh!! has said "Brooklyn Rage!!" several times at a 2008 convention. He referred to it as "his favorite line" even though:

"America: We caught 'em all!"
 * Don't forget the Flavor Text of Alligator's Sword!
 * Card Games on Motorcycles.
 * Dan Green once read a dialogue between Yami Yugi and Yugi from the Abridged Series. It has to be seen to be believed.
 * Leekspin showed up in the Bleach card game.
 * In the preview of episode 245, Ichigo wonders why Kenpachi's Zanpakuto hasn't materialized yet. Renji gets to answer his question by actually saying...this. See the Memetic Badass page for more info- it's not exactly like the original meme, but it gets close.
 * The School Days OVA featured a "Nice Boat" labeled as such.
 * At one particular Comiket, 0verflow actually named their booth "Nice Boat".
 * The Gundam fandom has a famous meme about something red being three times faster, coming from original series ace Char 'The Red Comet' Aznable having an Ace Custom said to be three times fast than usual with no visible difference but being red. Mobile Suit Gundam 00 seemingly made this reality when Setsuna's Gundam turned red on acquiring its Super Mode, with the technician staff stating "It goes about three times faster now!"
 * This has been an Ascended Meme for quite a while, as ever since the original series they quickly put out a truckload of tongue-in-cheek meme-beholden merchandise, like Char's Custom Laptop, or Char's Custom Sneakers. Guaranteed to go three times faster. There was even a Char custom credit card in Japan which actually earned three times the reward points for every thousand yen spent.
 * In Chars Counterattack, Gyunei tells Quess that everyone thinks Char is into young girls.
 * Another Char related one, the character has an Expy in every Gundam series, and they have been referred to be fans as "Char Clones". The Gaia Gear novels, and later Gundam Unicorn, featured a character who was literally a clone of Char.
 * Ribbons, the villain of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 got a Fan Nickname of the Evil Amuro, because the two characters share a voice actor. In the movie, the man who is seen talking to Aeolia Schenberg at the end and who likely contributed the genetic data for the Ribbons line of Innovades... also has the same voice actor and bears the name "E.A. Ray."
 * A further Gundam 00 one. Graham Acre's masked samurai persona was nicknamed Bushido Bob and similar names well before Graham identified himself as Mr. Bushido, even adding "That's just what they decided to call me."
 * Another infamous meme from the first series has Dozle Zabi's declaration about how when "the Big Zams are mass-produced, the Federation will be beaten in no time". Cue the G-Generation games, where a Mass-Produced Big Zam is actually a unit you can use.
 * G Gundam's "With the help of Kyoji" meme has ascended as well, in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam players can have Kyoji and the Devil Gundam as assit units, making it possible to overtake a field or beat an enemy with, well...
 * Originally in Haruhi Suzumiya, the initialism "SOS-dan" stood for "Sekai wa Ooi ni Moriageru Tame no Suzumiya Haruhi no Dan" -- "Suzumiya Haruhi's group to make the world more fun". The fansubs translated this as "Save The World By Overloading It With Fun: Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade". The manga and light novels, when they were licensed and translated, used this exact translation.
 * Similarly, when Bandai Entertainment licensed the anime, they intended to use "psychic" rather than "esper" like the fansubs had. The fans complained, and less than a week later, when they added subtitles to the Japanese portions of their bizarre video ads, they also put the word "esper" on the bottom of the screen every time someone said "psychic" in English. Since then, every official translation has used "esper".
 * For those who don't get it, "esper" is from "ESP-er," that is, someone who "does" ESP, or a psychic.
 * The Fullmetal Alchemist fandom started using the number 503 to represent the Ed/Winry pairing, based on a brand of jeans of the same number produced by a company called Edwin. In a later chapter of the manga, the creator gives a nod to this, as Ed is shown to be staying in hotel room 503.
 * From the manga,
 * In Noir, the first of Bee Train's Girls with Guns trilogy, Kirika's combat skills led to fans describing her as a "witch". In the third series, El Cazador de la Bruja, Ellis is a literal witch.
 * From Lucky Star: Because of Miyuki's tendency to know everything and recite it with little provocation, the online community nicknamed her MiWikipedia. In the Lucky Star OVA, Konata herself referred to Miyuki at one point as Miwiki-san.
 * Strike Witches is often mocked for its protagonists' lack of pants. The Funimation advertisement for the series has the tagline "Winning the War on Pants" and refers to it as a "brief" series.
 * Another meme strikes in season two. Minna somehow got quite the reputation for clenching her butt, and a meme formed that she could break anything with it. In season 2, episode 7, this is exactly how she ends up . '' base.
 * The "China, I choose you!" line from an Axis Powers Hetalia fansub made its way into the dub.

"Caro: Is there some secret to maintain such a long-lasting friendship? Fate: Hm... I wonder what it is... We’re all just doing what we usually do. Arf: Maybe it’s that? You first met by blowing each other up, and everything after that was pretty simple. Fate: Huh? Arf: They say it was that way with Nanoha and Arisa. It was the same with Fate and Nanoha too! Fate: Ah... The same with Signum too. ... Caro: So, the most important part is that you went all out on each other? Huh, oh no Erio what should we do! If it's that the case, we haven't hit each other that much at all! Erio: Um, yes we did. At the escalators, when Caro fell and we slammed into each other. Caro: Oh... So that's fine then? Arf: I think for you two, that's good enough."
 * And a fandom joke was that Spain was known for having a nice ass in comparison to the other characters. Recently, the author has focused on that aspect of Spain the most as seen here.
 * With Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Sound Stage The Movie Side F, the popular meme known as "Befriending" amongst English-speakers has been given a nod, as Arf jokingly explains to an increasingly worried Erio and Caro that the only way to make life-long friends is to blow them up first.


 * The first episode of Pokémon: Black and White takes two memes at once: Trip takes Snivy (Smugleaf) over Oshawott (Wotter), the least-liked of all the starters. Oshawott is very hurt and surprised to learn this.
 * Played with in Pokémon Special, as Oshawott initially appears to be set up as a Butt Monkey, with it getting hurt trying to break up a Snivy/Tepig fight. However, Oshawott promptly breaks out into what can only be called a rape face and smacks the both of them mercilessly with its shell.
 * A Certain Magical Index and Squid Girl's title characters have often been noted to be very similar. Index-tan episode 3 played on this idea by giving the Fun Size Index many of Ika's characteristics. Which works on more than one level, because a fun size Ika also has a precedent.
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura's fame as a Memetic Molester of Madoka was referenced by the series' character designer Ume Aoki herself in the Yonkoma DVD Bonuses, with Homura asking Madoka to
 * Her Fan Nickname "Homu Homu" has also been ascended - the Special Edition of Puella Magi Madoka Magica Portable will come with a "HomuHomu handkerchief".
 * In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Hibari's bird was nicknamed "Hibird" by the fans and subsequently later used officially by the author.
 * Episode 7 of The Idolmaster introduces a "Nonowa" toy, based on fanmade parodies of Haruka's habit of looking up and to the right when in thought.
 * In the third season of Kyo Kara Maoh, Greta names her pet bearbee Yuuram, after her adoptive daddies. It's the fandom's Portmanteau Couple Name for Yuuri and Wolfram.
 * Umineko no Naku Koro ni used Eva-Beatrice's Fan Nickname "Evatrice" in one of the episode previews in the anime.
 * Evangelion Fanon pegged Shinji as a Supreme Chef, contrasting with Misato's Lethal Chef quirks. In Rebuild of Evangelion, we see Shinji cooking as well as the product of his work... and according to everyone in the movies, his food is really good.
 * From Code Geass, Emperor Charles makes a big speech in the early show about the inequality of mankind. Some joker of a Japanese fan took the manga version of the speech and edited it so that it was instead a speech extolling how awesome breasts are. Norio Wakamoto, Charles's seiyuu, found out about it and made an official recording of it in the Emperor's voice.

Comic Books

 * Another Transformers Animated case: Lugnut's ultimate attack, the Punch Of Kill Everything, had its Fan Nickname immortalized in the official Animated comic series "The Arrival - Part 4."
 * The same nickname is referenced in Transformers: War for Cybertron. Among other things, one skill Soldiers can select to enhance their Whirlwind ability is called "P.o.K.E Alpha".
 * The new Lugnut toy was designed to execute a double dose of P.O.K.E. with both hands being spring-loaded, no doubt inspired by the nickname's popularity.
 * This happened in Archie Comics' Sonic series, as a post-Villainous Breakdown Robotnik blurts out the lines "SnooPING AS usual" and "It's from the show! I'm going to be on TV! I'm going to be... a TV star!" For no other reason than to show that he's fully and truly lost it. Naturally, this was picked up almost immediately by fans. The current voice of Dr. Eggman in the Sonic series, Mike Pollock, also granted an interviewer's request to say the line in the Eggman voice (though he was pissed after he realized the significance of it).
 * Jim Croce's "You Don't Mess Around with Jim" has the line "Don't tug on Superman's cape." Now, in the comics, Supes gets really grumpy when people screw with the cape.
 * The song gets invoked in Thunderbolts when the team takes on ... who happens to be a Captain Ersatz of Superman.
 * Further Superman Ascended Memedom: Lex Luthor has, as of current canon, stolen forty cakes at one point. (See also And That's Terrible.)
 * Squirrel Girl's one-shot appearance becoming a meme in Internet forums led to her becoming a permanent recurring character in Great Lakes Avengers. Now she's Luke Cage and Jessica Jones' nanny.
 * In How to Draw Transformers, Simon Furman acknowledges one of his favorite phrases, when he writes "THE END! Though, as I've been known to say, "It never ends!"."
 * The main Marvel Universe is called "Earth-616". There's a fan rumor that it was named for the date the Fantastic Four first appeared (supposedly June 1961). This is not true (for one thing, the issue was released in August), but this numbering scheme then became used for real for several Marvel alternate Earths.
 * During Fear Itself, the Thunderbolts tie-in arc features a literal Giant-Size Man-Thing, and Songbird refers to him as just that.
 * An issue of Invincible Iron Man has Tony returning to the cave where he built the original armor... which even he says was built IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!

Film

 * "I'm the Juggernaut, Bitch!" in X Men the Last Stand, although many felt the line was shoehorned in. The line even got a TV-friendly shout-out in the Black Panther animated series: "I'm the Juggernaut, punk!"
 * "I've had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" was added to the script when word got round that Samuel L. Jackson was due to star in a film called Snakes on a Plane and Memetic Mutation ensued.
 * In addition, Snakes on a Plane was only the movie's working title, but both the internet and Samuel L. Jackson insisted that the working title be kept. The only reason Jackson even took the gig in the first place was the title's Exactly What It Says on the Tin nature.
 * Even further than that, the film's existence is an Ascended Meme. The pitch for it was seized by the mysterious creatures of the internet and underwent serious Memetic Mutation. The joke became so widespread that there was a proven audience for the film.
 * ... which was memorably subverted when the film totally bombed. It turns out, those part of the internet are mostly made of people who don't pay to see movies.
 * A couple years ago there was a promo for a TV airing of The Wizard of Oz that used the song "The Great Gig In The Sky" by Pink Floyd, referencing the fan-synchronization of The Wizard Of Oz with the album "Dark Side Of The Moon".
 * Sometime in the mid-'90s, one of the Turner networks aired The Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon as an alternate audio track (usually reserved for Spanish dubbing if available).
 * "Not a lot of people know that" was a Beam Me Up, Scotty for Michael Caine, as it was from Peter Sellers' impression of him rather than anything he actually said in a movie ...until the film Educating Rita where Michael Caine's character was given the line to say.
 * Figwit the elf from the Lord of the Rings film series. A background extra played by Bret McKenzie (of Flight of the Conchords) who appears in a shot following Frodo's acceptance of the ring (the name standing for Frodo Is Great!... Who Is That?), the nickname was eventually used in the series of Topps trading cards featuring the character. Peter Jackson specifically brought him back for Return of the King because of the popularity of the meme, even giving him a couple lines this time around.
 * And he's back for The Hobbit
 * The 'name' "Man With No Name" to describe Clint Eastwood's character in the Dollars Trilogy was a Fan Nickname that has since become appropriated by all the tie-in literature.
 * "Team Edward" and "Team Jacob" were Fan Nicknames for factions of Twilight fans that have since ended up ubiquitous enough to get on official merchandise, if you want a Team Edward t-shirt or a Team Jacob bag. Or a Team Tyler's Van shirt.
 * How about the "Team Van Helsing" shirts?
 * In the first Hellraiser, Doug Bradley's character was known simply as "Lead Cenobite". The name "Pinhead" was a nickname given to him by fans of the movie. It wasn't until the second movie that Pinhead became his official name.
 * After the Memetic Mutation of Optimus Prime's "GIVE ME YOUR FACE!" in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Hasbro devised a new toy of the original victim (the titular Fallen) which would actually have a removable face.
 * A deleted scene of Zack Snyder's Justice League had the Joker say "We live in a society where honor is a distant memory." The earlier part originated from several Joker memes created by fans since The Dark Knight came out.

Literature

 * The fan abbreviation DADA for Defence Against the Dark Arts was used in Harry Potter and the fan nickname Voldie for Voldemort was used by Peeves at the end of Deathly Hallows.
 * Prior to the seventh book, Draco Malfoy's family home had never appeared or been named, though it was implied to be some kind of castle or mansion. Fans assigned it the name "Malfoy Manor", which became ubiquitous in fanfiction before eventually being made canon in Deathly Hallows.
 * Several Star Wars Expanded Universe books make a point of how Han either Shot First or failed to so, in different circumstances.

Live Action TV

 * The House fandom's name for the Thirteen-Foreman pairing, Foreteen (or Fourteen), was actually used by House himself.
 * The common fan nickname for Jim and Pam on the American version of The Office, "Jam", was given a sideways reference in season 4 when Kevin declares they should be a couple so he can refer to them as "PB&J" (Pam Beesley & Jim).
 * Originally, The X-Files character was named "Cigarette-Smoking Man" in the scripts. But no one ever called him by name. So the fans started calling him "Cancer Man". By Season 3, so did Mulder.
 * This trope also may have encouraged the writers to drop more hints that Mulder likes porn, as was inferred by fans who accepted it as Fanon.
 * In the original Doctor Who, the Doctor generally referred to his associates as "my assistant" or "my best friend" or simply by name; the designation "companion" was mainly used behind the scenes and in fandom. In the new series, however, the Doctor's companions are frequently called that onscreen.
 * In Lost, fans gave the smoke monster the nickname 'Smokey'. In season 6, Sawyer referred to him by this name (justified by the fact that Sawyer gives everyone creative nicknames).
 * Star Trek: Enterprise: The mysterious figure pulling the evil strings was never identified and given a name, so the Star Trek reviewer SF Debris then gave him the name Future Guy. The fanbase picked it up, and then the creators of the show also used it. The only problem is, it was derived from sarcasm as pointed out in his (video version) "Broken Bow" review: "How sad is it when the master villain's name is derived from sarcasm?"
 * Glee's pairing names Finchel, Puckelberry, and Furt showed up all in Episode 2X08. It was titled Furt.
 * iCarly used the pairing names for the two major ships on the show, Creddie (Carly/Freddie) and Seddie (Sam/Freddie). Sadly, no-one mentioned Cam (Carly/Sam) or Spam (Sam/Spencer).
 * For a Discovery Channel contest, Awkward Zombie creator Katie Tiedrich created a MythBusters fan-short about firing a pig from a cannon made entirely out of duct tape. The pig thing isn't too implausible, as the 'Busters do use pig carcasses as human analogues, but the "duct tape cannon" seemed like pure ridiculousness. The short didn't win the contest... but was so popular elsewhere that the Mythbusters themselves saw it and loved it. Come the Duct Tape Special, guess what Kari, Tori, and Grant actually made?
 * Fringe The fandom names for the alternate Walter and Olivia, "Walternate" (prior to his reveal) and "Fauxlivia" (following her introduction), have both been canonized by the show.
 * Cable stations are using lines from Charlie Sheen's epic ongoing breakdown (including audio clips) to advertise Two and A Half Men and Spin City re-runs, even basing a contest around it.
 * Not to mention the episode of Two And A Half Men where Alan thinks he is Charlie... "Winning."
 * Sesame Street was the focus of an uproar whereby Cookie Monster was purported to have drastically reduced his cookie intake, or even given them up altogether and been renamed the Veggie Monster. The show has referenced this firestorm on a few occasions. In one sketch, Cookie Monster is about to eat some fruit when interviewer Matt Lauer confronts him about why he "doesn't like cookies", to which the monster replies "You members of media blow story waaaay out of proportion!". In another scene, after eating some vegetables, he said "But remember, me not Veggie Monster. Me still Cookie Monster. Just for record. Me got reputation to think of."
 * Spitting Image would often feature film critic Barry Norman (voiced by Rory Bremner), giving him the Catch Phrase "...and why not?". He didn't say it in real life, but it fit with his style and became the first thing anyone thought of regarding him. Years later, Norman said in a review "...and, as Rory Bremner would say, why not?" and also made it the title of his autobiography.
 * Originally in the Bonus Round on Wheel of Fortune, a contestant would have to pick five consonants and a vowel to assist in solving the bonus puzzle within a time limit. By the late 1980s, almost every contestant was picking R, S, T, L, N and E in that order, because those letters are the most common. The rules were finally changed in October 1988 to give those letters automatically — in that order — and then ask for three more consonants and a vowel (but also making the puzzles harder and slashing the time limit).
 * Miley Cyrus is evidently a fan of the Saturday Night Live sketch "The Miley Cyrus Show", starring Vanessa Bayer as Cyrus, and has often incorporated the sketch's "prrrretty cool" catchphrase on her Twitter account (her sister Noah is also known to use it in YouTube videos). When Miley hosted SNL in March 2011, she used the catchphrase in promos with Kenan Thompson, and even got to act in a "Miley Cyrus Show" sketch dressed as Justin Bieber (one of the highlights of the episode).

Music
"From Sweden to UK we will bring our song Australia, USA, and people of Hong Kong They have heard this meme all around the world So come and move your hips, sing ua a a Look at YouTube clips, do it la la la You and me can sing this melody"
 * When the Speedy Techno Remake of Caramelldansen was turned into the Caramelldansen Vid, the band Caramell saw it and decided to base the official song video on it (but use the remix of course, not the slower original song). They also made the Japanese mondegreens into the official Japanese version.
 * Also, the English version:


 * And the saga continues with their new video, "Boogie Bam Dance".
 * When Haddaway performed "What Is Love?" during his appearance on the short-lived show Hit Me Baby One More Time, the backup choreography included the Roxbury headbop.
 * In Brazil, a video involving fans of Restart complaining after a cancelled autograph session became popular - especially one of said angry fans, a girl named Georgia Massa, saying it was a "puta falta de sacanagem", a contradictory phrase that could be translated as "fucking lack of unfairness" or This Is Unforgivable!. Then the band and a comedian created a song based on that phrase, and Massa got to meet the band (much to the jealousy of other rabid fangirls). The boys, in turn, wrote the song "Pra Você Lembrar" in order to apologize for the cancelled autograph session.
 * After Camron's infamous U MAD appearance on The O' Reilly Factor, www.u-mad.net started up as an official Camron merch store.
 * Gary Brolsma's Numa Numa dance video inspired former O-Zone singer Dan Balan to recreate the song as "Sugartunes (Numa Numa)".
 * In response to the "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy theory, Paul McCartney released a live album in 1993 called Paul Is Live. The cover depicts the Abbey Road Crossing, but the only figures are Paul and a dog. There are a few differences and subtle references to the conspiracy theory, which can be read about here at The Other Wiki.
 * Jimi Hendrix's famous song "Purple Haze" contains the line " 'scuse me while I kiss the sky", but is frequently misheard as " 'scuse me while I kiss this guy". At a handful of later live performances, Jimi would actually use the misheard line for this song - and afterwards (probably) pretend to kiss one of his band members while playing the riff.
 * Then, one of those live performances was then used in Guitar Hero 4, so a whole new generation of kids could get the lyric wrong. (The correct, studio version is in Rock Band now, but as DLC).
 * The Spinto Band stumbled upon a mash-up that combined their "Oh Mandy" with Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's". They liked it enough that in live performances of the song, they'd sometimes replace the lyrics to the bridge with a few lines from "Throw Some D's".
 * After the success of Weird Al Yankovic's parody "Gump", the Presidents of the United States of America started ending their live performances of "Lump" with the same line: "And that's all I have to say about that".
 * In the 70s, when The Angels sang "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?", crowds answered, "No way, get fucked, fuck off" - which The Angels incorporated into their performances.
 * Mexican party anthem "El Final" (the end) has the line "te veo besándote con otro" ("I see you kissing/making out with someone else") which is always answered with a "Que poca madre!" when played in a bar ("What little mother" literally, but it it's an expression used when someone wronged someone else, like saying "you bastard!"). Nowadays, most DJs will turn down the volume when playing it at a bar, party, whatever. Albums compilations add the a silent second for people to scream it, karaoke machines show the line on the screen, and both original band Rostros Ocultos or anyone covering it will either stop playing for a second and raise the mike for people to say it, or just have the band scream it while the singer stops. Shortly, the line became part of the song.

Newspaper Comics

 * Garfield Minus Garfield was made into a book. One actually endorsed by writer Jim Davis, too, and complete with several Garfield Minus Garfields actually made by Davis himself. Turns out he's quite good at it.
 * After Josh Fruhlinger of The Comics Curmudgeon began making jokes about the Archie newspaper comic strip being written by an antiquated mainframe computer called the "Archie Joke-Generating Laugh Unit 3000" (AJGLU-3000 for short), AJGLU-3000 references began cropping up in the strip.

Professional Wrestling

 * During a WWE sketch showing WWE personalities at a party, commentator Michael Cole went the Ham and Cheese route and referenced the fandom meme of his calling moves as "VINTAGE ______" by yelling that he is eating VINTAGE SHRIMP!
 * Cole and other announcers, notably the AWESOME Matt Striker, have openly referenced and mocked the memetic nature of "VINTAGE".
 * Darren Young, at one point, referenced WWE internet fans' penchant for calling him "Black John Cena."
 * On NXT, the term "Future Endeavored" has been used at least twice (by The Miz in the first season and Cody Rhodes in the second).
 * Matt Stryker also referenced it at Wrestlemania, telling Natalya "Good luck in your future endeavors" after she slapped Mr. McMahon in the face.
 * Also used in TNA, where Jeremy Borash frequently wishes the person losing their job in the "Feast Or Fired" match "the best of luck in their future endeavours".
 * They have now released a "Future Endeavoured" T-Shirt.
 * The Cornette Face, made popular by Botchamania, became an Ascended Meme when Jim Cornette himself asked to talk to a fan who brought a sign of said face to a pro wrestling show.
 * And after TNA Victory Road 2011, Cornette tweeted, "Just watched TNA... I need a new face."
 * During the feud between John Cena and Brock Lesnar, Cena once referred to Lesnar as a "vanilla gorilla," a common internet nickname for Lesnar.
 * When The Rock returned to the WWE, he mocked John Cena on, among other things, his wardrobe, calling him "a big fat bowl of Fruity Pebbles". Not long after, Cena helped promote Fruity Pebbles by having his likeness posted on the cereal's boxes. But that's not all...
 * The "Miz Girl", a little girl whose reaction (from 3:39 to 3:42) to The Miz becoming WWE Champion became a meme within hours, then an Ascended Meme a week later when The Miz pointed it out in his celebration, giving her the official name of the Miz Girl.
 * In the "Lakers vs. Nuggets" episode of Raw, Batista made his entrance with a basketball in his hands. This is a reference to his "Basketballs... don't hold grudges!" quote on Smackdown.
 * WWE has pretty much stolen the spotlight out of this lately, such as "The Genesis of the McGillicutty" speech and "He spilled my diet soda!".
 * During NXT Season 4, fans have compared Rookie Byron Saxton to Carlton Banks. In most recent episodes, this has been lampshaded by the other rookies, Matt Striker, and even his (new) pro, Dolph Ziggler.
 * On the 900 episode of Raw, Edge mocked Sheamus and called him Beaker. Which the fans ran with. Fastforward to the October 31st 2011, The Muppets are the host, and Sheamus and Beaker meet.
 * WWE wrestler Zack Ryder was somehow able to turn himself into a meme thanks to his home-made Youtube show "Z! True Long Island Story". His show frequently bemoaned the fact that he was being ignored by WWE, often using double entendres aimed at Smart Marks. Eventually WWE took notice of his show's popularity, and Zack became a kind of Running Joke on TV about... how WWE wouldn't push Zack Ryder on television. (And ironically, in this role he is receiving one hell of a good push.)

Tabletop Games

 * Magic: The Gathering has an infamous Game Breaker called Morphling, which was dubbed by fans as "Superman". When the card designers later decided to create an Enchant Creature that granted all of Morphling's abilities, they gave it the name "Pemmin's Aura". How is this an example? Pemmin's Aura is a Significant Anagram for "I am Superman".
 * Morphling's fellow infamously-broken creatures, Manticore and Psychatog, got similar shout-outs: one later card shows a dissected Manticore with the flavor text "the subject appears to be broken," while another fulfills fan dreams everywhere by having a bigger monster eating Psychatog.
 * Back in the old days, when the Internet was still not widely used and card lists were rare, some people talked about an ultra-rare "Throat Wolf" with, among other abilities, "firstest strike". In Visions the designers, inspired by Throat Wolf, included "Talruum Champion" which has first strike that beats other creatures' first strike.
 * Throat Wolf is also mentioned in the novels.
 * Unhinged had a card called "Mise," a reference to  M:tG  slang meaning "to get a lucky draw." There was also a "real" card called "Savage Beatings", at which point  M:tG  parody site Misetings accused WotC of trying too hard.
 * An Urban Legend says that a player in a championship game was so desperate to win they played a card called "Chaos Orb" with the ability to destroy other cards by being dropped onto the opponents field and destroying any card it touches. If you're lucky you might destroy 3 or 4 cards, but instead of simply dropping the card they shredded it and sprinkled the pieces over the opponents field, wiping it out and the judge ruled it a legal move (incarnations of the story from there vary, some say the player won and other say the opposing player called for a count of cards in the players deck). Regardless of the truth to the story, the Unglued set introduced a card called "Chaos Confetti" with the exact same abilities of "Chaos Orb", except it specifies to tear the card apart and sprinkle the pieces over the field. The Flavor Text even says "And you thought it was an urban legend."
 * There is an Un-Set card called Clay Pigeon with this effect, only you HAVE to rip it up.
 * Fake CCG cards themselves. They date to 1994, albeit in text-only format, and were the basis of the "Un" sets.
 * At this point, the creators lampshade infinite combos.
 * Magic isn't limited to its own memes, either. The Innistrad block, for example, has Grave Bramble, a zombie-killing plant, a card called Creepy Doll (which is hard to get rid of and results in your destruction), and one named Zombie Apocalypse.

Video Games
""But what about moving?" "What about moving? You put one foot infronta the other.""
 * While the developers were answering questions regarding the new gameplay features of the upcoming Max Payne 2 on the 3DRealms forum, one user asked, "What about moving?". No one knows what he meant but it became a meme fast enough for a bit recorded for the game involving two mobsters.

"Tyrannus: "Perhaps you should've stayed... in the mountains!""
 * One of the one liners in Duke Nukem Forever is "I'm gonna kill you old style", referencing the infamous Ventrilo Harrasment video where the admin threatens the Troll that she will do just that, to the confusion of everyone listening.
 * The Single Player DLC references the spamming of BALLSBALLSBALLSBALLS in the meme, when a Terminator-esque robot makes you repeat it in order for you to pass off as a Duke clone.
 * Blizzard loves this trope.
 * The Leeroy Jenkins video got a card of that guy in the World of Warcraft TCG and a figure in the collectible miniatures game.
 * He's also the basis for an achievement in Wrath of the Lich King (succeeding at the stupid stunt which got Leeroy's group wiped out). Successfully completing the achievement earns the title "YourNameHere Jenkins". Leroy himself can be recruited as a Garrison ally in Warlords of Draenor, and he appears in the "Not So Sober Citizens' Brigade" World Quest in Battle for Azeroth.
 * There's also Alamo, of "Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID!" fame, who also got a card named after him in the TCG.
 * Similarly, Kralnor made several appearances, including his own card.
 * When Onyxia got leveled up to 80, the new achievements included "More DO Ts!" and "Many whelps! Handle it!", which are tag lines from the popular Onyxia Wipe Animation. The former requires that Onyxia be killed in five minutes, which means a fair amount of DPS on the boss in the air phase and is a reference to the raid leader shouting for DO Ts. The latter requires that 50 hatchlings spawn within 10 seconds of Onyxia's liftoff and being defeated, a reference to a player running into the eggs and spawning whelps while feared, leading to the group wiping.
 * Thorim became popular for his introduction speech, specifically his way of saying "in the mountains". A later boss has a line to mock this when he kills a player.

"Blasto: This one does not remember if its heat sink is over-capacity. It wonders if the criminal scum considers itself fortunate."
 * Kael'Thas' "Tempest Keep was merely a setback" greeting quickly became a meme for any recurring boss. When you encounter a whole trio of those in Icecrown Citadel (former blood elves, no less), Valanar, the boss of a Borean tundra quest, declares that "Naxxanar was merely a setback". In Cataclysm, the Hogger boss in the Stormwind Stockades also makes reference to this meme, yelling "Forest just setback!" on aggro. Maar in StarCraft II also says "Merely a temporary setback" after being defeated.
 * To lesser extent, Illidan's "YOU ARE NOT PREPARED!". The battlemaster at Valhallas will also yell "YOU WERE NOT PREPARED!" if you wiped in one of the encounters.
 * Drahga Shadowburner yells "You should have come better prepared!" when killing players and "By fire be... burned!" when summoning adds.
 * Since Death Knights like to use a macro for Death Grip with a yell of GET OVER HERE!, they added that line for Nefarian's call for Death Knights where he copied that ability.
 * And more recently, Hogger, the infamous level 11 elite mob who's been the source for many memes for years, has finally been ascended to a dungeon boss in Cataclysm (more specifically, he's the end boss of the revamped Stormwind Stockades). The quest that has you kill him apparently includes the line "No one can destroy him".
 * Ragnaros' infamous "Too soon! You have awakened me too soon!" line is used by Zepik the Gorloc Hunter, one of your Wolvar liasons in Scholazar Basin. Zepik says other adventurers have told him stories of their exploits, which is how he heard the line (and some other well-known boss quotes).
 * The Ragnar-Os cereal joke "Two scoops, Executus, two scoops! BY FIBER BE PURGED!!!" has been acknowledged by Blizzard with the Firelands raid achievement called "Ragnar-Os".
 * Gamon, a rare attackable city-dwelling NPC in Orgrimmar, is sort of a reverse Hogger; infamously weak and pathetic. Like Hogger, he gets beefed up in Cataclysm... becoming a level 85 Elite. Gamon Took a Level in Badass after taking all those beatings...
 * Even that wasn't enough. People still managed to kill him just by kiting him around, so he Took a Level in Badass again. Now he isn't affected by Crowd Control spells or slows at all, carries a giant blade and a bow, runs faster than your character, and hits like a tank. I don't mean the class type, I mean the actual millitary vehicle.
 * A level 80 orc hunter, Tednug, and his pet Scratchfever, wander the road between Orgrimmar and Razor Hill. They are characters in the player-written forum game You Awaken In Razor Hill (purged from the Blizzard forums in the community upgrade before Cataclysm but archived at The Littlest Murloc). Tednug is a contraction of the character's actual name, Tednugent, presumably for copyright reasons.
 * Chuck Norris' Memetic Badass status was immortalized in a "What's your game?" television ad which states that World of Warcraft has over ten million players... because Chuck Norris allows them to live! He is seen giving roundhouse kicks to dozens of players, punching the Whale Shark and fighting in the Barrens.
 * In Diablo, a widespread rumor stated that by clicking on the cows enough times, you could be transported to a Secret Level . Later, in StarCraft, "there is no cow level" became a cheat code. When Diablo II came out, there actually WAS a Cow Level.
 * In City of Heroes, the Kill Skuls meme, originating from a pair of message board posts, has spawned a badge, in-game graffiti, and a Loading Screen tip.
 * "Ascendant who? Sorry, you have the wrong number."
 * Nemesis, the eternal mastermind and Xanatos Speed Chess player, is pegged by the playerbase as the source for many things, including substituting "It's a Nemesis plot" for A Wizard Did It. The game developers ascended the meme with two loading screen tips: "It's all a Nemesis plot." and "Not everything is a Nemesis plot."
 * After a particularly popular 2008 April Fools' Day new post, "Freem!" caught on, often with the image attached. A loading screen tip in the game now reads simply, "Freem!". The nickname for the development team after the team was cut by ~75% in 2006 also became "Freem Fifteen".
 * Heroes of Newerth TOO BAD ITS ME BLACKSMITH was so popular that the developers used it for their pre-purchase advertisements on their website.
 * Final Fantasy IV gave us "You Spoony Bard!" in the original Super NES release. Numerous re-released have come since, including for the Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, and PSP. Each port had an entirely re-translated script, but included that famous line. It's since worked its way into the rest of the series as a Running Gag.
 * In Dissidia Final Fantasy, The Emperor's hammy death cry of "UBOOOOOOOAR!!" made it into the game as what he shouts when defeated.
 * After the game came out, many jokes ensued about Exdeath's obsession with the VOID. Cue the prequel Dissidia 012, and numerous characters mocking Exdeath's obsession and working the word "void" into their pre-battle quotes to him.
 * A popular machinima for the first game called "Real Men" became popular not long after its release. Dissidia 012 brought us Kain Highwind, a famous Ensemble Darkhorse and Memetic Badass, as a playable character. He brought along this gem--"I'm about to show you pathetic mockeries the difference between you, and a real man!"
 * It's not in the actual game, but Garland's VA, Christopher Sabat, gave us this little gem.
 * "Sheng Long" originated in a mistranslation of Ryu's Victory Quote in the Street Fighter II arcade game. The legend was elaborated on by an April Fools' joke created by Electronic Gaming Monthly in 1992, which alleged that he was the unlockable True Final Boss of the game. The manual of the SNES version actually named Sheng Long as Ryu and Ken's master, and though that ended up in Discontinuity like most manuals of the time, the legend of Sheng Long would be confirmed in all but name. In 1994, Akuma, brother to Ryu and Ken's master, was introduced in Super Street Fighter II Turbo as the True Final Boss, with an unlocking procedure and red fireball attack recalling EGM's idea of Sheng Long. Finally, in 2008, Gouken, Ryu and Ken's master himself, was confirmed for Street Fighter IV, and fans were astonished to find that Gouken had every single move that Sheng Long was stated to have. "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance", indeed!
 * And in Super Street Fighter IV, Ken makes a peculiar reference to flowcharts in his new win quote.
 * Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition has Evo Moment #37 as a challenge.
 * At Comic-Con 2011, a panel featuring the voice directors for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 had Taliesin Jaffe (the English VA for Blanka and Adon in SFIV) belting out "Would anybody like... SOME POUND CAKE?!" and "JAGUAR SLEEPOVER!" The former is a meme originating from one of Egoraptor's sketches from the Street Fighter Collab on Newgrounds and the latter is an oft-quoted Mondegreen of Adon's Jaguar Revolver Ultra in IV.
 * Capcom are particularly epic with things like this. For instance, the Xbox Live Arcade remake of Bionic Commando was rated M for Mature for the express reason that they refused to tone down the original's infamously graphic explosion of Hitler's head at the end of the game, while simultaneously not changing the So Bad It's Good Totally Radical No Swastikas censorship of the Nazis By Any Other Name being the "Badds" and their leader being "Master D".
 * The Mortal Kombat series has several characters that started out as Epileptic Trees, such as Blaze.
 * Probably the most famous of these is Ermac. A counter in MK1's option menu, right under "REPTILE BATTLES," listed the number of "ERMACS" -- short for "error macros" -- that have appeared, leading players to speculate about the existence of a hidden fighter named "Ermac." When Ultimate MK3 was released, Ermac was made into an unlockable character. He's made frequent appearances since then.
 * Mortal Kombat 9 is said to be dedicated partially to bringing as many of these Epileptic Trees to life, including but not limited to: Skarlet, "feeding the trees" in the Living Forest and "nudealities" (in the form of Mileena's secret third outfit).
 * Team Fortress 2 is a gold mine of ascended memes:
 * Ever since the commercial for Shamwow! become popular on the internet, people have been comparing Vince Offer to the Scout. As of one update to the game, The Scout's in-game dialogue includes no less than 3 quotes from the commercial. "No other class gonna do that!" Even the website made to chronicle the update makes a Shamwow! reference or two.
 * The "FYI I Am A Medic" Medic achievement is named after the "FYI I Am A Spy" spray and associated YouTube video.
 * The Spy update also gave us the "FYI I Am A Spy" achievement which is unlocked by killing an enemy Medic that has just healed you.
 * The Spy update announcement, in the form of a mail-order catalog, featured an item called the "Crab walking kit". This is a reference to an in-game bug which causes the spy to walk very strangely when certain conditions are met, and is a common pastime amongst bored spies.
 * Also with the Spy update comes a a new taunt for the spy's cigarette case that pops up randomly and has him pose like a crab and snap his hands like claws.
 * The Sandvich; fans had been suggesting it incorporation into the game since its first appearance in "Meet the Scout".
 * Although it should be noted that they like to hide upcoming items in "Meet the..." videos. (See also: The Pyro is carrying his flare gun in Meet the Sniper, released before the Pyro update came out.)
 * Then, of course, there's the disembodied voice of the announcer. Disembodied, that is until a fan drew her. And then it became official.
 * The Fan Nickname "crocket" (a rocket that rolls a Critical Hit, infamous for being especially devastating) is referenced by a Soldier achievement ("Crockets are such BS" for randomly firing two in a row) and a Heavy achievement ("crock block", for surviving a a direct hit from one). Likewise, the term "Demoknight" (a Demoman that uses unlockable weapons to focus on melee attacks) is referenced by an item set called "One Thousand and One Demoknights".
 * Several bot names are this, such as Mentlegen and CRITRAWKETS.
 * The Steam Workshop is a gateway for ascended memes by letting the community suggest new weapons and cosmetics to be added to the game. Case in point, the "Tsar Platinum" jacket and "Starboard Crusader" cap for the Heavy, inspired by Youtube videos of Heavy players using only their fists with the Eviction Notice (that comes with an attack speed bonus) for shits and giggles and inevitably spawned comparisons to Star Platinum from JoJo fans.
 * Speaking of Valve, it looks like this VG Cats strip about Portal just got real.
 * And now in awesome trailer video.
 * In Diablo there was a fan spoof of a hidden cow level that did not exist. It shows up in Diablo II. That prompted a number of fan spoofs, including a secret bunny level in the hopes that they would show up in Diablo III.
 * This was later referenced in StarCraft, made by the same company (Blizzard), in which the cheat to skip a level instantly in campaign mode was "there is no cow level".
 * And in StarCraft II, "Terrible terrible damage" (a Verbal Tic-like line from the "Battle Reports") is not only a cheat code in game, but is also said by General Horace Warfield.
 * David Hayter, English voice of Solid Snake, has been known to spend a lot of time saying "OhmyGodhotnessIwannaBANGYOU" and "CRAB... BATTLE...", references to two popular Metal Gear Solid Flash parody shorts. (He also claimed that the voice over director on the games brought in Metal Gear Awesome for the cast to watch together during the recording of Metal Gear Solid 4.)
 * Hey Mac baby, I'm going to go for a ride on your bike!
 * For those not in the know, it's referring to the YTMND fad "Nigga Stole My Bike." And that is unbelievable.
 * S-I-S-I-G-A-M-I, SHISHIGAMI BANG BANG! Yes, a fan made lyrical declaration of Bang's manliness to the tune of his theme "Reppu" was so awesome, it made it's way into BlazBlue Continuum Shift with the seiyuu for Bang singing it!
 * On the subject of Bang, he references the "Ice Car" meme in Calamity Trigger Reconstruction when dissuading his colleagues from fighting Jin.
 * Also, µ-12. DAT ASS
 * BioWare is now selling "Enchantment!" and "Morrigan Disapproves" t-shirts, based off of Dragon Age.
 * Blasto, the first hanar Spectre. Started as a joke made by one of the devs in response to questions regarding new companions in Mass Effect 2. Ended up having a movie made about him, complete with the line:

""I'm Garrus Vakarian, and this is now my FAVORITE spot on the Citadel!""
 * Also the term "quad" as slang for krogan testicles (they have four). Used where humans would say "pair", as in, "You've got a quad, Shepard." Originated on the forums, appeared everywhere in Mass Effect 2.
 * Many, many memes originating in Mass Effect 2 are lampooned in Mass Effect 3, most notably Garrus' love of calibrations and Shepard's horribly bad dancing.

""YOU BIG STUPID JELLYFISH!""
 * That game gave us some Mass Effect 1 ones as well.

"Reggie Fils-Aime: "Yes,﻿ my body was ready." Crowd: (goes wild)"
 * Remember the first game's "Wrex." "Shepard."? This has new context for Knight Templar players in 3.
 * "He insists to call me 'Prothy the Prothean'. I insist that he be Thrown Out the Airlock"
 * The Touhou character Hong Meiling. No-one could decide what to call her (she's Chinese, yet her name in Chinese characters could very well be a Japanese name), so everyone decided to call her China. It became a Discredited Meme... until ZUN said that he also calls her China. Poor Meiling...
 * Many doujin artists portrayed Utsuho Reiuji's encased arm as an Arm Cannon after her first appearance, but it was never actually used that way. However, later in Hisoutensoku, Utsuho has the ability Beam Spam.
 * According to legend, DDRMAX2 originally had the correct title for Little Boy (Boy Oh Boy Mix) at the beta location test, but after a fansite's embarrassing typo of "Boy On Boy Mix" turned into a meme, Konami staff thought it was funny enough to insert the error into the game itself.
 * An Argentinian "news" network took a sarcastic suggestion on mixed drink recommendations of Grog (followed by an XD, which any internet user would realize means it is a joke) using The Long List from of its possible ingredients out of The Secret of Monkey Island as how to make it, as something teenagers were actually drinking. Tales of Monkey Island's fifth part includes the "Grog XD" drink features in a Grog Machine.
 * There was a comedy thread on a Civilization forum calling for giant death robots in Civ V. The Giant Death Robot is now an actual endgame unit in the latter.
 * In Civ IV, the practice of jacking up a city's culture output (usually via Great Artist) to quickly acquire territory (especially territory belonging to other civilizations) was dubbed "Culture Bombing" in the fandom. In Civ V, the Great Artist has a special ability named "Culture Bomb" which also expands the Civilization's territory.
 * In the first game, all civilizations had the same odds of deciding to use nukes. [[media:civ1.png|Ghandi making such threats]] became a meme, and in the newest game (V), he is explicitly set to use them more than any other leader. He always could use nukes, but now he always does as the meme suggests.
 * With Rock Band having such a massive backlog of available music to play, some gamers are noticing a trend in Rock Band's tracklist, namely that Harmonix seems insistent on adding as much music from bands that Dave Grohl has been involved with (Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Them Crooked Vultures, Tenacious D et al.) as possible, giving the game the nickname Dave Grohl Band...which is something Rock Band 3 acknowledges by having an achievement for playing any five songs from bands featuring Dave Grohl.
 * In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, when Deadpool defeats Magneto, he yells out "I JUST BEAT MAG-FREAKIN'-NETO! WHERE YO CURLEH MUSTACHE AT?" Additionally, both Magneto and Sentinel have their MAHVEL BAYBEE schemes as alternate costumes. In the press releases, Magneto was referred to as "still Pringles", by Seth Killian himself. All of this started with this commentary of Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
 * IFC Yipes, the man responsible for the aforementioned MAHVEL, BAYBEE!, seems to have gotten in on the act recently, hosting his own tournament for MvC3 named after his memetic Curleh Mustache line. For added measure, he's sometimes seen wearing a curly mustache while commentating matches.
 * Deadpool, being the ultimate Genre Savvy character, when fighting Magneto shouts "MAGNETO! WELCOME TO DIE!"
 * Quite a few lines in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 reference the community from the vanilla version, such as Deadpool's victory quote against Spider-Man talking about Wesker (who was originally revealed alongside Spider-Man) cribbing off of Spidey's Maximum Spider with his "Maximum Wesker" (the Fan Nickname for his Phantom Dance hyper).
 * The description for the Yusei pack in Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds Tag Force 5 asks if you're into crustaceans, referencing his Fan Nickname of "crabhead".
 * Photoshopping Kamina's Triangle Shades onto someone automatically makes them more badass. In Super Robot Wars Z2, you can get Kamina's shades as an item, which gives you +20 starting morale.
 * Since Warhammer 40,000 values Rule of Cool above all else (besides grim darkness), you get pictures like this one, which became a meme when it was captioned "Drive me closer! I want to hit them with my sword!" Dawn of War II: Retribution references several WH40K memes, and if you send a Commissar into a Chimera APC, that's exactly what he says.
 * When the Dynamic Entry meme was adapted to 40k, they used a Tau Crisis Suit for it. When the devs added the Tau Commander (in a crisis suit) DLC, an achievement was added for killing enemies by jumping on them with the Jet Pack. Guess what it was called.
 * One of the achievements in Sanctum, for fully upgrading three towers, is named 599 US Dollars.
 * In the Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout: New Vegas, one of the tribal characters is named "Two Bears High Fiving". This is a reference to the rorschach inkblot test in the beginning of the game where one of the inkblots looks like said character's name, but there was no option to say so (until a mod came out).
 * Madden NFL 12's "Put da team on my back" acheivement, which requires catching a 99-yard touchdown pass as Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings, references an infamous YouTube clip of Madden 11 in which Jennings makes that play with a broken leg.
 * Another one is Gus Johnson's controversial line "HE'S GOT GETTIN' AWAY FROM THE COPS SPEED" line is in Madden 12.
 * One of the characters in Gears of War 3's multiplayer mode might occasionally belt out the line "Your mom is a classy lady!" upon scoring a kill.
 * In Dynasty Warriors 3, Yuan Shao gives you characters a stern warning in the battle against Dong Zhuo's forces: "Don't pursue Lu Bu". In Dynasty Warriors 7, you can earn an achievement for defeating Lu Bu in any game mode, entitled "OK, You CAN Pursue Lu Bu".
 * There was an Urban Legend of Zelda surrounding a fifth age in Myst. The realtime-3D remake added the Rime Age.
 * Back when Video Game/Tekken 3 hit arcades, there were rumors of a Devil version of Jin. Jin transforms into this form in his PSX ending, and Devil Jin became a fully-realized character in Tekken 5.
 * A number of official champion skins in League of Legends started off as player ideas on the community forum. Examples include 'Surprise Party Fiddlesticks' and 'Brolaf'.
 * In Fortune Street, when a computer-controlled Donkey Kong lands on a particularly expensive space, one of his possible response lines is "It's on like Donkey Kong!"
 * Sonic Generations: Defeating Shadow unlocks the DAMN fourth Chaos Emerald.
 * Street Fighter X Tekken: M. Bison's taunt is letting you know that for him, it was a Tuesday.
 * For bonus points, the game's US release was on a Tuesday.
 * SFxT is rife with these. One of Balrog's win screen quotes has him clear up that his line back in SFIV was "MY FIGHT MONEY!", not "MY BIKE MONEY!"
 * In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Mario at one point needs to get information from a parrot, but unfortunately, if you attempt to directly talk to said parrot, it just plays dumb by squawking random parrot-y phrases. One of the phrases it might say is "Shine get! Shine get!", a reference to the infamous broken English message from the Japanese version of Super Mario Sunshine that flashed onto the screen when successfully obtaining a Shine Sprite.
 * My Little Pony Fighting Is Magic: Bionic Farm became a minor meme since Applejack's VA for this game said it for teh lulz at the end of her audition piece. That said, it's now one of the things she says in-game when using her headbutt super.
 * Skullgirls is loaded with these. If it was a meme within the fighting game community, then chances are that it's referenced somewhere in the game.
 * A parody of people who played first person shooters was about a man who played Counter-Strike. The video had the main character repeatedly shouting "Boom, headshot!" repeatedly. This quickly became a meme, and was used for pictures of headshots (and not the ones where you take pictures of people). When getting a headshot in Modern Warfare 2 online, you will get a medal saying "BOOM, headshot!".
 * When "Thank you, Mario, but our princess is in another castle!" went viral, Nintendo noticed. Obvious references to the line turned up in Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time ("You will help [the Princess], won't you? I assure you, she's NOT in another castle or anything.") and Super Paper Mario (one of the fighters from the Duel of 100 is named "Another Castle").
 * The earliest in-game reference is the ending to Super Mario Bros. 3. "Thank you. But our princess is in another castle! ...Just kidding! Ha ha ha! Bye bye."
 * E3 2012 had Nintendo's executive Reggie Fils-Aime acknowledge the "My body is ready" line (and the laughter that ensued) that originated from their demonstration of Wii Fit at their press conference back in 2007.


 * During their 3DS conference the following day, they acknowledged the surprising popularity of the Non-Descript Action Figure (including his Facebook page created by a fan) who appeared in the Miiverse video shown at Nintendo Direct the day before E3 started.
 * The question "Are Marth and Roy in this game?" ended up being an in-joke with Western Fire Emblem fans after the series ended up being localized after the two were in Super Smash Bros.. Melee. Cue both being downloadable content in Fire Emblem: Awakening, thus making the answer "yes."

Visual Novel
"Rin:"
 * In Katawa Shoujo, Rin (a girl who has no arms) "hugs" Hisao by moving right next to him and declaring "I'm hugging you, Hisao". This had previously been a meme originating in a fan-sketch.

"Lilly: (as Shizune hands her the folder) Thank you, Misha. Hisao narrating: No reply. No reply, that is, save for . A couple of seconds pass before Lilly clicks that it isn't Misha behind her, but Shizune. Her momentary look of surprise is replaced by."
 * Toward the end of Lilly's route, the meme in which she asks "Who's there? No answer, it must be that deaf bitch" gets referenced when she asks Misha, Shizune's interpreter, to get something for her. Shizune does so instead, but there's a twist;.

Web Comics

 * When a particular bit of Insane Troll Logic took off like a rocket in the Eight Bit Theater forums, the author decided to honor it in-comic with the only character suited for the job.
 * Homestuck: One of the more popular AUs is Troll Cops, depicting Sollux and Terezi as, well, troll cops. When the AlterniaBound album came out, there were two tracks themed around the AU, both called Trollcops.
 * In one panel, a faraway Karkat is drawn with less detail and no visible arms, making him look like he's wearing pants up to his neck. Fans referred to him as Pantskat and began drawing fanart of him in his long pants. This made its way back into the comic: when combines a shirt and pair of pants in the Alchemiter, he gets a pair of absurdly long pants. And at another point, Karkat self-deprecates spectacularly about wearing pants hiked up to his armpits as punishment. And then, when Karkat's ancestor is finally shown, he is indeed wearing pants hiked up to his armpits as punishment. Said pants become holy relics of his followers.
 * And the original Pantskat pixel of him has been inserted into at least two later flash animations.
 * A fan animation on YouTube that lip-synced Gamzee up to the Double Rainbow song became enormously popular in the fandom and cemented Gamzee as the Ensemble Darkhorse amongst the trolls. So, later on, Gamzee mentions a 'double metaphor all the way, across Skaia :o)'.
 * Early in the comic, there's a short scene of Gamzee and Tavros chatting to each other like close friends, using each others's emoticons and rapping together (although we don't actually see the rap). This acted as enough Ho Yay to make Gamzee/Tavros a popular ship in the fandom, and it picked up the Idiosyncratic Ship Name "Peanut Butter and Jelly-shipping" or just "PBJ" (since Tavros is associated with the colour brown and Gamzee with purple). Later on, we see the second half of their conversation, in which Gamzee is flirting obviously with Tavros, and he affectionately calls Tavros the 'emotional peanut butter to [Gamzee's] royal jelly'.
 * This also served as Andrew's constant Running Gag of referencing gay pornography in most of his works.
 * The second Easter Egg joke flash called &#91;S&#93; Ride has a Shout-Out to "Cotton Candy," the fan nickname for Roxy/Jane which is based on their pink and light blue chat colors.
 * Also, pretty much everything concerning fedorafreak's role in anything since his first brief mention.
 * At the floor meeting in QUILTBAG, Lisa makes a joke about her disembodied head walking on her pigtails, which had been seen in several Penny and Aggie fanarts.
 * A typo in a discussion about Blade Bunny and her phobia of tentacles ultimately led, via the normal Memetic Mutation, to an official illustration of when Bunny meets the Octobus.

Web Original
"I think a measured response is in order, wouldn’t you say? Say, something on the order of Orbital Bombardment?"
 * Red vs. Blue:
 * The first alien character, revealed crouching and sneaking up on a character at the very end of season 3, was unnamed for a long time. On the season 3 DVD commentary, the Rooster Teeth staffed shared a story about a young fan e-mailing them after the finale's release inquiring about the "Crouchasaurus", a nickname which caught on amongst fans. In a season 4 scene where the characters attempt to name the creature, "Crouchasaurus" gets an inevitable mention.
 * Early in the series, many fans asked the staff why the Red team had one member, Grif, wearing yellow armor. Though Rooster Teeth had actually given him orange armor, fans often claimed they couldn't tell it was orange at all. Rooster Teeth eventually included a Yellow Grif in a scene showing how the stupidest character in the series viewed the other characters, and later introduced Grif's sister, actually in yellow armor, and assigned her to the opposing Blue team.
 * Similarly, many fans asked why Tucker, usually in teal armor, seemed to be wearing green armor in one scene. The staff responded that the scene was shot in the shadows, which made teal look green within the game engine. In that season's blooper reel on the DVD, the scene is restaged with one character asking Tucker why his armor is green.
 * "Jennie is a plantcake" was a common Lonelygirl15 fan meme ("plantcake" meaning plant; it's a long story), which resulted in Jennie attempting to prove that she isn't a plantcake in "Casting Couch".
 * Kate Modern: The Last Work featured the suggestion that Meryl should have her own show, which was already a fan in-joke. Similarly, "Orivwa" featured the use of the fan nickname for the main characters, "the K-Team".
 * Episode 21 of "Retarded Animal Babies" threw a WHARRGARBL in the captions in a... rather appropriate spot.
 * Everyman HYBRID spawned a meme involving one of the characters, Jeff, being Batman after . Jeff later jokingly admitted to being Batman on Twitter and in "One step forward, two steps back", he wore a Batman shirt.
 * The Futaba Channel in Japan started the OS-tan meme, where each version of Windows received a Moe Anthropomorphism whose characteristics where what the particular operating system was best known for. When Windows 7 hit the market, Microsoft decided to create one, Nanami Madobe, for their Japanese marketing campaign.
 * One of Gaia Online's members made a fan-character called GCD McSourface, parodying the GCD forum's attitude towards nearly everything about the website, with the Catch Phrase "GCD McSourface does not like that feature". The Fremere's Guard evolving item finished with a pose called "Fremere's Copyright Infringement", which is McSourface's head replacing the avatar's.
 * Fremere's Guard also contains a pose homaging the Air Shark, which began as a fan elaboration on an April Fool's event in zOMG!. A differently-designed Air Shark now appears in-game, making this a meme that ascended twice.
 * A Gaia fan on Deviant ART pointed out that Gino Gambino's Big Ol' Eyebrows looked like Twinkies, spawning the "Twinkie Brows" meme. One of the collectible SD Plus dolls of Gino has equippable "Twinkie Brows" as a bonus pose.
 * One fan in the GCD made an anniversary thread dedicated to the Case of Pietro evolving item, and even baked a red velvet cake to show her appreciation. The night of its anniversary, a "Cake of Pietro" pose appeared in the item itself—a red velvet cake, with a chibi Thief stealing the first slice.
 * In the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, the idea that Stone's mom was a supervillain originated as a joke between the players (including Stone's player). The jokes continued for more than two years. When the story of Stone's parents was finally explored, it turned out that Stone's mom really was a supervillain.
 * Being a site with multiple writers, it's not surprising that there are in-joke references in Survival of the Fittest at times. One has to do with the "Inactivity Bear", which handlers often joke kills and eats inactive characters. When  went inactive, her death is that she woke up a bear in a cave, which... well, killed and ate her, much to the amusement of the handlers.
 * On the adoptable pet website/game Chicken Smoothie, the baby stage of one of the pony adoptables was nicknamed "roadkill pony" by forum members as it looked as though it had been hit by a car. Come Halloween a special variation of the pony was released by the artist that had the pony covered in tire tracks. It came in three forms; one that stayed in that pose, and two that grew up into zombies.
 * In the Whateley Universe story Five Elements Dancing: Fire, Dr. Diabolik's suggestion of a response to the Tong of the Black Madonna's breaking the neutrality policy originated from a piece of Fan Art:


 * Among the TVTropes merch is a shirt with Vigilante Taxonomist, a meme from the forum.
 * The Yogscast had Simon's rather famous Catch Phrase, "That's a very nice everything you have there...shame if something were to happen..." every time a Creeper appeared (well, almost every time) in Minecraft. Some time later, this line got some references in the descriptions of official Minecraft merchandise, and even nearly directly quoted on one shirt!
 * Minecraft has its own Urban Legend of Zelda in the form of Herobrine, a mysterious and elusive entity responsible for obviously-man-made block placements and deformities appearing in single-player worlds, notable for its glowing eyes and its increasingly hostile responses to being seen. In addition to Notch occasionally writing "Removed Herobrine" in patch notes, the 1.8 Adventure Update introduces Endermen, glow-eyed monsters that randomly move blocks around the landscape (creating unnatural formations) and, on being seen, will stop and stare at the player, running (and teleporting) in to attack once eye contact is broken..
 * JohnnyUtah's Tankmen short resonated with the early Newgrounds community so much that they're now the site's mascots.
 * The AV Club once posted an article that was essentially an extravagant plug for the band Dawes. Commenters quickly started mocking the tone of the article by piling their own ludicrous acclaim on Dawes, both in that article's comments and elsewhere, as well as using variations on the phrase "We Love The New X, And Here's Why You Should, Too". Eventually, official AV Club articles also started referencing the meme.
 * MSF High Forum: Firewood was originally an insult, used by Kirso to refer to the ironically non-flammable Legion. Mitchell, amused by it, had it incorporated as an official racial slur. (And, like all racial slurs, mostly inaccurate).
 * In V2E4 of RWBY, Team RWBY uses some of the fan nicknames for the various ship pairings as names for maneuvers and joint attacks. In V3E2, Jaune tries to direct Team JNPR similarly, but apparently no one else on the team remembered what the combo names were.  Or that they existed.
 * Kizuna AI's repeating "fuck you" when she hears it became wildly popular with fanart and remix videos of it. It would then appear as one of her lines when she appeared in Azur Lane. The English version subtitles it as "Fakkyu" though　the voice clip makes it quite clear what she's saying.

Western Animation
"Guard: Where's Batman? Flash: Running late. The Batmobile lost a wheel. The Joker got away."
 * While Transformers Animated has been using a lot of Mythology Gags, the portrayal of the medic Ratchet as old, cranky, and not inclined to put up with other people's slag is not from the earlier series. It is, however, the most common portrayal of Ratchet in Fanon. (It's also worth mentioning that Animated Ratchet bears great resemblance to Kup from Transformers: The Movie).
 * Rhinox's signature weapon from Beast Wars, a pair of machine guns, gained the nickname "Chain Guns of Doom", a name that was later mentioned in the Ultimate Guide.
 * It also showed up on the back of the box for the 10th Anniversary reissue of his toy.
 * This has also happened for a fan edit of a Transformers Armada promotional comic that portrayed Hot Shot as a mentally challenged lunatic obsessed with "JaAm". Mention of it creeped into Hot Shot's 2009 universe bio, and he also has it on his license plate.
 * The Transformers Animated Almanac includes the infamous line "You lived like a warrior ans died to an hero!" from the So Bad It's Good fanfiction Dinobot's Old Technology.
 * Lugnut's P.O.K.E (Punch Of Kill Everything). The name originated with fans and was later made canon.
 * From the Cadmus arc episodes of Justice League Unlimited, when most of the big seven turn themselves in:

"Joker: Crashing through the roof, in a one horse open tree, busting out I go, laughing all the WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
 * Technically, it had appeared in an episode of Batman the Animated Series before that.
 * Complete with the Joker (who was singing the full song) "getting away"...on a rocket shaped like a Christmas Tree. Joker even adds his own lyrics:


 * Batman the Brave And The Bold features someone having done a Grand Theft Me on Batman walking around going "I'm Batman."
 * The episode "Clash of the Superheroes!" has Superman, affected by red Kryptonite, turn into a Jerkass and recreate some of the most famous moments of Superdickery.com history.
 * Beam Me Up, Scotty actually did appear in Star Trek: The Animated Series, years after it had become a meme despite never actually appearing in original Star Trek: The Original Series.
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic acknowledged the fan terms "brony" (term for fans of the show, usually defined as the older male ones) and "DJ Pon-3" (for the DJ pony seen in "Suited for Success") in this season 2 promo.
 * And the grey pegasus with the blonde mane has walleyes whenever she appears, other constant little shoutouts to the show's sizeable Periphery Demographic here and there...This is pretty much Ascended Meme: The Show.
 * As of Jan 21st 2012, Derpy is now voiced as canon (and was named as canon until an Orwellian Retcon prompted by complaints that Derpy's portrayal was insensitive to the mentally challenged).
 * May 30, 2012 saw the announcement of a special edition Derpy toy for Comic-con, complete with muffins on the box art.
 * Brian Boitano has, in at least one occasion during an exhibition, skated to the song "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" from South Park
 * And now Food Network has given Boitano a cooking show. He's calling it What Would Brian Boitano Make?, and it does use a cleaned up version of the song as its theme song.
 * On The Simpsons, Milhouse was always known for failure. But since the association with a Forced Meme, he has a habit of spouting them and trying to force memes. It fails every time.
 * After senator Fritz Hollings infamously referred to Beavis and Butthead as "Buffcoat and Beaver", other characters calling the duo by the wrong name became a running gag (and yes, Buffcoat and Beaver was actually used in an episode).
 * Those famous Felix the Cat clocks? They started out as bootlegs. Because of their popularity, the company began selling an "official" version.
 * The "Fry sees what you did there" and "Why not Zoidberg?" memes were used by Comedy Central in commercials for Futurama's 7th season.
 * Many fans of Gravity Falls and The Owl House have commented on how Grunkle Stan from the first and Eda from the second could practically be soulmates. Both have a lot in common, the Tropes Cool Old Guy (or Lady), Deadpan Snarker, Loveable Rogue, Snake Oil Salesman, and Jerk with a Heart of Gold applying to both. This has led to quite a few fan theories stating they might have been lovers or spouses once. And it seems Alex Hirsh (Stan's voice actor) may have confirmed it. In Gravity Falls: Journal 3, Dipper discovers that Grunkle Stan was married to a woman named Marylin who divorced him after only six hours; in a 2018 DVD commentary for the episode "Land Before Swine,"  Hirsh (through Stan) describes her as having pale skin and an abnormally sharp tooth, and that she was wearing a shirt reading "Over 30 & Very Flirty". He also states that "Marilyn" was not her real name and that she disappeared after "[ducking] out of a door and into a canyon". This description seems eerily similar to Eda, and her means of departure seems the way a witch like Eda would do so. Very likely, Hirsh is suggesting Marilyn and Eda are the same person.

Real Life

 * Rick Astley Rickrolls the entire United States. (Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 2008)
 * Rick Astley loves Rickrolling and even did the article in Time Magazine's Most Influential People on "moot" (founder of 4chan) to thank him for creating people who start things like this.
 * The float itself was chosen due to being quite punny.
 * The first video uploaded to Nancy Pelosi's official government YouTube account ended up being a Rickroll. Likely a staff member's idea.
 * The YMCA website uses the Dance Sensation from the Village People song about them in the "About Us" tab.
 * Charlie Sheen has embraced the recent internet memes spawned from interviews on his drug abuse and firing from Two and A Half Men, such as "Tiger blood" and "Winning!" He even got the word "Winning!" tattooed on his wrist.
 * Honda, in its sporty Civic Si model, decided for the 2012 model year to add an indicator light that lets the driver know when VTEC kicks in. Yo.
 * Dave Silverman, whose face was used to make the "Are you serious?" face, has a sticker of said face attached to the front door of his office.
 * Former NASA flight director Gene Kranz never said "Failure is not an option!" during the Apollo 13 mission, but he liked it so much, feeling it perfectly captured the spirit of NASA, that he used it for the title of his memoirs.
 * It also appears on T-shirts and other souvenir items sold at Kennedy Space Center.
 * Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is an infamous film trivia game started by a group of college students while they were watching films Kevin Bacon appeared in. The game had penetrated pop culture enough to be referenced by Kevin Bacon himself in commercials and in a charity website that he created.
 * Astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson has embraced the "watch out, we have a badass over here" meme, coming from a certain video of his recorded years ago.
 * Blake Boston A.K.A. "Scumbag Steve" also embraced his meme and even made a song about it.