Forced Meme: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* The whole point of many kinds of ads is to make the product a household name and make sure everyone knows the slogan.

* [[Viral Marketing]]. Unlike most examples on this page, it usually works.

 

* In ''[[Bakuman｡]]'', while running ''Tanto'', Shuujin tries to do this. It doesn't really work.

* ''[[My Hero Academia]]''; when Midnight [[Harmful to Minors| (the self-titled “18+ heroine”)]] first became a pro, her costume was ''very'' skimpy, even more so than most [[Stripperific]] heroines. She had hoped this would start a trend where people were more accepting of such things, but it backfired completely, causing the government to impose "heroine decency laws"!

 

* In ''[[Kick-Ass (comics)|Kick-Ass]]'', Dave and his friends try to bring the work "tunk" in to the mainstream as a new curse word.

 

* In ''[[The Secret Return of Alex Mack]]'', Alex recruits several friends and contacts to short-circuit a growing meme of using a form of her superhero identity's name (''tera-'') as a general intensifier for both good and bad things, and replace it with "tera" as an adjective meaning "very good". Unlike most examples on this page, it works so well that everyone seems to forget the earlier usage entirely.

 

* In ''[[Mean Girls]]'', Gretchen tries to force "fetch" into being a cool term.

{{quote|'''Regina:''' Gretchen, stop trying to make "fetch" happen! It's not going to happen!}}

* ''[[Beowulf (film)|Beowulf]]'' had "I am Beowulf", which didn't catch on considering [[This Is Sparta]] had already been done by ''[[300|Three Hundred]]''.

 

* The children's book ''[[Frindle]]'' is about a boy who tries to enter a new word, "[[Title Drop|frindle]]", into the English language. Not only does he succeed, but {{spoiler|[[Artistic License Law|he somehow gets rich from it in the]] [[Distant Finale]].}}

 

* On ''[[Community]]'', Pierce keeps trying to force "streets ahead".

** He succeeded in the real world, if one counts the show's fanbase.

* On ''[[The Office]]'', Andy's initial appearance has him trying to force Dwight out of the company by undermining him to Michael at every occasion. In one episode he invents the verb "Schruting" to mean screwing up and betraying everyone. He has no intention of making it a ''thing'', but it does help in convincing Michael to fire Dwight by the end of the day.

 

* At the turn of [[The Nineties]], [[Michael Jackson]] was jealous of the media nicknames given to Elvis Presley ("The King of Rock and Roll"), Bruce Springsteen ("The Boss"), etc., so his handlers came up with "The King of Pop, Rock, and Soul" for him. It was introduced to the public via an awards ceremony speech given by Elizabeth Taylor and shortened to "The King of Pop" soon afterwards. In the run-up to the release of ''Dangerous'' in 1991, Jackson's management urged MTV and [[FOX]] to use the phrase in all press releases, etc. related to Jackson and his videos. Rumors flew that the former was ''forced'' to use the phrase constantly; these were confirmed in the 2011 oral history ''I Want My MTV''. This effort partially succeeded, since fans embraced the nickname right away, but once word got out about its origins, Jackson's publicity machine continuing to push it even as his career entered its downward spiral led to articles/news items to cheekily call him the "self-proclaimed King of Pop" in later years. The meme persists today—even Jermaine Jackson's announcement to the press that Michael had died started with: "My brother, legendary King of Pop Michael Jackson..."—and fans insist it isn't a forced one.

 

* One ''[[Zits]]'' strip featured Jeremy trying to get his slang term "plasmic" (meaning, "fine", as in "How are you?" "Plasmic") to catch on. It didn't, and he wound up giving up right away.

** Something similar happened in another strip, where Pierce tries to popularize saying "fully" instead of "totally." It was only in one strip, so presumably it didn't catch on.

** Also, Morton's attempt to turn fantasy football into a popular varsity sport seems doomed to failure. It is suggested the school sports department only started such a program - which only has two members - to keep him quiet.

 

* In 2005, the former [[Wrestlecrap]] message boards (now the Freaking Awesome Network forums) tried to get Dennis Stamp ("I'm not booked" from ''Beyond the Mat'') over as a meme, and it worked, at least on said message board.

** It may have [[Ascended Meme|ascended]] when [[Zack Ryder]] referenced Dennis Stamp and recreated the trampoline scene on his Internet show.

* The big effort from [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] over the past few years has been the [[Insistent Terminology|rebranding]] of the company's fans as "the WWE Universe". Much in the same way that wrestlers are known as "Superstars" in order to gradually distance the company from its wrestling product, "the WWE Universe" are not so much wrestling fans as purveyors of all the fine and varied media products WWE has to offer...which is about 99.2% wrestling. One cannot hear the phrase without it ringing in the ears as forced and unnatural, especially since it takes so much more conscious effort to say as opposed to simply "the fans".

 

* In ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', [[Genki Girl|Selphie]] tries to force "Booyaka" into being cool. In ''[[Dissidia]]'' she admits that it failed. Unsurprisingly.

* ''[[Touhou]]'' [[Touhou/Memes|already has a metric ton of memes]], but fans still try to pile on more. Some of them catch, but others are rejected before they can get off the ground (the "since I'm Nazrin" meme attempt, for example). Still others (Cirno's "[[Japanese Pronouns|Atai]] = Eye" translation, for example) keep getting flogged, [[Discredited Meme|despite most of fanon ignoring the meme's existence]].

** ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'''s Smugleaf: A Meme In the Making. [[Sarcasm Mode|Thanks, Kotaku.]]

* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', in response to the sudden popularity of the [[Ascended Extra|minor]] Horde character [[Ensemble Darkhorse|Varok]] [[Memetic Badass|Saurfang]] (due to the [[Chuck Norris]]-themed 'Facts' actually being [[Actually Pretty Funny|funny/awesome]]), many Alliance players attempted to use the same meme to promote Alliance minor heroes, in hopes of recreating the Saurfang phenomenon.

* With the release of ''[[Portal 2]]'', several attempts have been made to get something to catch on to be the next "The cake is a lie!". This has included "SPAAAAACE!", "I'm a potato!" and "combustible lemons". While they have caught on among ''Portal'' fans, none of them have manage to achieve the same widespread popularity. The most likely reason is simply because it couldn't possibly be just as unique and fresh as the original was - which was what amplified the popularity of those original memes.

** It could also be an attempt by the writers to make the memes of ''Portal 2'' to be not so popular as the cake meme due to how [[Creator Backlash|they got sick of everyone telling them how the cake is a lie.]]

* In ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' forums on Bay 12, referring to {{spoiler|going to Hell}} as the "circus" or the "clown car" or the "circus tent", the inhabitants as "clowns", and the stuff you dig through to get there as "cotton candy" or just "candy" has met with mixed results, with some fans amusedly adopting the phrasing and others finding it ridiculous.

** For a time, a certain user would reply to everything with "'''MAGMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'''" and would periodically be called upon to do such in threads, a developing Forced Meme which garnered some hate and was finally killed off for good when said user was banned for... replying to everything with "'''MAGMAAAAAAAAA'''".

 

 

* [[TV Tropes]]. Occasionally someone tries to sneak his or her idea for a meme on to a page, sometimes going so far as to interfere with other entries to force them into the limelight.

** Also occurs in the ''naming'' of tropes. It's a very real debate in the forums, from time to time, whether the purpose of [[TV Tropes]] includes promoting specific fan-speak terms so as to become recognized across ''all'' fandoms. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|Please, no specific examples here, though]].

** 4chan's anonymous posting means it's subject to a disproportionate number of meme-forcing attempts, since it's easy for a single person to pretend to be multiple people while spamming the would-be meme. "Samefag" is the term users have come up with for people who do this (though it's also commonly leveled at ''any'' post that agrees with any prior one).

* On [[YouTube]], people occasionally attempt to become Internet famous by posting odd videos.

* In his review for ''[[Double Team]]'', [[The Nostalgia Critic]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1kLfi-yFoA openly demanded] for "Frying the Coke" to be turned into a meme. It... didn't work.

** In his defense, though, he openly admitted that it probably wouldn't catch on.

** He succeeded more with "[[Suburban Commando|I was frozen today!]]".

** [[The Nostalgia Chick]] successfully made [[Non Sequitur Scene]] into a trope.

* Google bombing.

** [[Twitter]] trending, for that matter.

** Who are in turn being forced into the llama meme by Maxis, original owner of the Sim-whatever series.

** Similarly, there are "draw something in response to this/these question(s)" based memes<ref>though not memes in the faddy sense, they do involve many people using the same template to give their own response which is closer to the original definition</ref> which are very popular within the site so can be considered a small-scale meme.

** See also [http://www.cracked.com/blog/my-failed-attempts-to-start-internet-meme/ My Failed Attempts to Start an Internet Meme].

** Later, he ended a [http://www.platypuscomix.net/fpo/survival/parker.html tribute] to Parker from ''[[Leverage]]'' by wishing people would make "4chan meme[s]" of her pictures and quotes.

* Going way back to the long-ago time of [https://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc/browse_thread/thread/4566389eac75a3e0/15507a2c653b76d9?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=%22monkey+sugar%22+group:rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc&pli=1#15507a2c653b76d9 2001], the newsgroup rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc tried an experiment to get the phrase "monkey sugar" into common language. It didn't work, but [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=monkey+sugar it did get an Urban Dictionary page five years later], and the term is still in (infrequent) use on the newsgroup itself.

* [[Topless Robot|WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?!]]

* [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jim-profit This... thing.] They don't get more blatant than this.

** Not to mention comparing Drmusic2 to Chris Chan.

*** Overrusing meme references that weren't even funny.

*** Claiming Andria is made up.

*** And sucking up to the admins.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==