Memetic Badass/Real Life

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  • Jesus.
  • Other folks from The Bible:
    • Michael the archangel, patron saint of badassery and grocers, as well as EMTs, fencing, Greek Air Force, knights, mariners, paratroopers, police officers, sailors, security guards, soldiers, and swordsmiths.
    • It's said Satan and his various minions greatly fear Mother Mary. The rosary is the strongest weapon a prayerful person has in their arsenal.
    • David slew Goliath with a pebble and a slingshot.
    • St. Benedict
    • Say what you will about Satan, but he had the nerve to take on God Himself.
  • Paul Bunyan is one of the Ur Examples, along with other subjects of tall tales.
    • French-Canadian lumberjack Joseph Montferrand (1802-1864), known in English as "Big Joe Mufferaw", is a legend in the Ottawa Valley for his strength and skill. (The court house in Gatineau, Quebec, is named after him.) Two verifiable stories are that he knocked out the boxing champion of Canada with one blow in a fight and that one night he single-handedly beat up as many as 150 Irishmen who ambushed him on the Chaudière bridge. Subsequent stories (and a song by Stompin' Tom Connors) attribute such feats as putting out a forest fire between Arnprior and Renfrew while in Smiths Falls (38 miles away) by spitting at it, and driving a log raft down the rapids-strewn Ottawa River from Mattawa to Ottawa (a distance of over 250 miles) in a single day.
  • The frontiersman and lawyer Daniel Webster gets some of this too. While he has quite a bit of mythology accumulated about him, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" has wandered through multiple media. (The "original" story itself, is based on an older Faustian story, "captured" by the Webster mythos.)
  • JAM Project can do music for anything on the planet, and regardless how boring it might be, their music will make it HOTBLOODED AND EPIC!
  • Pope John Paul II, the only man to be both Pope and an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
    • An accomplishment so amazing that only one cartoon character (Philip J Fry) has managed to do the same. When a character living in a world where the impossible is normal is the only other one to match your achievements you belong on this page.
      • He's also a Kentucky colonel.
      • He's also being beatified in May 2011, making him the first Harlem Globetrotter and Kentucky Colonel who was made a saint.
      • Some believe that the assassination of Osama Bin Laden is a miracle attributed to the newly beatified John Paul II.
    • Popes in general, mainly for their Nice Hats.
    • What about Benedict XVI, the Pope who can pilot a helo?
  • John Petrucci, a time-traveling guitar player, overlord, God who plays guitar so fast that if you go to a Dream Theater concert and come back alive and with your face intact, then you're probably on this list too.
  • Bruce Lee. Unlike those guys who need "facts" to try to back up their Badass credentials, Bruce Lee needs none of those for people to recognize his awesome.
  • Depending on which you like more, Garry Kasparov or Bobby Fischer.
    • Bobby Fischer once won a professional game without moving any piece apart from his pawns.
    • Vishwanathan Anand PAWNS them both...
    • Two words: Paul Morphy. In the words of his contemporary, Adolf Anderssen:

I consider Mr. Morphy the finest chess player who ever existed. He is far superior to any now living, and would doubtless have beaten Labourdonnais himself. In all his games with me, he has not only played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he is lost.

      • Morphy was not only an accomplished chessplayer, but also an extremely talented attorney who reportedly had the entire Louisiana civil code committed to memory. He actually regretted that his chessplaying was interfering with his law practice and gave up the game for that reason. Bobby Fischer contended that Paul Morphy probably would have beat him in a head-to-head match.
    • Kasparov has nothing on this!
  • The Internet has concluded some time ago that David Bowie's crotch (officially titled "The Area") has replaced Azathoth as the Center of The Universe, and encompasses all of reality. It is also the primary source of Bowie's mindblowing powers of awesome.
  • At fan conventions, there's often a man on the staff known as a "troubleshooter". This job amounts to running around the entire convention all weekend, attending to every single crazy problem that pops up. Those that do this often become Memetic Badasses in their local area/city/state/etc, and rightfully so.
  • Norio Wakamoto. Adding him into any production practically guarantees its success, as well as making any character he plays instantly awesome/badass who will chew the scenery up. Even a freaking cat.
  • Akio Otsuka, merely the voice actor for the Japanese Metal Gear Solid series. And Black Jack. And Batou. And Anavel GAAAAAAATOOOOOOOO. And dozens of dubbed movies. Look, it'd be easier just to list the voice roles he hasn't done.
  • Rahm Emanuel, former Obama administration chief-of-staff, American political operative of legendary action and even more legendary language, current mayor of Chicago, whom the news media, every other political operative in Washington, and Obama himself are incapable of not telling Chuck Norris-style jokes about. The man was nicknamed "The Enforcer" when he worked for Clinton, and once sent a political enemy a dead fish in the mail.
    • Once, a congressman claimed a stark-naked Emanuel had accosted him in the gym shower and started yelling about some recent transgression. When Obama heard about this, he quipped "Welcome to my world." The thing is, while no one outright believes this story, no one considers it ludicrous either, because Emanuel could have done it.
    • "Get angry!"
  • What, and President Obama himself isn't a Memetic Badass? Just LOOK at all the pictures and gifs of him on Tumblr—singing, dancing, doing the Vulcan salute with Nichelle Nichols (the original Uhura), the man can do it all.
  • Theodore Roosevelt. Woodrow Wilson said of him, "Death had to take him in his sleep, for if he was awake there'd have been a fight," and he meant it in all seriousness.
    • One thing worth noting about Roosevelt right off the bat - the guy physically divided two continents by starting the Panama Canal. The truth can be more badass than fiction.
      • Except he didn't start it, he bought it from the French; they'd simply decided it was imposible. Still badass because he accomplished what people thought couldn't be done.
      • Columbia, which at that time controlled the land, failed to approve the treaty allowing construction. Roosevelt helped Panama gain independence within three months just so he could build the canal.
    • Never mind the military record or the big game hunting... this is a man who got shot in the chest by a would-be assassin and proceeded to give his scheduled speech anyway, occasionally waving his bloody hand around for emphasis.
    • This article at Cracked would like to imagine that fellow president George Washington was a bulletproof Incredible Hulk, and that Andrew Jackson invented Gun Kata. And in regards to Roosevelt:

Did we mention he had asthma growing up? He did, and after he beat asthma to death, he ate asthma's raw flesh and ran 100 straight miles off the energy it gave him.

      • Later, he went blind in one eye from boxing, so he decided to do something less dangerous and learned JUDO instead.
      • While Commander and Chief, Teddy got a letter from some of the military officers complaining about how exhausting the mandatory 2 hours a day of riding training was. His response? The next day, at sunrise, he hopped on a horse and rode from sun up till sun down, those revoking the rights of anyone to ever complain about anything ever again.
      • A man named Richard Lawrence approached Jackson with two pistols both of which, for some reason, misfired. ...Jackson proceeded to beat Lawrence near death with his cane until Jackson's aides pulled him off the assassin. The guns were inspected afterwards and it was discovered that they were in perfect working order ... we're pretty sure that the bullets, like everyone else, were simply scared of Jackson.
      • This video has the most accurate explanation of George Washington's badassery.
      • Andrew Jackson was also shot during a duel and the bullet was unable to be removed. A few years later, during a cabinet meeting that must have been boring, Jackson dug it out of his arm himself with a knife. He then mailed the bullet back to his opponent saying something along the lines of "I believe this belongs to you."
        • Jackson actually fought over a dozen duels, but the most badass one was when he fought Charles Dickinson, the only man Jackson ever killed in a duel. Apparently, Dickinson not only owed Jackson money for a horse racing debt, but he pushed Jackson's Berserk Button by insulting his wife. Jackson knew he was outclassed as a shot by Dickenson, so when the time came he allowed Dickenson to shoot FIRST; in the process catching a bullet in the chest, which was so close to his heart that doctors just left it there. Meanwhile, Jackson took careful aim while Dickenson was busy trying to reload and proved that it's not necessarily the fastest shot, it's the most accurate one that wins the day.
      • When Andrew Jackson was elected president, he held a party at the White House. In the morning everybody was passed out drunk on the broken furniture while the maids attempted to clean up the broken windows.
  • President Abraham Lincoln:
"My experience with Abraham Lincoln is that he is unstoppable".
—Red Mage, Twinkin' Out With Red Mage
    • Gave a speech so awesome the shorthand reporters put down their pencils and forgot to write it down.
    • On his deathbed it was said his wound would have killed him in an hour if it weren't for his marvelous musculature.
    • Defeated the most popular union general (who was offered a crown by his troops) in the 1864 election by taking 70% of the soldier vote.
    • He's also gone Super Saiyan.
    • Then there is Lincoln as the central cause of the Apocalypse.
  • The Red Baron. He has a similar problem meeting the trope definition, as his exploits do not need to be exaggerated to appear legendary.
  • Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox". Trope Namer for Magnificent Bastard, and best of all, he plotted to kill Hitler.
  • Lawrence of Arabia. In Real Life. Originator of the expression "Don't you know I can only be killed with a golden bullet?!"
    • Lawrence personified this trope throughout the remainder of his life, being hounded by exaggerated tales of his exploits and turning down offers to star in movies dramatizing his tale.
    • Lawrence, an enlisted British officer fresh from the war front, insisted on being received by the King of England in flowing white Arab robes with dagger and headdress. The King of England, a notorious stuck-up when it came to protocol and dress, deigned not to say anything.
    • He personally orchestrated a Middle East Peace Deal over tea between the future leader of Israel and the Prince of Mecca. It fell apart due to British meddling, but the terms of the resulting napkin agreement are still being fought over as Canon in the mideast peace process.
  • Speaking of which, in To Hellholes And Back, gonzo travel writer Chuck Thompson has this to say about Richard Burton:

In 1879, at the age of fifty-eight, African explorer and scholar Sir Richard Burton -- easily among the top twenty stallions ever to trod the earth -- was set upon by thugs in Alexandria. Biographer Edward Rice wrote of the incident: "In the old days Burton would have knocked his assailants' heads together, or even better, killed them... Getting rolled by scofflaws was a disheartening turning point in Burton's career. The valiant participant in unspeakable sexual rituals of the African jungle; the mighty linguist who'd written dictionaries and translated ancient poetry; the first Englishman to pierce the secret world of Mecca... being denied promotion by pissant bureaucrats back in Old Blighty and spending his golden years with a harpy Victorian wife bent on payback for years of neglect certainly didn't do anything to salvage the old wolf's pride.

  • Simo Häyhä is generally considered the greatest killing machine in the history of the human race. The scary part is that this is entirely justified. He's estimated to have killed over an average of 7 Russian soldiers every day for almost one hundred days until he was shot in the face by a high-powered rifle in the last week of the war. Simo Häyhä survived because he's Simo Häyhä. And made a full recovery. One could say he's the freakin' courier, but that would imply the latter is cooler, so it's the other way around instead.
    • At one point they tried carpet-bombing his location. It didn't work.
    • After being shot in the face, he grabbed his own gun and killed his attacker before passing out.
    • As Badass of the Week said, peace was declared the day he woke up from being shot in the face, clearly causing the Russians to just give up and call it off.
    • And he wasn't shot in the face with a normal round, no. He was shot in the face with an explosive round which would've killed another person if it as much as hit their chest.
  • Related: Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, the commander-in-chief of Finland's military. He started with a long and highly-successful career in the Russian Army. At the very beginning of Finland's independence, he was its regent during the period when they weren't sure whether to be a monarchy or democracy, and some people actually wanted to make him king. Between the wars, he hunted man-eating tigers in India, and refused an offer to make him dictator of Finland. He fought three wars in six years—two against the USSR, one against Germany. And then he became President, and talked the Soviets out of taking over Finland even though Finland had just lost the war. Finland's flag day is his birthday, and its highest medal is the Mannerheim Cross.
  • During the 2012 Finnish presidential campaign, supporters of Pekka Haavisto created a meme of his Facts, including...
    • Pekka Haavisto does not use a comb. He negotiates the tangles out of his hair.
    • Pekka Haavisto finds a reasonably priced cafe in Helsinki.
    • Pekka Haavisto does not shovel snow. He opens the door and smiles warmly in the desired direction.
    • Pekka Haavisto hit a roadside bomb in Irak. Today the bomb is working as an alarm clock in Iisalmi.
    • Pekka Haavisto bit a vampire. In the morning the vampire got up, bought a Prius, put on a suit and tie, and experienced a desire to donate blood.
    • Pekka Haavisto knows how to be funny in German.
  • Also on the WW2 front, Otto Skorzeny, due less to his real life accomplishments, standard military Badass though they may be, and more to embellishments using comic book and movie portrayals as being equally historically accurate, on Norris-y themed history threads. The scars certainly didn't hurt the manliness factor none. On the strategic side, Manstein and Patton also receive this treatment, while Russians are depicted as wishing to be this, but also fearing Stalin's reputed paranoia and deciding costly Pyrrhic Victory and near-failure is a better option than being assassinated for appearing more competent than the Iron Man of Russia.
    • Georgi Zhukov would definitely qualify on the Soviet side. Stalin had to be content with exiling him because killing him would have prompted an army mutiny he couldn't contain. The threat of a Zhukov personality cult would haunt every Soviet premier up to Brezhnev (who tried to insert himself into Zhukov's autobiography in hopes that Zhukov's badassery would rub off on be credited to him!)
  • Strangely, America's chief badass Audie Murphy gets little recognition in these sorts of contests, likely because he had nothing to promote, and felt no moral obligation to uphold his achievements like Lindburgh, preferring to fade away once the requisite movie was over and done with.
    • He's not well known as a Badass because he was so much of a Badass that you can't make jokes about him, because anything you could think of as a joke, he really did. And then he'd punch you in the nuts with a burning tank. Seriously, just go read his entry on The Other Wiki, the guy is a real-life Wolverine.
    • Hollywood made a biopic of Murphy after his time served, in which he played himself. Some of the events had to be taken out or toned down in the movie because he thought nobody would believe it really happened that way. Then it became the most profitable movie until Jaws came out.
    • What gets me is his method of dealing with drug addiction; during the 60's, he used Placidyl to deal with his PTSD. When he realized he'd become addicted to the pills, he didn't go to rehab, he didn't use more, he locked himself in a motel room and went cold turkey for a week.
    • Audie Murphey is also responsible for there being any PTSD funding by the federal government. When congressmen think most of the folks testifying either are just trying to get funding for their own programs or to justify their cowardance and you then have the biggest hero of the war make it ok to talk about the Bad Dreams and remove the stigma of PTSD in one speech.
  • Samuel L. MOTHERFUCKING Jackson. See Memetic Badass/Film.
  • The Soldier may be a Cloudcuckoolander, but his respect for Sun Tzu is justified. One of these days, actually go ahead and read The Art of War. Then, look into what's known about Sun Tzu's life and history (both proven and rumoured). Trust me... The Soldier is probably not that far off...
  • In a World .... where movie studios .... spend hundreds of millions on special effects .... but forty-five cents on a script .... one man .... must generate hype .... and keep the viewers coming back .... He was.... Don LaFontaine . AKA Mr. Voice.
  • Duct tape. Yeah, duct tape. What can it not do?! If duct tape didn't exist, the world would have fallen apart already. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it binds the universe together.
    • Don't forget duct tape's greatest advocate: Red Green. It's the handyman's secret weapon.
    • Let us not forget the yang to duct tape's yin: WD-40. All things can be fixed with either duct tape or WD-40; if it moves and it shouldn't, duct tape; if it doesn't move and it should, WD-40.
    • In answer to the rhetorical question, the one thing duct tape can't do is fix ducts.
      • You're just not using enough duct tape.
    • One of the most frightening human beings (?) in the Dresdenverse, Kincaid, uses duct tape for bandages.
      • For the record, that's known as a "Boy Scout Bandaid." Always prepared indeed.
      • Also useful because when you get a cut while doing something, you dont have time to sit around, and a normal bandaid wont stay on when your moving. so you duct tape it on.
    • Duct tape is fine and all, but there is one thing place where duct tape must bow to its superior: theatre. In a theatre, gaff tape reigns supreme. It can be used to fix costumes, hold set pieces together, bundle cables, hold gels to instruments without catching them on fire, etc. The list goes on and on. And all while coming in a stylish black color that goes with everything.
  • Yoshiyuki Tomino. For a Real Life person to be chosen as an illustration of the Kill'Em All trope... is really something.
  • Should World War 3 happen, and the world be engulfed in nuclear fire, only two living things would remain in the aftermath: cockroaches, and Keith Richards.
    • Then again, he survived the meteors, the Ice Age, the Black Death...
    • No Cher or Joan "I Can't Feel My Face!" Rivers?
  • Indians are the very incarnations of awesomeness.
  • A normal, everyday pilot and aviation safety expert is so cool under pressure, he lands an Airbus A320 with 155 passengers aboard in the Hudson River in such a manner that emergency teams were able to save every single person on the plane. The Internet, unfortunately, has yet to give Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III a list of Chuck Norris-esque facts. He's receiving plenty of attention in national media, though, and has plenty of Facebook fan clubs. It's only a matter of time.
    • The Internet bows its head in shame; nothing we can ever make up will be as awesome as what he already did.
  • Oscar Wilde, at least on Uncyclopedia.
  • By all accounts, Charles Lindbergh suffered through the 1920s version of this after his 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris. Facing cheering crowds and nosy reporters wherever he went, Lindbergh became more and more withdrawn, despite using his fame to promote commercial aviation.
    • What he did to keep himself awake on that flight earns him this trope in and of itself. Lindbergh brought two sandwiches and a thermos of coffee for the entirety of the flight, and when he ran out of coffee proceeded to punch himself in the face until he woke up.
  • US Congressman and Frontiersman David "Davy" Crockett in his own time as well as today. Famed for doing any number of things, including catching, killing and skinning a bear at the age of three.
  • Ernest Hemingway is the greatest explorer that ever lived.
  • Gackt; he does not feel the fiyah. The fiyah feels Gackt. No, seriously. This is a man who has, at most 10% body fat, although its usually closer to 7%. He runs on two to three hours of sleep a night, trains several hours a day, and can pull his legs apart more than 180 degrees. Has a dojo in his house, has played the most badass warlord ever (Uesugi Kenshin), is the inspiration for countless anime and manga characters, and his image or name is found in at least six games. He is actually a vampire, who can walk around in the daytime because the Sun is scared shitless of him. Oh, and he survived a second almost-drowning incident in the Okinawa Sea when he remembered at the edge of death that he hadn't gotten laid in a month, proceeded to snap out of it, and swam like a madman through dangerous waters back to shore. One assumes that as soon as he regained consciousness the next day he got laid immediately.
    • Gackt vs Demon Kogure. Will the universe survive to see the winner, or will it be Superboy Prime all over again?
      • Yoshiki is better than Gackt. More musical talent by far, plays any instrument known to man (including once being able to hit over 800bpm on drums), programs music, has survived the deaths of family members and friends alike, has played through major illness and injury, is coming back to the stage after having had surgery on his neck.... and still looks good in a wedding dress. Oh and he's bigger there too.
  • Velociraptors were small, probably somewhat intelligent carnivorous dinosaurs from Mongolia that would seem unremarkable compared to their larger cousins. However, largely due to Jurassic Park labeling its oversized, hyperintelligent killing machines "Velociraptor" due to a naming mistake (and the Rule of Cool) and to a lesser extent, a Running Gag in Xkcd, has firmly established them on the same level as the Zombie Apocalypse in terms of things to be feared. Also, when your garden-variety fascist enforcer can't find a T-rex to ride, they'll default to these bad boys, as opposed to heroic characters who favour large jungle cats (He-Man, the Norsemen with Japanese samurai voices in Thundercats, Siegfried and Roy, to name a few).
  • In academic circles, Slavoj Zizek. He lives on a giant whiteboard in the centre of time and space.
  • In lay circles, Stephen Hawking. There were even rumors swirling around him being some sort of Memetic Sex God when he dumped his caregiver... and he's the only person with his variant of Lou Gehrig's disease known to be still alive. He has a memetic voice-box... nuff said.
  • Dan Green's voice.
    • For that matter, George Zimmer's 50-pack-a-day voice and confident look inspired a whole series of paragraphs written in the first person (usually in all caps) mostly emphasizing his... uh... virility. Every single one of them, like his ads, end in the phrase "I guarantee it."
  • Oddly enough, the General Motors EMD F40PH locomotive has reached this status by force of being posted by furry bashers as a "furry killer". Case in point: a supersonic F40PH.
  • Morgan Freeman has reached the status of Memetic Father Figure via his soothing voice and frequent casting as God. The latter has also sparked people simply referring to him as God.
  • Sgt. Alvin York: They had the whole thing with clucking like a turkey in the Gary Cooper movie because people wouldn't have even believed the real version. The man stood up in the middle of the forest while a machine gunners nest was shooting at him and tearing up EVERYTHING BUT HIM. He ultimately captured over 80 Germans almost single handedly.
  • Nikolai Tesla. He invented alternating current and had some crazy ideas rattling around his head. He's since become a stock figure for producing insanely advanced mad science in period pieces.
  • In Soviet Russia, wheat harvests YOU![1]
  • Ladies and Gentlemen, Aron Ralston. The man spent five days with his arm crushed under a boulder, which he spent slowly using up his water and eventually resorted to drinking his own urine. But just when he was ready to die, Ralston in his brilliantly delirious mind decided to sever his own arm to escape from the boulder... using a dull knife... that came free with a flashlight he bought. You don't want to hear the details of the process, but eventually Ralston separated from his already dead arm and then had to rappel down a 65-foot sheer wall, then hike out of the canyon in the unbearably hot sun. Since then he has become known as such a badass that Stanford University invented the "The Aron Ralston MAN GAME."
    • And to top it off, he went back to mountain climbing after he had his missing hand replaced with a fucking climbing axe. He plans to climb Mount Everest in 2010.
  • Billy Mays was truly a hero. His blue collared work shirt became legend. He cleaned shirts. Like, cleaned them so good, you couldn't tell they were stained. And he gave us amazing glue and hooks and other sort of cleaning supplies. You may think badass is about the kung fu and kicking of asses, but sometimes it's about having an awesome, clean, functional house. Betcha you can't hang a bowling ball from your coat rack. Billy Mays could have.
      • But I'm not done yet! You can also watch this Youtube video absolutely free!
      • Plus he gets an extra 100 bonus points... multiplied by 2 and then squared for selling stuff that actually worked. And if it didn't, you'd still buy it BECAUSE THAT SCREAMING VOICE MIGHT AS WELL BE ORDERS FROM GOD HIMSELF.
        • Speaking of, his voice could be heard over a vuvuzela. That's pretty badass.
  • Courtesy of Weird Al: Charles Nelson Reilly won the Tour De France with two flat tires and a missin' chain...
    • Giddyup, Gene!
    • The man's unhinge his jaw and swallow a Volkswagen whole.
    • According to that video he's apparently even defeated Chuck Norris and took his head.
    • Notice that the song almost seemingly goes out of its way to avoid bringing up Brett Somers. She was his Kryptonite.
  • Guan Yu, from China's Three Kingdoms period, known for such feats of awesomeness that he was deified as the God of War and Brotherhood, and worshipped to this day.
    • And he had Badass Beard!
    • And he invented the guan dao, one of the most awesome weapons in history. It's a massive, curved blade on a pole which can slice the legs out from under a horse.
    • The Three Kingdoms period is chocked full of memetic badasses! Special mention should go to Lu Bu, among whose accomplishments includes killing over 1,000 men in a single battle! Or Xiahou Dun, who was shot in the eye with an arrow only to pull it out with eye attached and ate it to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies! Their deeds are so legendary they have their own video game!
  • Jonathan Coulton's song Kenesaw Mountain Landis is about the man who saved baseball. According to Coulton, he was 17 feet tall and had 150 wives. He also shot a cheating player's finger off with a rifle from a blimp.
    • The player should have kept his bird to himself.
  • Thanks to his "performance" at the VMA, Kanye West has become a Memetic Interrupter.
  • Judging by his long entry on the Genius Cripple page, Steven Hawking probably counts as one of these.
  • For connoisseurs of late '70s and 1980s Hong Kong action cinema, Hwang Jang Lee is held in almost universal fear and awe. The fact that he killed a challenger with one kick during his days in the South Korean army may have something to do with it. (That Hwang acted in pure self defense, and killed the man unintentionally, does absolutely nothing to diminish this.)
  • Mike Rowe.
  • The U.S. Navy SEALs.
  • General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. Quoting The Other Wiki: German colonial officer, East Africa. Remained undefeated right through the Great War, while being outmanned, outgunned, and cut off from Germany and resupply. Appointed black officers. Has been referred to as leading the single greatest guerilla operation in modern history. Was offered an ambassadorship to Great Britain by Hitler, but refused (seemingly out of a dislike of Hitler). Impressed his Great War foes enough that he got sent food packages by some of them after WW 2.

"I understand that von Lettow told Hitler to go fuck himself."
"That's right, except that I don't think he put it that politely."

  • Kathy Bates. Her reputation for being "difficult" is legendary, but it somehow hasn't hurt her film career.
  • According to Nico Nico Douga, Ichiro Suzuki accidentally destroyed the Earth during one match.
  • John Smeaton, Glasgow airport baggage handler, who, when the airport was attacked by Muslim terrorists, kicked one of them in the groin so hard that he sprained his own foot. Even better, he didn't allow the fact that the man was, at the time, ON FIRE slow him down. When asked by TV news if he had a message for the terrorists, he said "This is Glasgow; we'll set aboot ye."
    • Apparently there are ways around the law that "ninjas can't get you when you're on fire".
      • Smeaton's no a ninja, he's a fookin' Scot! They practice the ancient, mystical Scottish martial art of Fuk Ye!
    • Adam Hills used this to sum up why Scotland in general should never be a terrorist target: "How tough do you have to be to watch a car plough into the side of a building, on fire, a guy gets out in flames and runs across the terminal - and you go "Fuckin' watch this!"
      • And Frankie Boyle (himself a Scot) used it as an example of what Scots are like: Scotland is the only place in the world where a flaming man would be punched to the ground instead of being given medical attention.
    • Alex McIlveen, who gave us this inspired headline.
  • Zsa Zsa Gabor was this for a while in the early 90s; her arrest for slapping a police officer who gave her a ticket suddenly made the press regard her as the next Bonnie Parker.
  • At least amongst their own little cult, Playful Hackers phoenix and silveromega have recieved this treatment. Whenever a major incident in computer security happened, a common response amongst ex-Unionists is to say "It was The Silv, for shits and giggles." Phoenix, the more charismatic "white hat", is normally thought of to be a combination of people; whenever someone does something sufficiently awesome (in computer programming), one common explanation is "He's secretly phoenix" or "She's secretly phoenix".
  • Hiroshi Fujioka is in his 60's, still in top physical form, was Ichigo, Segata Sanshiro, and is head of the UFDA. He has many times stated that he'd gladly be any of these people again. He also has an asteroid named after him. What truly badasses it is that he puts a comma at the end of his name to remind himself that he could still do more.
  • U.S. Marines-Over 260 U.S. Marines have received the medal of honor for crazy shit like throwing themselves on top of grenades to save their buddies or charging a machine gun nest with bayonets...and winning before dying.
    • Two of them (Daniel Daly), (Smedley Butler) received it twice and survived both times. The Marines also impressed the Germans in WWI to the point the German Army considered them Elite Grade Storm Troopers.
    • The most bad ass Marine of all time is Chesty Puller Chesty Puller. When the Marines were surrounded in Chosin Reservoir, he was glad they had found the enemy and were surrounded. It made it easier for him to get them. He also led the most bad ass division of the Marine Corps, the 1st Marine Division.
  • Ahem. For your consideration: Sgt. 1st Class Ernest R. Kouma, United States Army. During the Second Battle of Naktong Bulge in the Korean Conflict, he single-handedly killed approximately 250 North Korean soldiers with his machine gun. That's more enemy than Audie Murphy killed in his entire career ... in a single action. Despite being wounded and ordered to evacuate, he twice requested to return to the front lines. After that, winning the Medal of Honor was a formality.
  • You cannot defeat or tie the IDF. You can only hope they're in a merciful mood.
  • Not to start a Flame War over which is better, but the AK-47 has gained a reputation for being nigh indestructible. One could leave it mud, pull it out and start firing. Too bad the creator lives in relative poverty, a Russian army pension.
  • Epic Beard Man. He is a motherfucker. That is all.
    • Bring some ambalamps!
  • Michael Phelps doesn't swim - he beats the shit out of the water until it takes him where he wants to go.
  • R. Lee Ermey will unscrew your head and shit down your neck!
  • Kilroy was here. According to one tale, the original Kilroy was the inspector of a shipyard that built American supply ships. On each part he inspected, he would write "Kilroy Was Here". When the ships were put together, this graffiti would end up in bizarre places that appear unreachable. When the enemy captured these ships and saw "Kilroy Was Here" in such bizarre places and in such huge numbers, they began to think Kilroy was some sort of American superspy.
    • Another version is that he was a riveter, and he marked the end of his rivets for the day with his iconic graffiti so that the next guy couldn't erase his mark and move it back a few rivets to get paid more.
  • Narwals! They can beat a polar bear in a fight, they're the Jedi of the sea, and invented the Shish-Kebab!
  • Freddie Mercury. Aids didn't kill him, epic power just engulfed his body.
  • Andrew Jackson, motherfuckers!
  • Throughout the 2010 NHL Playoffs, Blackhawks rookie goalie Antti Niemi quickly earned a reputation as unstopple force of nature. With the Hawks now winning the Stanley Cup, it won't be long until everyone in the world knows that when you try and score on him, NIEMI SAYS NO!
  • Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie "The Regginator" Fils-Aime is about kicking ass and taking names!
    • My body is ready!!
  • SHARKS, FUCK YEAH.
  • Both Isaiah Mustafa and Terry Crews for their Old Spice commercials. Bonus points for displaying an example of a two-person trope even though they've never appeared in the same commercial. That's how badass they are.
  • Dario Wünsch, is StarCraft II pro-player. Known as The Little One or "TLO" for short, during screencasts does things that are daring and/or ridiculous and can get away with it "because he's TLO"
  • Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Munchausen saw many books published during his lifetime that exaggerated his exploits to an extraordinary degree, making him quite possibly the Ur Example of this trope. He's the namessake for the trope The Munchausen, and has several movies highlightng the absurdity of his exploits, not the least of which being Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It's also worth noting that the real Baron Munchausen that these storys were attributed to, hated these stories because they made him look like a braggart at best and a lunatic at worst.
  • Ninjas.
  • At least among the IU Men's Soccer Student Section, this is Will Bruin. But only if it gets taken Up to Eleven.
  • Zoe Bell can give a man multiple orgasms by roundhouse kicking him. (This also overlaps with Memetic Sex Goddess.)
  • The British tendency towards the Stiff Upper Lip has reached this, though you could argue its justified with the number of examples recorded.
  • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seems to be becoming this.
  • Civil War admiral David Farragut. You know him for coining the phrase "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"
  • Corsette (formerly sugarhugs) on livejournal is defintely one. To the extent that another user made a list of scientifically proven things that she has done and is capable of!
    • What? Only 134 friends? Maybe badass, but not memetic at all.
  • Stephen Fry: not been listed yet?
    • "Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry."
  • Fortunately for him, Mr. Schneider, Roger Ebert can put two thumbs down through six inches of steel plate. And your movie sucks.
  • Noam Chomsky's been qouted more than anyone
  • A Very Potter Musical has made Zac Efron a Memetic Badass on a smaller scale. Ask any AVPM fan, even ones who hated him before they watched AVPM, and they'll tell you all about what a charismatic humanitarian he is.
  • The Governator rode this trope to high office. 'Nuff said.
    • He was destined to bear the jeweled crown of Kahlefonia upon a troubled brow. Anyone who says otherwise is a girly-man!
    • He threatened to make California's legislature watch Jingle All the Way if he did not get the budget on time.
  • Do NOT mess with the Jimmer.
    • For BYU students who don't care about sports, Jimmer-mania makes you want to punch a baby.
  • Pythagoras counts: Guys like Aristotle had really strange ideas about what could Pythagoras do. For example, they would say that Pythagoras could travel through time, talk to animals, write in the moon and other things...
  • Ronald McDonald in Japanese culture has a capacity of beating other badasses, taking down a jerk, and causing random explosions
  • Charlie Sheen, ever since it was revealed that he is a warlock with tiger blood and Adonis DNA. Also he was later photographed on a rooftop with a machete.
  • Ladies and gentlemen, Casey the Punisher.
  • China's city ordinance managers, police in charge of busting up illegal peddlers, have developed a reputation for extreme zealousness. This in turn led them to be branded as China's secret weapon by netizens who want them deployed everywhere from foreign wars to malfunctioning Japanese nuclear reactors.
  • Carl Friedrich Gauss, oddly enough. Well, it's not that odd—mathematicians are pretty cool.
  • Among many of his fans, Christopher Lee is thought of like this. Want evidence? Go and read the comments of this youtube video. He seems to be older and more cultured version of Chuck Norris. The fact that he really is amazingly talented in a lot of different areas (as shown on his page) just backs it up.
  • Pippa Middleton, that is to say, Kate Middleton's sister. When an ass trends on Twitter, you know it is unquestionably a bad ass.
  • Michelle Rodriguez once fought and defeated Chuck Norris. To be fair, it was kind of difficult for him to fight with that Raging Stiffie.
  • Yam Ah Mee, the man who announced the results for the Singapore General Elections, is fast turning into one with the netizens of Singapore because of his deadpan delivery.
  • Vladimir Putin. The more hands-on type of leader. The Badass kind. The kind that can love you and kill you at the same time.
    • You know your leader is awsome when a picture of you shirtless is featured in TIME. Take that, Obama!
  • Jack Palance gained newfound fame thanks to his role in City Slickers playing a bad ass with one-liners that probably inspired the Chuck Norris meme. He earned an Academy Award for the part, and celebrated by doing push-ups on stage...at age 73. The following year Crystal came on stage to host the show on a giant Oscar statue that Palance was pulling by his teeth.

Jack Palance: Billy Crystal... I crap bigger than him.

  • Sean Bean gets stabbed in a bar fight and what does he do? He refuses medical attention and orders another drink. And that's not even all there is to the story.
  • Plains Indians tend to fall into this trope. So do the Apaches. Just look at the list of American Indian protagonists in comics: Inevitably Sioux, Cheyenne, or Apache.
  • You know why you never want to wage a land war in Asia? Genghis Khan is why.
  • Honey Badger don't give a shit.
  • Kazimierz Piechowski, a Polish soldier during World War II. Along with three other men, he escaped from Auschwitz. Yes, that Auschwitz. How they did it? They stole uniforms and a car (belonging to Rudolf Hoss himself!) and drove out. The best part? They were unlucky and a guard post was standing on their way. Piechowski, fluent in German, proceeded to flip the fuck out in German on the guardsmen and they let them through. BAD. ASS.
    • It's also speculated that his spectacular escape inspired the Nazis to tattoo the prisoners.
  • Frank Sinatra has chunks of guys like you in his stool.
  • Gary Busey, the Chuck Norris of Crazy. Once survived an epic motorcycle crash while riding without a helmet. And he knows where you live. How? We don't know.
  • Horatio Nelson doesn't need an arm or an eye to smash the Spanish and French. At the same time.
  • Miyamoto Musashi. Founder of a style of swordsmanship, undefeated samurai warrior, widely considered Kensei, author of a book of philosophy and tactics that is still read and, according to legend, killed a man in a duel with a bokken he carved himself from an oar he carried to the island. Yeah.
  • Chicago Blackhawks rookie Andrew Shaw reached this status within DAYS of getting called up from the AHL after a fight 2 seconds into his first shift and 5 goals in his first 9 games. #ShawFacts quickly ascended and now Chuck Norris wears Andrew Shaw pajamas.
    • Interestingly enough, he got the call up from the Rockford IceHogs in the first place as a fill-in after an ACL injury ended the season of Dan Carcillo, who was memetic in Chicago for entirely different reasons.
  • Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.
  • The entire ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, even before 300 came out. There is a reason we now call intense military training from a young age The Spartan Way.
  • Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch In Space!
  • If Mike Tyson starts losing a match he'll eat the ear of his opponent to win!
  • King St. Ladislaus of Hungary. Probably the only christian saint who's been attributed "miracles" like splitting a mountain in half (the hagiographys insist it was through prayer though), or coming back from the dead as a giant animated statue to fight mongols.
  • And... why has it taken this long for Liam Neeson's Beard to get mentioned? Liam Neeson's Beard isn't made of hair. Liam Neeson's Beard is pure adamantium. Seriously. Not even Darth Maul's Lightsaber could cut through Liam Neeson's Beard.
  • GIUSEPPE.GARIBALDI.The saint patron of Ragtag Bunch of Misfitshe was able to take unexperienced young man and turn them in a Badass Army.His exploits include(but are in no way limited to):defending the city of Montevideo from a siege(after the Uruguayan army had been crushed)with an army formed only by immigrants and recently freed-slaves... for nine years!'And winning',causing the fall of two dictators;invading and conquering a country(Kingdom of TWO Sicilies)with little more than a thousand men,escaping from his island,where he was being watched by nine ship,and then crossing Sardegna on a horse in a night and a day without stopping from resting...at sixty.
  • Newark Mayor Cory Booker will shovel your driveway personally if you can't. And if you get caught in a burning building, he will run through a wall of fire to get you out.[1]
  • Alton Brown's eggs beat themselves if they know what's good for them.
  • Voice actors Frank Welker and Brad Swaile.
  • Everyone is afraid of Alan Moore. Yes, everyone.
Back to Memetic Badass
  1. ↑ Sadly, real life is exposing the "memetic" part; however true the stories may have been during the Cold War, the difficulties and failures witnessed in the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war are making many wonder as to how much of the past repute was mere unfounded hype.
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