I do not own anything except my OCs. WARNING: Randomness, dank memes, cringe and grammar mistakes.
Chapter 128: Internet Historian Part 1
"What's next on the program?" Yang said.
"More cartoons again?" Ruby said.
"No." Nova said.
"Again?! Why?"
"Because there are some things that I want to show you."
"Can't you just show us next week or something? It's not like we're gonna die." Blake said.
"..."
"I don't like his silence..." Yang said.
"Is something wrong?" Pyrrha said.
"I just feel like something bad will happen." Nova said.
"I think you're worried for no reason." Weiss said.
"Last time I had the same feeling was at the 2016 presidential election."
"You mean when Trump won?" Jaune said.
"Yeah, but I meant the election in general. Both sides were shit. The left was just worse. Americans need to stop picking only two candidates."
"And how bad do you feel things will go?" Nora said.
"A lot."
"Well, if you think that things will go bad, why don't you come so nothing happens?" Yang said.
"Excuse me, what do you think your job is? Aren't you all supposed to protect the world from anything? Do you expect me to do everything?"
"But you did stop the Breach." Jaune said.
"Because I wanted to show off. You could've dealt with that even without my help."
"What about the cult then? And the White Fang incident?" Blake said.
"That was for Fiona. Besides, cults are one of the things that I hate, along with fascism, the Chinese government and libtards. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure you can take care of this. Let's watch some SMG4."
*record scratch*
"What did you say?" Weiss said.
"SMG4."
"B-b-bu-b-b-but we finished the Anime Arc!"
"The arc. Not the channel in general."
"No... no no no...". She got up, grabbed Nova by his shirt and pinned him on a wall. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! DON'T SHOW SMG4! EVEN YOU SAID THAT IT WASN'T FUNNY!"
"Yeah, modern SMG4 is not that funny! I was thinking of showing the actually funny ones!"
"NO! I'M NOT TAKING THE RISK! PLEASE, I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! THIS KIND OF STUPIDITY! ANIME! OVARIES! SHAGGY! PINGAS! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!". She then run like crazy to the window and fell off of it, landing hard into the ground. They all went to the window to check if she's okay.
"I think you should not show us SMG4. For her safety. And mental state." Ren said.
"Yeah, I better not." Nova said.
"At least you made her say pingas." Nora said. Nova snapped his fingers and made Weiss's unconscious body appear back in the room.
"I'm afraid you're the last one to fall down the window." Yang said to Blake.
"What about you?" she said.
"I was thrown, remember?"
"Let me wake her up." Nova said.
"Oh, can you do the earrape slap again?" Nora said.
"Fine. Hey, wake up!". Nova gave Weiss a loud slap and woke her up.
"OW! What the fuck?! What else do I have to endure today?!" Weiss said.
"Relax, we won't watch SMG4." Yang said.
"Really? *sigh* That's nice..."
"The I guess we'll watch some the Internet Historian." Nova said.
"Who's that?" Ruby said.
"...". Nova facepalmed. "Just watch his latest video". Everyone sat down and Nova started the first the video.
Video: Very Serious Business
[Disclaimer]
This video is sponsored By Raid Shadow Legends. Hmm.
"Not again." Yang said.
Business is important. Business is professional. Business is the engine in the car on the road that drives us forward to our journey. There is no 'i' in business.
"But... there is one." Ruby said.
Welcome to the seminar. Serious Business 101.
"Sounds serious." Nora said.
"Now I'm a bit curious of what he's talking about." Weiss said.
First slide please. (Puts first slide) It's August 6th, 2013, and we're at a conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Agile 2013. What's Agile? Well, it's- blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, it's not terribly important. What matters is that this is a very professional environment. Keynotes, panels, networking.
Someone: (to a mirror) You're fascinating to talk to.
Some of them laughed a little.
And a quirky little idea. Interactive display boards.
"That's kinda interesting." Jaune said.
(Jumpscare)
Some of them laughed while the other got scared... and laughed.
"That actually got me!" Yang said.
Five of these placed across the convention grounds. In lobbies, the cafeteria, gathering grounds, and there's a brilliant innovation to go with them. An Automatic Twitter Feed. Simply use the hashtag #Agile2013 and your unmoderated message will appear on the board.
"Unmoderated?" Weiss said.
"You mean that someone could write anything on it and no one would pay attention?" Ren said.
It even displays images. What an amazing idea, you guys.
"So I could also send a picture of anything and no one would notice it." Ruby said.
"Okay, we get it, it's unmoderated!" Weiss said.
"Imagine sending the picture of a penis." Yang said.
"Yeah, hilarious." Blake said.
And people were loving it. Giving feedback, showing their pride. It was all going great... for a whole 87 minutes. When one attendee had a very unprofessional idea.
"I don't like where this is going." Weiss said.
He takes a photo of one of the displays and posts it to a certain message board with the following text: Hello /b/.
"B?" Jaune said.
"It's the random forum on 4chan." Nora said.
"What is 4chan anyway?" Blake said.
"It's the message board with the most freedom out of every other board, based on anonymity. Home of many trolls." Nova said.
I come to you in time of great need... Five giant screens. Ridiculous avatars, gore and trap imagery would be much appreciated. Pls, pretty pls.
"Oh my god..." Pyrrha said.
"Gore and trap imagery?" Ruby said.
"I get the porn but... gore too? Those guys have big balls." Yang said.
Well, we better test this out. So people logged into Twitter, wrote something dumb with the hashtag #Agile2013 and hit send. A minute later, a new photo comes up on the message board. Confirmation.
"Oh no..." she said while holding her laughter.
Oh ho ho... So there was everyone enjoying the conference... when suddenly... (shows some of the tweets)
Some of them laughed.
And from there, it escalated. (More tweets)
They laughed even more.
"What do they come up with?!" Pyrrha said while laughing.
It didn't take long for Agile organizers to notice.
Agile Alliance does not approve of the misuse of the #Agile2013 hashtag.
And here was the fatal mistake. They thought-
It's only like, three trolls from Twitter. It's no problem.
So they rallied their troops, telling them to fight back with the report spam function.
"No, why would you fight back? You're just making it more fun to them." Jaune said.
Well... said /b/...
Master Chief: If they want war... we'll give them war.
Some of them were laughing hysterically.
"And it will be glorious!" Nora said.
And honestly they took it too far. They started posting increasingly reprehensible stuff from the timeline, to the point where all of the other attendees were drowned out by a deluge of horrific images. They're reporting slow and ineffective against people making alt accounts. So with each passing minute, they were losing more ground.
"At this point, they're just using bots to spam." Jaune said.
"Don't they have anything else to do with their lives?" Weiss said.
A couple of Agile attendees stuck their heads up over the trenches and drew targeted fire.
Tweet: looks like the #Agile2013 feed is being spammed pretty badly.
Tweet: maybe time to switch hashtags.
Tweet: I can't be the only one reporting all these people. Why doesn't Twitter make them go away?
Tweet: lisa is giving free tossjobs at the main screens.
Some of them laughed a little.
"What's a tossjob?" Ruby said.
Flailing around.
Tweet: I'm blocking and blocking but they keep coming up.
"Why don't you create another hashtag already?" Blake said.
Eventually, someone from /b/ offered some useful advice.
Tweet: have you tried getting the cyber police involved?
Tweet: how do I contact these cyber police?
(The audience facepalms)
They all laughed.
"She's doomed." Yang said.
But tragically, the cyber police never came. "Report them! Stop them!" cried one of the organisers. But it was no use. And soon he was targeted too. With his profile and personal picture shopped into compromising positions. Then those shops were of course, posted back onto the Agile hashtag.
They kept laughing.
"They're merciless!" Pyrrha said.
Eventually, Agile had had enough... (Someone is upset.) And they surrendered, disabling the #Agile2013 hashtag. And that... was the end. (shows thread)
"Finally." Weiss said.
... Or was it?
"Huh?"
Because it turns out there was another functioning hashtag, #agile2. And once /b/ figured that out, they took to destroying that as well.
"Oh come on, why more?" Blake said.
And that really was the end of it...
"Or was it?" Nora said.
"There's nothing left. What else is there to-" Weiss said.
Or was it?
"What?!". Everyone else laughed.
Because /b/ found the host website.
"You're kidding!" Yang said.
They went straight to the source. Uploading content directly to the displays. And that really really was the end.
"Please don't say that there's more." Weiss said.
The next day, the only thing on the displays was this message.
Message: We are working on shutting down the eventifier site, we are reporting abusive accounts, we are also trying to find all other sources and shut them down as well. I'm sorry... (robot dies slowly)
Some of them laughed a little.
And that was tragedy that befell the Gaylord Ops. Very unprofessional, you guys.
"And none of this would've happened if they had moderators." Nora said.
Slide 2 please. But first... ad time.
"Skiiiiip!" Ruby said.
"Okay." Nova said. 'But it's actually funny.'
(After an actually funny RAID SHADOW LEGENDS "ad")
Right, where was I? McDonald's is a business. (Many handshakes.)
"Please not clowns, please not clowns, please not clowns..." Nora said while crossing her fingers.
In January of 2012, they had a brilliant idea. Let us improve brand perception with Twitter.
"Ren...?"
"*sigh* Okay." Ren said and then held her in his hug.
Let us appeal to the common man with #MeetTheFarmers. A campaign that informs them that our meat only comes from local, independent producers. And not from, as the papers report, orphanages.
Some of them laughed a little.
So they published this promo... (shows the promo) and... Success!
Business person: Hell yeah, lads. Another win as usual.
People were loving it. (Shows CGI woman head eating.)
"Ugh, did they have to make the sound so loud?" Blake said.
They had their usual detractors of course, but overall, good stuff. So they swapped out this hashtag with a new one. McDStories. And here's where things took a turn. They wanted the Twitter public to tell their experiences at McDonald's. Obviously good things ever happen at McDonald's.
Some of them laughed.
"What could go wrong?" Yang said.
This is going to be a slam dunk. Let us shake hands in confidence and our imminent success.
"This is going to be hilarious."
So McDStories premiered on the Twitter homepage, and... (Music stops) Uh oh... Within five minutes, it was clear that people weren't gonna harp on about the time they got a free extra sauce their McNuggets. Instead they were going to tell McHorror stories.
Some of them laughed a little.
Here's just a select few: A McFingernail in my fries.
"Is he going to add Mc in everything?" Weiss said.
"For the whole McXperience." Nova said.
A woman Mcsoliciting McSex in the drive-through lane.
Some of them laughed.
"Mcsoliciting McSex!" Yang repeated while laughing.
"It's not that funny." Blake said.
I looked this one out by the way, it's true.
"Wait, they are actually telling true stories? I thought they were joking!" Jaune said.
My friend claims that Ronald McDonald exposed himself to her as a child. Awful. McRats in the buns. Oh yikes, this one's real too.
"What?" Blake said.
(Shows footage from an interview.)
"Is this real?!" Pyrrha said.
"I don't think I want to even see a burger again..." Weiss said.
"And I thought the Burger King foot lettuce was bad." Yang said.
Oh god, make it stop. Someone stop it now. But it was gaining traction. More and more people were publishing their negative stories on the hashtag. And once they had used all those up, it progressed to just making up stuff for shock value.
"Was it necessary to tell fake stories too?" Ren said.
I ate McDonald's as a kid and I'm pretty sure that's why my father left, closed eyes sad face.
Some of them laughed a little.
"Imagine how that would go. But dad, it's just McDonald's!" Yang said.
"I have no daughter." Nova played along.
"Well fuck you, mom is cooler."
"You're mother is a whore."
"No!". She then started laughing.
I once saw a (chuckles)... I can't say that. But that will make everyone Grimace. (recorded laughter) Thank you, thank you.
Yang started laughing.
"You don't even get the joke." Weiss said.
"I don't care. I can recognize a pun when I hear it."
Within two hours, they pulled down the advertising campaign and in its stead, put up a far more innocuous... #LittleThings.
"Why do they keep making these decisions?! How dumb can they be?!" Weiss said.
They had a few minor trolls there too, but it quickly faded into obscurity. The media jumped on the story, case studies were written and lessons were learned about not giving the public an end.
"I doubt that." Blake said.
Or were they?
"Knew it."
A kid from Simpsons: (crying) He's already dead!
July 1st, 2016. Create your own custom burger on this McDonald's website.
Someone playing Papa Louie: Bun, meat patty, semen.
Some of them laughed.
"Damnit, why was that funny?" Yang said.
Name your creation, have it published on the website, then vote on the best one and it will become an official item on the menu. You knew where this was gonna go, I knew where this was gonna go, how did McDonald's not?
"I'm curious, what kind of burgers did they make?"
(clears throat) A poem, if you will.
"A poem?" Jaune said.
"I already don't like this..." Blake said.
The Sad European
A Thin Privilege to go
Bag of Lettuce, No Tissues
Mein Kampf, just so
"Oh my god..." Pyrrha said.
"They actually look tasty." Ruby said.
"And the stack of lettuces?" Nora said.
"Heck no."
"Watch your language." Nova said.
The Atheists Delight, with a side of fries
A Toddler Bodybag, with double ketchup surprise
"Where do they come up with this stuff...?" Blake said.
Pepe the Sandwich, a Rektal Prolapse half baked
Pound my Behind Daddy comes with a shake
They all laughed.
"That caught me off guard!" Yang said whilw laughing.
Girth
"Ooh, I want that!" Nora said.
The Aryan, a Vision of Christ
A whole pineapple with your meal
For 10 times the price
A tip for m'lady (The Fedora)
This one's gluten-free (The Carbonator)
It's still not to late
To vote for Bernie (Bernie Socialist Feast)
Whopper No Onions
Anatomical sandwich (Puusee Sammich)
Just... just grow up you guys
Now if you'll excuse me I have to shower off Ron's Creamy Surprise.
Some of them laughed.
"I felt that..." Nora said, wiping a fake tear.
(Shows picture of clown) See this? This is you, you fucking... clown. Mmm, yeah. Naturally, the press seized on it as much as the general public did.
"Racist burgers? Really? They were just making stupid names!" Yang said.
"They were extreme." Blake said.
"Oh relax, already."
"And some of them looked so good..." Ruby said.
"Even Ron's Creamy Surprise?"
"Shut up!"
Laughing at all the dumb sandwiches while also condemning them- guys, come on guys, this isn't funny, come on. Thee website was shut down and not much remains. Except for these. (Shows the burgers) Also this text document I found which had a bunch of other sandwich names. What ingredients werw involved and what they looked like though, you'll have to use your imagination. Next slide, please. Prophylactics are serious business.
"You're kidding." Weiss said.
Let us shake hands in both a fun and safe way. Oh, I see this one is ribbed for my pleasure. Early 2013, Durex launches a revolutionary new app. SOS Condoms. Download, select the product, enter your location, and a condom will be delivered to you within an hour.
"I can't believe this is real." Blake said.
Oh, perfect timing. Their emphasis was on discretion and anonymity when delivering the goods. And the delivery drivers were in disguise. Pizza delivery guy, police officer...
"Is that even legal?"
I'm not sure if that's legal. A gimmick to be sure. And some people thought it was (Disappointed Diablo fan) an out of season April Fool's joke. But people tried it out and it really worked.
"Look what they're coming up with..." Yang said.
"That's what happens when people are lazy enough to go to a pharmacy shop." Nova said.
So they rooled the service out over the tip of Dubai of all places. But after its first week, the government shut it down, citing it as "promoting promiscuity".
"Promiscuity? I think that's an overreaction." Blake said.
"It's probably a cultural thing." Ren said.
"What does promiscuity mean?" Ruby said.
Booted out, they had a hard time deciding where to launch next. (Businessman breaks in) Guys, guys! Let's let the audience decide with an online poll. Oh for fuck's sake...
"People never learn." Weiss said.
So people jumped on the website and started voting.
Casey Neistat: I will be voting for a Krispy Kreme donut place.
Tens of thousands of votes were counted. With some of the major contenders being Paris, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and London.
(some white girl crying, I don't know)
But all of theme were outshined, with the most votes counted for...
"I bet they voted North Korea or something."
Batman.
They all laughed.
"Batman?! Really?!" Jaune said while laughing.
A small conservative Muslim city in Turkey.
Batman: Let that be an object lesson in the dangers of tampering with the laws and mother nature.
They kept laughing.
"There's a place on Earth called Batman?!" Ruby said while laughing.
"Who's up for a crusade to Batman?" Yang said.
The internet rejoiced. Another marketing campaign to add to the KD ratio. A Facebook post went out from SOS Condoms, congratulating Batman and to stay tuned for more to come. But there was no more to come, so to speak. The campaign was promptly stopped. SOS Condoms never opened in Batman.
"Really?" Ruby said.
"Well, the ballot was rigged, so it's obvious that they would stop it." Pyrrha said.
"What about the poor citizens of Batman-" Nora said, breaking into laughter after that.
SOS Condoms never opened anywhere ever again. They went silent for months. Everyone moved on. SOS Condoms deleted their account. And slipped forever away into obscurity.
"To be honest, what was the point of the service? It probably wouldn't be used a lot." Blake said.
Pizza is serious business. DiGiorno does frozen pizza and they have a substantial social media presence. Domestic violence is bad.
"What does that have to do with pizza?" Yang said.
Bold statements only on this channel. Well, Twitter had a hashtag for National Domestic Violence Awareness Day. People were sharing their harrowing stories with the hashtag #whyistayed. These were all quite serious. And dealt with some delicate and sensitive issues.
"I don't like this one..." Ruby said.
Then here comes DiGiorno, throwing on the accelerator, no fucks given, driving right through the front door.
Some of them laughed.
(Shows the tweet) They had pizza. (Ba dum tsss!) Mmm...
Their laughter was cut immediately.
"Did they really post that? Without knowing the context?" Jaune said.
"That was really bad..." Yang said.
DiGiorno social media: Hehehe, that was a great tweet. I bet everyone is loving it.
(She kept smiling. Soon, slowly at the beginning, a ton of Twitter notifications were heard.)
"You've done goofed!" Nora said.
Precisely, 0.1 seconds after they posted it, they must've realized it wasn't the wisest move. And they apologized. But the media got involved. So they kept apologizing. (Tons of apology tweets) They couldn't stop apologizing. They just- (more tweets) can't- (even more) they- (MORE) that- (MORE) dude, relax. (MORE TWEETS)
"So many apologies." Ruby said.
"It's like Pyrrha made the post." Yang said.
"Huh?" Pyrrha said.
"Nothing."
"They probably thought if they didn't apologize enough, the press would ruin them." Weiss said.
Naming you baby is serious business. "Put it to the internet", this Canadian couple said. Trust in the kindness and sensibility of strangers- it was Cthulhu All-Spark. Next.
Some of them laughed.
"Those are epic names." Nora said.
Do you know what kerning is? It's important in print. It's essentially the proportional spacing between fonts. Why does it matter? Well, sometimes two letters close to each others can look like a single letter and that's sick.
"I don't see it, is he talking about the rn in modern?" Ruby said.
Alright, stop. Let me finish up with a little bit of a Behind the Meme style history lesson. In the early 2010's, brands were only just finding their foothole in social media. They didn't quite understand how to connect with their audience. The tendency was to be a bit overly formal. Stuffy. Not quite fun. That is until Denny's came along with a game-changing Tumblr account. They started actually having a good time. And it appealed to fellow zoomers, such as myself. It took a little while, but soon other brands cottoned onto the strategy. Arby's started posting memes. Wendy's dropped a mixtape. And then went to a WWE style feud back and forth of Burger King and McDonald's.
"Is this the reason why Wendy's started roasting people?" Jaune said.
"And KFC made a dating sim." Yang said.
And gen z'ers, such as myself, lapped it up.
Internet Historian: How do you do, fellow kids?
Some of them laughed a little.
Now that's not to say they all figured it out.
"How do you actually pronounce that word? Covfif? Covfef? Covfefe? Cofefe? Covfifi?" Nora said.
Other brands attempted it too, but without committing fully, they failed to get the same appeal. So into the late 20 teens, thing were going pretty great. It was a little content "Renaissance".
Tweet: Chick-fil-A is officially America's favourite fast food restaurant.
Chick-fil-A: Imagine if we opened on Sundays. Had to give everyone else (like Wendy's) a chance to get money.
Wendy's: Your mom is a hoe.
Some of them laughed a little.
Even Steak-umm's even broke down the whole phenomenon in Twitter and in articles. And I'd like to turn that into a full video soon... BUT, with all these relatable memes floating around, people are starting to feel a little panded to. (Another tweet) (chuckles) Very relatable. (Another tweet) Nice, that's, that's relatable. (Another tweet) Yep, relatable.
"And they won't stop coming." Yang said.
(Another tweet) Mmm... relatable. (Another tweet) *sigh* Okay... Everything's getting so fucking relatable, it's actually kind of annoying. (Another tweet) Guys, we get it, you're relatable. (Another tweet) I just-... (Another one) Just stop relating. (Another one) Stop. (Another one) Stop! (More) Enough! That's it! I can't take it anymore-! (Spider crab comes) SILENCE, BRAND.
Some of them giggled.
"What is that thing?" Weiss said.
"Looks like a... spider crab?" Blake said.
And so a new meme was born. The spider crab with laser eyes, Arial font, 32 point, white on black background, no shadow no text. Silence comma brand. And it was a very powerful tool.
"It looks powerful." Nora said.
M&M's pushing something rather. Take that, brand. (Explosion sound) Hey, fellow gen z'ers- SILENCE, BRAND. (Death sounds) And it became a long and enduring meme.
Boomer: omg, I fell that. That is such a mood. Relatable AF. (A silence plastic bag flies on his face.)
Sometimes, a few brands could crakck through it. SILENCE, TWITTER.
"Even the Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter?" Jaune said.
But for the most part, this cab has become the quality control of Twitter. An apex predator shutting down lesser brands. God bless it.
"If only there was something similar for cancel culture." Nova said.
Alright, it's time to stop. That's enough business for today. Thank you for attending my... seminar.
"Wait, the stock photo old man is real?!" Nora said.
"If we learned something from this, is that businesses should stay out of social media." Ren said.
And done! Like, follow, leave a review AND NOT A REQUEST, send me a PM if you want and READ THE NOVA FORCE. See you soon!