An Internet phenomenon is akin to a fad, in which something relatively unknown becomes increasingly popular, but usually for a short duration of time. It is nearly impossible to accurately measure the depth of a phenomenon's popularity, and different groups of the Internet may participate more than others. The Internet's lack of physical boundaries leads to a much faster and wider spread of information and ideas, especially when the subject is based around humor or curiosity. Most Internet phenomena can be often seen as good examples of memes, the self-propagating ideas.
In literature, William Gibson's Pattern Recognition an interesting kind of Internet phenomenon — "the footage" — plays an important role.
Internet phenomena include:
Videos
- Bubb Rubb — a man who rose to fame thanks to a humorous local TV broadcast where he was interviewed on the topic of whistle tips
- Chin2, supposedly Korean kids dancing topless in front of a mirror
- Numanuma, an overweight kid (Gary Brolsma) singing along to a Romanian techno song
- The Star Wars Kid, a video digitally edited numerous times of a Quebecois teenager pretending to be Darth Maul
Animation-based
Anime
Photos
Shock sites
Websites
Personal sites
Fan sites
Blogs
Audio
Advertising
Uncategorized
Resources
