List of YTMND fads
The website ytmnd.com is known for its tendency to propagate a great number of fads and in-jokes. Note that the fads almost never consist of only the elements indicated for them. Indeed, the fads could not be as popular without variation.
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is a relationship between two or more texts that quote from one another, allude to one another, or otherwise connect.
One form of intertexuality is the relation of elements within a single site. Sites of the "classic" picture/sound/text variety use intertextuality between the image, the sound and the text to amplify or even create new meaning in their source materials. In instances where all the materials are from the same source, the elements build upon one another to make even a throw-away line one of significance. Sites with unrelated source materials repurpose each element to work toward a meaning that could not be reached from any one individual picture, sound or text alone.
Examples
The subject matter of YTMNDs are evolving and producing new combinations as replication continues by the second. One example is the What is love? YTMND. The YTMND features an animated GIF clip of a sketch from Saturday Night Live with Chris Kattan, Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell with a repeating section of Haddaway's song "What Is Love". It was soon followed by What is NES?, in which the clip is rendered in an 8-bit graphics style similar to those found on a game from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), complete with an NES version of the song. This was followed by What is a-ha?, with the clip drawn in a style similar to the music video for the song "Take on Me" along with a clip of the song. The fad was then merged with the Tiger Handheld fad for What is Tiger?. It was even mixed with the Half Blood Prince spoiler fad for What is Dumbledore?.
In some cases, a YTMND is framed to incorporate as many fads as possible. One such example is the "YTMND: For Game Boy" site, which features a Pokémon-like Game Boy game where elements from other fads duel to the death. This is not a fad on its own but communicates the popularity and nature of borrowing from other fads (However, it recently got a "real", functional game of its own.). Another is "YTMN Damacy", which involves Katamari Damacy-style balls rolling up other fad images. This is combined with sound clips from other fad YTMNDs arranged to the song "Katamari on the Rocks".
Fads
Follows the actual fads in lists and divided by category.
Most Popular YTMNDs
- "KHAN!", Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Kirk's KHAN! fury scream.
- The first major fad on YTMND aside from the original You're The Man Now Dog.
- Previously part of the /contrib folder on the original www.yourethemannowdog.com. No original YTMND existed for this fad.
- The Picard Tribute, Star Trek: The Next Generation: Picard's quote samples from "The Picard Song" by DarkMateria.
- The first YTMND to have passed 1 million views as of August 2005. On January 2, 2006, a hacker found the password for the site creator's account and deleted the site. Max Goldberg promptly replaced the YTMND with a previous backup, but was unable to restore its view count. By February 2006, The Picard Song reached 2 million views.
- Safety Not Guaranteed, the song "Push it to the Limit" from Scarface, followed by a picture (probably taken from a school album from the 1980's) of a "Mullet man" with a mullet haircut and a serious-looking expression on his face. The original YTMND involved a want ad asking for a partner in a time travel experiment stating that "Safety is Not Guaranteed".
- "I believe you have my stapler.", Office Space: Milton Waddams's catchphrase.
- "NOOOOO".
- "You lose! Good day sir!", Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory: Gene Wilder.
- Sometimes combined with the failing horns from The Price is Right.
- Conan is...AN ALLIGATOR, Conan O'Brien waving his arms like alligator jaws, with the song "Straight Ahead" by Tube & Berger.
- Future Conan 1984 Apple Computer Commercial: Conan O'Brien in the future as the leader of a New World Order, illustrated with images from the with an image of Conan repeatedly spreading and closing his arms and OBEY CONAN at his top left, with a clip of the Eurythmics song Sweet Dreams. This fad has also spawned many Future Conan spin-offs.
- What is love?, Haddaway's song "What is Love": SNL skit featuring Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, and Jim Carrey in a car.
- Sonic Says, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic the Hedgehog gives advice on sexual harassment.
- Batman: "ualuealuealeuale": an image of Batman shaking his face strangely as if electrocuted, accompanied by the song Macarron Chacarron by El Mudo.
- Blue Ball Machine, an "endless" stream of blue balls rolling through various odd components of a machine, set to music from Pee Wee's Big Adventure.
- At the peak of its popularity, this single YTMND received more than 100,000 hits a day.
- On December 24, 2005, Blue Ball Machine overtook Batman: ualuealuealeuale and became the most viewed YTMND of all time.
- Originally created by Something Awful
- "Nigga Stole my Bike!". NES Punch-Out!!: Doc Louis riding a bike in front of Little Mac that was accompanied by the statement "Nigga stole my bike!" with those same words spoken by the YTMND's creator, Duezce. This was followed by the popular animated version with Duezce's words spliced into Punch-Out's music.
- The fad originated on Something Awful for Photoshop Phriday, March 20, 2003, created by Allanon858. [1]
- Was moderated and moved to nsfw status.
- There was a rumor that the quote "Someone stole my bike" came from the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
- The line "Woke up the next morning niggas done stole my bike" has appeared in the song Hate It or Love It by The Game featuring 50 Cent.
Popular YTMND Songs
Many popular YTMND songs have been made available to download in a compiled soundtrack by fyrestorm via BitTorrent. The soundtrack currently has 9 volumes, each made to fit on standard 72 Minute Compact Disc length. Volume 9 was released on March 1, 2006.
- http://ytmnd-soundtrack.ytmnd.com
- http://ytmnd-soundtrack-vol8.ytmnd.com/
- http://ytmnd-soundtrack-vol9.ytmnd.com/
Movie-related fads
- "It's a trap!"; Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: Admiral Ackbar's popular line. Originated on Something Awful in 2002 or 2003 and migrated to Fark.com and other web communities. It's a trap can be found here: http://www.itsatrap.net
- "Indiana Jones can't stop the rock"; Raiders of the Lost Ark: Indiana Jones running from a boulder as well as other images of people running with boulders. Usually accompanied by the song "Stop The Rock" by Apollo 440. Sometimes, images of WWE wrestler The Rock will be used.
- "Uber Hax!!1". Dramatic depictions or scenes paired chronologically with semi-related leetspeak, usually as if the scenes occurred on a multiplayer game server. These YTMNDs have dramatic music, most commonly from "Pompeii" by E.S. Posthumus.
- "Obi-Wan hates"; Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace: Obi-Wan Kenobi from as he raises his hand to "use the force". The first one showed him moving a herd of fainting goats but subsequent ones have shown him disrupting other falling things, often accompanied by Herbie Hancock's "Rock it" or various tracks from Star Wars including Duel of the Fates.
- Gandalf; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: "You shall not pass!" often accompanied by a picture of a Monopoly board, students taking a final exam, a crossing guard, etc.
- "MINE! MINE! MINE!"; Finding Nemo: Seagull call. Usually used when someone wants complete ownership of something. Commonly used to poke fun at websites that did not update their copyright year from 2005 to 2006 immediately after the new year began, especially high-power franchises like Google.
- You Didn't Say the Magic Word; Jurassic Park: Dennis Nedry's line, often set to Alice Deejay's "Better Off Alone"
- Chunk is indestructible; Various permutations of the Chunk character from The Goonies, usually showing off his supposed invincibility (his truffle shuffle dance). It should be noted that the original site featured Picard shooting a gun at Chunk and that portion of the clip has also been used in fads. Usually accompanied by the song "Feuer Frei" by Rammstein
Television-related fads
- Various Burger King advertisements.:
- Ugoff, a self-important character in Burger King commercials saying "Please. I am Ugoff." and "Ugoff is hungry!". Ugoff appeared to be a demanding male fashion designer.
- The Burger King "King" with the words "Where is your God now?" placed in the image. "Requiem for a Tower" often plays in the background.
- Darius Rucker's Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch ad.
- Bill Cosby from a fictional Kids Say the Darndest Things skit shown on The Simpsons where he asks a child what he likes to play. The child says "Pokémon," which Cosby then rambles about incoherently.
- Osaka from the anime Azumanga Daioh kicking her shoe off into the street. In the anime, the shoe is carried off by a fast-moving truck. This sequence is replaced by other outcomes.
- "It's Time to D-D-D-D-D-Duel."; Yu-gi-oh!: Opening of the English-dubbed version.
- "Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition!"; Monty Python: Michael Palin's cry.
- Iron Chef's Takeshi Kaga eating various objects. Accompanied by an excerpt from "Fury of the Storm" by Dragonforce. The original object was a bell pepper.
- "Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?"; Chappelle's Show: Wayne Brady. Other words usually replace "choke a bitch" and/or "Wayne Brady".
- "Walker told me I have AIDS"; Walker, Texas Ranger: Made popular from Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the "Walker, Texas Ranger Lever". They are often accompanied by pictures having to do with Africa, food, etc.
- "Giggity Giggity"; Family Guy: Glenn Quagmire's (nonsensical) catchphrase.
- "Hassan". Mark Copani (a.k.a. Muhammad Hassan) a wrestler with an Arab in-ring persona named suddenly appearing in unexpected places with his theme song referred to as "ALEAALEA", interrupting them in the process. Recently though, his theme has accompanied anything Arab-related. Note: Hassan really interrupts people with his theme song, which inspired the fad.
- Tom Cruise's love fueled incident on the Oprah show.
- Tom Cruise getting squirted by a water gun at during an interview on the red carpet.
- Marguerite Perrin's rant on Trading Spouses, concerning the un-Christian practices of the D'Amico Flisher family, the presence of Jeanne D'Amico Flisher in her home, and what Marguerite believed Jeanne had planned to spend the $50,000 reward on. The highlight of this rant was her exclamation, "Everything's ungodly!"
- Olmec the talking stone-face host from the Nickelodeon game show Legends of the Hidden Temple explaining how to get through the temple. Various phrases in Olmec's speech are replaced.
- A scene from the live-action Sailor Moon TV show (Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon), where the 5 scouts meet various people. Also accompanied by "Requiem for a Tower".
- Also spawned from the same show is Sailor Moon vs. where said character fights various people by reflecting their attacks. This particular clip is accompanied by the refrain from the song "Invincible" by Pat Benatar.
- "Don't say his name!"; WB Television Network's Freakazoid!: Freakazoid meets his enemy, Candlejack. His name is replaced with other spoiler fads.
- The Bill Nye the Science Guy theme song. Various YTMNDs, usually involving Bill Nye, include clips of the popular theme song. Usually accompanied by a loop of "BILL! BILL! BILL! BILL!".
- "They Spinnin', nigga, they spinnin'!". Chris Rock's comedy skits, usually occompanied by an image of something spinning.
- George Costanza! A gif of a shirtless George Costanza shooting various items out of his nipples (usually milk).
- The Closing of Nickelodeon Studios This fad combines sad music with pictures of the de-construction of Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando, Florida and/or pictures from classic Nick shows. The fad also includes many YTMNDs about the removal of the Slime Geyser and several YTMNDs about the Nickelodeon Time Capsule located near of the Slime Geyser crater.
- Ducktales. Various translations of the theme from around the world.
- Chuck Norris, known for his role in Walker, Texas Ranger. The fad originated from a website that displayed fake facts about his godlike powers.
- The More You Know, where little vox pop-style clips from celebrities are presented as public service announcements in the style of NBC's "The More You Know" PSAs.
- MacGyver saves ______, from the TV show, where he would make absurd items from common household items, i.e. a paper clip and string becoming a jet engine. The typical MacGyver YTMND starts with someone in trouble, MacGyver shows up, asks "What do I have to work with?", then it shows the items, then "14 seconds later", MacGyver completes what he needed. Then someone says "How'd you do it?", with MacGyver's reply being "I'm MacGyver, LOL," or some variation thereof. These sites are accompanied by the TV theme song.
- Lamb Chop is goin crazy, a gif from the early children's TV show showing Lamb Chop moving out of control, mainly accompanied by HIM's "Soul on Fire", sometimes mixed with the "Chunk is Indestructible" fad.
- Dr. Zaius, Dr. Zaius: A scene from a musical version of Planet Of The Apes, shown on The Simpsons, where the actors sing about the Dr. Zaius character.
Music-related fads
- The Dew Army - combining an image with a song where the lyrics are taken out of context, are misheard, or are taken literally. Whenever anyone makes a site that fits this description, comments on the site will almost always include "Dew Army FTW", in reference to a site called "DEW" which was among the first of this nature, using the song "Du" by David Hasselhoff.
- "Everyone has AIDS" from the movie Team America: World Police
- "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora is frequently used to symbolize male homosexuality. It's also used in a fad involving printed, written-word "recreations" of other fads.
- Banana Phone by Raffi, one of the original ytmnd fads. Its popularity might have originated from an online flash.
- "Moskau" by Dschinghis Khan, usually accompanied by synchronized dancing as seen in the original video.
- Various emo songs are used to parody Emo's target audience. The most popular song for this is Simple Plan's "Untitled".
- Previously, the main choice was Linkin Park's "Crawling", mainly used in sites depicting angst.
- "United States of Whatever" by Liam Lynch. The word "Whatever" and sometimes, phrases from the song, are replaced by sound clips, sometimes from other fads.
- "Ding Dong Song" by Günther.
- Famous songs being played in reverse to show hidden messages, often showing that the singer is a "Nazi". Some of them are fake with a voice mixed in.
- "Technologic" by Daft Punk, usually accompanied by a person opening his/her mouth back and forth to the lyrics. The original featured Osaka from Azumanga Daioh.
- "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk, usually accompanied by a person dancing with the title "____ Works It". Made popular by a flash video featuring the video game character Kunio.
- "Space Jam" by Quad City DJs (from the soundtrack of the movie of the same name) referred to as "Super Slam" and associated with Randy Savage. This was derived from a Flash animation made popular on 4chan.
- "OH SNAP!". From the song "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie.
- Initial D Soundtrack. Various songs from the soundtrack of the anime Initial D, often set to various vehicles racing. The 2 most popular choices are "Running in the '90s," by Max Coveri featured and "Speedy Speed Boy" by Marko Polo. Songs may also show up in some rave sites.
- Parodies and recreations of the music video for "Take on Me" by A-ha. Usually done in the same style of animation as the music video. This might have been made popular by a similar sequence involving Chris in the Family Guy episode Breaking Out is Hard to Do.
- Songs "interpreted" phonetically to English. The fad first involved the Finnish version of the theme song from DuckTales. Some of the misinterpreted lines from the Finnish Ducktales version were used for many sites ("Your arms are broken" and "Taco Nazi" are the best examples of it). Other popular songs misinterpreted include "Heut Ist Mein Tag" by Blümchen, "Call on Me" by Eric Prydz, the German version of the ending to Super Mario Bros. Super Show! ("Do the Mario"), the classical "O Fortuna", the Swedish and Dutch versions of the DuckTales theme, and the Finnish version of the Pokémon rap.
- Two songs involving spinning:
- "Ridin' Spinnaz" by Three 6 Mafia. ts original use was a GIF of male to shemale anal sex (Spin.gif), where the receiver's penis was spinning clockwise. It is now used in animations involving someone randomly spinning around something, with zoomed text reading "also" and the name of what the person is spinning around.
- "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" by Dead or Alive.
- "Evolution (Time is Pop Mix)" by Ayumi Hamasaki is used as the token song in sites depicting rave culture.
- Other songs used in rave sites include Darude's Sandstorm, and Transa's Supernova.
- "Die motherfucker, die motherfucker still fool". Lyrics from the song "Still" by Geto Boys usually to people dancing or getting beaten up.
- "We Like to Party" by the Vengaboys is often used in YTMNDs about racism.
- The advertising mascot for the Six Flags theme parks (Mr. Six) looked similar to Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old man that was charged with killing three civil rights workers in the 1960s while he was in the Ku Klux Klan. Six Flags then threatened to sue anyone that made the comparison on YTMND. The site was taken down, but the song is used on YTMNDs that declare something or someone to be racist. The original website created by "Radio-F-Software" was relisted, but as an ad for their site.
- "Drop It Like It's Hot" by Snoop Dogg. An acapella version is combined with other songs with similar beats.
- "The Internet is for Porn" from the Broadway musical Avenue Q. Sometimes featuring Cookie Monster due to similaries in the voice.
- "Great Moments in _____ History." Pictures of plane, train, automobile and boat crashes are set to a clip of "Feel Good, Inc." by the Gorillaz —in particular, the line, "watch the way I navigate—ha ha ha ha ha!"
- "Move Bitch" by Ludacris is accompanied with pictures of things colliding.
- O-Zone's song "Dragostea Din Tei", commonly called "Numa Numa" after the Internet phenomenon of the same name with Gary Brolsma lip-synching the words. The song accompanies various people dancing.
- "Get Low" by Lil' Jon and the Eastside Boyz, usually used for things related to both terms of "skeet" (orgasm and skeet shooting), or people "getting low".
- "X Gonna Give it to Ya" by DMX, accompanied by anything named X or "Ex", sometimes accompanied by pictures of FedEx trucks, packages, and caps.
- "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by The Scorpions (band), normally used for Hurricane YTMNDs (most recently Hurricane Katrina) as well as anything related to "rocking" or "scorpions."
- Various songs altered to sound like Darth Vader is singing them. Previously, songs were altered to sound like previous YTMNDs of Zordon of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and The Chipmunks.
- "Bomb" by The Bucketheads, usually accompanied with animated pictures of someone or something falling.
Video game-related fads
- The ending theme from Super Mario World sped up and usually accompanying something wacky (typically with "lol" as the site's phrase or edits done by 4Kids Entertainment).
- The song "Burn Bobonga" from Chrono Trigger, commonly used for various sites involving perverts. This was originally the theme for Brian Peppers sites, but recently, it has been used for sites indicating perverts, most notably...Harry Potter.
- A Tiger Handheld made to resemble any other YTMND fad, with beeping music that also sounds like a Tiger Handheld.
- "It's not a defect, it's a feature." A picture of a PlayStation Portable ejecting its disc automatically, usually with a loop of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out". It is usually titled "It's not a feature (or defect), it's a ______". "Take Me Out" was used in the PSP commercials in the United States.
- "You F***ing Stole my Cloudsong!"A Dark Age of Camelot player screaming at a fellow complaining that he stole his Cloudsong. Note: the first "cloudsong" YTMND depicted the player as playing World of Warcraft which has caused some confusion.
- Link finds... A scene from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time where Link opens a treasure chest and finds various items.
- Metal Gear Solid's "Snake? Snake? SNAAAAAAAAAAKE!" death sequence. The original one in Metal Gear Solid 2 had Otacon calling out for Solid Snake. This most commonly parodied death sequence. It should be noted that the fad started with a sequence involving Mario and Luigi.
- "Do a barrel roll!" Peppy Hare's catch phrase from Starfox 64. This has been joined with his other lines.
- Rolling Katamari Damacy balls of various random objects, usually accompanied with the Katamari Damacy theme song.
- A Thwomp crashing into a character, usually with the Super Mario Bros. "thwomp" and "death" sounds.
- The Leeroy Jenkins video from World of Warcraft.
- "Nothing Moves the Blob!" A scene from the X-Men arcade game where the players confront the villanous Blob, often with the original sound clip in the background.
- "WRYYYYYY", a scream associated with the series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and popularized in a Flash video disseminated widely through 4chan. The original video combined Dio Brando's "The World" super move, which could stop time; Dio's "Road Roller", in which he crushed his opponent with a steamroller, and Shadow Dio's "Charisma", in which he screams and sends sparks toward the opponent. Of these, the "Charisma" scream is most prevalent, followed by the "Road Roller" steamroller.
- "G-Man Adventures", Animated gifs created with Garry's Mod of G-Man dancing around and "having a wonderful time", often set to various songs like "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" by Tiny Tim. The original featured G-Man spinning in an office chair. More recently, however, a spinoff YTMND entitled "Gman is Not Having a Wonderful Time" has vastly surpassed the site that inspired it. It has now spawned many of its own spinoffs.
- Parodies of video game hardware, for example, the Playstation 3 Boomerang controller, the Xbox's size, power cable and graphics, and the Nintendo Revolution remote control.
Politics related fads
- Howard Dean's infamous speech and frenzied scream after the Iowa Caucus.
- Bushisms; George W. Bush statements, like You Forgot Poland and internets.
- "George Bush doesn't care about black people". Kanye West's well-known comment during a Hurricane Katrina disaster relief telethon. Sometimes "black people" is replaced with another YTMND.
- "Chocolate New Orleans" New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's speech about rebuilding New Orleans into a "Chocolate New Orleans", very often being compared with Willy Wonka.
- Dick Cheney goes hunting, sites making fun of Dick Cheney's mishap during the weekend of February 11th, where he accidentally shot an attorney on a hunting trip. Usually accompanied with the song "Janie's Got a Gun" by Aerosmith. In the song, Steven Tyler's voice makes the name "Janie" sound like "Cheney," which in a way makes the purpose of the music similar to the interpretation-based YTMNDs. Sometimes, parodies invovling the video games Duck Hunt and Doom are used.
YTMND-related/Miscellanous fads
- The original YTMND ("You're the man now, dog!") [2]
- Spoofs of the new shirts being sold by Max, the webmaster of YTMND. Usually saying "You will buy a shirt!" while hypnotic additions are made.
- Screenshots of the YTMND homepage with varying captions.
- "You can't see this YTMND!" Pictures (modified or otherwise) of a page stating that you cannot see this YTMND, which is currently being used to replace inappropriate YTMND sites.
- The "Batman and Picard" war, referring to how "Batman: ualuealuealeuale" replaced "Picard Song" as the most viewed YTMND.
- ...Needs Therapy, Various people appearing to be acting crazy or strange, with a loop of Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches. Sometimes a scene from Donnie Darko will be edited.
- Pictures of people failing at tasks are accompanied by the music from The Price is Right when a person loses a game.
- "lol, internet". People in moving objects with a speech balloon saying "lol, <insert word here>", accompanied to a loop of "Running in the 90s" by Max Coveri. The original one "lol, internet" featured Ronald McDonald.
- "Gay Fuel", an energy drink marketed to homosexuals. This is usually paired with Baltimora's song "Tarzan Boy." Most appearances of "Tarzan Boy" is a reference to homosexuality. This was a "forced fad" started by inkdrinker.
- "OMG, Secret Nazi...!" This fad hides a swastika in a picture and adding a seizure-inducing flashing picture of a person (usually Hitler) to the corner, accompanied by the song "Heute Ist Mein Tag" by Blümchen. The fad originated from an article about a hidden swastika in a German forest.
- Jesus, usually in modified bible illustrations. Most notable are those of Jesus with a raptor head (often accompained with the phrase "he went extinct for your sins"), pulling pranks, winking or using web speak, the most frequent being LOL. Some are parodies of RPGs and Christian expressions (e.g. showing Jesus at a save point with the caption "Jesus saves.") Often accompanied by the song "Awesome God" or the Battle music from "Final Fantasy VII". Sometimes Jesus is combined with the MacGyver fad: Jesus solves a problem with a miracle, someone asks "how did you do it?!" and Jesus replies "i'm Jesus, lol."
- "Summoning". A picture of someone "summoning" a fire spirit into existence. It often appears between their hands. The original was "Al Gore Summons a Fire Spirit!!!!!" by Phange and did not feature the Two Towers trailer theme that came to be associated with the 'summoning' YTMNDs. The fad truly took off two months later, with the creation of "Kerry Sumons a Fire Spirit" by paphan, which for the first time utilized the music from the Requiem for a Dream Remix by Clint Mansell in the 'summoning'-context. The song "Escape" by Craig Armstrong is sometimes used instead of the Requiem for a Dream Remix.
- Spoiler from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There are 3 varieties of the fad
- Parodies of the page of the spoiler using "Tarzan Boy" from the "Gay Fuel" fad.
- An Audio clip from the "Potter bookstore crash" video hosted online, in where a male drives by people outside a Barnes and Noble at the hour the book was released, shouting the spoiler out loud to them, resulting in a fan screaming and cussing.
- Sometimes, there may be parodies of spoiler, either mixing it with other spoilers scenes (for example, Final Fantasy VII and Back to the Future).
- "Brian Peppers", a sex offender in Ohio with an abnormal appearance. Typically accompanied with song "Burn Bobonga" from the SNES game Chrono Trigger. Some sites simply include references to the original photograph, and others that poke fun at him with several other famous things, such as the children's show LazyTown and Quizno's Subs. The original Brian Peppers YTMND, by user DancinJesus, showed the original picture with the words "YOU GON GET RAPED!" displayed over it, while "Yakety Sax" played in the background. The second one made, this one by user luvmoz, featured an image of a woman sitting on a bench, photoshopped to look as though Peppers was hiding inside of a mailbox behind the woman and watching her. This was the first to use "Burn Bobonga" as the background song, and also introduced the most common text to be displayed, a cry of "Brian No!!!"
- On January 31, 2006, Grimaf created a YTMND purporting to display "the truth about Brian Peppers," detailing his difficult, convalescent life. This new information was seemingly verified by a man claiming to be Peppers's brother, Allen Peppers. On February 2nd of the same year, Kyeson created "Allen Peppers: Hypocrisy" which displays a screenshot proving that the person upvoted many of the "offensive" Brian Peppers sites that he criticized. Furthermore, other YTMND users pointed out multiple inconsistencies in the man's story including a time discrepancy regarding a "Faygo" soda can that appeared on a table in a picture that the man claimed to be from 1976. The can design was discovered not to have been created untill the early 90's. Subsequently, the man created one last site which confirmed that this had all been a joke. The site first shows a "final letter" to adress YTMND of his frustration. "The Truth about Brian Peppers" and many of its spinoff sites are accompanied by the song "Forever Rachel" from Final Fantasy VI. Another variety involves the original Allen Peppers letter.
- "O RLY?"
- "One Weakness: Stairs." A panel from the Ultimate X-Men comic showing the wheelchair bound Professor X getting pushed down a flight of stairs by Sinister, declaring stairs as Professor X's only weakness. Sometimes, sites do not show the picture but it still follows the format "____ has one weakness". These sites are usually accompanied by a version of the instrumental "Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer.
- "MySpace Suicide". Josh Ballard's MySpace bulletin warning people that he is about to commit suicide. This fad is usually accompanied with the song "Untitled" by Simple Plan, and is intended to mock the Emo subculture. This was one of the fastest growing fads with about 500 sites in approximately one day. It was a fast passing fad only lasting a few days.
- "Asiacopter". An animation of an Asian man appearing to spin in the air like a helicopter. These clips are frequently accompanied by an orchestrated version of the Final Fantasy VII "Main Theme" or songs about spinning. This is another "forced fad" by inkdrinker, but made popular by DrWorm. Inkdrinker has commented before that Asiacopter's success was totally unintentional and that he believed the difficulty of editing an animated picture frame by frame would make Asiacopter impossible to popularize.
- "...Addresses Congress". Various characters, usually YTMND fad characters, pasted onto a a podium in the U.S. Senate. A sound clip of the corresponding charcter with an added echo effect is played in the background.
- "...Lives!" This is when users post of people who look like cartoon character with some horror music (Originally the "Duel of the Fates" from the Star Wars prequel trilogy) for the background. It all started when one user submitted on YTMND a picture from a yearbook of a guy who looks like Peter Griffin from Family Guy. Also on that picture, it said that his name was Peter Griffin, too.
- A hypothetical fight created from Googlefight, usually to show who would win by most popular vote. Often, fights created on GoogleFight are between two popular fads. Sites involving googlefight have now been banned.
- Parodies of the 2004 and 2005 Atlantic hurricane seasons, including Hurricane Katrina and the city of New Orleans in September 2005.
- "Butt Racing", which consists of various animated GIFs of teenagers racing around parks, houses, etc. edited to look as if they were racing on the ground while sitting down. This is usually accompanied by "Speedy Speed Boy" by Marko Polo.
- Remakes of fads as iPod commercials.
- Remakes of fads in a medieval Bayeux tapestry form, generated with the bayeux.php program. Usually set to Heather Dale's recording of "This Endris Night", a Catholic hymn.
- Wikipedia vandalism fad, wherein YTMND participants vandalize Wikipedia articles, take screenshots, and make fun of the encyclopedia in a YTMND. A variant is to start nonsense articles (usually referencing another YTMND fad in some way), wait for it to be nominated for deletion, and then make a YTMND claiming that "Wikipedia hates X," where X is whatever the article concerned.
- "Michael Moore is too easy to make fun of" shows Michael Moore pounding his fists on a podium. The original was set to a soundclip of Homer Simpson saying "Where's My Burrito?"
- Later on, sites began to show Moore appearing like he was running with/from a group of people, often accompanied by "Mona Lisa Overdrive" by Juno Reactor from The Matrix.
- "...doesn't change facial expressions". A fast-moving animated GIF of a person in different photos. The person has the same (or very similar) expression in all of them. Accompanied by Eric Prydz's song "Call on Me". In more recent versions the picture may also be static. It originated from a flash file that was found in an update (on May 24, 2005) at Albino Blacksheep called 'The Face'. The .gif used in the Lindsay Lohan version of this fad became infamous when it was posted and watermarked on eBaum's World without permission.
- "BethanyM", an administrator for GameFAQs/GameSpot's forums. She became the prey of GameFAQs forum users, due to their hostility towards CJayC "selling his soul to GameSpot". One such example of BethanyM is "I AM BETHANYM", in which a picture of her is accompanied by a male voice.
- "MySpace Haley", a 15-year-old MySpace user named Haley, the victim of spamming due to the immense popularity of her MySpace profile. Her YTMNDs include "Haley Doesn't Change Facial Expressions", and two original songs by DZK (Haley - What's Your Age Again) and "Haley - Her First Train Ride", the latter with quite explicit lyrics which many felt were distasteful.
- "Ten bell salute", a tradition in professional wrestling in which ten ring bell tolls are sounded at the beginning of a show to honor a wrestler who has recently died. This fad started as a tribute for late WWE Superstar Eddie Guerrero. The salute has been adopted for other YTMND-releated items that have been removed such as those described below such as Little Mac's Bike, Milton's stapler, and the victim in said Harry Potter spoiler.
- "The Curb-Stomp scene" from the movie "American History X", showing a man killing another person by stomping on his head, often parodized with other persons (for example, The Burger King stomping on the Hamburgler).
- 1920s. Various YTMND fads made to look like they were set in the 1920s. They are made complete with moustaches and top hats. They are also accompanied by black and white screens and "scratchy" lines, often accompanied by music from the movie Cinderella Man. They may also have the theme song from Battlefield 1942.
- Supercat. A cat being thrusted in the air after a rescuer flings it off a pole, often accompanied by the Superman theme song and a different image appearing at the sidewalk after falling down, sometimes being referred to as Supercat. The fad originated from a still photograph of a white cat jumping through the air entitled "Up, up, and away!" with the Superman theme as accompaniment. The fad's name "Supercat" was given by the community and the cat jumping off a pole soon emerged to continue the fad (the white cat has been seen photoshopped into the pole cat's footage on several occasions). The original Supercat YTMND was taken down on February 7, 2006 due to copyright reasons.
- Anti-eBaum's World YTMNDs. (See the "eBaum's World incident" paragraph for more details.) After eBaum's stole the image from lohanfacial.ytmnd.com and watermarked it, there have been a lot of YTMNDs expressing hate towards eBaum's world and encouraging a raid. Most have been accompanied to "Still" by the Geto Boys. There have also been many documenting the raid.
- There were sites that talked about instigating DDoS server bombs and other various forms of hacking to screw up Ebaums World's servers, but Max Goldberg has recently condemned the acts and stated that he had to delete over a hundred Anti-Ebaums sites that talked about such attacks.
- Hey Dude. Pictures of a person (specifically male) winking his eye at another person (mostly a male), set to "Soccer Practice" by Gay Pimp.
- "The Lounge", a forced fad revolving around a full screen picture of a lounge.
- "Yiddish cup". After eBaum's World executive VP Neil Bauman sent a cease & desist letter to Max Goldberg which stated the following line: "Obviously you have lost possession of your Yiddish cup," YTMND users started to poke fun in many ways (and YTMNDs) at this insult attempt, due to the lack of professionalism this sole line denotes.
- "...stares into your soul" This fad combines a loop of the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and an extreme close-up of one's face. Their facial expression is usually serious. The original Soul YTMND featured Conan O'Brien, and was much more serious than other YTMNDs.
- CATCH THAT MAN! An image of somebody in a box moving down a wet path with several people running behind him, trying to catch him, accompanied by Japan Break Industries (Eurobeat).
- ...Revolución! replaces the too common photograph of Che Guevara seen on T-Shirts with other pop culture icons. The first site used replaced Che's face with that of Brian Peppers. The song used in all of the YTMNDs is "Killing In The Name Of" by Rage Against The Machine (Who used the Che Guevara picture as their logo).
- "...will eat your soul!" Various popular ytmnd and their fads modified to sound (usually Aphex Twin's "Come To Daddy") and look like zombies.
- "Carmen Sandiego" This small YTMND fad was started with a Google page that had apparently "found" Carmen. These YTMNDs are usually accompanied with the Rockapella Carmen Sandiego theme song.
- "Calvin and Hobbes" The last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip with various edits, commonly involving other fads.
- Razor Gator, a product designed to clean "razor gunk" from disposable razors, accompanied by a song advertising it.
- Muhammad, sites containing the Danish cartoon drawings of Muhammad from the Jyllands-Posten paper that caused a stir in the Islamic world. Many of this sites may have Muhammad Hassan's entrance music added in.
- Where it isn't, sites that are about the Tomahawk missle, usually making fun of its rather confusing description about how it finds where it is by knowing where it isn't. Remakes usually feature the original audio explanation along with Sigue Sigue Sputnik's "Love Missile F1-11". Some versions of the fad made fun of the phallic nature of the missile in the picture.
- ____ Took Meth and all he got was..., sites that have two pictures of a charachter before and after "taking meth", though this can range from anything to a clean and dirty picture on an actor to a before and after picture of a young person becoming shriveled and old. Set to the song Overdose by Tomcraft.
- Bilbo/Butterfinger - a site parodying the Butterfinger commercials of the 90s features Bilbo and Frodo in a scene where Bilbo is overtaken with a desire to reclaim the ring. Sites followed both featuring other items in Frodo's hand, as well as shots from other movies used to parody the same Butterfinger commercial.
YTMND forums "forced" fads
The YTMND forum community has, on occasion, pushed several invented fads to the front page users, with the occasional successes including reaching the Top 15 Viewed YTMNDs list as well as the Top 5 Rated YTMNDs. Forum fads, by definition, begin on the YTMND forums; most of these fail to get any views however like the newest attempt at a forum fad "Jew Brew" by the rush of new users but was almost immediately "downvoted" (that is, voted 1 by many users to get it off the front page).
The first of the forum fads, Mike Done, was created with the intention of taking an inside joke even the forum users did not get and thrusting it into the spotlight to confuse or annoy front-page users. Other forum fads followed, including Tennis Man, but only 3 fads were successful, including Gay Fuel, Brian Peppers, and Asiacopter.
Asiacopter was an odd fad. Its popularity was sparked only by the remake of a YTMND (originally made by Inkdrinker) by DrWorm, but set to Final Fantasy VII music, plus a thread calling for a Zerg Rush of asiacopters. A select few ytmnd users took it upon themselves to get the fad going, and sparked a huge battle with the big fad at the time "Professor X had one weakness." Eventually the front page was filled with ____copters and weaknesses.
Another such forum fad is where users gather together at a certain time and start producing sites with sound and text, but no image. The purpose of this is to confuse the users who only look at the front page of ytmnd. They will think that there is something wrong with their computer, that YTMND is broken, etc. The forum members then up-vote the site by giving it 5's and they post such comments like 'hahahah this is the best ever!'. Most of the time, they combine loads of fads together in the title and some put a (refresh), indicating that once the page is loaded that the viewer must refresh the page to sync it all up. When the forum members do this, it confuses some of the front page people, but it does not confuse many. This is usually because not everyone participates and sites are not made fast enough, so the 5 recently made sites could have two blanks and 3 regular YTMNDs.
As some forum members have explained, the unifying purpose of forum fads is not humor as much as the attempt to interfere with the fad-heavy business as usual on the front page. Despite this, however, this has led to many arguments between forum members, usually between people joining simply to express their annoyance with seemingly non-sensical series of YTMND's and regular users of the forums. It has even led to arguments between other regular users themselves, which as a result some users have put images of fights and with the words "YTMND FORUMS" displayed in several users' signatures. It has also led to a YTMND itself entitled "THE OFFICIAL YTMND FORUMS YTMND" with an excerpt of the trailer for the film Green Street Hooligans edited with the avatars of some users to give people an idea of how disorganised the forums can be.
Brief List of YTMND Forum In-Jokes
- "BRBFBI", a phrase commonly used when pedophilia or other illegal activity appears in conversation. The phrase was born from frequently threatened police and FBI intervention during a string of forum raids in the summer of 2005.
- "also cocks.", a phrase derived from the infamous 'Ridin Spinnaz' YTMND. Used as a non sequitur way to end a post.
- "RAGED", often in capital or bold font, is used when a forum member has lost their cool. The forum user who succeeds in angering or "raging" the other is usually seen as the dominant party in the conversation. The origin of this is probably from the myg0t clan's catchphrase.
- "gtfo" is an acronym standing for "get the fuck out." Veteran members often use this phrase to quickly dismiss a new user's first post.
- "amirite" is a contraction of "Am I right?" commonly used after distasteful jokes. An example would be if somebody was talking about Courteney Cox, followed by another person stating, "Courteney Cox, more like Caught-any Cocks, amirite?" or "Halo, more like GAYlo, amirite?! AMIRITE?!"
- "eabod probleak" or "eat a bowl of dick probleak" is a very offensive phrase that people spoke back at probleak after she spoke offensively to them.
- "boyorgee": An interpretation of the phrase "boy orgy", recently begun as a YTMND forum fad. It originated when YTMND forum member Piercen began spontaniously posting a yaoi picture accompanied by the words "oooomg its a boyorgee", and grew in popularity after a series of roleplays that ended with everyone having a "boyorgee" (including YTMND forum members Rasputin, Synical, and Piercen).
- The fad is relatively new, so little is known behind its odd popularity, but it seems to exist to be an "attack" on homophobic internet culture, often as a parody of other fads.
- The YTMNDs featuring the original "boyorgee" picture are usually accompanied with the song "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus, or a Japanese song from earlier YTMND fads.
- A common variation is a picture of a can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli replaced by the "boyorgee" picture, first edited by YTMND forum member ratpenis.
- "Michaelwolfson as mod": After Admin clay appointed Michaelwolfson as mod at the forums in February 2006, an uproar began. Suddenly a vast majority of ex-YTMND forum members began posting, angry at Michaelwolfson for moderating. Michael banned the users, but refuses to let people think he would censor the forums in any way shape or form.
Viewhacking
Unfortunately, a new way to garner votes and views is to change the name of the site or to change the substance of the site to trick people into clicking the site and bumping it up to the top of the YTMND list. Since its inception and spread, the term "viewhacking" was coined for this practice and thus became the general phrase. The original person to do this, TDP, only did it to see how long it would take to get 100,000 views; he was successful, and the final version now lists the site's previous incarnations. However, several others followed after that, and has since become a fairly imminent nuisance. In November 2005, a group of users from the North Carolina State University forums led by the user 'justkeepthatinmind' artificially raised the number of views on their sites in order to get into the top 15 most viewed. When called on their actions by other YTMND users, they viewhacked their critics' sites as well in an attempt to confuse people. Such actions are generally frowned upon and subjected to low votes, much along with the practice of using misleading search terms or titles to attract viewers to a page. On rare occasion, the titles are updated to keep in relation to a site that has been only moderately changed, such as an update, fix, or response to attention. Also, in January 2006 Max deleted hundreds of users who had upwards of 20 alternate accounts that they were using to upvote/downvote theirs and other user's sites.
Also once in a while, there will be an error in the system, and the "Top-15" will reset itself to the default alphabetical order. The user A-Z2 is near the top of the user list, and therefore occasionally gets several of his ytmnds in the daily "Top-15" at the same time this way.