VisionViral.com

About

Michael Jordan is a former NBA Basketball player best known for being a dominant player on the Chicago Bulls in the 1980s and 1990s. With the team, he won six NBA Championships and became a global icon. He won the NBA MVP award five times and earned numerous other accolades during his playing career, and is widely regarded to be one of, if not the best player ever. Online, his post-playing career has inspired numerous memes, most notably Crying Jordan and a slew of memes from the ESPN documentary about the 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls, The Last Dance.

History

Michael Jordan was born on February 17th, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York. After moving to North Carolina at an early age, he played college basketball at the University of North Carolina from 1982-1984 and entered the NBA draft after his junior season. He was drafted with the third overall pick by the Chicago Bulls in the 1984 NBA draft. After establishing himself as an individual presence in the 80s, he was able to win his first championship with the Chicago Bulls in 1991. The team won three championships in a row. Jordan abruptly retired after the 1992-1993 season to pursue a career in professional baseball. In March of 1995, he returned to the Bulls to help the team in the final push of the season. He and the Bulls won championships the following three seasons, bringing Jordan’s career championship total to six. Jordan again retired in 1999 and began working as an executive for the Washington Wizards in 2001. He then came out of retirement and played for the Wizards for two seasons from 2001-2003 before retiring for good.

Space Jam

Space Jam is a 1996 children’s live-action / animated comedy film starring the legendary retired NBA athlete Michael Jordan and iconic characters from the classic cartoon series Looney Tunes. The film follows The Looney Toons convincing Jordan to help them win a basketball game against the villainous Monstars. Jordan is struggling in minor league baseball at the time, but through the Looney Toons, rediscovers his love of basketball and returns to the NBA.

Stop It, Get Some Help

Stop It, Get Some Help is a quote said by former professional basketball player Michael Jordan in an anti-drug public service announcement (PSA) that originally aired in May 1987. On Vine and YouTube, Jordan’s PSA has been widely used as a reaction video to poke fun at cringeworthy media or express disapproval of behaviors and comments by others.

Sponsored by McDonald’s and starring Michael Jordan, the anti-drug public service announcement premiered on ABC at the end of the network’s anti-drug TV special program Cracked Up that originally aired on May 26th, 1987. In the minute-long video, Jordan urges teenagers to stay away from doing drugs, while pleading those with substance abuse problems to “stop it” and “get some help.” The earliest digital copy of the original video was uploaded by YouTuber EightiesTV on February 4th, 2010.

Jordan: Listen, you got at least three-fourths of your life to go. That’s three more lifetimes to you. So don’t blow it. Don’t do drugs. If you’re doing it, stop it. Get some help.

Crying Jordan

Crying Michael Jordan is a photoshop meme based on a cutout image of former professional basketball player Michael Jordan crying during his 2009 Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech. Online, the image of the tearful Jordan has been frequently used by sports fans to convey sadness in reaction to the defeat of their favorite teams.

On September 11th, 2009, Jordan gave a speech during his Basketball Hall of Fame induction in Springfield, Massachusetts. Throughout the speech, Jordan repeatedly cried while retelling various anecdotes about his career (shown below).

The Last Dance

The Last Dance is an American sports documentary television series about the professional basketball team the Chicago Bulls and their 1997-98 season. The 10-part series focuses primarily on former player Michael Jordan and his career with the Bulls. The series was directed by Jason Hehir and produced by Mike Tollin. The series spawned multiple memes featuring Michael Jordan quotes and moments.

And I Took That Personally…

And I Took That Personally refers to a reaction image of basketball legend Michael Jordan saying “And I took that personally” while on the set of The Last Dance. The image has been used with captions describing a small slight against another party.

In The Last Dance, the ESPN documentary covering the 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan describes several moments from that season which he took personally and used as motivation for strong performances in games. On June 8th, 2020, YouTuber DoubleDuck posted a compilation of things Jordan admitted to taking or appeared to take personally from the documentary, gaining over 3.3 million views (shown below).

The moment of Jordan saying “So I took that personally” shown in the reaction image never actually happens in the documentary. On May 17th, 2020, Twitter user @OGMelo_ posted a Nobody joke about how Jordan claims to have taken many things personally in the documentary, gaining over 16,000 retweets and 78,000 likes (shown below).

Jamming Out

Michael Jordan Jamming Out is a video remix series featuring a clip from the 2020 sports documentary series The Last Dance of its subject, Michael Jordan, listening to headphones. Online, some have replaced the clip’s soundtrack with other music for a humorous effect.

On May 17th, 2020, ESPN aired the 10th episode of the documentary series The Last Dance. In the episode, Jordan walks on to his team’s bus listening to headphones. After nodding his head and dancing to himself, another player asks what he’s listening to. He responds, “Kenny Lattimore.”

That day, some posted the clip on Twitter. For example, Twitter user @adelleplaton shared the clip with the caption “jordan with that kenny lattimore exclusive.” The post received more than 129,000 views, 2,900 likes and 780 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

jordan with that kenny lattimore exclusive pic.twitter.com/L1szEfU3iN

— adelle 🏁 (@adelleplaton) May 18, 2020

Laughing

Michael Jordan Laughing refers to a reaction image from The Last Dance of Michael Jordan laughing while looking at a tablet. After the episode of the docuseries aired, the image was quickly used in tweets with captions meant to be humorously unlikely.

On the May 10th, 2020 episode of The Last Dance, former NBA player Gary Payton said his team the Seattle SuperSonics could have won the 1996 NBA Finals if he was guarding Jordan, citing how he guarded him effectively when he was put on him in Game 4. This prompted Jordan to rear back his head in laughter (clip shown below).

Looking At iPad

Michael Jordan Looking At iPad, also known as Surprised Michael Jordan, is a reaction image macro series featuring a screenshot from the American sports documentary series The Last Dance of former professional basketball player Michael Jordan reacting to comments made by fellow former player Isaiah Thomas.

On April 26th, 2020, Last Dance director Jason Hehir posted the image of Jordan looking at the iPad with the caption “Tonight” on Twitter. The tweet received more than 18,000 likes and 2,100 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

On April 26th, 2020, during an episode of The Last Dance, Jordan watched a video of Thomas on an iPad and smirked when as he watched the clip. That night, Twitter account @Hustle_NBA shared the clip, receiving more than 18,000 views, 320 likes and 110 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Michael Jordan on Isiah Thomas and the Bad Boy Pistons#lastdance pic.twitter.com/hU1xc46v9c

— NBA Hustle (@Hustle_NBA) April 27, 2020

Personal Life

Jordan had two sons, Jeffrey and Marcus, with Juanita Vanoy, who he married and divorced twice. He married Yvette Prieto in 2013.

Jordan struggled with gambling issues throughout his playing career, particularly through his first run in the NBA. This led to rumors that Jordan’s abrupt 1993 retirement was actually a secret suspension from the NBA, though this has been denied and investigations into the rumor have turned up nothing.

Search Interest

Know Your Meme Store

External References

As we’ve seen, there are many niche communities on TikTok. And while some of them aim to scare followers, Book TikTok is its own special hell.

Over the weekend, @cannibalmilkshake—a comedy account run by Dan Mahboubian Rosen and Jeff Ayars—posted a video about books every white millennial woman owns. From Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (“if you don’t own this book, you will be canceled”), it’s pretty accurate. Nothing about the selections is earth-shattering or surprising. Most importantly, the video isn’t offensive! These are critically acclaimed books.

But that didn’t stop another woman from doing what appears to be a parody of cannibalmilkshake’s video. TikTok user @kel.drigo filmed a video about what “straight millennial men who make fun of women for reading diverse female authors own.” The video includes David Foster Wallace and Philip Roth. There are several contradicting factors about this video, including the fact that kel.drigo would need to own (or borrow) these books herself to show them on camera.

She also explains the late Roth as a “Joan Didion for people who aren’t secure enough in their masculinity to read Joan Didion”—a statement that makes zero sense since the authors don’t really cover similar themes or topics. Notably, Roth was a fiction author who regularly set his stories in New Jersey. Didion also writes fiction but is perhaps best known for her nonfiction essays and writing about California.

Book Twitter did not take well to kel.drigo’s video, and it led to heated discussions about books on the platform on Tuesday.

In response, kel.drigo posted a new video on TikTok calling out “humorless blue-check media types” for making fun of her “satirical” video. The issue is kel.drigo’s video doesn’t come off as satire. Instead, it comes off as someone who is offended and upset.

About

Pol Pot (born Saloth Sâr) was a Cambodian revolutionary and politician who ruled Cambodia as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea between 1975 and 1979. A Khmer nationalist, Pol Pot was the leading member of Cambodia’s communist movement, the Khmer Rouge. Pol Pot is internationally regarded as a totalitarian dictator and is considered one of the perpetrators of the Cambodian genocide.

In memes, Pol Pot has appeared in the context of communism and in ironic shitposting, while a black-and-white photograph of Pol Pot in which he looks directly at the camera has been used in image macros and as an exploitable.

History

Pol Pot (19 May 1925 – 15 April 1998) was born to a family of a prosperous farmer in French Cambodia and received education in Cambodia’s elite schools. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Pol Pot lived in Paris, where he joined the French Communist Party.

In 1953, following his return to Cambodia, Pol Pot participated in the Marxist-Leninist Khmer Việt Minh organization that led a guerrilla war against the Cambodian king Norodom Sihanouk. Following Khmer Việt Minh’s retreat, Pol Pot worked as a teacher in Phnom Penh while remaining a central member of Cambodia’s Marxist-Leninist movement, which was formalized into the Kampuchean Labour Party, later renamed to Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), in 1959. To avoid state repression, Pol Pot relocated to a jungle encampment in 1962, becoming the leader of the CPKin 1963. In 1968, the party relaunched the war against Sihanouk. Following the deposition of Sihanouk by Marshal Lon Nol in 1970, KLP sided with Sinahouk to oppose the new government. Supported by the Việt Cộng militia and North Vietnamese troops, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge forces achieved full control of Cambodia in 1975.

Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot de facto ruled Cambodia as the leader of the CPK. Under Pol Pot, Cambodia was transformed into a one-party state called Democratic Kampuchea. In October 1976, he formalized his ruling position as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea.

Pol Pot’s policies were aimed at creating an agrarian socialist society, which, he believed, would evolve into a communist society. Pol Pot’s government forcibly relocated urban population to the countryside to work on collective farms. Money was abolished and all citizens were made to wear the same black clothing. Those considered enemies of the state were killed by the Khmer Rouge.

Pol Pot’s government’s policies and mass killings resulted in deaths of between 1.5 and 2 million people, approximately a quarter of Cambodia’s population. This period is known as the Cambodian genocide.

In 1979, Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge were toppled by a rebellion supported by Vietnam, retreating to jungle encampments, while a new Marxist-Leninist government installed in Cambodia.

In 1998, Pol Pot died after being put under house arrest by the Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok.

Use in Memes

In memes, a black-and-white photograph of Pol Pot looking directly at the camera, taken on September 27th, 1977, has been used as an image macro and as an exploitable (shown below, left). A Faceapp Smile Filter edit of the photograph saw viral spread online starting in 2018 (shown below, right).

In memes, Pol Pot often appears in the context of communism, in Political Compass memes and in ironic shitposting (examples shown below).

Search Interest

Know Your Meme Store

External References

HBO officially revealed the first actor cast in House of the Dragon, its Targaryen-centric Game of Thrones prequel series—and even if you aren’t familiar with the character, you almost certainly recognize the name.

Paddy Considine, who’s been in everything from The Outsider and Peaky Blinders to a Tony-nominated performance in The Ferryman and a memorable turn on Hot Fuzz, has been cast as Viserys Targaryen, who’s a much different character than the Viserys who met a tragic end early in Game of Thrones.

“King Viserys Targaryen is chosen by the lords of Westeros to succeed the Old King, Jaehaerys Targaryen, at the Great Council at Harrenhal,” an official description from HBO reads. “A warm, kind, and decent man, Viserys only wishes to carry forward his grandfather’s legacy, but as we’ve learned from Game of Thrones, good men do not necessarily make for great kings.”

The casting is an intriguing one. Not just because it gives us our first glimpse of what House of the Dragon might be aside from an adaptation of Fire and Blood, George R.R. Martin’s chronology of House Targaryen from Aegon the Conqueror to the Dance of the Dragons. By bringing in Viserys, House of the Dragon will at least partially bring House Targaryen’s infamous civil war, which also led to the extinction of dragons in Westeros, to life.

But while the Dance of the Dragons was ultimately a question over the line of succession, we can look even further back to see where the threads began.

The Great Council of Harrenhal

The occasional hazard of a king ruling over a country for as Jaehaerys I Targaryen did at 55 years, is that it might not be immediately clear who’s set to inherit the throne when he dies. With the death of his son Aemon, Jaehaerys chose his younger son Baelon over Aemon’s daughter Rhaenys. And then Baelon died before Jaehaerys.

Prior to Jaehaerys’ death, he called together the Great Council of 101 AC (After the Conquest) to nail down exactly which Targaryen would rule after him so that his descendants wouldn’t go to war about it. While there were more than a dozen potential candidates, the ruling came down to two Targaryen heirs: Laenor Velaryon, the son of Rhaenys Targaryen (who was Jaehaerys’ granddaughter), and Viserys, the son of Baelon Targaryen (and Jaehaerys’ grandson). Viserys won out, setting the patriarchal precedent that the male bloodline of House Targaryen would always be chosen over the female bloodline.

Jaehaerys died two years later in 103 AC, and for the next 26 years, Viserys ruled over Westeros, and according to The World of Ice & Fire, “House Targaryen was never again so powerful as it was in Viserys’s reign.” Viserys inherited the wealth and legacy that his grandfather left behind, but there was enough fueling the flames to eventually burn it all down.

The lead into the Dance of the Dragons

By the time that Viserys dies in 129 AC—unlike most of the people we’ve met in Westeros in Game of Thrones, his death was on the more peaceful side—he’s created another constitutional crisis. Viserys preferred Rhaenyra, his daughter from his first marriage, as his heir to the throne, and even trained her for the role. But most of Viserys’ small council (including the Hand of the King) pushed to crown Aegon II Targaryen, the son of Viserys and his second wife Alicent Hightower, over Viserys’ wishes.

The end result was the Dance of the Dragons, a civil war that pitted Targaryens and their dragons against one another. The civil war lasted two years, and by the time the war ended, both Rhaenyra and Aegon II would fall, leaving Rhaenyra’s son Aegon III (and Aegon II’s nephew) to take the throne.

While we don’t know just how long Viserys will be around in House of the Dragon, we do know that, based on subsequent casting information from Entertainment Weekly, House of the Dragon will include at least part of Viserys’ reign. The show is in the midst of casting Alicent Hightower, Viserys’ two children Rhaenyra and Aegon II, and Viserys’ brother (and Rhaenyra’s uncle—and future husband—Daemon Targaryen). Along with showrunners Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik, Sara Lee Hess, who worked on the other Game of Thrones prequel and Orange Is the New Black, has joined the creative team.

House of the Dragon is tentatively set to premiere in 2022.

H/T Entertainment Weekly