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There are five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall, and Girl Scout cookies.

The Girl Scouts have been an institution in the world of yummy snack foods since 1917. That’s right folks, they’ve been selling cookies since before World War II. Through the Great Depression and fad diets, Girl Scouts cookies have beaten all sorts of odds.

They’ve capitalized on societal changes with ingenious sales tactics like setting up shop outside of weed dispensaries, but that seems a little obvious. If stoners won’t buy cookies then who will. One demographic which is tougher to crack, however, is the suburban mom. Whether it’s because they’re trying to get the family to eat better or their own kids are Girl Scouts and they’re just so sick of looking at the cookies, moms can be a tough market.

What are most moms sure to love though? Hot men.

Specifically, the current king of hot men, Jason Momoa.

So with this thought in mind, brilliant fifth-grader-turned-mom-whisperer Charlotte Holmberg of Colorado printed and cut out shirtless pictures of Jason Momoa and turned her boxes of cookies from samoas into Momoas. (get it?)

Because truthfully, meh, cookies are optional, but TOPLESS JASON MOMOA IS EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY NECESSARY.

About

Sharenting is “the habitual use of social media to share news, images, etc of one’s children” according to Collins English Dictionary. The word is a blend of over-sharing and parenting.

Origin

On May 18th, 2012, the Wall Street Journal writer Erin McKean coined the term in a “Words of the Week” article saying, “I call it “oversharenting”: the tendency for parents to share a lot of information and photos of their kids online.” Oversharenting was shortened to sharenting over time.

Spread

On May 17th, 2015, CBS New York uploaded the first video about sharenting to YouTube (shown below). They report that most people think that parents share too much about their child on social media. The reporters warn people about sharing the childs location through pictures.

On Sept. 16, 2016, USA Today reported, “An 18-year-old woman from Carinthia is suing her parents over their posting of 500 images of her without her consent, The Local Austria reports. The images were shared with her parents’ 700 Facebook friends. Her father told the news outlet he has rights to the photos because he took them.” On Jun 23rd, 2017, TheEllenShow uploaded a monologue of American Comedian Ellen Degeneres who concentrated on children suing their parents over Facebook photos (shown below, left). The video gained 247,000 views and 3,800 likes in two years. On July 20th, Good Morning Britain uploaded a heated debate on the sharenting subject to YouTube which received 163,000 views and 767 likes in two years (shown below, right).

The term became popular with parents, with some proudly calling themselves sharents (shown below).

Many News Outlets have reported on the dangers of sharenting including The Guardian, Good Housekeeping, The BBC and the Atlantic. They list reasons like digital kidnapping (when someone uses the photo of someone else’s child), endangerment and future embarrassment.

Search Interest

External References

About

Citizen Kane Clapping refers to a memorable moment from the 1941 dramatic film Citizen Kane of the titualr character clapping in anger. The clip has since been used as reaction GIF online meant to express intense pleasure.

Origin

On September 5th, 1941, the film Citizen Kane premiered in the United States. In the film, Charles Foster Kane (portrayed by Orson Welles) watches his wife Susan Alexander (portrayed by Dorothy Comingore) perform an opera. As the audience grows dissatisfied with her performance, Kane begins clapping vigorously and angrily (shown below, left).

The earliest recorded use of the Citizen Kane GIF was published by tackyracoons user Bunk Strutts who posted the GIF on November 23rd, 2007 (shown below, right).

Spread

The following year, on October 6th, 2008, an anonymous 4chan user in the /tg/ forum posted the GIF.

Two years later, YouTuber karlpirksaar posted a 10-hour video of the clip. The post received more than 97,000 views in eight years (shown below).

Shia LaBeouf Clapping

On October 21st, 2014, singer and musician released the song “Shia LaBeouf” named after actor Shia LaBeouf. That day, the singer uploaded a video for the song, receiving more than 60 million views in five years (shown below, left). Toward the end of the music video, LaBeouf parodies the Citizen Kane clap.

The following day, a GIF of LaBeouf’s version was uploaded to GIPHY (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Smiley Sings refers to a series of animated videos of a smiley face singing along to a song. The videos are set to music and capture the designing of a yellow smiley face in an image editing program, most often MS Paint, and vertically resizing the mouth of the face to simulate singing. These would inspire videos where a circle was manipulated over a pre-existing picture of a character, as well as other image program based memes like Trumpet Boy.

Origin

On December 1st, 2006, YouTube channel kentdoddsproductions posted the earliest known iteration of Smiley Sings with an animated rendition of the Survivor song “Eye of the Tiger.” Within 12 years, the video received more than 63,000 views (shown below).

Spread

That day, kentdoddproductions uploaded another version, this time set to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “The Night Santa Went Crazy.” The post received more than 22,000 views in 12 years (shown below, left). Additionally, that day, they uploaded the original version of the Smiley Sings “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” On January 12th, 2007, they uploaded a variation that featured a full-bodied smiley singing “Numa Numa”. The post received more than 24,000 views in less than 12 years (shown below, right).

On April 4th, 2007, kentdoddsproductions released a video where he announced that he would enter the “Numa Numa” video into the “2007 New Numa Contest” and urged the viewer to vote for his submission. They placed 47th.

On June 28th, 2008, the channel randomvids300 reposted the video kentdoddsproductions video for the Green Day son “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” As of 2019, it has more than 4 million views (shown below).

On May 19th, 2013, the YouTube channel Smiley Sings launched. Five years later, on September 13th, 2018, the channel uploaded the video “Smiley sings britney spears one more time.” The post received more than 2,000 views in less than one year (shown blow, left). Two days later, they uploaded a video for “Smiley sings toto africa”.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

The Departed is a film directed by Martin Scorsese starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson. The film follows DiCaprio’s character Billy Costigan, a plant placed in the Irish mob by the Boston police, and Damon’s character Colin Sullivan, a plant placed in the police by the mob, which is headed by Frank Costello (Nicholson). The film was a massive success, winning several awards and debuting at number one at the box office.

History

The Departed was released on October 6th, 2006. The film follows Boston cop Billy Costigan rising as a plant in the Irish mob and mobster Colin Sullivan gaining trust in the Boston police. The two eventually figure each other out, leading to a climactic pursuit. The film is an adaptation of the Hong Kong film Internal Affairs.

Reception

The film was a huge critical success, winning Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. It was hailed by critics as one of Scorsese’s best alongside Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas. It has been hailed as one of the best films of the 2000s by several critics, including Richard Roeper, Peter Travers, and Roger Ebert.

Online Presence

On October 6th, 2006, a page for the film was launched on Facebook, gaining upwards of 1.9 million likes over the next 13 years. One of its most iconic scenes, which features DiCaprio’s character smashing another’s over a bar table, has been parodied in GIFs (shown below).

The film has also been widely discussed on Reddit. Threads have covered Scorsese’s use of X’s to mark certain characters for death and the film’s making. The film is also big on Tumblr, with devoted blogs “The Departed Blog” and “Hurray The Departed.”

“Remove the Rat” Kickstarter

On February 18th, 2019, Adam Sacks created a Kickstarter to remove the rat from the final shot of The Departed, which he claimed was heavy-handed symbolism that spoiled the film (original scene shown below). The rat has long been a subject of jokes about Scorsese’s “ham-fisted” use of symbolism. As of February 20th, the Kickstarter has reached its $4,000 goal.

The Kickstarter was mocked the following day on Twitter. Twitter user @Max_Read joked that the shot ruined the film’s “carefully cultivated subtlety” (shown below, left). User @bernstein joked that the ending was actually tonally appropriate if you think of the film as a comedy.

Search Interest

External References