Here is my poster for my radio show, "Metal Love Story."
Like the poster says, my radio show is on Friday nights from 12am to 2am on 91.7 The Edge.
I wanted to do a better job with it, but I lacked the tools to make it like I wanted.
The premise of my radio show is that I play two to four metal bands every week. I only play songs from these bands.
I try to play about 20 minutes worth at least of each band. I do this in order to give a better sense of each band's career, instead of just playing one song or just from one CD.
Ah, the good old days. Coming home from school, throwing aside your book bag, and watching some MOTHER F**KING DRAGON BALL Z!!!!!!
So to my surprise, a few years ago... Well okay, FIVE years ago... Dragon Ball Z gained a lot of popularity. But it was mostly because of a clip from the first season durring the fight between the Saiyan soldier Napa and Earth's savior, Goku. When Goku powered up, Nappa and his superior, Vegeta, couldn't believe how powerful he has become in a short amount of time. Nappa asks what the power level was, and Vegeta told him what it was. But... It was done so in a manner that made it strange and bizarre on some level.
It was the way Vegeta shouted "It's over 9000!" that made it hilarious. Soon enough, many different memes and pictures popped up all over the Internet putting Vegeta in situations that, obviously, had him point out that something is over 9000.
Know Your Meme's page for "Over 9000!!!" was very informative about the truth behind this meme. They do mention how in the original manga of Dragon Ball Z, both Japanese AND the English translation, Goku's power level was actually 8000 during that scene, not 9000 like in the English dub of the anime.
It was even 8000 in the Japanese dub of the anime. Although, they do not explain why it was 9000 in the English anime.
Another thing that the page in Know Your Meme seems to miss is something sort of important if you buy the DVDs of Dragon Ball Z just so that you can see that scene. What they forgot was that there's more than one English dub of Dragon Ball z.
Dragon Ball Z was originally dubbed in English by Ocean Dub. It was later re-dubbed by Funimation. The original Over 9000 clip was done by Ocean Dub. If they had provided that information, it would've been a little less complicated.
All over the internet people recognize figures and characters as representatives of a message or theme. But, there is one that internet users and trolls recognize instantly that you don't want to be associated with:
Pedobear.
Know Your Meme's entry on Pedobear is very informative on the history of this internet fiend. They go on to say that he was originally ASCII on the Japanese image board 2channel as an emoticon called "Kuma" and was meaning "Warning: Troll Ahead". It was on meant to be a warning to other users that the post is just an attempt at attention. It evolved into more than just an emoticon. It became a symbol of safety by giving people a warning of what's to come. Simply post his pic on a post or article and readers are informed that this post contains trolls and some BS.
Then, the article goes on to what we've all been waiting for: the creation of Pedobear. We find out how Pedobear became so famous. As early as February 2005, the image messaging board 4chan (link not available because 1: you should be able to find it VERY easily, and 2: I don't recommend going there, not very pretty) had posts of Pedobear being a hentai "lolikon" (it's somewhat disturbing that "lolikon" popped up as spelling error, yet "hentai" didn't... tells you how the internet has evolved) and by February of 2006 he was being photoshopped into the background of pics that had young girls in them.
... This is where I was a little confused after reading this post about Pedobear. It does mention when it was noted that he started to be connected to child pornography, but it doesn't explain how exactly it occurred. It apparently just happened one day. Some guys decided: I'm gonna turn this Japanese emoticon of safety from trolls into a pedophile! GENIUS!!... I feel that this would have been better if they had conducted further research and figured out what triggered the transition to pedophilia, not just when it happened. All in all, Pedobear has had a good run on the internet and doesn't seem to be slowing down. So watch out for him, because he may be lurking around the corner.
