The Internet created a new way for quotations to become famous, including many that would probably might not be well known otherwise. (It also created a new way for misquotes to spread, a major pet peeve of people like me who want to know whether a quotation is real or not.)
Depending on how much you “surf the ‘Net” and how long you’ve been surfing, you may or may not know quotes like “All your base are belong to us” and “I Can Has Cheezburger?”
Nowadays, quotes like those that spread virally via social media are often called memes.
Some quote memes are popularized by graphic images with text that get posted on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Some are spread by videos, through sites like YouTube.
These online media outlets provide a lightning-fast way for memes to spread around the world and become famous literally overnight.
One example is a quote that had its initial “fifteen minutes of fame” in 2007 and eventually became a long-lasting meme.
On September 17, 2007, US Senator John Kerry gave an address to students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. After delivering his prepared remarks, Kerry took questions from the audience.
As the Q&A period was ending, 21-year-old student Andrew Meyer grabbed a microphone, started insulting Kerry, ranting about political conspiracy theories, and talking about how President Bill Clinton was impeached for getting “a blowjob” (from Monica Lewinsky).
The University police decided Meyer was going a bit over the top and started to forcibly remove him from the auditorium. He resisted.
The cops warned him to go quietly or get zapped with a taser gun. Meyer kept resisting, while yelling “Don’t tase me, bro.”
The police tased him anyway, arrested him and removed him from the building.
Someone shot a video of the hubbub. Shortly thereafter, it was posted it on YouTube.
Within 24 hours, the incident and Meyers’ phrase “Don’t tase me, bro!” were known to millions of Internet users. (For the few readers who may not know, the slang word bro is shorthand for brother.)
Soon after the video and phrase went viral online, mainstream news outlets picked it up and made it even more famous.
Indeed, quote maven Fred Shapiro, author of the great Yale Book of Quotations
The word tase was also listed as 2007’s word of the year by the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary.
Meyers’ quote has since been featured on t-shirts and other accessories and has been used and recycled in countless ways in videos, social media posts, songs, books and other media.
This has given Meyer enough of a “celebrity” status and fan base to become a professional blogger, political commentator and activist.
On his website, TheAndrewMeyer.com (a URL that makes it clear he is The Andrew Meyer, as opposed to any others), the “About” page says:
Andrew Meyer writes and speaks about politics, music, sports, spiritual wisdom and more, and is internationally known for questioning U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry and coining the phrase "Don't Tase Me Bro!"
He also sells ads to willing sponsors of his website.
One of the more prominent ads featured there as I was writing this post was an ad for a company selling “Food That Fights Dementia.”
I suspect some targets of Meyer’s political attacks might find that ironic.
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Related reading: books about Internet memes…
