Chuck Norris Facts

For reasons known to precisely nobody, many people on the Internet started concocting humorous exaggerations of Chuck Norris' toughness a few years back. Why was Norris, a martial artist and erstwhile star of "Walker, Texas Ranger," deserving of such acclaim? Who knows: it's the Internet, and these things tend to take on a life of their own.

Typical "Chuck Facts" exaggerate Norris' intimidating strength and steely will. Famous examples include: "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live"; "Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants"; and "There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist." Norris himself has said that he generally appreciates the "facts" people have written about him, although he goes off the deep end when he tries using some of them to disprove the theory of evolution.

Rick Rolling

As you've no doubt noticed by now, most Internet memes are driven by a deep appreciation for kitsch, which Merriam-Webster defines as "something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality." And who could possibly be kitschier than Rick Astley, the British dance-soul singer whose delightfully cheesy video for hit single "Never Gonna Give You Up" has become one of the biggest running gags in Internet history. Sometime over the past few years, gamers started the practice of "Rick Rolling" their peers by sending them a URL to the offending Astley video under the guise of something else. Thus, a h4xx0r whose friend sent him a link to an allegedly sw337 pr0n video would feel pwn3d when he discovered that he actually clicked on a Rick Astley video. Rick Rolling has become such a popular phenomenon that YouTube acutally redirected all links on its front page to the "Never Gonna Give You Up" video as an April Fool's prank this year.

“Leave Britney Alone!” “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” and other unintentional hit videos

YouTube is awesome for so many different reasons. Not only can it help you find every Rick Astley video every produced (see also: "Rick Rolling"), but it's allowed a whole generation of insane people to get 15 minutes of fame with the simple click of a mouse. The most popular viral videos are always the ones where the person being filmed seemingly has no idea that they're about to become instant web celebs: see Andrew Meyer's desperate plea to not be tased, or Chris Crocker's heartfelt defense of Britney Spears as prime examples.

It's not all fun and games, though. As the "Star Wars Kid" discovered when his classmates posted a one-time secret video on the web of him twirling a golf-ball retriever around like a light saber, viral video fame can lead to permanent public humiliation.

LOLCats

Step one: Find a cute picture of a cat doing something goofy. Step two: Write an appropriate caption for the picture in Leet speak that preferably references some other Internet phenomenon. Step three: post online and watch your friends LOL all the night long.

Welcome to the world of LOLCats, the zany collection of Leet-speaking felines who gained prominence with the birth of the website I Can Has Cheezburger? in 2007. The website describes itself as "a site that gathers, organizes, tags, and captions the funniest and entertaining pictures of user-generated lolcats... from the Internet," and is essentially a summation of web humor over the past decade. Typical captions make reference to other web in-jokes over the years, including "DO NOT WANT," "FAIL," and "Im in ur base killing ur d00dz." While each of these jokes could very well warrant their own slide to explain their relevance, I won't try your patience and will instead just leave them as part of the LOLCat slide. Kthxbai.

I can has f33db4ck?

Feel free to spout off in the comments about your favorite Internet traditions. Before we sign off, we'd like to give a big "Thank you!" to the writers at Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia for keeping track of many of these web traditions' origins and histories so we didn't have to. And a bigger "thanks" to the various bloggers who gave us inspiration. And if you'd like to read an even more detailed history of Internet traditions, then just click here.