- Joined
- Jan 12, 2017
UnseenJapan also is pro-localizer as in he's 100% on board with faggot localizers changing the original creator's work to fit the translator's personal agenda.
The Tumblr Files - Official Thread (Case I: Steven Universe) - An exposé on the media and people that destroyed the Internet
- Thread starter I_Am_Not_Bruce_Willis
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- Joined
- Feb 12, 2024
Fans using social media sites rather than backwater blogs to archive their autistic rambling is also a feature in how unhinged "fandoms" are these days. They have to one up each other and create a following and creating "content" even if it's meme posts about a show and writing dumb little essays about the slop they watch is part of how some people "do" social media when they aren't interesting, good looking enough, or just plain unwilling to try to create interest in their social media with their real face. 2013 was when social media truly exploded and became the default way a lot of people used the internet and this is reflected in obvious ways in how fandoms began to behave and how show runners tried to appeal to them.
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2023
Unlike last time, this write-up is going to be far more “scattershot”, in that it covers a very wide array of topics, people, and things that Tumblr was into around this time. So, consider this to also be a kind of glossary of everything popular on this side of Tumblr circa 2015. For better or for worse, you could also consider this the “everything else too small to get its own case” section.
Also, given the sheer number of people and stuff I researched for this, I apologize in advance if I get anything wrong. And please, no cowtipping.
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful website called 4Chan. Led by Christopher “Moot” Poole. When the forum was in its prime, it was home to many different boards that drew in enthusiasts and nerds from all over. There was /a/, the dedicated Anime board, /b/, the random board, /r9k/, where reposts were forbidden, /co/, the comics and cartoons board, /tv/, the movies and tv board, /pol/, the politically incorrect board, and /v/, the video games board, to name a few.
In the days of yore, 4chan was a powerhouse of culture online, in a similar manner to its uncle predecessor, SomethingAwful. Coverage of E3, and a lot of the popular jokes only hardcore gamers™ would understand came directly from this board. If you saw anything get popular online between 2008 and 2014, there’s a high likelihood that the site played a role in its popularization. While there were more than a fair share of people who despised 4chan (and who could blame them?), its influence on the internet could not be understated and it seemed like they were unstoppable.
The 4Chan / Tumblr overlap
On the other side, far from the anarchic unlawful lands of 4Chan, lay Tumblr. While 4Chan and Tumblr opposed each other in terms of presentation and ideals, the synthetic relationship that the Internet shared back in the day meant that some of the people who browsed 4Chan also browsed Tumblr, and vice versa. While Tumblr was always a hotbed of left-wing sociopolitical leanings, feminism, and political correctness even in its earliest days, it still lacked a concise image, and that’s how 4Chan culture found a way to appear on the site.
Discussion of 4Chan, screencaps of 4Chan posts, and jokes/memes stolen from 4Chan were among the first true viral pieces of content to hail from Tumblr, and it is with this that we began to see a different side to Tumblr form. One that wasn’t hyper-fixated on the trends that the terminally online teenage feminists were into, but rather an ever-increasing group of 4chan-obsessed people who either had a shared presence on both sites, or migrated entirely. The latter group would eventually coalesce into the "Tumblr funnymen" group.
And all the while, this side of Tumblr would also see influence from another otherwise-underground Internet forum. One where there’s smoke, and they pinch back.
The YouChew / Tumblr overlap
YouChew was an Internet forum centered around YouTube Poop and similar video edits. It also doubled as an example of proto-Kiwifarms, insofar that it even in its earliest incarnations, it was an importer and exporter of the dumbest online drama imaginable.
What’s YouTube Poop, you ask? Think of it as a trend of uploading poorly made edits of pre-existing video material, as a way of uploading “poop” to YouTube. It just so happens that as YouChew gained its userbase, it developed a sense of entitlement. While YouChew and the YTP old guard were distinct from one another, a good portion of the latter were active in varying degrees on the site, and said portion took it upon themselves to gatekeep out anyone that wouldn’t sink to their ego and praise them all the time.
In a way, YouChew is actually more influential than you may realize, albeit not necessarily in the YTP field. A fair number of alumni would go on to make names for themselves in other ways. People such as FroggyCompany (the man who pioneered the Mario toy video format that would be popularized by SuperMarioLogan), and LuigiBlood, a popular dataminer in the Nintendo hacking scene.
They also had their own wiki that tried so hard to copy the “anti-wiki” format popularized by Encyclopedia Dramatica and Unencyclopedia. While it was intended to feature articles on various poopers & poop sources, it quickly degraded into a cacophony of YouChew inside "jokes," and users editing their own pages to talk about their sexual proclivities and suicidal ideations.
SheezyArt
While most people today remember DeviantArt as being the big pioneering art site online, in the days of yore, there was another. SheezyArt would double as a proving ground for a separate generation of Internet artists and autists. Even Egoraptor is cited to have been an active user on the site back in the day in addition to his escapades on Newgrounds. In addition to DeviantArt, many people from SheezyArt would also settle down on Tumblr thanks to its artist-friendly user interface and environment.
Who came from where?
A common thing I’ve observed when it comes to the userbases of some sites moving to others is that it ultimately depends on the needs of certain groups while also taking into account overlap. A user could start on one site, be influenced by its culture, but then join other sites in order to increase exposure. For example, people from SheezyArt and DeviantArt came to Tumblr because of its growing artist base, while people from LiveJournal joined Tumblr thanks to both sites being popular with women/feminists. And all the while, you have sites like YouTube that act more as a Petri dish of Internet culture, as people came in from multiple different sites in addition to having a culture of its own.
Matthew Million / SuperYoshi / SushiYoper / ThatMew / ThartMew / hatmew
The self-proclaimed “creator of YouTube Poop”, although he's more infamous for being an unlikable douchebag, among other things. He’s also a massive furry, with his Tumblr blog in particular being shoved to the brim with reblogs of furry art. An often-repeated myth by the YouChew crew was that SuperYoshi’s “I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL” was uploaded all the way back in 2004 on SheezyArt. No evidence that this happened currently exists, and SY's parasocial fanbase is unwilling to engage in any good-faith discussions on their idol or his credibility. So, at best, SY's pioneering activities only go as far as his involvement in the aforementioned YTP old guard.
SuperYoshi was very active on 4Chan back in the day, having held on to plenty of screencaps from the golden age of the site. He was especially active on /vr/ during its first few years and remembers the site fondly before it devolved into just being boomers obsessing over nostalgia.
Many years later, he would try to garner sympathy for himself by suicide-baiting on Twitter, which is especially strange given his inability to show empathy for anyone else, including his own die-hard followers.
Martin Ellis / Chaofanatic
TF2 Asset contributor, SFM Animator, and professional gay cuckold. During this era, Martin reblogged/obsessed over a lot of the media listed below and would be a primary source of reblogging for his in-group. From 2016 onward, Martin would be completely and utterly obsessed with his fat furry BF, Logan McCloud/HyperChaotixFox. He has also worked on A Hat in Time, Trover Saves the Universe, and currently works at WayForward as a VFX Artist. In terms of YTP, he is best known for uploading “video footage” of Hotel Mario’s final boss:
Gabriel Luis Fernandez / Geibuchan
Flash pooper known for The King’s Epic Adventure series and being a huge fan of Azumanga Diaoh and retro games. He’s especially known for creating lots of original assets and artwork for his YTPs. His exaggerated and over-the-top style helped pioneer poops made in Adobe Premiere/After Effects.
David / MasterofZoroark / Snorlax318 / Muchlax318
Creator of the Irregular Show series, alongside other AE Poops. Chaofanatic has assisted with a few of them. He was also a brony, and created his fair share of MLP:FiM YTPs. While he’s not as active as he used to be in the 2010s and has yet to find work in the same way Martin did, he still posts to his YT channel every now and then.
Fun fact: Martin, Gabriel, and David are all based in Texas, which may have greatly helped with them being able to network in the ways they have.
Wheel Gator
One of SuperYoshi’s other claims to fame besides “I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL” was “COMEDIAN WHEEL GATOR FUCKS THE COPS”. Released back in 2007, the video poops an episode of the West Baptist Church’s news broadcast by overlaying the theme music for Wheel Gator’s stage from Mega Man X2 at high volume. This would lead to “Comedian Jon Stewart and his hooligan sidekick: WHEEL GATOR” becoming a popular in-joke on YouChew. For example, Wheel Gator’s theme would be prominently featured in Geibuchan’s “Allison Won Derland 4” YTP, during the action scene.
With all these bases having been covered, it’s time to delve into the many, many pieces of media that this newly formed 4Chan-YouChew-Tumblr zeitgeist often reblogged and showed heavy fandom for:
Treasure Co. LTD
A Japan-based video game developer founded in 1992, known for their over-the-top action games and unique twists on existing genres. They are most famous for their games released for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, such as Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and Alien Soldier. In addition, they have released other cult classics such as Silhouette Mirage, Sin & Punishment, and Radiant Silvergun. They also created the critical darling Ikaruga, which is hailed as one of the best Shoot-em-ups of all time.
Because of their over-the-top gameplay philosophies and memorable character designs, Treasure found an audience with the users of YouChew, especially SuperYoshi, whose love for Treasure had a major effect on the rest of the forum, as well as his Tumblr followers, discovering Treasure’s work. Chaofanatic also attempted to host a Treasure-themed YTP collab on the forum, only for it to not really go anywhere.
While their last release was Gaist Crusher God for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, a new game at Treasure has supposedly been in development as of 2022.
Mischief Makers / Yuke Yuke! Trouble Makers
One of Treasure’s other notable cult classics, released for Nintendo 64 in 1997. Mischief Makers stars the maid robot Marina Liteyears as she makes her way through the planet Clancer to save her creator from capture. The main mechanic of the game is to grab hold of objects or enemies and shake them. Marina herself has developed a devoted fan-following online. SuperYoshi even used the character portraits from the game as part of the background on his Tumblr blog. Outside of a guest appearance in Rakugaki Showtime in 1998, Marina Liteyears has never appeared in a game since.
Mega Man Legends / Rockman D.A.S.H.
A 3D action-adventure spinoff of the Mega Man series, set thousands of years in the future. Mega Man Volnutt, along with his sister Roll Casket and their guardian Barrell Caskett, explore Kattelox Island to find treasure and discover the mysteries behind ancient ruins found on the island. Meanwhile, the sky pirate band known as the Bonnes, led by Tron, Teisel, and Bon, get into a fair number of scuffles with the Caskets, in hopes of getting the treasure first.
The get set itself apart from other early 3D games by employing a more cartoony/manga-style approach to its rendering and textures. If you’ve ever wondered where all these new low-poly 3D games with pixel art textures got their artistic inspiration from, this is it. Other Japanese games from this era, like Kirby 64, are also credited with pioneering this style.
Metal Slug
A series of run-and-gun shoot-em-ups developed by SNK for their Neo Geo arcade hardware and console in the late 90s and into the 2000s. The series was notable for its cartoony animations and massive boss fights. The 3rd game in particular saw the characters become zombies, fight underwater, and even fly into space to fight the Mars People. The game’s cartoony animations helped make it another mainstay of Tumblr game GIF reblogs. Chaofanatic even used music and assets from Metal Slug in the above-mentioned video of his.
Team Fortress 2
A multiplayer FPS created by Valve and released in 2007. The game would go free-to-play in 2011. The game revolves around the nine classes, which would go on to become iconic and beloved across the Internet. This is especially evident in animations featuring the characters done in programs like Garry’s Mod (a modified version of Valve’s Source Engine focused on playing around with physics props) and Source Film Maker (a software tool that allows users to create and animate movies using the Source Engine.)
TF2-focused animations became a popular subgenre during the heydays of YouTube, with animations like “Heavy and Scout think they are birds” and “Team Fabulous 2” being fondly remembered to this very day.
As an example, Chaofanatic was known for creating many animations in Gmod and SFM in addition to YTP-focused content. He would put this talent to use when he was hired for proper game development.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
A magical girl anime series animated by Shaft and released in 2011. The show follows Madoka, who teams up with other magical girls to fight witches. All the while, another girl named Homura tries to stop Madoka from making the contract she signed. The anime received a lot of attention online for its more eldritch take on the Magical Girl genre.
What’s especially notable is the “Meduka Maguca” threads on /a/, which take low-quality animation frames from the series and couple them with misspelled names as a way to retell the anime in a more ironic way.
PlatinumGames
An Osaka-based video game developer founded by former Capcom employees who worked on games like Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, God Hand, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami. In its early years, the studio would become a household name online thanks to their focus on over-the-top, fun action games and sense of style. Because of that, Platinum would become beloved on both 4Chan and Tumblr, especially by Chaofanatic and his orbiters.
Hideki Kamiya / pg_kamiya
Esteemed game director who formally worked at both Capcom and PlatinumGames. During his time at Capcom, Kamiya led the development of RE2, the original Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami, while at Platinum he directed Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101.
He became especially notable for his presence on Twitter, where he would block anyone and everyone that would try to request things of him or even ask him questions that he’s already answered. Him making such beloved games while also delivering such sick burns towards his fans made him a meme online. A Tumblr blog dedicated to his best Tweets and responses, entitled KamiyaTweets, was created in 2014.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengence
An action-focused spinoff of the Metal Gear Solid series developed by PlatinumGames. Originally created as an interquel between MGS2 and MGS4 by members of Kojima Productions, development was handed off to PlatinumGames when it was determined work on the game was going nowhere.
From the moment of its release, MGR would be a huge source of memes on both 4Chan and Tumblr for a variety of reasons. Such as the intense metal soundtrack, home to such songs as “Rules of Nature, “The Only Thing I Know for Real”, “It Has to Be This Way” or “Red Sun” or the memorable characters like Sundowner, Monsoon, Jetstream Sam, or Senator Armstrong. The ability to cut dozens of objects in a variety of ways and how it factored into the gameplay and combat helped make the game a pure joy to play. Its fans consider it a masterpiece.
Right from the get-go memes of MGR would circulate on Tumblr, but then again, how could it not? After all, memes are the DNA of the soul.
The Wonderful 101
An action game released for the Wii U in 2013. The game sees you commanding an army of superheroes as you battle the GEATHJERK, a gang of aliens set on terrorizing the Earth. The game plays around with its sense of scale, while your heroes are small by themselves and the game is played from a bird’s eye view, the Wonderful Ones can merge together into weapons. Not to mention the sheer size that enemies and bosses can take and the ways in which the gameplay is mixed up.
Despite not selling particularly well (due in part to being a Wii U exclusive), the game found a very dedicated cult following on, try to act surprised, 4Chan and Tumblr. The exhilarating gameplay and memorable set pieces made it a must-have for anyone who owned a Wii U in 2013.
Bayonetta
A series of action games developed by PlatinumGames. The series stars the titular character, the Umbra Witch, Bayonetta, as she fights against angels and a wide variety of other monsters. She does this in a particularly sexy fashion, using her hair to summon forth demons to aid her in battle. The first game was released on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2009, while the game would see a sequel released in 2014 for the Wii U.
While hardcore feminists of this era, like Anita Sarkeesian, criticized the game for focusing too hard on sex appeal, fans of action games would come to love both the game and the character, and the series would become another set of cult classics under Platinum’s belt.
Since Nintendo picked up Bayonetta 2, and Tumblr had already grown a fondness for both Nintendo and Platinum, it would only be natural that Bayonetta would be welcomed into this growing zeitgeist with open arms.
Paul Blart Mall Cop
A live action movie released in 2010 that stars Kevin James as Paul Blart: An overweight cop working at a mall and having to deal with a heist. Something particularly interesting began to happen around late 2014/early 2015: People began uploading edits of the posters and DVD/Blu-Ray covers for Paul Blart Mall Cop with all sorts of distortion done to them. A lot of these were done in the style of Expand Dong, where the letters of the logo and tagline were cut and pasted to spell out certain things.
A lot of these edits delved into pure insanity and would cement Paul Blart as an icon of ironic memes right next to major names like Shrek and Cory in the House. The hype around these memes would only increase further with the release of the sequel in 2015, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2, which at one point sat at a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Gravity Falls
A cartoon that premiered on Disney Channel in 2012. The show follows Dipper and Mable Pines as they spent their summer in the mysterious town of Gravity Falls, Oregon with their Great Uncle, Stan. Much like Steven Universe, this show encouraged speculation amongst its fanbase, especially since every episode had secret codes to decipher. Tumblr would cover this show as new episodes would air, and the later episodes of Season 2 truly kept fans on the edges of their seats. The show would last for 2 seasons and 40 half-hour episodes before concluding in early 2016.
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
An anime series created by Gainax that premiered in Japan in 2010. The show follows Panty and Stocking Anarchy, two angels that have been cast out of Heaven into Daten City. They have to earn their way back to Heaven by killing ghosts that cause chaos throughout. The show became extremely popular in YouTube Poop circles and its respective Tumblr-based audience for its crude humor, fast pace, and unique art style: a middle ground blend of 2000s-era cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls with a lot of the over-the-top sensibilities Gainax was known for. In fact, the show’s art style was popular enough that it helped inspire a fair number of online artists’ own styles.
Studio Trigger
After Panty & Stocking was completed, the staff that worked on both that show and Gurren Lagann, led by Hiroyuki Imaishi, would leave to form their own independent anime studio in 2011. The studio would go on to create many Anime that would become hits online, such as Kill La Kill, Space Patrol Luluco, Little Witch Academia, BNA: Brand New Animal, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. The studio’s style would help it find popularity online, especially on 4Chan, YouChew and Tumblr. (Beginning to notice a trend?)
Kill La Kill
Studio Trigger’s first TV Anime which premiered in late 2013. The show follows Ryuko Matoi, who enrolls in Honnouji Academy in hopes of finding the person who killed her father. To do so, she teams up with the sentient sailor uniform Kamui Senketsu and fights against Honnouji’s top brass. The show was directed by Imaishi and made waves amongst the usual suspects for its memorable characters and gripping plot. The show helped cement Trigger’s style early on and is considered one of the best Anime of its decade.
WayForward Technologies
A video game developer based in Valencia, California. Originally having started out making licensed games, they published the cult-classic Shantae for the Game Boy Color in 2002. WayForward would start to form their own identity in the late 2000s through releases of smaller original titles on the Nintendo DSi Shop as well as revivals of classic IPs such as Contra 4 and A Boy and His Blob (Wii).
Throughout the 2010s, WayForward would bounce between making more licensed games for various TV shows and movies, and more original titles. They would slowly gain popularity as one of the front-runners in the rise of retro revivals in the early 2010s, having made games like Double Dragon Neon and Duck Tales: Remastered.
Shantae
WayForward’s mascot and most iconic original IP. After debuting on GBC, WayForward brought Shantae back as part of their wave of games on DSi through Shantae: Risky’s Revenge. A 3rd game, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, would be released on 3DS, albeit developed by Mega Man 9 developers Inti-Creates. This would later be followed up with a Kickstarter for a new Shantae game, Half-Genie Hero, which was released on a wide variety of platforms in 2016 and 2017.
The character would garner a huge following amongst Internet artists, who loved her design, world, and the smooth animation the series was known for. You could even argue she provoked a similar kind of energy as Marina Liteyears from earlier. Her presence as a star of indie gaming also saw her being paired up in fan art with similar revered characters of the era, such as Shovel Knight and Mighty No. 9’s Beck.
Skullgirls
A fighting game developed by Reverge Labs/Lab Zero Games released for PC and HD Consoles in 2012. The game revolves around the Skull Heart, an artifact that can grant a girl’s wish, only to corrupt her if she is not pure of heart. The game was primarily developed by Mike Zaimot, Alex Ahad, and Mariel Cartwright. After the base game was released, an additional 6 characters were added to the game following a highly successful Indiegogo campaign.
Being a fighting game, Skullgirls also naturally found popularity in the FGC, being played at high level and almost making it to the EVO Main Stage in 2013. It was even one of the first fighting games to make use of GGPO, a form of rollback-based netcode.
Much like how animation helped make Shantae popular, so too did Skullgirls. Seeing GIFs of animations from the game and behind-the-scenes stuff (much like what the Steven Universe crew was doing) was common on Tumblr.
Mariel Cartwright / Kinuko / Kinucakes
One of the lead animators for Skullgirls, in addition to animating for the Scott Pilgrim game, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Indivisible, Sonic Mania, and Penny’s Big Breakaway. She also did artwork for Mega64 back when they were just starting out. Her father was actually an animator during the Disney renaissance, and so that’s where she got a lot of her influence and knowledge from. Outside of all her animation work, she is best known for drawing plenty of pictures of scantily clad girls like the raging bisexual she is.
She is also married to Sonic the Hedgehog illustrator and animator Tyson Hesse.
Jonathan Kim / Personasama
Retro game enthusiast and a big Sega fan. He too worked on Skullgirls and the Scott Pilgrim game in addition to TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. Mariel and Jon Kim both have had a working relationship for a long while, given they both attended Cal Arts in the mid-to-late 2000s. He is also a huge fan of cutesy puzzle games, and cutesy Japanese games in general. This is reflected in his artstyle and all the merch he’s done for conventions.
Mike Zaimont / Mike Z
This isn’t really related to the main topic or timeframe of the Tumblr Files, but I know someone’s gonna get on my case for not including it: Mike Z was the lead programmer for Skullgirls, having created the main engine the game runs on. In 2020, a cancelling campaign was carried out against Mike after he cracked a joke about the then-recent choking of George Floyd. People hurled abuse allegations at him left and right. This then culminated in Lab Zero’s staff all leaving en masse to form a new studio, the worker-co-op Future Club, led by Mariel Cartwright. It just so happens that Mariel was the person who led the whole campaign to get away from Mike, despite the two being close friends for over a decade.
Both Technicals and ShortFatOtaku have done in-depth videos on this controversy, so go watch those if you want to know more.
Paul Robertson / probzzzz / probzz
One of the most famous pixel artists and animators on the Internet. Even if you’ve never heard the name, you’ve definitely seen his work/style before.
Based in Australia, Robertson got his start working on handheld games like Sigma Star Saga, Drawn to Life, and Contra 4. His style would be cemented in pop culture with the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. Not only did the game take after the original style of the graphic novels by Brian Lee O’ Maley, but a lot of the common traits of Robertson’s style would be on full display in the game, such as his love of Japanese culture and bouncy boobs.
He'd frequently collaborate with WayForward on games like Shantae; Risky’s Revenge or Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?! while also contributing to smaller indie projects like Mercenary Kings and Fez. Robertson has also been a frequent player in the animation space, having made bumpers and shorts for Adult Swim and done animation work for a few music videos. He also worked on a few episodes of Gravity Falls.
What’s especially notable is that he collaborated with both Mariel and Jon Kim as part of the art collective, “Mechafetus.” Paul hooked up with Kim through YouTube when he complimented Kim on one of his old short films. As shown in Dev’s video, one of their artbooks is still up and available for download, and well…
Same guys who wanted Mike cancelled over an edgy joke, ladies and gentlemen.
Bad Luck Crow / BadluckcrowA / LieutenantGwo
Character artist who was heavily active on YouChew. If you’ve ever seen that supervillain crow OC floating around on either YouChew or the YouChew-adjacent Tumblr circle, that’s his. He is still active on TwiXer and draws his crow OC, in addition to other characters, to this very day.
Dickard T / The-Great-Mighty-Dick
SFM Animator best known for vids featuring Godzilla and EVA-01. Most of his posts surround Halo and 343’s mishandling of the franchise as well as anything and everything Kaiju. Other stuff he reblogged included Metroid, Metal Gear, F-Zero, and Splatoon. He’s also known for making Smash Bros.-themed animations and mods.
George C. Conley / CombotronRobot / CombotronArt / Robot Rumpus / Combotron / ComboMeal / Shaos-X
I briefly mentioned this guy before in the datamining thread, but George is an artist who often relies on cute characters/aesthetics, lighter colors, and round/blobby shapes for his art. He also prominently features pixel art in his drawings.
Just like Jon Kim, he’s also a huge fan of cutesy puzzle games like Panel De Pon, Puyo Puyo, Cleopatra Fortune, and Money Puzzle Exchanger. He’s also very much one of those gay-obsessed pastel emasculated guys you can often find in artist spaces. It’s honestly a miracle he hasn’t trooned out, yet.
Also, for whateever reason, he drew Sonichu art and did cosplay back in the day when he was still known as Shaos X.
Shenaniganza / Shenanimation / dbMisadventure / shenaniganxxxa / Stealth_Brock
An online artist who got his start on DeviantArt in 2008. Shenaniganza (not to be confused with Shen comics) often puts emphasis on character designs in his artwork, especially when it comes to harsh angles and exaggerated expressions. After Panty & Stocking came out, it influenced his style ten-fold.
When it comes to the characters he draws, Shen often draws Shantae, Nintendo characters, PSG, etc., but he also has a wide array of original characters. Such is the case with Scalie Schoolie, a webcomic he used to write and illustrate between 2014 and 2018. From 2019 onwards, the comic would be illustrated by Franked Stencil.
While Shen was at his peak in 2015/16, the amount of art he posted seemed to decline around 2018/19. The potentially main reason for this is the creation of a new account separate from his main ones (and even his NSFW account) entitled Stealth_Brock. As for what he posts there, it’s fetish art. It’s fetish art and porn. I guess some people will sink to really low lows to keep the lights on. Pretty unfortunate, really.
Gashi-Gashi / Gashi45 / Uejini
A Japan-based artist whose style draws heavy influence from western animation, doubly-so once Panty & Stocking came along. In a similar matter to how Paul Robertson’s pixel art and animation are instantly recognizable, Gashi’s unique blend of Japanese and Cartoony sensibilities made him go viral throughout this period. The Panty & Stocking influence in his art is very much apparent, not only in the aforementioned animation sensibilities, but in how a lot of his drawings are very sexual in nature, with some even being soft-core porn.
What would really make Gashi-Gashi explode in popularity was when he drew artwork for some of Ken Ashcorp’s songs, starting with Absolute Territory in March 2013. Thanks to his popularity, Gashi got a bit of notable work early on: He did the cover art for Freedom Planet, drew guest artwork for Skullgirls, and Cartoon Network hired him to do the variant covers of Adventure Time comics.
Given his love of western animation, he pretty much drew characters from all the shows that were popular online: Teenage Robot, Grim Adventures, My Little Pony, Gravity Falls, Regular Show, Adventure Time, and eventually even Steven Universe. Unfortunately for Gashi, he would end up being one of many artists who got in hot water for not drawing a Steven Universe character with the EXACT right skin color for Tumblr’s liking.
On the other side of the coin, Gashi also drew a lot of popular video game characters from popular franchises, such as Mega Man, Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, among others. Same goes with major movie releases like Frozen or the Lego Movie. If there was a major release such as a new game, movie, or major news about something popular online in this circle, chances are Gashi would draw something to commemorate it. He even drew Wheel Gator once.
Just to further demonstrate how far Gashi’s influence has been felt across the Internet, a certain Tumblrite would draw her new totally-not-Madoka OC, citing Gashi-Gashi as an influence on her style. The character’s name? Rosemary. The artist’s name? Dinoraye. The name of her show pitch? High Guardian Spice.
Ken Ashcorp / ForeverPandering / Petitpanda / Pandaseifuku / Kentucky Fried Panda
An UK-based musician specializing in songs surrounding popular media such as anime, cartoons, and games. Back during the days where furries were still contained within their own communities/sites and chastised elsewhere, Ken got backlash for, well, being a furry. His mascot is a little panda girl named Kenny and is featured prominently in the thumbnails/artwork associated with his songs.
The songs he made back in the early 2010s often tied into whatever was popular in the zeitgeist, such as My Little Pony (20 Percent Cooler), Monster Girl Quest (Touch Fluffy Tail), Supernatural (Gravity Falls), Rival (Pokemon), Crazy Chicks (Fire Emblem: Awakening), Hunter (Attack on Titan), and Wear (Kill La Kill).
Ken was actually a part of the Sheezyart generation and was even popular on 4Chan back in the day, having frequently collaborated with Nyanners and LilyPichu/LilyRaichu. He also made the intro for the 2012 and 2013 4Chan Summer Cup. Even if, as stated earlier, 4Chan disliked the fact that he was a furry.
Ken also contributed to the Meduka Meguca posts on /a/, going as far as contributing a song based on the posts in the form of Madoka – Ante Up.
In 2011, Ken created the channel ForeverPandering, centered around commentary on various topics. One of the most notable topics he covered being one Andrew “Tom Preston” Dobson. These rants were actually the result of Dobson flagging a song Ken made that made fun of Dobson and his eccentricities. In “Sins of a Complacent Artist”, Ken notes out Dobson’s inherit lack of ability to take any criticism whatsoever, even if constructive. If YouTube comments on reuploads are to be believed, Ken would eventually act the same way towards people who voiced constructive criticisms on his music.
Other highlights from Foreverpandering including a video making fun of Collin Moriarty/IGN’s review of Mass Effect 3, and a video about how Reddit is destroying/commodifying memes (Though to be fair, what he described in those videos is still happening today.)
In October of 2012, Ken deleted the Forever Pandering channel. On his Tumblr, Ken describes his thought process as FP being something he just didn’t want to be known for. Given the channel’s sharp rise in popularity compared to his music at the time, Ken was “afraid of getting popular for the wrong reasons.” At the time, Ken was finishing up College and had other projects in the pipeline. FP was the byproduct of a stressful and tumultuous year of Ken’s life, and he wanted to move on to bigger things, and that required a lot of research on his end. It became an identity that Ken then considered a “skeleton in the closet”, no less.
The entire post on FP’s deletion can be found here.
Nyanners
While she’s best known nowadays for being a V-Tuber, Nyanners was, once upon a time, THE “anime girl” voice on 4Chan. Doing voicework for videos related to 4Chan-adjacent in-jokes, being one of the hosts of the first ever Vidya Gaem Awards, and even voicing the intro line for the Vidya Intarweb Playlist.
In the mid-2010s, Nyanners attempted to distance herself from 4Chan, due to both troll’s remorse and wanting to make it as a proper voice actress, so she restarted her Internet presence by setting up shop on Tumblr and trying to placate the feminist audience the site had already cultivated. This drew backlash from both sides: /v/ hated seeing their precious anime girl backstab them, and Tumblr hated her because of her less-than-savory origins.
For example, one of her most notable videos from her 4Chan era was “Pomf Pomf Pomf”, a loli-hentai-themed parody of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s song, Pon Pon Pon. The song was even popular enough for fellow VA LilyPichu to do her own cover of it. Nyanners would later delete the video from her YouTube channel following her heel-face turn. On her Tumblr, she wrote a massive post detailing why:
SoundClown / The Mashup Community
In the Halcyon days of the Internet, one form of remix culture that began to gain traction on sites like YouTube and YTMND was what we now call “Mashups.”
Unlike YTPMVs & MADs, which take sounds/voice clips and sample them over music, mashups are far simpler in scope. For example, taking the lyrics to Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It's Hot” and syncing them up to the song Gourmet Race from Kirby Super Star, so it sounds like Snoop Dogg is singing the vocals to the beat or rhythm of Gourmet Race rather than the backing track of the original. As we move into the 2010s, mashups would become a subculture of their own online, not just on YouTube, but also the music-sharing website Soundcloud.
Some of the pioneers of mashups include the likes of GAR4649, Nakinyo, and BotanicSage. The latter of which, alongside the dedicated channel “comeonandslam”, would pioneer the Space Jam mashup, where anything and everything was mashed up with the Space Jam theme by Quad City DJs. The popularity of Space Jam as a mashup source was also sparked by the success of the Indie RPG, Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden.
Eventually, like-minded individuals with a love for mashups and/or YTPMV would coalesce on SoundCloud and unite under the banner of “SoundClown.” People like MF Pickle-O, Sir Spacebar, Pinkie Oats, Suneel Gurpurr, MtH, Cryptrik, Nape Mango, Rosalinasama, wendyfag, TUWieZ, Chaze the Chat, and more.
As 2015 wore on, the major trends of the year would affect SoundClown, and sometimes even vice versa. (More on that, later.)
MatrixMarioX / Moi / beat_shobon
Originally having roots in MADs (the Japanese equivalent to YTPMVs), Matrix started out on YouTube uploading video remixes and MADs in addition to contributing to projects like 8 Sides of Nico Nico Douga. He would join SoundCloud in 2014 and contribute mashups in addition to his regular YTPMV/MAD work. In early 2016, Matrix would begin work on original music and compositions under the Beat_Shobon name, which he continues to do so to this very day.
Matrix was also active on 4Chan during its heyday, as his PFP (and current name) draw influence from Shobon/Syobon, a mascot character from 2Chan/Futaba Channel that found popularity on 4Chan. He also contributes pre-show mixes for /v/’s Vidya Gaem Awards, starting with 2016 onwards.
Chris Brockoff / "Tiffany" / PrincessRosalina / Rosalinasama / rosalinascometobservatory / Fracktail / SuperBowserKoopa / bowserisawesome
An example of someone from the Mashup scene who trooned out, as early as January 2014 in fact. Chris, to me, comes off as the kind of guy who envied over his waifu and thus saw that as a scapegoat to HRT himself. In terms of contributions to the mashup community, most of his mashups involve Mario (big surprise) as well as Sonic. He also created the Corycore Collection and crash bandicoot garbage.
He also has close ties to Triple-Q, as the two collaborated on the Gangnam Style mashup album, Psybrid Theory, in addition to other projects.
Thomas Truong / Truongasm / “Mom”
A crossdressing cosplayer who would eventually troon out. He, just like Rosasama, is an early example of someone who did HRT back in the day, and just like him was also closely associated with Triple-Q. Albeit, he wasn’t as hands-on with the Soundclown community. He would release the odd mashup here and there for Triple-Q’s collabs. He would later become primarily known for his “hot takes” and memes on Twitter.
(CONT.)
Also, given the sheer number of people and stuff I researched for this, I apologize in advance if I get anything wrong. And please, no cowtipping.
In the days of yore, 4chan was a powerhouse of culture online, in a similar manner to its uncle predecessor, SomethingAwful. Coverage of E3, and a lot of the popular jokes only hardcore gamers™ would understand came directly from this board. If you saw anything get popular online between 2008 and 2014, there’s a high likelihood that the site played a role in its popularization. While there were more than a fair share of people who despised 4chan (and who could blame them?), its influence on the internet could not be understated and it seemed like they were unstoppable.
The 4Chan / Tumblr overlap
On the other side, far from the anarchic unlawful lands of 4Chan, lay Tumblr. While 4Chan and Tumblr opposed each other in terms of presentation and ideals, the synthetic relationship that the Internet shared back in the day meant that some of the people who browsed 4Chan also browsed Tumblr, and vice versa. While Tumblr was always a hotbed of left-wing sociopolitical leanings, feminism, and political correctness even in its earliest days, it still lacked a concise image, and that’s how 4Chan culture found a way to appear on the site.
Discussion of 4Chan, screencaps of 4Chan posts, and jokes/memes stolen from 4Chan were among the first true viral pieces of content to hail from Tumblr, and it is with this that we began to see a different side to Tumblr form. One that wasn’t hyper-fixated on the trends that the terminally online teenage feminists were into, but rather an ever-increasing group of 4chan-obsessed people who either had a shared presence on both sites, or migrated entirely. The latter group would eventually coalesce into the "Tumblr funnymen" group.
And all the while, this side of Tumblr would also see influence from another otherwise-underground Internet forum. One where there’s smoke, and they pinch back.
The YouChew / Tumblr overlap
YouChew was an Internet forum centered around YouTube Poop and similar video edits. It also doubled as an example of proto-Kiwifarms, insofar that it even in its earliest incarnations, it was an importer and exporter of the dumbest online drama imaginable.
What’s YouTube Poop, you ask? Think of it as a trend of uploading poorly made edits of pre-existing video material, as a way of uploading “poop” to YouTube. It just so happens that as YouChew gained its userbase, it developed a sense of entitlement. While YouChew and the YTP old guard were distinct from one another, a good portion of the latter were active in varying degrees on the site, and said portion took it upon themselves to gatekeep out anyone that wouldn’t sink to their ego and praise them all the time.
In a way, YouChew is actually more influential than you may realize, albeit not necessarily in the YTP field. A fair number of alumni would go on to make names for themselves in other ways. People such as FroggyCompany (the man who pioneered the Mario toy video format that would be popularized by SuperMarioLogan), and LuigiBlood, a popular dataminer in the Nintendo hacking scene.
They also had their own wiki that tried so hard to copy the “anti-wiki” format popularized by Encyclopedia Dramatica and Unencyclopedia. While it was intended to feature articles on various poopers & poop sources, it quickly degraded into a cacophony of YouChew inside "jokes," and users editing their own pages to talk about their sexual proclivities and suicidal ideations.
SheezyArt
While most people today remember DeviantArt as being the big pioneering art site online, in the days of yore, there was another. SheezyArt would double as a proving ground for a separate generation of Internet artists and autists. Even Egoraptor is cited to have been an active user on the site back in the day in addition to his escapades on Newgrounds. In addition to DeviantArt, many people from SheezyArt would also settle down on Tumblr thanks to its artist-friendly user interface and environment.
Who came from where?
A common thing I’ve observed when it comes to the userbases of some sites moving to others is that it ultimately depends on the needs of certain groups while also taking into account overlap. A user could start on one site, be influenced by its culture, but then join other sites in order to increase exposure. For example, people from SheezyArt and DeviantArt came to Tumblr because of its growing artist base, while people from LiveJournal joined Tumblr thanks to both sites being popular with women/feminists. And all the while, you have sites like YouTube that act more as a Petri dish of Internet culture, as people came in from multiple different sites in addition to having a culture of its own.
Matthew Million / SuperYoshi / SushiYoper / ThatMew / ThartMew / hatmew
The self-proclaimed “creator of YouTube Poop”, although he's more infamous for being an unlikable douchebag, among other things. He’s also a massive furry, with his Tumblr blog in particular being shoved to the brim with reblogs of furry art. An often-repeated myth by the YouChew crew was that SuperYoshi’s “I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL” was uploaded all the way back in 2004 on SheezyArt. No evidence that this happened currently exists, and SY's parasocial fanbase is unwilling to engage in any good-faith discussions on their idol or his credibility. So, at best, SY's pioneering activities only go as far as his involvement in the aforementioned YTP old guard.
SuperYoshi was very active on 4Chan back in the day, having held on to plenty of screencaps from the golden age of the site. He was especially active on /vr/ during its first few years and remembers the site fondly before it devolved into just being boomers obsessing over nostalgia.
Many years later, he would try to garner sympathy for himself by suicide-baiting on Twitter, which is especially strange given his inability to show empathy for anyone else, including his own die-hard followers.
Martin Ellis / Chaofanatic
TF2 Asset contributor, SFM Animator, and professional gay cuckold. During this era, Martin reblogged/obsessed over a lot of the media listed below and would be a primary source of reblogging for his in-group. From 2016 onward, Martin would be completely and utterly obsessed with his fat furry BF, Logan McCloud/HyperChaotixFox. He has also worked on A Hat in Time, Trover Saves the Universe, and currently works at WayForward as a VFX Artist. In terms of YTP, he is best known for uploading “video footage” of Hotel Mario’s final boss:
Gabriel Luis Fernandez / Geibuchan
Flash pooper known for The King’s Epic Adventure series and being a huge fan of Azumanga Diaoh and retro games. He’s especially known for creating lots of original assets and artwork for his YTPs. His exaggerated and over-the-top style helped pioneer poops made in Adobe Premiere/After Effects.
David / MasterofZoroark / Snorlax318 / Muchlax318
Creator of the Irregular Show series, alongside other AE Poops. Chaofanatic has assisted with a few of them. He was also a brony, and created his fair share of MLP:FiM YTPs. While he’s not as active as he used to be in the 2010s and has yet to find work in the same way Martin did, he still posts to his YT channel every now and then.
Fun fact: Martin, Gabriel, and David are all based in Texas, which may have greatly helped with them being able to network in the ways they have.
Wheel Gator
One of SuperYoshi’s other claims to fame besides “I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL” was “COMEDIAN WHEEL GATOR FUCKS THE COPS”. Released back in 2007, the video poops an episode of the West Baptist Church’s news broadcast by overlaying the theme music for Wheel Gator’s stage from Mega Man X2 at high volume. This would lead to “Comedian Jon Stewart and his hooligan sidekick: WHEEL GATOR” becoming a popular in-joke on YouChew. For example, Wheel Gator’s theme would be prominently featured in Geibuchan’s “Allison Won Derland 4” YTP, during the action scene.
With all these bases having been covered, it’s time to delve into the many, many pieces of media that this newly formed 4Chan-YouChew-Tumblr zeitgeist often reblogged and showed heavy fandom for:
Treasure Co. LTD
A Japan-based video game developer founded in 1992, known for their over-the-top action games and unique twists on existing genres. They are most famous for their games released for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, such as Gunstar Heroes, Dynamite Headdy, and Alien Soldier. In addition, they have released other cult classics such as Silhouette Mirage, Sin & Punishment, and Radiant Silvergun. They also created the critical darling Ikaruga, which is hailed as one of the best Shoot-em-ups of all time.
Because of their over-the-top gameplay philosophies and memorable character designs, Treasure found an audience with the users of YouChew, especially SuperYoshi, whose love for Treasure had a major effect on the rest of the forum, as well as his Tumblr followers, discovering Treasure’s work. Chaofanatic also attempted to host a Treasure-themed YTP collab on the forum, only for it to not really go anywhere.
While their last release was Gaist Crusher God for the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, a new game at Treasure has supposedly been in development as of 2022.
Mischief Makers / Yuke Yuke! Trouble Makers
One of Treasure’s other notable cult classics, released for Nintendo 64 in 1997. Mischief Makers stars the maid robot Marina Liteyears as she makes her way through the planet Clancer to save her creator from capture. The main mechanic of the game is to grab hold of objects or enemies and shake them. Marina herself has developed a devoted fan-following online. SuperYoshi even used the character portraits from the game as part of the background on his Tumblr blog. Outside of a guest appearance in Rakugaki Showtime in 1998, Marina Liteyears has never appeared in a game since.
Mega Man Legends / Rockman D.A.S.H.
A 3D action-adventure spinoff of the Mega Man series, set thousands of years in the future. Mega Man Volnutt, along with his sister Roll Casket and their guardian Barrell Caskett, explore Kattelox Island to find treasure and discover the mysteries behind ancient ruins found on the island. Meanwhile, the sky pirate band known as the Bonnes, led by Tron, Teisel, and Bon, get into a fair number of scuffles with the Caskets, in hopes of getting the treasure first.
The get set itself apart from other early 3D games by employing a more cartoony/manga-style approach to its rendering and textures. If you’ve ever wondered where all these new low-poly 3D games with pixel art textures got their artistic inspiration from, this is it. Other Japanese games from this era, like Kirby 64, are also credited with pioneering this style.
Metal Slug
A series of run-and-gun shoot-em-ups developed by SNK for their Neo Geo arcade hardware and console in the late 90s and into the 2000s. The series was notable for its cartoony animations and massive boss fights. The 3rd game in particular saw the characters become zombies, fight underwater, and even fly into space to fight the Mars People. The game’s cartoony animations helped make it another mainstay of Tumblr game GIF reblogs. Chaofanatic even used music and assets from Metal Slug in the above-mentioned video of his.
Team Fortress 2
A multiplayer FPS created by Valve and released in 2007. The game would go free-to-play in 2011. The game revolves around the nine classes, which would go on to become iconic and beloved across the Internet. This is especially evident in animations featuring the characters done in programs like Garry’s Mod (a modified version of Valve’s Source Engine focused on playing around with physics props) and Source Film Maker (a software tool that allows users to create and animate movies using the Source Engine.)
TF2-focused animations became a popular subgenre during the heydays of YouTube, with animations like “Heavy and Scout think they are birds” and “Team Fabulous 2” being fondly remembered to this very day.
As an example, Chaofanatic was known for creating many animations in Gmod and SFM in addition to YTP-focused content. He would put this talent to use when he was hired for proper game development.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
A magical girl anime series animated by Shaft and released in 2011. The show follows Madoka, who teams up with other magical girls to fight witches. All the while, another girl named Homura tries to stop Madoka from making the contract she signed. The anime received a lot of attention online for its more eldritch take on the Magical Girl genre.
What’s especially notable is the “Meduka Maguca” threads on /a/, which take low-quality animation frames from the series and couple them with misspelled names as a way to retell the anime in a more ironic way.
PlatinumGames
An Osaka-based video game developer founded by former Capcom employees who worked on games like Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, God Hand, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami. In its early years, the studio would become a household name online thanks to their focus on over-the-top, fun action games and sense of style. Because of that, Platinum would become beloved on both 4Chan and Tumblr, especially by Chaofanatic and his orbiters.
Hideki Kamiya / pg_kamiya
Esteemed game director who formally worked at both Capcom and PlatinumGames. During his time at Capcom, Kamiya led the development of RE2, the original Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami, while at Platinum he directed Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101.
He became especially notable for his presence on Twitter, where he would block anyone and everyone that would try to request things of him or even ask him questions that he’s already answered. Him making such beloved games while also delivering such sick burns towards his fans made him a meme online. A Tumblr blog dedicated to his best Tweets and responses, entitled KamiyaTweets, was created in 2014.
Metal Gear Rising: Revengence
An action-focused spinoff of the Metal Gear Solid series developed by PlatinumGames. Originally created as an interquel between MGS2 and MGS4 by members of Kojima Productions, development was handed off to PlatinumGames when it was determined work on the game was going nowhere.
From the moment of its release, MGR would be a huge source of memes on both 4Chan and Tumblr for a variety of reasons. Such as the intense metal soundtrack, home to such songs as “Rules of Nature, “The Only Thing I Know for Real”, “It Has to Be This Way” or “Red Sun” or the memorable characters like Sundowner, Monsoon, Jetstream Sam, or Senator Armstrong. The ability to cut dozens of objects in a variety of ways and how it factored into the gameplay and combat helped make the game a pure joy to play. Its fans consider it a masterpiece.
Right from the get-go memes of MGR would circulate on Tumblr, but then again, how could it not? After all, memes are the DNA of the soul.
The Wonderful 101
An action game released for the Wii U in 2013. The game sees you commanding an army of superheroes as you battle the GEATHJERK, a gang of aliens set on terrorizing the Earth. The game plays around with its sense of scale, while your heroes are small by themselves and the game is played from a bird’s eye view, the Wonderful Ones can merge together into weapons. Not to mention the sheer size that enemies and bosses can take and the ways in which the gameplay is mixed up.
Despite not selling particularly well (due in part to being a Wii U exclusive), the game found a very dedicated cult following on, try to act surprised, 4Chan and Tumblr. The exhilarating gameplay and memorable set pieces made it a must-have for anyone who owned a Wii U in 2013.
Bayonetta
A series of action games developed by PlatinumGames. The series stars the titular character, the Umbra Witch, Bayonetta, as she fights against angels and a wide variety of other monsters. She does this in a particularly sexy fashion, using her hair to summon forth demons to aid her in battle. The first game was released on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2009, while the game would see a sequel released in 2014 for the Wii U.
While hardcore feminists of this era, like Anita Sarkeesian, criticized the game for focusing too hard on sex appeal, fans of action games would come to love both the game and the character, and the series would become another set of cult classics under Platinum’s belt.
Since Nintendo picked up Bayonetta 2, and Tumblr had already grown a fondness for both Nintendo and Platinum, it would only be natural that Bayonetta would be welcomed into this growing zeitgeist with open arms.
Paul Blart Mall Cop
A live action movie released in 2010 that stars Kevin James as Paul Blart: An overweight cop working at a mall and having to deal with a heist. Something particularly interesting began to happen around late 2014/early 2015: People began uploading edits of the posters and DVD/Blu-Ray covers for Paul Blart Mall Cop with all sorts of distortion done to them. A lot of these were done in the style of Expand Dong, where the letters of the logo and tagline were cut and pasted to spell out certain things.
A lot of these edits delved into pure insanity and would cement Paul Blart as an icon of ironic memes right next to major names like Shrek and Cory in the House. The hype around these memes would only increase further with the release of the sequel in 2015, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2, which at one point sat at a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Gravity Falls
A cartoon that premiered on Disney Channel in 2012. The show follows Dipper and Mable Pines as they spent their summer in the mysterious town of Gravity Falls, Oregon with their Great Uncle, Stan. Much like Steven Universe, this show encouraged speculation amongst its fanbase, especially since every episode had secret codes to decipher. Tumblr would cover this show as new episodes would air, and the later episodes of Season 2 truly kept fans on the edges of their seats. The show would last for 2 seasons and 40 half-hour episodes before concluding in early 2016.
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
An anime series created by Gainax that premiered in Japan in 2010. The show follows Panty and Stocking Anarchy, two angels that have been cast out of Heaven into Daten City. They have to earn their way back to Heaven by killing ghosts that cause chaos throughout. The show became extremely popular in YouTube Poop circles and its respective Tumblr-based audience for its crude humor, fast pace, and unique art style: a middle ground blend of 2000s-era cartoons like The Powerpuff Girls with a lot of the over-the-top sensibilities Gainax was known for. In fact, the show’s art style was popular enough that it helped inspire a fair number of online artists’ own styles.
Studio Trigger
After Panty & Stocking was completed, the staff that worked on both that show and Gurren Lagann, led by Hiroyuki Imaishi, would leave to form their own independent anime studio in 2011. The studio would go on to create many Anime that would become hits online, such as Kill La Kill, Space Patrol Luluco, Little Witch Academia, BNA: Brand New Animal, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. The studio’s style would help it find popularity online, especially on 4Chan, YouChew and Tumblr. (Beginning to notice a trend?)
Kill La Kill
Studio Trigger’s first TV Anime which premiered in late 2013. The show follows Ryuko Matoi, who enrolls in Honnouji Academy in hopes of finding the person who killed her father. To do so, she teams up with the sentient sailor uniform Kamui Senketsu and fights against Honnouji’s top brass. The show was directed by Imaishi and made waves amongst the usual suspects for its memorable characters and gripping plot. The show helped cement Trigger’s style early on and is considered one of the best Anime of its decade.
WayForward Technologies
A video game developer based in Valencia, California. Originally having started out making licensed games, they published the cult-classic Shantae for the Game Boy Color in 2002. WayForward would start to form their own identity in the late 2000s through releases of smaller original titles on the Nintendo DSi Shop as well as revivals of classic IPs such as Contra 4 and A Boy and His Blob (Wii).
Throughout the 2010s, WayForward would bounce between making more licensed games for various TV shows and movies, and more original titles. They would slowly gain popularity as one of the front-runners in the rise of retro revivals in the early 2010s, having made games like Double Dragon Neon and Duck Tales: Remastered.
Shantae
WayForward’s mascot and most iconic original IP. After debuting on GBC, WayForward brought Shantae back as part of their wave of games on DSi through Shantae: Risky’s Revenge. A 3rd game, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, would be released on 3DS, albeit developed by Mega Man 9 developers Inti-Creates. This would later be followed up with a Kickstarter for a new Shantae game, Half-Genie Hero, which was released on a wide variety of platforms in 2016 and 2017.
The character would garner a huge following amongst Internet artists, who loved her design, world, and the smooth animation the series was known for. You could even argue she provoked a similar kind of energy as Marina Liteyears from earlier. Her presence as a star of indie gaming also saw her being paired up in fan art with similar revered characters of the era, such as Shovel Knight and Mighty No. 9’s Beck.
Skullgirls
A fighting game developed by Reverge Labs/Lab Zero Games released for PC and HD Consoles in 2012. The game revolves around the Skull Heart, an artifact that can grant a girl’s wish, only to corrupt her if she is not pure of heart. The game was primarily developed by Mike Zaimot, Alex Ahad, and Mariel Cartwright. After the base game was released, an additional 6 characters were added to the game following a highly successful Indiegogo campaign.
Being a fighting game, Skullgirls also naturally found popularity in the FGC, being played at high level and almost making it to the EVO Main Stage in 2013. It was even one of the first fighting games to make use of GGPO, a form of rollback-based netcode.
Much like how animation helped make Shantae popular, so too did Skullgirls. Seeing GIFs of animations from the game and behind-the-scenes stuff (much like what the Steven Universe crew was doing) was common on Tumblr.
Mariel Cartwright / Kinuko / Kinucakes
One of the lead animators for Skullgirls, in addition to animating for the Scott Pilgrim game, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Indivisible, Sonic Mania, and Penny’s Big Breakaway. She also did artwork for Mega64 back when they were just starting out. Her father was actually an animator during the Disney renaissance, and so that’s where she got a lot of her influence and knowledge from. Outside of all her animation work, she is best known for drawing plenty of pictures of scantily clad girls like the raging bisexual she is.
Jonathan Kim / Personasama
Retro game enthusiast and a big Sega fan. He too worked on Skullgirls and the Scott Pilgrim game in addition to TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. Mariel and Jon Kim both have had a working relationship for a long while, given they both attended Cal Arts in the mid-to-late 2000s. He is also a huge fan of cutesy puzzle games, and cutesy Japanese games in general. This is reflected in his artstyle and all the merch he’s done for conventions.
Mike Zaimont / Mike Z
This isn’t really related to the main topic or timeframe of the Tumblr Files, but I know someone’s gonna get on my case for not including it: Mike Z was the lead programmer for Skullgirls, having created the main engine the game runs on. In 2020, a cancelling campaign was carried out against Mike after he cracked a joke about the then-recent choking of George Floyd. People hurled abuse allegations at him left and right. This then culminated in Lab Zero’s staff all leaving en masse to form a new studio, the worker-co-op Future Club, led by Mariel Cartwright. It just so happens that Mariel was the person who led the whole campaign to get away from Mike, despite the two being close friends for over a decade.
Both Technicals and ShortFatOtaku have done in-depth videos on this controversy, so go watch those if you want to know more.
Paul Robertson / probzzzz / probzz
One of the most famous pixel artists and animators on the Internet. Even if you’ve never heard the name, you’ve definitely seen his work/style before.
Based in Australia, Robertson got his start working on handheld games like Sigma Star Saga, Drawn to Life, and Contra 4. His style would be cemented in pop culture with the release of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. Not only did the game take after the original style of the graphic novels by Brian Lee O’ Maley, but a lot of the common traits of Robertson’s style would be on full display in the game, such as his love of Japanese culture and bouncy boobs.
He'd frequently collaborate with WayForward on games like Shantae; Risky’s Revenge or Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?! while also contributing to smaller indie projects like Mercenary Kings and Fez. Robertson has also been a frequent player in the animation space, having made bumpers and shorts for Adult Swim and done animation work for a few music videos. He also worked on a few episodes of Gravity Falls.
What’s especially notable is that he collaborated with both Mariel and Jon Kim as part of the art collective, “Mechafetus.” Paul hooked up with Kim through YouTube when he complimented Kim on one of his old short films. As shown in Dev’s video, one of their artbooks is still up and available for download, and well…
Same guys who wanted Mike cancelled over an edgy joke, ladies and gentlemen.
Bad Luck Crow / BadluckcrowA / LieutenantGwo
Character artist who was heavily active on YouChew. If you’ve ever seen that supervillain crow OC floating around on either YouChew or the YouChew-adjacent Tumblr circle, that’s his. He is still active on TwiXer and draws his crow OC, in addition to other characters, to this very day.
Dickard T / The-Great-Mighty-Dick
George C. Conley / CombotronRobot / CombotronArt / Robot Rumpus / Combotron / ComboMeal / Shaos-X
I briefly mentioned this guy before in the datamining thread, but George is an artist who often relies on cute characters/aesthetics, lighter colors, and round/blobby shapes for his art. He also prominently features pixel art in his drawings.
Just like Jon Kim, he’s also a huge fan of cutesy puzzle games like Panel De Pon, Puyo Puyo, Cleopatra Fortune, and Money Puzzle Exchanger. He’s also very much one of those gay-obsessed pastel emasculated guys you can often find in artist spaces. It’s honestly a miracle he hasn’t trooned out, yet.
Shenaniganza / Shenanimation / dbMisadventure / shenaniganxxxa / Stealth_Brock
An online artist who got his start on DeviantArt in 2008. Shenaniganza (not to be confused with Shen comics) often puts emphasis on character designs in his artwork, especially when it comes to harsh angles and exaggerated expressions. After Panty & Stocking came out, it influenced his style ten-fold.
When it comes to the characters he draws, Shen often draws Shantae, Nintendo characters, PSG, etc., but he also has a wide array of original characters. Such is the case with Scalie Schoolie, a webcomic he used to write and illustrate between 2014 and 2018. From 2019 onwards, the comic would be illustrated by Franked Stencil.
While Shen was at his peak in 2015/16, the amount of art he posted seemed to decline around 2018/19. The potentially main reason for this is the creation of a new account separate from his main ones (and even his NSFW account) entitled Stealth_Brock. As for what he posts there, it’s fetish art. It’s fetish art and porn. I guess some people will sink to really low lows to keep the lights on. Pretty unfortunate, really.
Gashi-Gashi / Gashi45 / Uejini
A Japan-based artist whose style draws heavy influence from western animation, doubly-so once Panty & Stocking came along. In a similar matter to how Paul Robertson’s pixel art and animation are instantly recognizable, Gashi’s unique blend of Japanese and Cartoony sensibilities made him go viral throughout this period. The Panty & Stocking influence in his art is very much apparent, not only in the aforementioned animation sensibilities, but in how a lot of his drawings are very sexual in nature, with some even being soft-core porn.
What would really make Gashi-Gashi explode in popularity was when he drew artwork for some of Ken Ashcorp’s songs, starting with Absolute Territory in March 2013. Thanks to his popularity, Gashi got a bit of notable work early on: He did the cover art for Freedom Planet, drew guest artwork for Skullgirls, and Cartoon Network hired him to do the variant covers of Adventure Time comics.
Given his love of western animation, he pretty much drew characters from all the shows that were popular online: Teenage Robot, Grim Adventures, My Little Pony, Gravity Falls, Regular Show, Adventure Time, and eventually even Steven Universe. Unfortunately for Gashi, he would end up being one of many artists who got in hot water for not drawing a Steven Universe character with the EXACT right skin color for Tumblr’s liking.
On the other side of the coin, Gashi also drew a lot of popular video game characters from popular franchises, such as Mega Man, Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, among others. Same goes with major movie releases like Frozen or the Lego Movie. If there was a major release such as a new game, movie, or major news about something popular online in this circle, chances are Gashi would draw something to commemorate it. He even drew Wheel Gator once.
Just to further demonstrate how far Gashi’s influence has been felt across the Internet, a certain Tumblrite would draw her new totally-not-Madoka OC, citing Gashi-Gashi as an influence on her style. The character’s name? Rosemary. The artist’s name? Dinoraye. The name of her show pitch? High Guardian Spice.
Ken Ashcorp / ForeverPandering / Petitpanda / Pandaseifuku / Kentucky Fried Panda
An UK-based musician specializing in songs surrounding popular media such as anime, cartoons, and games. Back during the days where furries were still contained within their own communities/sites and chastised elsewhere, Ken got backlash for, well, being a furry. His mascot is a little panda girl named Kenny and is featured prominently in the thumbnails/artwork associated with his songs.
The songs he made back in the early 2010s often tied into whatever was popular in the zeitgeist, such as My Little Pony (20 Percent Cooler), Monster Girl Quest (Touch Fluffy Tail), Supernatural (Gravity Falls), Rival (Pokemon), Crazy Chicks (Fire Emblem: Awakening), Hunter (Attack on Titan), and Wear (Kill La Kill).
Ken was actually a part of the Sheezyart generation and was even popular on 4Chan back in the day, having frequently collaborated with Nyanners and LilyPichu/LilyRaichu. He also made the intro for the 2012 and 2013 4Chan Summer Cup. Even if, as stated earlier, 4Chan disliked the fact that he was a furry.
Ken also contributed to the Meduka Meguca posts on /a/, going as far as contributing a song based on the posts in the form of Madoka – Ante Up.
In 2011, Ken created the channel ForeverPandering, centered around commentary on various topics. One of the most notable topics he covered being one Andrew “Tom Preston” Dobson. These rants were actually the result of Dobson flagging a song Ken made that made fun of Dobson and his eccentricities. In “Sins of a Complacent Artist”, Ken notes out Dobson’s inherit lack of ability to take any criticism whatsoever, even if constructive. If YouTube comments on reuploads are to be believed, Ken would eventually act the same way towards people who voiced constructive criticisms on his music.
Other highlights from Foreverpandering including a video making fun of Collin Moriarty/IGN’s review of Mass Effect 3, and a video about how Reddit is destroying/commodifying memes (Though to be fair, what he described in those videos is still happening today.)
In October of 2012, Ken deleted the Forever Pandering channel. On his Tumblr, Ken describes his thought process as FP being something he just didn’t want to be known for. Given the channel’s sharp rise in popularity compared to his music at the time, Ken was “afraid of getting popular for the wrong reasons.” At the time, Ken was finishing up College and had other projects in the pipeline. FP was the byproduct of a stressful and tumultuous year of Ken’s life, and he wanted to move on to bigger things, and that required a lot of research on his end. It became an identity that Ken then considered a “skeleton in the closet”, no less.
The entire post on FP’s deletion can be found here.
Nyanners
While she’s best known nowadays for being a V-Tuber, Nyanners was, once upon a time, THE “anime girl” voice on 4Chan. Doing voicework for videos related to 4Chan-adjacent in-jokes, being one of the hosts of the first ever Vidya Gaem Awards, and even voicing the intro line for the Vidya Intarweb Playlist.
In the mid-2010s, Nyanners attempted to distance herself from 4Chan, due to both troll’s remorse and wanting to make it as a proper voice actress, so she restarted her Internet presence by setting up shop on Tumblr and trying to placate the feminist audience the site had already cultivated. This drew backlash from both sides: /v/ hated seeing their precious anime girl backstab them, and Tumblr hated her because of her less-than-savory origins.
For example, one of her most notable videos from her 4Chan era was “Pomf Pomf Pomf”, a loli-hentai-themed parody of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s song, Pon Pon Pon. The song was even popular enough for fellow VA LilyPichu to do her own cover of it. Nyanners would later delete the video from her YouTube channel following her heel-face turn. On her Tumblr, she wrote a massive post detailing why:
SoundClown / The Mashup Community
In the Halcyon days of the Internet, one form of remix culture that began to gain traction on sites like YouTube and YTMND was what we now call “Mashups.”
Unlike YTPMVs & MADs, which take sounds/voice clips and sample them over music, mashups are far simpler in scope. For example, taking the lyrics to Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It's Hot” and syncing them up to the song Gourmet Race from Kirby Super Star, so it sounds like Snoop Dogg is singing the vocals to the beat or rhythm of Gourmet Race rather than the backing track of the original. As we move into the 2010s, mashups would become a subculture of their own online, not just on YouTube, but also the music-sharing website Soundcloud.
Some of the pioneers of mashups include the likes of GAR4649, Nakinyo, and BotanicSage. The latter of which, alongside the dedicated channel “comeonandslam”, would pioneer the Space Jam mashup, where anything and everything was mashed up with the Space Jam theme by Quad City DJs. The popularity of Space Jam as a mashup source was also sparked by the success of the Indie RPG, Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden.
Eventually, like-minded individuals with a love for mashups and/or YTPMV would coalesce on SoundCloud and unite under the banner of “SoundClown.” People like MF Pickle-O, Sir Spacebar, Pinkie Oats, Suneel Gurpurr, MtH, Cryptrik, Nape Mango, Rosalinasama, wendyfag, TUWieZ, Chaze the Chat, and more.
As 2015 wore on, the major trends of the year would affect SoundClown, and sometimes even vice versa. (More on that, later.)
MatrixMarioX / Moi / beat_shobon
Originally having roots in MADs (the Japanese equivalent to YTPMVs), Matrix started out on YouTube uploading video remixes and MADs in addition to contributing to projects like 8 Sides of Nico Nico Douga. He would join SoundCloud in 2014 and contribute mashups in addition to his regular YTPMV/MAD work. In early 2016, Matrix would begin work on original music and compositions under the Beat_Shobon name, which he continues to do so to this very day.
Matrix was also active on 4Chan during its heyday, as his PFP (and current name) draw influence from Shobon/Syobon, a mascot character from 2Chan/Futaba Channel that found popularity on 4Chan. He also contributes pre-show mixes for /v/’s Vidya Gaem Awards, starting with 2016 onwards.
Chris Brockoff / "Tiffany" / PrincessRosalina / Rosalinasama / rosalinascometobservatory / Fracktail / SuperBowserKoopa / bowserisawesome
An example of someone from the Mashup scene who trooned out, as early as January 2014 in fact. Chris, to me, comes off as the kind of guy who envied over his waifu and thus saw that as a scapegoat to HRT himself. In terms of contributions to the mashup community, most of his mashups involve Mario (big surprise) as well as Sonic. He also created the Corycore Collection and crash bandicoot garbage.
He also has close ties to Triple-Q, as the two collaborated on the Gangnam Style mashup album, Psybrid Theory, in addition to other projects.
Thomas Truong / Truongasm / “Mom”
A crossdressing cosplayer who would eventually troon out. He, just like Rosasama, is an early example of someone who did HRT back in the day, and just like him was also closely associated with Triple-Q. Albeit, he wasn’t as hands-on with the Soundclown community. He would release the odd mashup here and there for Triple-Q’s collabs. He would later become primarily known for his “hot takes” and memes on Twitter.
(CONT.)
Attachments
Last edited:
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Kevin / Triple-Q / TripleKyun / SmokyThrill77 / Sexualized Omochao / Mitaknight / MistaDeyoxys / AmazingMirrorKirby / TripleXRated
Where do I even begin!?
Like Superyoshi and Ken, Triple-Q had a presence on Sheezyart in the late 2000s. He also created a DeviantArt account in 2007. Throughout the late 2000s, Triple-Q would post what amounted to your standard fare from the average DA user at the time. MS Paint doodles, amateur attempts at anime girls, Windows XP desktops screencaps, and a webcomic series in “Kirby Sucks.”
Triple-Q joined Tumblr in 2011 (under the Mitaknight name) to keep watch on two ex-friends he had beef with, only to then make use of the site and its up-and-coming art community to help promote his own art. When it came to what he wanted to do with his Internet presence, Triple-Q mainly wanted to be known for his art more than anything else. Even if Triple-Q hated Tumblr’s community and its cavalcade of unfunny jokes, he still felt the need to stick around on the site due to its formatting and dashboard.
Even as his art improved in the coming years, what he would ultimately become known for online were his contributions to the mashup community. Given Triple-Q was significantly smaller around this time, he greatly enjoyed how easy it was for both his art and mashups to be noticed on Tumblr. However, what would truly bring Triple-Q up a few pegs was his mashup sampling Ken Ashcorp’s Absolute Territory and Scanty & Kneesock’s theme from Panty & Stocking.
Much of Triple-Q’s popularity can be owed to him riding off of Ken’s coattails. Ironic, given later on a lot of major players in the SoundClown community would gain fame by riding off of HIS coattails.
Ken Ashcorp’s Absolute Territory was released on March 8th, 2013 and got 39k views in the first few days. At the time, he had 31k Subs. By June, the song had accumulated 400k views. Meanwhile, Triple-Q released his Absolute Territory mashup on May 20th, 2013. It accumulated 11k views in the first 4 weeks. In November of 2013, the mashup was Triple-Q's most viewed video, at 57k views while he had only 5k subs at the time.
For comparison, BotanicSage had only 5k subs at this time, but his videos, like the Super Slam Bros. Melee intro, got WAY more views.
By March 2014, Triple-Q's mashup had 122k views and 461k by June of 2015.
Triple-Q was also greatly into edgy humor during his younger days. One of his first posts on DA was just a straight-up KKK joke. He loved making jokes about 9/11, going so far as to make a mock apology when too many people on DA complained. He was a part of a group called the “Fag Force 6”, and then there’s Vlad-Tan, Triple-Q’s old anime girl mascot.
Vlad-tan was based off a character made by one of Triple-Q’s old friends, HebrewMagic, for Drawrwar (another defunct art site). The joke being that Vlad was literally just a squiggly line that loved Adolf Hitler and shot and killed black people. Triple-Q wanted to create an anime “-tan” mascot for Drawrwar and based her design off of Vlad’s squiggly line (It’s most visible in the way her pigtails are shaped). Just like with Vlad, she too hates blacks and shoots them with her twin pistols. One of her music themes is even a Moon Man song. (You think that girl making sounds in the backing track is supposed to be her?)
After Drawrwar went belly-up, Vlad-Tan would be used as a mascot for Triple-Q’s own works until 2015, when she was pretty much replaced with Nozomi Tojo from the Love Live franchise. Perhaps the odd resemblance between the two meant Triple-Q could get rid of any edgy baggage while still having a character with purple pigtails be front and center.
As stated earlier, one person Triple-Q has close ties to is Chris Brockoff/Rosalinasama. One way in which this is evident is the pastel blue profile pictures Triple-Q has had over the years. He’s drawn a wide variety of characters in the style of Chris’ original Rosalina icon, including Ryuko, Psy, Takane, Nozomi, and even John Cena. Why do this in the first place? Triple-Q best describes it as a “Pastel PFP Blood Pact.”
If you’ve ever seen Ryuko Matoi from Kill La Kill compared to Shadow the Hedgehog, or Maki Nishino from Love Live be compared to Knuckles the Echidna, that’s another forced meme from Triple-Q. From the moment Kill La Kill was revealed, and Triple-Q drew fan art of Ryuko, he jokingly stated that her design reminded him of Shadow the Hedgehog. Now, if you’ve actually watched Kill la Kill, you’ll know that Triple-Q actually ended up being a bit more “on the nose” than he probably expected to be.
And hey, kudos to Trigger for (potentially) referencing SA2 back when it was cool to crap on it. The meme would reach far enough for it to even be referenced by the official Sonic social media during a Twitter Takeover.
Despite striking meme gold with “Ryuko is Shadow”, Triple-Q would try to force it again with “Maki is Knuckles” as he entered his Love Live phase. It didn’t quite catch on with anyone outside of his most faithful orbiters. Later down the road, he would even try to associate Ruby Kurosawa from Love Live Sunshine with the Phantom Ruby from Sonic Mania. That one ended up being barely even a wet fart.
Yet another thing Triple-Q became known for online is drawing porn and lewd stuff. As early as 2007, Triple-Q would take every opportunity he would get to draw porn of characters he was infatuated with. And it isn’t just art, you could tell this guy was porn-addled by 4Chan at its height since he mashed up Nyanners’ Pomf Pomf Pomf with Sonic CD music in one of his mashups.
This trend would continue into the late 2010s even as he tried to leave behind the 4Chan-sensabilities that he started with.
Another thing apparent about Triple-Q is his vindictive nature, whether it’s towards his own fans, or the Internet or world in general. The very first upload on his channel is quite literally “FUCK THIS GAY EARTH”
For example, Triple-Q HATED Space Jam mashups, especially when it came to how widespread and lazy (to him) they were. Even though Space Jam is a relatively easy song to mash other songs with, Triple-Q hated how so many low-effort Slam remixes were flooding SoundCloud and YouTube. In retaliation, every single time he did a “Space Jam mashup” from 2014 onwards, it would subvert the listener’s expectations by either being a bait-and-switch fakepost, or just straight-up off-key and bad on purpose. And he would NOT stop letting everyone know on Twitter how much he hated Space Jam mashups every chance he got.
In late 2013 and all throughout 2014, Triple-Q created the mashup album Cut, Paste, & Kill: An album covering the entire soundtrack for Kill La Kill. Triple-Q chastised people who complained about him creating the album and how it took up so many of his uploads, citing comments from not only Twitter, but also /v/. Despite also uploading non-KLK videos throughout 2014, Triple-Q lashed out at his fans and stated that mashups were just a hobby, and he wanted to pursue art first and foremost.
One of the golden rules when it came to niche-Internet-micro-celebrities back in the day was “never make requests, they will never take them and sometimes even chastise you for it.” When it came to Triple-Q, this ultimately reached a boiling point when Steven Universe blew up following Jailbreak's premiere. So many people on Tumblr asked him to make a mashup of Stronger Than You that Triple-Q ultimately crapped out a poorly made mashup that mashed together various songs with it, including the Islam anthem.
And trust me when I say: This would not be the last time Triple-Q would act vindictive towards a fanbase he had a part in.
Gangnamcore
In 2014, 2015, and 2016, Triple-Q hosted Gangnamcore: a mashup collab themed around all things Gangnam Style, as well as PSY’s other songs. Not only would you have mashups featuring Gangnam Style, but also YTPMV-style songs that sampled PSY’s “OP”s and “AYYY”s. It’s in these collabs that a lot of networking between Triple-Q and the SoundClown community took place, as it was through these collabs that people like Suneel Gurpur, MtH, Chaze the Chat, Albert Softie, and Princess Sylvysprit would start to gain momentum and popularity, in addition to some of Triple Q’s own friends like Psycosis, RosaSama, and Truongasm.
The 2nd Gangnamcore collab even featured a plotline where PSY fought Charles Barkley/Space Jam, as both songs featured the same BPM and Key.
One more thing worth noting about Gangnamcore is one of the songs Triple-Q did for it: A mashup between Gangnam Style and the Love Live song, Snow Halation. Put a pin in that one for now.
MtH / "Emma" / emmnyaa / pikachu00000000 / pikachu000000000
THE troon of the mashup community. Even more so once he branched off. Nowadays, MtH has been involved with more projects than one may initially suspect he would, such as being a programmer and minor contributor to Friday Night Funkin’, contributing to Render96 and Funny Rave.
MtH was able to get his foot in the SoundClown door due to the amount of collabs he took part in. Not only Gangnamcore, but also μ'score!, Disneycore, and even hosted a few collabs of his own like Squidcore. What’s even more surprising is that as of early 2016, Triple-Q considered MtH to be one of his closest friends, going as far as to say, “If I happen to die in some freak accident the Gangnamcore rights go to MtH.” That’s how much he trusted him. Considering he had allegedly known for him for barely a year compared to say, Rosasama, Psycosis, or Truongasm.
In late 2015, Soundclowns ytp4life and djfruitsnacks started a minor mashup meme on Soundcloud. These mashups utilized the title theme to The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy, better known for its bootleg Mario hack, 7 Grand Dad. Despite ytp4life being seen as one of the laughing stocks of the Soundclown community (because they, just like YouChew, took their funny meemees so seriously), MtH would post some Grand Dad memes of his own to his alt account, Anusfarts.
Eventually, he and fellow SoundClown Chaze the Chat would come together to start a YouTube channel that looked like it uploaded video game music, but it actually housed Grand Dad memes disguised as VGM uploads, among other things. This channel would come to be known as GiIvaSunner.
So, given how all these communities were online when it came to creative works without any hints of cultural Marxism or political interference, what happened? As stated previously, Steven Universe was a big deal when it finally exploded in popularity following the first Steven Bomb. As hype around the show began to ramp up, people who weren’t previously interested in the show at all were talking about it and reblogging content from it, such as Chaofanatic, for example.
And then there’s a certain event that occurred in June…
#LoveWins / Obergefell v. Hodges / Supreme Court Gay Marriage Ruling
On June 26th, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that all 50 states recognize same-sex marriage on the same level as opposite-sex couples. Basically, they made homosexual marriage legal throughout the country.
In what would otherwise be unusual for the memey/funny side of the Internet, the Supreme Court’s decision went viral in a way that no other landmark political decision had been previously. Dozens of Internet users who saw themselves as either “on the right side of history” or associated with LGBT-adjacent people changed their profile pictures to rainbow-themed ones and reblogged/retweeted dozens of posts and memes all about it.
People who didn’t change their profile pictures actually ran the risk of being mocked for being “homophobic” now that the LGBT community online had now scored what was arguably their biggest victory in recorded history. In true Internet overreaction fashion, “the gays” acted like they now owned the place.
Obergefell v. Hodges, better recognized through the hashtag, “#LoveWins”, would be the main topic of discussion and celebration in progressive and progressive-adjacent circles that summer. The first “summer of love”, if you will. This was also the point in which LGBT Pride Month became a widely celebrated and viral holiday observed amongst social media circles, especially given future events that would occur in the coming years, such as the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016.
And of course, #LoveWins also marked the beginning of what we now call Rainbow Capitalism. Since this was the point where many companies from different industries were trying to find new ways to connect with the youth culture of the era, changing their icons to rainbow-colored variants in solidarity with the court ruling and later Pride Month itself would become the norm for the next 7ish years.
The Shift in Power
It was from these events that a shift in power began to occur across the Internet. By this point, LGBT individuals were being taken far more seriously than they were prior to June 2015, as if this was the very thing the Gone Home devs or Rebecca Sugar wanted. This also marked the beginning of 4Chan’s decline as a Meme powerhouse. Tumblr had gained the upper hand as being the main provider of memes for the Internet: a title that not too long after would also be handed to an even bigger site: Twitter.
To bring things back a bit, the seeds for this were planted as a result of an event that occurred a year prior in 2014 involving esteemed late-night haha funny man Steven Colbert:
(From the Gamergate documentary, Airplay (P.M.))
Because of a joke Colbert made involving the Washington Redskins attempts to not be racist despite their accusations, that being to make up a funny racist group name for Asian people, a feminist social activist on Twitter started a hashtag to “cancel” Colbert for the joke he made that rubbed her the wrong way. People all over Twitter just couldn’t seem to figure out why she was acting the way she was, and even an interview with the Huffington Post couldn’t change that.
Because Tumblr had now scored what was essentially the biggest political win they could ever ask for, that means that their culture combining both pop culture/fandom with social justice would lead to politics becoming a part of pop culture. That meant that Tumblr funny men now had the right (and even moral obligation) to post about issues on gay marriage, transsexualism, or feminism in addition to all their posts about The Wonderful 101, Panty & Stocking, Gravity Falls, or Smash Bros. This would become even more accelerated when that same month, a certain sleezy businessman and TV show host would announce his run for president of the United States. What was his name again? Ronald Thump?
June 2015 was the Internet’s “great reset”, and now some people were beginning to see some things from the past (like 4Chan’s namefagging or this scene that was a popular meme at the time) as “problematic”, and that we as a community needed to get away from that stuff. The greater causes, effects, and actions of this shift in power will be discussed further in a future case.
To wrap up everything discussed today, I figured I’d end this off with something I’ve neglected to mention up until now: What was Nintendo up to while this was all going on?
The Wii U and Nintendo 3DS
You know, for being a console that sold significantly less than its predecessors, successor, and competition, the Wii U sure was popular online.
When the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U launched in 2011 and 2012 respectively, Nintendo was riding on the high from how successful their previous systems (the Wii and Nintendo DS) were, and yet not long after, Nintendo found themselves in panic mode. The 3DS was priced at $250 (the launch price of the Wii) and was not flying off of store shelves due to its high price and the lack of a true killer app.
While the Wii U had a New Super Mario Bros. game and the fan-favorite mini-game collection Nintendo Land, the Wii U would find itself in a similar, if not more dire situation in the coming months following its launch. What also didn’t help was the massive 8-month drought between the Wii U’s launch and the start of a consistent release schedule of must-have software for the console. This isn’t too different from what happened with the 3DS. In 2011, before Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 were released during that holiday season, all Nintendo had for the handheld was remakes of Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time. It got so bad that Nintendo slashed the price of the 3DS and handed out a bevy of Virtual Console games to early-adopters who bought the system before the price cut.
While 3DS sales would eventually pick up in 2012 and especially 2013, the Wii U would not be as lucky. Poor marketing and massive software droughts, along with the gimmick of the console, its tablet-like controller, being confusing towards normies who thought it was another add-on, meant that the Wii U would end its lifespan as Nintendo’s worst-selling home console at 13 million units as of the end of 2016.
And yet… the fandom for Nintendo games and franchises was as strong as ever on sites like 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube, and of course, Tumblr. Nintendo even had their own social network in the form of Miiverse, which had communities for nearly every game that released on both systems before its closure in 2017. While the rest of the gaming industry and press had written Nintendo off due to their console’s low sales and underpowered specs, the fandom greatly anticipated new releases for the 3DS and Wii U. It was positivity, even in the face of such adversity.
As for some of the games this side of the Internet showed great fandom and fervor for, we have…
Kid Icarus Uprising
A revival of the long-dormant Kid Icarus franchise, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2012. The game was developed by Project Sora, a development group led by Kirby and Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai. The game gained a cult following for its unique blend of shooting and ground-based action, memorable characters and writing, unexpected plot twists, and even had a robust online multiplayer mode. Partially due to Uprising’s prominence in Smash 4, posts and memes about Uprising were frequent on Tumblr.
Fire Emblem Awakening
The 13th installment of the Fire Emblem series of tactical RPGs, released in 2012 in Japan and 2013 in the rest of the world. This game focuses on Chrom, the prince of Ylisse, as he and his army known as the Shepards fight against the dark dragon, Grima. The game also features a customizable avatar character in the form of Robin and also gives the player the ability to romance units together. Upon a successful marriage, they may even have kids that can join your army.
In what was originally going to be the final game in the series due to low sales of previous entries, Fire Emblem Awakening ended up being a massive explosion moment for the series. This was due to a variety of factors, such as a casual mode that disabled the series’ infamous perma-death, a demo being readily available on the eShop, the inclusion of more anime-y tropes compared to previous entries, and the rise in popularity of more mature teen-oriented anime such as Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
The Nintendo 3DS entry of the beloved Animal Crossing franchise, released in June of 2013. New Leaf puts you, the player, in the role of being the mayor of your town, allowing you to erect structures like fountains and buildings where you want them. Other features like the Dream Suite and Tortimer Island were also included. Because of the game’s massive jump in quality from the previous Animal Crossing games, it saw massive success, becoming a killer app for the 3DS worldwide. It saw massive viral success online as a result, with Tumblr users sharing their towns and screenshots all throughout.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U
The 4th (and technically 5th) entry in the Super Smash Bros. series, released in 2014. The hype for the newest entry in the Smash Bros. series was through the roof back during this time frame (partially due to how divisive Super Smash Bros. Brawl was). Masahiro Sakurai posted daily screenshots of the game to his Miiverse profile, and a dedicated Smash Bros. community was created on Miiverse following the games’ 1st trailer at E3 2013.
Speculation was arguably the most prominent part of the Smash Bros. fandom during its height, with guesses about who was gonna be added to the game’s roster next being a high point of contention online. It got to the point where fake Smash Bros. leaks showing doctored screenshots of the character selection screen or characters in-game became an entire genre of memes in of itself.
After the games released, posts and memes utilizing the game’s screenshot features, as well as montages of matches recorded in the game’s “For Glory 1v1” online mode, would go viral on both Tumblr and YouTube. The Wii U version of the game included the ability for players to draw on top of screenshots captured in game, and Miiverse users would use feature to its maximum potential. The hype for Smash Bros. continued well past the game’s release thanks to the announcement of DLC, something the previous entry didn’t have.
What also helped was the sheer amount of GIFs, Smash Bros.-adjacent fanart and Smash Bros.-adjacent memes that spread throughout Tumblr. One particularly notable Tumblr account was “supersmashbrosfanfiction”, a blog that catalogued the weirdest and sometimes unintentionally funny quotes from any and all SSB fanfics found online.
Desmond "Etika" Amofah / EWNetwork / EtikaFRFX / TR1Iceman
Of course, we cannot forget the man who would become the face of Smash Bros. hype during this era. Etika got his start on YouTube doing rap battles and other miscellaneous videos on his TR1Iceman channel in High School and created the Etika World Network channel in 2012. While he started out covering Attack on Titan and Pokémon on EWNetwork, he would eventually become intrinsically linked with Super Smash Bros. thanks to his over-the-top reactions to the character reveal trailers, as well as his videos covering news on the series.
Etika would cover Smash Bros. news all throughout Smash 4’s base game hype and into when the game started receiving DLC. He would also cover franchises like Fire Emblem, Splatoon, and Xenoblade. Etika was also a major pioneer when it came to live-streaming on YouTube, such as when he live-streamed the roster being revealed for Smash 4 when Japanese fans got the game early.
Although, years later Etika would later fall into a downward spiral that would not just end his career, but also his life, but that’s a story for another day.
Lee Geary / Lythero / Link3Kokiri
Known previously for his flash animations in the late 2000s and his Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 gameplay videos in the following decade, Lythero exploded in popularity thanks to his Grandstanding For Glory series of videos, with the first one releasing in January of 2015. And as luck would have it, the first video used music from Panty & Stocking.
When the YouTube adpocolypse happened, Lee fell back on Twitch streaming for his content, with YouTube uploads becoming sparse for a while. He’s streamed/collaborated with the likes of Alpharad, BotanicSage and gay CN animator & storyboard artist, and the man responsible for “I’M PISSING ON THE MOON”, Alfred Coleman III/PaperBoxHouse. He would later go on to make videos about Dragonball FighterZ, Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, as well as multiplayer mods for games like Mario 64. He would also marry fellow Internet artist Krooked_Glasses in 2018.
Splatoon
A series of 3rd person, team-based multiplayer shooters released by Nintendo, starting with the first game on Wii U in May of 2015. The series differentiates itself from other shooter games with its theme around sea-life. You play as the Inklings (later Octolings), humanoid squids that can turn into pure squid form and swim through ink that you shoot at walls and the floor in addition to attacking other players. The goal is to cover more turf on the map than the other team before time runs out.
It cannot be understated just how big of a deal Splatoon 1 was when it came out. When the game was first announced, people were surprised to see Nintendo take a gamble on developing their first in-house-developed new IP since Pikmin, and a 3rd Person Shooter, no less. Not only that, but this was a shooter that younger gamers could enjoy when compared to the then-bombing entries in the FPS genre like Call of Duty. Even though the people showing the most interest in the game at the time were teenage/young adult Nintendo fans, like the ones active in this circle.
In the ramp up to release, Nintendo created an official Tumblr account, entitled the Squid Research Lab. The account would post updates on the game both pre- and post-release, and even reblogged fanart that fans created.
One minor meme from the build-up to the game’s release even involved making Paul-Blart-style edits of the game’s logo. To top it all off, Splatoon 1 made waves with the cheesy, yet still memorable, “You’re a kid now, you’re a squid now” ads. Tumblr had fun with that as well.
Splatoon would also explode on SoundCloud, given how a lot of the game’s world and lore centers around its music, it would only make sense for mashups and YTPMVs of the game’s soundtrack to go viral on Soundcloud. It was in such a way that all the major names in SoundClown, from BotanicSage, to MatrixMarioX, to MtH and even Triple-Q, created their own mashups. A mashup collab led by MtH, Squidcore, was even created in the fall of 2015.
All the excitement around Splatoon would land it as the number 8th most reblogged video game on Tumblr in 2015. The game would go on to receive two sequels on the Nintendo Switch and cement itself as one of Nintendo’s biggest hits in recent memory. It even paved the way for Nintendo to experiment more with new IP during the Switch era, leading to the creation of games like ARMS and Astral Chain.
Nicholas William Poelma / Nikki / NWPlayer123
When Splatoon was getting updates, one prominent member of the datamining community was messing around with the game’s files and became a niche Internet micro-celebrity for all of his findings. That man was one NWPlayer123. Such findings included figuring out how to hack the game to play as an Octoling and editing the game’s ink colors to be ones that weren’t previously available, such as white.
What’s especially notable about NWP is that around the time his datamining exploits were earning him all this clout, he had changed his icon from a picture of Luigi to a picture of an Octoling in a hoodie with a “don’t bully me” face. He wanted people to call him “Nikki” and proudly proclaimed himself to be a “Trans girl” in his Twitter bio. It just so happened that he was previously a brony during his time on the Kuribo64 forums, and also posted whiny diatribes about his personal life to Pastebin.
This would go onto become a recurring theme with people online who loved to datamine Nintendo games, or even hack/datamine video games in general.
What would happen to the Nintendo fandom after Splatoon 1 came out, however, is the moment where everything came crashing down:
E3 2015
At E3, fans went in optimistic, especially after how well-received E3 2014 was. In fact, 2014 was considered one of Nintendo’s best E3s of all time. So much so, that /v/ sent an entire thank you card to Nintendo of America.
In spite of the Wii U’s continued low sales (despite said sales picking up a little thanks to killer apps like Mario Kart 8, Smash Wii U, and the then-newly released Splatoon), and the announcement from Iwata that new Nintendo hardware was in development under the codename "NX", Nintendo fans at least thought that the showing would still be fine all things considered. In particular, fans expected a new Metroid game (the last game in the series by this point was 2010’s Metroid: Other M), a new Animal Crossing for Wii U, and a new entry in the Paper Mario series for Wii U.
Instead, the showing mainly consisted of announcing spinoffs of existing franchises rather than proper, ambitious new entries for the Wii U. For example, instead of a new mainline Metroid game or Metroid Prime 4, Metroid fans were treated to Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a multiplayer focused spinoff of the Metroid series that came with a soccer-style mini game called Blast Ball. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing fans got hit with Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, a party game spinoff of the series heavily reliant on the then newly released Amiibo line of NFC figures. Not a new mainline entry.
The show ended not with a bombshell new entry in a beloved franchise, but instead “Let’s Super Mario”, a social media event meant to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Super Mario Bros. game (Nintendo also marked the occasion by releasing Super Mario Maker).
To say this was the biggest disappointment for Nintendo fans would, again, be an understatement. For comparison, E3 2012, which was only notable for showcasing Pikmin 3, Nintendo Land, and Reggie Fils-aime morphing into a zombie, was divisive and may have had a major hand in the Wii U having a rough start, but this was a few years into its lifespan, and fans were left expecting more.
To many, this had greatly given one of two impressions: A) that Nintendo had given up on the Wii U altogether and was focusing their efforts on games for the then-unknown “NX” system, or B) that this was pretty much the death of Nintendo altogether; that they had completely lost the plot and forgotten what had made them a household name in the first place. Either way, the stress and reality of the Wii U’s low sales (and the 3DS’ initial low sales) had caught up to them.
And if that wasn’t enough, on July 11th, 2015, Satoru Iwata passed away as a result of bile duct complications. The outpouring of support from both Nintendo fans and the gaming community & industry at large was unprecedented, especially given Nintendo’s position at the time. The fact that his death came so soon after such a divisive E3 made it hit even closer to home for fans.
The Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot
On April 1st 2015, Satoru Iwata announced the opening of the Super Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, a website where fans could vote/send suggestions for characters to be added to both Smash 4 as DLC, as well as future Smash Bros. games. This was nothing short of a revolution to the Nintendo/Smash Bros. fandom.
One particular point of note is that in addition to long-requested characters like King K. Rool and Ridley, there was a major push from the community to get a character from an indie game into Smash Bros., particularly Shovel Knight and Shantae. Given how much of a presence indies had on Wii U and 3DS during this era, people thought an indie character making it into such a massive crossover fighting game would make for a great and heartwarming story. And so, the support rolled in not just from fans, but also developers, such as WayForward, Shantae’s creators.
Then after, a long drought with no new Directs, in November and late December, the final 3 DLC characters for Smash 4 were revealed:
==The Final Smash 4 DLC Characters==
Cloud Strife
Word of advice: If a character you want to add to your major crossover fighting game happens to be a character commonly associated with a game that marked a landmark point in gaming history where one of your biggest partners back-stabbed you and left for then-up-and-coming competition due to storage format differences better accommodating it, and also happened to have a highly-anticipated remake of said game just announced to massive fanfare at the same E3 where you got utterly destroyed, and still coming to rival hardware, while at the same time sparking conversation about whether said remake is coming to the hardware that you yourself had just announced in March… Maybe you should rethink that a bit.
And to top it all off, this guy getting in was, once upon a time, a joke in the same manner as Goku or Shrek getting in.
Corrin / Kamui
If you’ve ever wondered why “ANOTHER FIRE EMBLEM CHARACTER” is a meme, this is why. Not one, but two of Smash 4’s DLC characters being from Fire Emblem, on top of the base game adding not one, but two characters from Fire Emblem: Awakening, heavily gave off the impression that Sakurai or someone working on the game at a higher level had a major bias for Fire Emblem.
Bayonetta
The winner of the Fighter Ballot (or rather, the character with the most votes worldwide that Nintendo considered realizable at the time with the budget and manpower they had), was none other than Bayonetta. Given Bayonetta 2 being a Wii U exclusive and Nintendo fans being familiar with the character by this point, it made sense for people to vote her in.
And yet at the same time, there was still that lingering feeling amongst fans that Bayo might not have been the right choice at the right time. For example, when Iwata first announced the Fighter Ballot, he literally said “Can you think of anyone you would like to see fight against characters like Mario and Link?” If you had gone back in time 5 years (to 2010) and told Nintendo fans (who prefer colorful, squeaky clean, casual games) that a character like Bayonetta would make it into Super Smash Bros., they wouldn’t have believed you.
Given the position Nintendo fans found themselves in with a bunch of lowly spinoffs in the pipeline, their CEO gone, and having felt like Nintendo lost their way, Bayonetta (or the other two characters for that matter), may not have seemed like the right choice to represent Nintendo getting back on track. They felt characters like King K. Rool or Banjo-Kazooie better represented Nintendo’s “aesthetic” more.
And then there was the matter of the lack of an indie rep. As stated before, they wanted it to be Shantae. They thought it should’ve been Shantae. They wanted “their” character in the game. In a way, a lot of the people listed above either were huge fans of Shantae, pushed for Shantae to be more popular, or in the case of people like Mariel, Jon, and Paul, worked on Shantae’s games. Bayonetta and Shantae were both popular female characters with sex appeal, but to Tumblr, one felt more “Nintendo-y” than the other.
And so, with Smash 4 done and over with, began the long wait for news on Nintendo’s next system. I could write an entire essay on all the events that played out between this point and the Switch’s announcement and release, but that would extend FAR beyond the scope of just Tumblr. It would delve into multiple websites, communities, people arguing over what was ultimately trivial stuff, and some names you may be familiar with.
Now I know what most of you are thinking, “this feels a bit disorganized compared to the Steven Universe case.” At the same time, almost everyone mentioned in this case was at one point an active user on Tumblr, meaning that in some way or another, the philosophies and rise in Feminism and Social Justice rubbed off on them. With how “____ Detected” sites are all the rage these days, you’d think someone outta make a “Tumblr Detected” site at some point. Know what I’m sayin’?
To wrap things up here, I have one more thing. During my investigations, I found this: A cover of Kill La Kill's OP song, Sirius, done by a relatively unknown music artist called "Gooseworx". And the video in the thumbnail was done by a friend of his, another relatively unknown artist named "Vivziepop". Wonder what they're up to, these days?
Make sure to buckle up, because next time on The Tumblr Files, we’re going underground.
Sources: (Still need to archive)
Where do I even begin!?
Like Superyoshi and Ken, Triple-Q had a presence on Sheezyart in the late 2000s. He also created a DeviantArt account in 2007. Throughout the late 2000s, Triple-Q would post what amounted to your standard fare from the average DA user at the time. MS Paint doodles, amateur attempts at anime girls, Windows XP desktops screencaps, and a webcomic series in “Kirby Sucks.”
Triple-Q joined Tumblr in 2011 (under the Mitaknight name) to keep watch on two ex-friends he had beef with, only to then make use of the site and its up-and-coming art community to help promote his own art. When it came to what he wanted to do with his Internet presence, Triple-Q mainly wanted to be known for his art more than anything else. Even if Triple-Q hated Tumblr’s community and its cavalcade of unfunny jokes, he still felt the need to stick around on the site due to its formatting and dashboard.
Even as his art improved in the coming years, what he would ultimately become known for online were his contributions to the mashup community. Given Triple-Q was significantly smaller around this time, he greatly enjoyed how easy it was for both his art and mashups to be noticed on Tumblr. However, what would truly bring Triple-Q up a few pegs was his mashup sampling Ken Ashcorp’s Absolute Territory and Scanty & Kneesock’s theme from Panty & Stocking.
Much of Triple-Q’s popularity can be owed to him riding off of Ken’s coattails. Ironic, given later on a lot of major players in the SoundClown community would gain fame by riding off of HIS coattails.
Ken Ashcorp’s Absolute Territory was released on March 8th, 2013 and got 39k views in the first few days. At the time, he had 31k Subs. By June, the song had accumulated 400k views. Meanwhile, Triple-Q released his Absolute Territory mashup on May 20th, 2013. It accumulated 11k views in the first 4 weeks. In November of 2013, the mashup was Triple-Q's most viewed video, at 57k views while he had only 5k subs at the time.
For comparison, BotanicSage had only 5k subs at this time, but his videos, like the Super Slam Bros. Melee intro, got WAY more views.
By March 2014, Triple-Q's mashup had 122k views and 461k by June of 2015.
Triple-Q was also greatly into edgy humor during his younger days. One of his first posts on DA was just a straight-up KKK joke. He loved making jokes about 9/11, going so far as to make a mock apology when too many people on DA complained. He was a part of a group called the “Fag Force 6”, and then there’s Vlad-Tan, Triple-Q’s old anime girl mascot.
Vlad-tan was based off a character made by one of Triple-Q’s old friends, HebrewMagic, for Drawrwar (another defunct art site). The joke being that Vlad was literally just a squiggly line that loved Adolf Hitler and shot and killed black people. Triple-Q wanted to create an anime “-tan” mascot for Drawrwar and based her design off of Vlad’s squiggly line (It’s most visible in the way her pigtails are shaped). Just like with Vlad, she too hates blacks and shoots them with her twin pistols. One of her music themes is even a Moon Man song. (You think that girl making sounds in the backing track is supposed to be her?)
After Drawrwar went belly-up, Vlad-Tan would be used as a mascot for Triple-Q’s own works until 2015, when she was pretty much replaced with Nozomi Tojo from the Love Live franchise. Perhaps the odd resemblance between the two meant Triple-Q could get rid of any edgy baggage while still having a character with purple pigtails be front and center.
As stated earlier, one person Triple-Q has close ties to is Chris Brockoff/Rosalinasama. One way in which this is evident is the pastel blue profile pictures Triple-Q has had over the years. He’s drawn a wide variety of characters in the style of Chris’ original Rosalina icon, including Ryuko, Psy, Takane, Nozomi, and even John Cena. Why do this in the first place? Triple-Q best describes it as a “Pastel PFP Blood Pact.”
If you’ve ever seen Ryuko Matoi from Kill La Kill compared to Shadow the Hedgehog, or Maki Nishino from Love Live be compared to Knuckles the Echidna, that’s another forced meme from Triple-Q. From the moment Kill La Kill was revealed, and Triple-Q drew fan art of Ryuko, he jokingly stated that her design reminded him of Shadow the Hedgehog. Now, if you’ve actually watched Kill la Kill, you’ll know that Triple-Q actually ended up being a bit more “on the nose” than he probably expected to be.
And hey, kudos to Trigger for (potentially) referencing SA2 back when it was cool to crap on it. The meme would reach far enough for it to even be referenced by the official Sonic social media during a Twitter Takeover.
Despite striking meme gold with “Ryuko is Shadow”, Triple-Q would try to force it again with “Maki is Knuckles” as he entered his Love Live phase. It didn’t quite catch on with anyone outside of his most faithful orbiters. Later down the road, he would even try to associate Ruby Kurosawa from Love Live Sunshine with the Phantom Ruby from Sonic Mania. That one ended up being barely even a wet fart.
Yet another thing Triple-Q became known for online is drawing porn and lewd stuff. As early as 2007, Triple-Q would take every opportunity he would get to draw porn of characters he was infatuated with. And it isn’t just art, you could tell this guy was porn-addled by 4Chan at its height since he mashed up Nyanners’ Pomf Pomf Pomf with Sonic CD music in one of his mashups.
This trend would continue into the late 2010s even as he tried to leave behind the 4Chan-sensabilities that he started with.
Another thing apparent about Triple-Q is his vindictive nature, whether it’s towards his own fans, or the Internet or world in general. The very first upload on his channel is quite literally “FUCK THIS GAY EARTH”
For example, Triple-Q HATED Space Jam mashups, especially when it came to how widespread and lazy (to him) they were. Even though Space Jam is a relatively easy song to mash other songs with, Triple-Q hated how so many low-effort Slam remixes were flooding SoundCloud and YouTube. In retaliation, every single time he did a “Space Jam mashup” from 2014 onwards, it would subvert the listener’s expectations by either being a bait-and-switch fakepost, or just straight-up off-key and bad on purpose. And he would NOT stop letting everyone know on Twitter how much he hated Space Jam mashups every chance he got.
In late 2013 and all throughout 2014, Triple-Q created the mashup album Cut, Paste, & Kill: An album covering the entire soundtrack for Kill La Kill. Triple-Q chastised people who complained about him creating the album and how it took up so many of his uploads, citing comments from not only Twitter, but also /v/. Despite also uploading non-KLK videos throughout 2014, Triple-Q lashed out at his fans and stated that mashups were just a hobby, and he wanted to pursue art first and foremost.
One of the golden rules when it came to niche-Internet-micro-celebrities back in the day was “never make requests, they will never take them and sometimes even chastise you for it.” When it came to Triple-Q, this ultimately reached a boiling point when Steven Universe blew up following Jailbreak's premiere. So many people on Tumblr asked him to make a mashup of Stronger Than You that Triple-Q ultimately crapped out a poorly made mashup that mashed together various songs with it, including the Islam anthem.
And trust me when I say: This would not be the last time Triple-Q would act vindictive towards a fanbase he had a part in.
Gangnamcore
In 2014, 2015, and 2016, Triple-Q hosted Gangnamcore: a mashup collab themed around all things Gangnam Style, as well as PSY’s other songs. Not only would you have mashups featuring Gangnam Style, but also YTPMV-style songs that sampled PSY’s “OP”s and “AYYY”s. It’s in these collabs that a lot of networking between Triple-Q and the SoundClown community took place, as it was through these collabs that people like Suneel Gurpur, MtH, Chaze the Chat, Albert Softie, and Princess Sylvysprit would start to gain momentum and popularity, in addition to some of Triple Q’s own friends like Psycosis, RosaSama, and Truongasm.
The 2nd Gangnamcore collab even featured a plotline where PSY fought Charles Barkley/Space Jam, as both songs featured the same BPM and Key.
One more thing worth noting about Gangnamcore is one of the songs Triple-Q did for it: A mashup between Gangnam Style and the Love Live song, Snow Halation. Put a pin in that one for now.
MtH / "Emma" / emmnyaa / pikachu00000000 / pikachu000000000
THE troon of the mashup community. Even more so once he branched off. Nowadays, MtH has been involved with more projects than one may initially suspect he would, such as being a programmer and minor contributor to Friday Night Funkin’, contributing to Render96 and Funny Rave.
MtH was able to get his foot in the SoundClown door due to the amount of collabs he took part in. Not only Gangnamcore, but also μ'score!, Disneycore, and even hosted a few collabs of his own like Squidcore. What’s even more surprising is that as of early 2016, Triple-Q considered MtH to be one of his closest friends, going as far as to say, “If I happen to die in some freak accident the Gangnamcore rights go to MtH.” That’s how much he trusted him. Considering he had allegedly known for him for barely a year compared to say, Rosasama, Psycosis, or Truongasm.
In late 2015, Soundclowns ytp4life and djfruitsnacks started a minor mashup meme on Soundcloud. These mashups utilized the title theme to The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy, better known for its bootleg Mario hack, 7 Grand Dad. Despite ytp4life being seen as one of the laughing stocks of the Soundclown community (because they, just like YouChew, took their funny meemees so seriously), MtH would post some Grand Dad memes of his own to his alt account, Anusfarts.
Eventually, he and fellow SoundClown Chaze the Chat would come together to start a YouTube channel that looked like it uploaded video game music, but it actually housed Grand Dad memes disguised as VGM uploads, among other things. This channel would come to be known as GiIvaSunner.
So, given how all these communities were online when it came to creative works without any hints of cultural Marxism or political interference, what happened? As stated previously, Steven Universe was a big deal when it finally exploded in popularity following the first Steven Bomb. As hype around the show began to ramp up, people who weren’t previously interested in the show at all were talking about it and reblogging content from it, such as Chaofanatic, for example.
And then there’s a certain event that occurred in June…
#LoveWins / Obergefell v. Hodges / Supreme Court Gay Marriage Ruling
On June 26th, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that all 50 states recognize same-sex marriage on the same level as opposite-sex couples. Basically, they made homosexual marriage legal throughout the country.
In what would otherwise be unusual for the memey/funny side of the Internet, the Supreme Court’s decision went viral in a way that no other landmark political decision had been previously. Dozens of Internet users who saw themselves as either “on the right side of history” or associated with LGBT-adjacent people changed their profile pictures to rainbow-themed ones and reblogged/retweeted dozens of posts and memes all about it.
People who didn’t change their profile pictures actually ran the risk of being mocked for being “homophobic” now that the LGBT community online had now scored what was arguably their biggest victory in recorded history. In true Internet overreaction fashion, “the gays” acted like they now owned the place.
Obergefell v. Hodges, better recognized through the hashtag, “#LoveWins”, would be the main topic of discussion and celebration in progressive and progressive-adjacent circles that summer. The first “summer of love”, if you will. This was also the point in which LGBT Pride Month became a widely celebrated and viral holiday observed amongst social media circles, especially given future events that would occur in the coming years, such as the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016.
And of course, #LoveWins also marked the beginning of what we now call Rainbow Capitalism. Since this was the point where many companies from different industries were trying to find new ways to connect with the youth culture of the era, changing their icons to rainbow-colored variants in solidarity with the court ruling and later Pride Month itself would become the norm for the next 7ish years.
The Shift in Power
It was from these events that a shift in power began to occur across the Internet. By this point, LGBT individuals were being taken far more seriously than they were prior to June 2015, as if this was the very thing the Gone Home devs or Rebecca Sugar wanted. This also marked the beginning of 4Chan’s decline as a Meme powerhouse. Tumblr had gained the upper hand as being the main provider of memes for the Internet: a title that not too long after would also be handed to an even bigger site: Twitter.
To bring things back a bit, the seeds for this were planted as a result of an event that occurred a year prior in 2014 involving esteemed late-night haha funny man Steven Colbert:
(From the Gamergate documentary, Airplay (P.M.))
Because of a joke Colbert made involving the Washington Redskins attempts to not be racist despite their accusations, that being to make up a funny racist group name for Asian people, a feminist social activist on Twitter started a hashtag to “cancel” Colbert for the joke he made that rubbed her the wrong way. People all over Twitter just couldn’t seem to figure out why she was acting the way she was, and even an interview with the Huffington Post couldn’t change that.
Because Tumblr had now scored what was essentially the biggest political win they could ever ask for, that means that their culture combining both pop culture/fandom with social justice would lead to politics becoming a part of pop culture. That meant that Tumblr funny men now had the right (and even moral obligation) to post about issues on gay marriage, transsexualism, or feminism in addition to all their posts about The Wonderful 101, Panty & Stocking, Gravity Falls, or Smash Bros. This would become even more accelerated when that same month, a certain sleezy businessman and TV show host would announce his run for president of the United States. What was his name again? Ronald Thump?
June 2015 was the Internet’s “great reset”, and now some people were beginning to see some things from the past (like 4Chan’s namefagging or this scene that was a popular meme at the time) as “problematic”, and that we as a community needed to get away from that stuff. The greater causes, effects, and actions of this shift in power will be discussed further in a future case.
To wrap up everything discussed today, I figured I’d end this off with something I’ve neglected to mention up until now: What was Nintendo up to while this was all going on?
The Wii U and Nintendo 3DS
You know, for being a console that sold significantly less than its predecessors, successor, and competition, the Wii U sure was popular online.
When the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U launched in 2011 and 2012 respectively, Nintendo was riding on the high from how successful their previous systems (the Wii and Nintendo DS) were, and yet not long after, Nintendo found themselves in panic mode. The 3DS was priced at $250 (the launch price of the Wii) and was not flying off of store shelves due to its high price and the lack of a true killer app.
While the Wii U had a New Super Mario Bros. game and the fan-favorite mini-game collection Nintendo Land, the Wii U would find itself in a similar, if not more dire situation in the coming months following its launch. What also didn’t help was the massive 8-month drought between the Wii U’s launch and the start of a consistent release schedule of must-have software for the console. This isn’t too different from what happened with the 3DS. In 2011, before Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 were released during that holiday season, all Nintendo had for the handheld was remakes of Star Fox 64 and Ocarina of Time. It got so bad that Nintendo slashed the price of the 3DS and handed out a bevy of Virtual Console games to early-adopters who bought the system before the price cut.
While 3DS sales would eventually pick up in 2012 and especially 2013, the Wii U would not be as lucky. Poor marketing and massive software droughts, along with the gimmick of the console, its tablet-like controller, being confusing towards normies who thought it was another add-on, meant that the Wii U would end its lifespan as Nintendo’s worst-selling home console at 13 million units as of the end of 2016.
And yet… the fandom for Nintendo games and franchises was as strong as ever on sites like 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube, and of course, Tumblr. Nintendo even had their own social network in the form of Miiverse, which had communities for nearly every game that released on both systems before its closure in 2017. While the rest of the gaming industry and press had written Nintendo off due to their console’s low sales and underpowered specs, the fandom greatly anticipated new releases for the 3DS and Wii U. It was positivity, even in the face of such adversity.
As for some of the games this side of the Internet showed great fandom and fervor for, we have…
Kid Icarus Uprising
A revival of the long-dormant Kid Icarus franchise, released on Nintendo 3DS in 2012. The game was developed by Project Sora, a development group led by Kirby and Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai. The game gained a cult following for its unique blend of shooting and ground-based action, memorable characters and writing, unexpected plot twists, and even had a robust online multiplayer mode. Partially due to Uprising’s prominence in Smash 4, posts and memes about Uprising were frequent on Tumblr.
Fire Emblem Awakening
The 13th installment of the Fire Emblem series of tactical RPGs, released in 2012 in Japan and 2013 in the rest of the world. This game focuses on Chrom, the prince of Ylisse, as he and his army known as the Shepards fight against the dark dragon, Grima. The game also features a customizable avatar character in the form of Robin and also gives the player the ability to romance units together. Upon a successful marriage, they may even have kids that can join your army.
In what was originally going to be the final game in the series due to low sales of previous entries, Fire Emblem Awakening ended up being a massive explosion moment for the series. This was due to a variety of factors, such as a casual mode that disabled the series’ infamous perma-death, a demo being readily available on the eShop, the inclusion of more anime-y tropes compared to previous entries, and the rise in popularity of more mature teen-oriented anime such as Attack on Titan and Sword Art Online.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
The Nintendo 3DS entry of the beloved Animal Crossing franchise, released in June of 2013. New Leaf puts you, the player, in the role of being the mayor of your town, allowing you to erect structures like fountains and buildings where you want them. Other features like the Dream Suite and Tortimer Island were also included. Because of the game’s massive jump in quality from the previous Animal Crossing games, it saw massive success, becoming a killer app for the 3DS worldwide. It saw massive viral success online as a result, with Tumblr users sharing their towns and screenshots all throughout.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U
The 4th (and technically 5th) entry in the Super Smash Bros. series, released in 2014. The hype for the newest entry in the Smash Bros. series was through the roof back during this time frame (partially due to how divisive Super Smash Bros. Brawl was). Masahiro Sakurai posted daily screenshots of the game to his Miiverse profile, and a dedicated Smash Bros. community was created on Miiverse following the games’ 1st trailer at E3 2013.
Speculation was arguably the most prominent part of the Smash Bros. fandom during its height, with guesses about who was gonna be added to the game’s roster next being a high point of contention online. It got to the point where fake Smash Bros. leaks showing doctored screenshots of the character selection screen or characters in-game became an entire genre of memes in of itself.
After the games released, posts and memes utilizing the game’s screenshot features, as well as montages of matches recorded in the game’s “For Glory 1v1” online mode, would go viral on both Tumblr and YouTube. The Wii U version of the game included the ability for players to draw on top of screenshots captured in game, and Miiverse users would use feature to its maximum potential. The hype for Smash Bros. continued well past the game’s release thanks to the announcement of DLC, something the previous entry didn’t have.
What also helped was the sheer amount of GIFs, Smash Bros.-adjacent fanart and Smash Bros.-adjacent memes that spread throughout Tumblr. One particularly notable Tumblr account was “supersmashbrosfanfiction”, a blog that catalogued the weirdest and sometimes unintentionally funny quotes from any and all SSB fanfics found online.
Desmond "Etika" Amofah / EWNetwork / EtikaFRFX / TR1Iceman
Of course, we cannot forget the man who would become the face of Smash Bros. hype during this era. Etika got his start on YouTube doing rap battles and other miscellaneous videos on his TR1Iceman channel in High School and created the Etika World Network channel in 2012. While he started out covering Attack on Titan and Pokémon on EWNetwork, he would eventually become intrinsically linked with Super Smash Bros. thanks to his over-the-top reactions to the character reveal trailers, as well as his videos covering news on the series.
Etika would cover Smash Bros. news all throughout Smash 4’s base game hype and into when the game started receiving DLC. He would also cover franchises like Fire Emblem, Splatoon, and Xenoblade. Etika was also a major pioneer when it came to live-streaming on YouTube, such as when he live-streamed the roster being revealed for Smash 4 when Japanese fans got the game early.
Although, years later Etika would later fall into a downward spiral that would not just end his career, but also his life, but that’s a story for another day.
Lee Geary / Lythero / Link3Kokiri
Known previously for his flash animations in the late 2000s and his Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 gameplay videos in the following decade, Lythero exploded in popularity thanks to his Grandstanding For Glory series of videos, with the first one releasing in January of 2015. And as luck would have it, the first video used music from Panty & Stocking.
When the YouTube adpocolypse happened, Lee fell back on Twitch streaming for his content, with YouTube uploads becoming sparse for a while. He’s streamed/collaborated with the likes of Alpharad, BotanicSage and gay CN animator & storyboard artist, and the man responsible for “I’M PISSING ON THE MOON”, Alfred Coleman III/PaperBoxHouse. He would later go on to make videos about Dragonball FighterZ, Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, as well as multiplayer mods for games like Mario 64. He would also marry fellow Internet artist Krooked_Glasses in 2018.
Splatoon
A series of 3rd person, team-based multiplayer shooters released by Nintendo, starting with the first game on Wii U in May of 2015. The series differentiates itself from other shooter games with its theme around sea-life. You play as the Inklings (later Octolings), humanoid squids that can turn into pure squid form and swim through ink that you shoot at walls and the floor in addition to attacking other players. The goal is to cover more turf on the map than the other team before time runs out.
It cannot be understated just how big of a deal Splatoon 1 was when it came out. When the game was first announced, people were surprised to see Nintendo take a gamble on developing their first in-house-developed new IP since Pikmin, and a 3rd Person Shooter, no less. Not only that, but this was a shooter that younger gamers could enjoy when compared to the then-bombing entries in the FPS genre like Call of Duty. Even though the people showing the most interest in the game at the time were teenage/young adult Nintendo fans, like the ones active in this circle.
In the ramp up to release, Nintendo created an official Tumblr account, entitled the Squid Research Lab. The account would post updates on the game both pre- and post-release, and even reblogged fanart that fans created.
One minor meme from the build-up to the game’s release even involved making Paul-Blart-style edits of the game’s logo. To top it all off, Splatoon 1 made waves with the cheesy, yet still memorable, “You’re a kid now, you’re a squid now” ads. Tumblr had fun with that as well.
Splatoon would also explode on SoundCloud, given how a lot of the game’s world and lore centers around its music, it would only make sense for mashups and YTPMVs of the game’s soundtrack to go viral on Soundcloud. It was in such a way that all the major names in SoundClown, from BotanicSage, to MatrixMarioX, to MtH and even Triple-Q, created their own mashups. A mashup collab led by MtH, Squidcore, was even created in the fall of 2015.
All the excitement around Splatoon would land it as the number 8th most reblogged video game on Tumblr in 2015. The game would go on to receive two sequels on the Nintendo Switch and cement itself as one of Nintendo’s biggest hits in recent memory. It even paved the way for Nintendo to experiment more with new IP during the Switch era, leading to the creation of games like ARMS and Astral Chain.
Nicholas William Poelma / Nikki / NWPlayer123
When Splatoon was getting updates, one prominent member of the datamining community was messing around with the game’s files and became a niche Internet micro-celebrity for all of his findings. That man was one NWPlayer123. Such findings included figuring out how to hack the game to play as an Octoling and editing the game’s ink colors to be ones that weren’t previously available, such as white.
What’s especially notable about NWP is that around the time his datamining exploits were earning him all this clout, he had changed his icon from a picture of Luigi to a picture of an Octoling in a hoodie with a “don’t bully me” face. He wanted people to call him “Nikki” and proudly proclaimed himself to be a “Trans girl” in his Twitter bio. It just so happened that he was previously a brony during his time on the Kuribo64 forums, and also posted whiny diatribes about his personal life to Pastebin.
This would go onto become a recurring theme with people online who loved to datamine Nintendo games, or even hack/datamine video games in general.
What would happen to the Nintendo fandom after Splatoon 1 came out, however, is the moment where everything came crashing down:
E3 2015
At E3, fans went in optimistic, especially after how well-received E3 2014 was. In fact, 2014 was considered one of Nintendo’s best E3s of all time. So much so, that /v/ sent an entire thank you card to Nintendo of America.
In spite of the Wii U’s continued low sales (despite said sales picking up a little thanks to killer apps like Mario Kart 8, Smash Wii U, and the then-newly released Splatoon), and the announcement from Iwata that new Nintendo hardware was in development under the codename "NX", Nintendo fans at least thought that the showing would still be fine all things considered. In particular, fans expected a new Metroid game (the last game in the series by this point was 2010’s Metroid: Other M), a new Animal Crossing for Wii U, and a new entry in the Paper Mario series for Wii U.
To say this was the biggest disappointment for Nintendo fans would, again, be an understatement. For comparison, E3 2012, which was only notable for showcasing Pikmin 3, Nintendo Land, and Reggie Fils-aime morphing into a zombie, was divisive and may have had a major hand in the Wii U having a rough start, but this was a few years into its lifespan, and fans were left expecting more.
To many, this had greatly given one of two impressions: A) that Nintendo had given up on the Wii U altogether and was focusing their efforts on games for the then-unknown “NX” system, or B) that this was pretty much the death of Nintendo altogether; that they had completely lost the plot and forgotten what had made them a household name in the first place. Either way, the stress and reality of the Wii U’s low sales (and the 3DS’ initial low sales) had caught up to them.
And if that wasn’t enough, on July 11th, 2015, Satoru Iwata passed away as a result of bile duct complications. The outpouring of support from both Nintendo fans and the gaming community & industry at large was unprecedented, especially given Nintendo’s position at the time. The fact that his death came so soon after such a divisive E3 made it hit even closer to home for fans.
The Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot
On April 1st 2015, Satoru Iwata announced the opening of the Super Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot, a website where fans could vote/send suggestions for characters to be added to both Smash 4 as DLC, as well as future Smash Bros. games. This was nothing short of a revolution to the Nintendo/Smash Bros. fandom.
One particular point of note is that in addition to long-requested characters like King K. Rool and Ridley, there was a major push from the community to get a character from an indie game into Smash Bros., particularly Shovel Knight and Shantae. Given how much of a presence indies had on Wii U and 3DS during this era, people thought an indie character making it into such a massive crossover fighting game would make for a great and heartwarming story. And so, the support rolled in not just from fans, but also developers, such as WayForward, Shantae’s creators.
Then after, a long drought with no new Directs, in November and late December, the final 3 DLC characters for Smash 4 were revealed:
==The Final Smash 4 DLC Characters==
Cloud Strife
And to top it all off, this guy getting in was, once upon a time, a joke in the same manner as Goku or Shrek getting in.
Corrin / Kamui
Bayonetta
And yet at the same time, there was still that lingering feeling amongst fans that Bayo might not have been the right choice at the right time. For example, when Iwata first announced the Fighter Ballot, he literally said “Can you think of anyone you would like to see fight against characters like Mario and Link?” If you had gone back in time 5 years (to 2010) and told Nintendo fans (who prefer colorful, squeaky clean, casual games) that a character like Bayonetta would make it into Super Smash Bros., they wouldn’t have believed you.
Given the position Nintendo fans found themselves in with a bunch of lowly spinoffs in the pipeline, their CEO gone, and having felt like Nintendo lost their way, Bayonetta (or the other two characters for that matter), may not have seemed like the right choice to represent Nintendo getting back on track. They felt characters like King K. Rool or Banjo-Kazooie better represented Nintendo’s “aesthetic” more.
And then there was the matter of the lack of an indie rep. As stated before, they wanted it to be Shantae. They thought it should’ve been Shantae. They wanted “their” character in the game. In a way, a lot of the people listed above either were huge fans of Shantae, pushed for Shantae to be more popular, or in the case of people like Mariel, Jon, and Paul, worked on Shantae’s games. Bayonetta and Shantae were both popular female characters with sex appeal, but to Tumblr, one felt more “Nintendo-y” than the other.
And so, with Smash 4 done and over with, began the long wait for news on Nintendo’s next system. I could write an entire essay on all the events that played out between this point and the Switch’s announcement and release, but that would extend FAR beyond the scope of just Tumblr. It would delve into multiple websites, communities, people arguing over what was ultimately trivial stuff, and some names you may be familiar with.
Now I know what most of you are thinking, “this feels a bit disorganized compared to the Steven Universe case.” At the same time, almost everyone mentioned in this case was at one point an active user on Tumblr, meaning that in some way or another, the philosophies and rise in Feminism and Social Justice rubbed off on them. With how “____ Detected” sites are all the rage these days, you’d think someone outta make a “Tumblr Detected” site at some point. Know what I’m sayin’?
To wrap things up here, I have one more thing. During my investigations, I found this: A cover of Kill La Kill's OP song, Sirius, done by a relatively unknown music artist called "Gooseworx". And the video in the thumbnail was done by a friend of his, another relatively unknown artist named "Vivziepop". Wonder what they're up to, these days?
Make sure to buckle up, because next time on The Tumblr Files, we’re going underground.
Sources: (Still need to archive)
https://thatmew.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150301000000*/chaofanatic.tumblr.com (Archive)
(Archive)
https://geibuchan.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://geibuchan.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://masterofzoroark.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://www.facebook.com/david.masterofzoroark (Archive)
https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/MasterOfZoroark (Archive)
https://kamiyatweets.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://kinucakes.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marielkcartwright/ (Archive)
https://personasama.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://personasama.tumblr.com/post/23339520590/hey-how-did-you-meet-kinuko-why-she-is-so-cute (Archive)
(Archive)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/personasama/ (Archive)
https://x.com/personasama (Archive)
https://probertson.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
(Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150323044223/https://the-great-mighty-dick.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://www.tumblr.com/combotronart (Archive)
https://www.tumblr.com/combotron (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/combotron-robot/ (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/combotron-robot/gallery/all (Archive)
https://www.instagram.com/combotronrobot/ (Archive)
https://cosplay.com/index.php/member/222994/costumes (Archive)
https://sonichu.com/cwcki/File:ABL_by_Shaos_X.jpg (Archive)
https://shenaniganza.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/shenaniganza/ (Archive)
https://stealth-brock.newgrounds.com/ (Archive)
https://gashi45.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/gashi-gashi (Archive)
https://gashi45.tumblr.com/post/52221845827/httpgashi-gashideviantartcomartwheel-gator-d (Archive)
https://www.tumblr.com/petitpanda?redirect_to=/petitpanda&source=content_warning_wall (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/58400094877/nekocleric-those-e-famous-videoart-makers#notes (Archive)
https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Ken_Ashcorp (Archive)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/KenAshcorp (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/@notkenashcorp3645/videos (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120709082216/https://www.youtube.com/user/foreverpandering (Archive)
https://www.facebook.com/kenashcorpmusic/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120427062521/http://5everpandering.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130914224616/http://5everpandering.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/356/430/359.jpg (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/search/ken ashcorp (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120621115618/http://www.formspring.me/Pandering (Archive)
https://4chanarchives.com/board/mu/thread/63217192 (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsJMYGMfOu8_XJFzCUufjY8jxXWVOb5Rx (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150301000000*/https://nyannerz.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
(Archive)
https://archive.org/details/pomfpomfpomf-cover (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/@NyannersVA (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/nyannyanxo (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8kL6AacpCk (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120701182811/http://www.formspring.me/nyannerz (Archive)
https://theroguefeminist.tumblr.com/post/119995965818/i-took-down-pomfpomfpomf-for-good (Archive)
https://beat-shobon.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
(Archive)
https://princessrosalina.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20121110024121/http://rosalinascometobservatory.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20121101112141/https://SuperBowserKoopa.deviantart.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20131006104218/http://superbowserkoopa.deviantart.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130515085115/http://princessrosalina.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140105114927/https://rosalinasama.deviantart.com/ (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20080501112203/http://tripleq.sheezyart.com/ (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/38414060429/you-are-nothing-but-a-greedy-fuck-whoring-out-v#notes (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lYh4gSeg54 (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/triple-q/art/Uh-oh-62447286 (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/triple-q/art/FAG-FORCE-6-153439423 (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/22969570428/one-year-of-tumblr-a-retrospective (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/50503479580/whats-another-year-of-tumblr-a-retrospective (Archive)
https://x.com/TripleKyun/status/1484951864940855297 (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/49936496185/do-i-win-the-award-for-fastest-fanart-yet (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/138057456332/gonna-be-in-hawaii-until-the-3rd (Archive)
https://picarto.tv/TripleXRated/ (Archive)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556 (Archive)
https://supersmashbrothersfanfiction.tumblr.com/archive/ (Archive)
https://beastmegs.tumblr.com/post/119422258909/votehalf-genie-pakoblog-support-your-indies (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150301000000*/chaofanatic.tumblr.com (Archive)
(Archive)
https://geibuchan.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://geibuchan.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://masterofzoroark.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://www.facebook.com/david.masterofzoroark (Archive)
https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/MasterOfZoroark (Archive)
https://kamiyatweets.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://kinucakes.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marielkcartwright/ (Archive)
https://personasama.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://personasama.tumblr.com/post/23339520590/hey-how-did-you-meet-kinuko-why-she-is-so-cute (Archive)
(Archive)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/personasama/ (Archive)
https://x.com/personasama (Archive)
https://probertson.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
(Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150323044223/https://the-great-mighty-dick.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://www.tumblr.com/combotronart (Archive)
https://www.tumblr.com/combotron (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/combotron-robot/ (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/combotron-robot/gallery/all (Archive)
https://www.instagram.com/combotronrobot/ (Archive)
https://cosplay.com/index.php/member/222994/costumes (Archive)
https://sonichu.com/cwcki/File:ABL_by_Shaos_X.jpg (Archive)
https://shenaniganza.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/shenaniganza/ (Archive)
https://stealth-brock.newgrounds.com/ (Archive)
https://gashi45.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/gashi-gashi (Archive)
https://gashi45.tumblr.com/post/52221845827/httpgashi-gashideviantartcomartwheel-gator-d (Archive)
https://www.tumblr.com/petitpanda?redirect_to=/petitpanda&source=content_warning_wall (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/58400094877/nekocleric-those-e-famous-videoart-makers#notes (Archive)
https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Ken_Ashcorp (Archive)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/KenAshcorp (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/@notkenashcorp3645/videos (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120709082216/https://www.youtube.com/user/foreverpandering (Archive)
https://www.facebook.com/kenashcorpmusic/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120427062521/http://5everpandering.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130914224616/http://5everpandering.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/356/430/359.jpg (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/search/ken ashcorp (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120621115618/http://www.formspring.me/Pandering (Archive)
https://4chanarchives.com/board/mu/thread/63217192 (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsJMYGMfOu8_XJFzCUufjY8jxXWVOb5Rx (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150301000000*/https://nyannerz.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
(Archive)
https://archive.org/details/pomfpomfpomf-cover (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/@NyannersVA (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/nyannyanxo (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8kL6AacpCk (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120701182811/http://www.formspring.me/nyannerz (Archive)
https://theroguefeminist.tumblr.com/post/119995965818/i-took-down-pomfpomfpomf-for-good (Archive)
https://beat-shobon.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
(Archive)
https://princessrosalina.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20121110024121/http://rosalinascometobservatory.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20121101112141/https://SuperBowserKoopa.deviantart.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20131006104218/http://superbowserkoopa.deviantart.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130515085115/http://princessrosalina.tumblr.com/ (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140105114927/https://rosalinasama.deviantart.com/ (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/archive (Archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20080501112203/http://tripleq.sheezyart.com/ (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/38414060429/you-are-nothing-but-a-greedy-fuck-whoring-out-v#notes (Archive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lYh4gSeg54 (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/triple-q/art/Uh-oh-62447286 (Archive)
https://www.deviantart.com/triple-q/art/FAG-FORCE-6-153439423 (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/22969570428/one-year-of-tumblr-a-retrospective (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/50503479580/whats-another-year-of-tumblr-a-retrospective (Archive)
https://x.com/TripleKyun/status/1484951864940855297 (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/49936496185/do-i-win-the-award-for-fastest-fanart-yet (Archive)
https://triple-q.tumblr.com/post/138057456332/gonna-be-in-hawaii-until-the-3rd (Archive)
https://picarto.tv/TripleXRated/ (Archive)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556 (Archive)
https://supersmashbrothersfanfiction.tumblr.com/archive/ (Archive)
https://beastmegs.tumblr.com/post/119422258909/votehalf-genie-pakoblog-support-your-indies (Archive)
Attachments
Last edited:
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2023
There's probably still a ton of stuff that got broken when I had to cut and paste over Triple-Q's section, and I gotta still archive all the sources I used. Not to mention a lot of stuff that probably needs resizing. Either way, I hope you enjoy what I've blown the past 2 weeks of my life on. Also, I still need to figure out how to rename this thread. Can't seem to find that atm.
I'll be sure to fix anything ASAP, but for now I'm tired.
I'll be sure to fix anything ASAP, but for now I'm tired.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 4, 2020
So we're looking at the background of the wider internet with these posts? I'm curious to see how this all ties in.
- Joined
- May 21, 2023
Damn dude, i thought that one of the only few evidences of Mariel's degenerate past was erased when she made that specific mechafetus issue unviable on her official gumroad page suspiciously after the SFO video and i didn't even knew that probzzzz was also involved, no wonder why everyone related to Mechafetus wants it memory holed
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2023
Part of the point I'm trying to make is that 2015-era Tumblr is actually far more influential than a lot of people realize.
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2019
I enjoyed the read through the 3ds and Wii U era fandoms, it reminded me of simpler times. Maybe that era is the root of a lot of problems on the modern internet but at the same time it felt like the last stretch of a time where you could just shitpost freely on mainstream sites and have simple fun in various communities.
Out of the Soundclown section Triple Q sticks out to me in particular as one of the main reasons that sucked the fun out of Siivagunner through how aggressively he wanted to force memes. The channel used to have (and maybe still has?) a habit of honing in on jokes that viewers openly disliked and centering their uploads around spiting those fans. This along with how the channel increasingly took itself seriously and the way members hated when people called it a meme channel eventually got me to lose interest. Granted, the shtick was bound to grow stale.
One funny thing I remembered is when the contributors broke the channel kayfabe and showed themselves all in a hotelroom for a Q&A or something and they were all as awkward as you'd expect them to be. Back when I didn't even know what trans meant some pudgy troon that I think was someone other than MtH hogged the camera and literally went "and yes I'm trans btw not sure if that matters". The comment section actually made fun of the team which must've been why they took the video down lol
Out of the Soundclown section Triple Q sticks out to me in particular as one of the main reasons that sucked the fun out of Siivagunner through how aggressively he wanted to force memes. The channel used to have (and maybe still has?) a habit of honing in on jokes that viewers openly disliked and centering their uploads around spiting those fans. This along with how the channel increasingly took itself seriously and the way members hated when people called it a meme channel eventually got me to lose interest. Granted, the shtick was bound to grow stale.
One funny thing I remembered is when the contributors broke the channel kayfabe and showed themselves all in a hotelroom for a Q&A or something and they were all as awkward as you'd expect them to be. Back when I didn't even know what trans meant some pudgy troon that I think was someone other than MtH hogged the camera and literally went "and yes I'm trans btw not sure if that matters". The comment section actually made fun of the team which must've been why they took the video down lol
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- Jan 8, 2023
Fantastic write-up! I'm glad you took your time to do so. It was arguable to someone like me, who began my university age at 2012 that the internet wasn't insufferable and I was quite libertarian in my approach to things. I even browsed websites like Reddit (to view Anarcho-Capitalism or Voluntaryism) and had a good time in general. Arguably a good time to be around the internet. Yet I feel like you summed it up quite well here:
This here. Quite essentially, this was the main problem of what happened. It wasn't because of homosexual """marriage""", but the sweeping effects of it. It was quite enough a "great reset", one that we felt in real life in 2020 and by 2021 we had so much effect within our society in general. I look forward to the next post.
Huh... I wonder what they are doing these days indeed? One doing a troon with an arguable EPI-inducing material (and let me say this is PLAUSIBLE); while the other is doing a show that needs to do better, but at least for adults.
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- Nov 29, 2020
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- Jan 4, 2020
*teens and manchildren
and Reddit Atheists, and Fujos, you can’t forget the Fujos,
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- Jan 8, 2023
I was being massively optimistic, true.
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- Aug 14, 2022
Knowing the landscape of the internet today but not how it evolved, it was depressing to read the #LoveWins chapter. I really want to know how this story continues now.
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- Jan 12, 2017
Just to further demonstrate how far Gashi’s influence has been felt across the Internet, a certain Tumblrite would draw her new totally-not-Madoka OC, citing Gashi-Gashi as an influence on her style. The character’s name? Rosemary. The artist’s name? Dinoraye. The name of her show pitch? High Guardian Spice.
Goddamn is this a rabbithole.
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- Apr 6, 2022
As I've said before, the gay rights movement is probably single-handedly responsible for everything wrong in political discourse, even society today. It was a test run for many SJW/Woke tactics that would be utilized later on to justify even more indefensible shit like fat pride or transgenderism.
Cancel culture, manufactured consensus, and social engineering, particularly the kind of social engineering to convince people, even straights, to be emotionally invested in fighting for the "right" to buttsex and have it be taken seriously as "marriage," and destroy anyone who disagreed.
And even then, the very concept of redefining marriage in such a radical way was too much for the silent majority to swallow, to the point that they couldn't even pass that shit in California in 2008 except via brute force, via the courts, and then again on a federal level in 2015.
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- May 21, 2023
I'm gonna do what some did in this thread and sumarize:
- Youtube Poop: I remember stumbling on these when browsing early youtube, never underdstood them and never considered funny
- Skullgirls: knew it for his kick ass soundtrack and the zone-sama semi official porn game, such a shame how both staff and Game became shadows of themselves, it also helped to launch sonic fox's career nuff said
- Ken Ashcorp: A friend of mine introduced me to him on highschool, never got into him because it sounded like typical emo rock
- Madoka Magica, Panty & Stocking and 2010s pop anime: Didn't gave a shit about popular stuff and only watched AoT at the time
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- Sep 27, 2018
YTP is still funny. not all of it for sure, but it's hard to paint a broad stroke on it since there's so many different kinds. YouChew was cancer but the format itself is an artform and I'll die on that hill, not to mention how influential it was on a lot of modern internet humor (for better or worse). See cs188 for example.
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- Apr 6, 2022
YTP will forever be funny. I'm honestly surprised it was even mentioned in this thread, because it was, for the most part, completely apolitical and was seemingly untouched by the woke cancer spreading throughout the internet.
At least that's how it appeared to be, YouChew was obviously different, but I never paid attention to YouChew.