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Topic Review
The Amazing Bulk
The Amazing Bulk is a 2012 American direct-to-video superhero film directed by Lewis Schoenbrun. Considered to be a mockbuster of the Marvel Studios film The Incredible Hulk, as well as other media featuring the Hulk character, the film's settings and visuals are almost entirely all reused stock imagery, graphics, and video purchased from various websites.
  • 490
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants (also simply referred to as SpongeBob) is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. The series chronicles the adventures of the title character and his aquatic friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Being the fifth-longest-running American animated series, its high popularity has made it a media franchise. It is the highest rated series to air on Nickelodeon as well as the most profitable property for ViacomCBS Consumer Products, having generated over $13 billion in merchandising revenue as of 2019. Many of the series' ideas originated in The Intertidal Zone, an unpublished educational book that Hillenburg created in 1989 to teach his students about undersea life. He began developing SpongeBob SquarePants into a television series in 1996, and in 1997, a seven-minute pilot was pitched to Nickelodeon. The network's executives wanted SpongeBob to be a child in school, but Hillenburg preferred SpongeBob to be an adult character. He was prepared to "walk out" on Nickelodeon and abandon the series, but he compromised by creating Mrs. Puff and her boating school, so that SpongeBob could attend school as an adult. Nickelodeon held a preview for the series in the United States on May 1, 1999, after it aired the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards. The series officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It has received worldwide critical acclaim since its premiere and had gained enormous popularity by its second season. The thirteenth season began airing in October 2020. The series has inspired three feature films: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004, Sponge Out of Water in 2015, and Sponge on the Run in 2020. Two spin-off series, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years and The Patrick Star Show, premiered in 2021. An additional spin-off, an untitled project based on the character Squidward Tentacles, is in development as of 2020. SpongeBob SquarePants has won a variety of awards including six Annie Awards, eight Golden Reel Awards, four Emmy Awards, 18 Kids' Choice Awards, and two BAFTA Children's Awards. A Broadway musical based on the series opened in 2017 to critical acclaim.
  • 41.5K
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Mail-Order Bride
A mail-order bride is a woman who lists herself in catalogs and is selected by a man for marriage. In the twentieth century, the trend was primarily towards women living in developing countries seeking men in more developed nations. In the twenty-first century, the trend is now based primarily on internet-based meeting places which do not per se qualify as mail-order bride services. The majority of the women listed in the twentieth-century and twenty-first-century services are from Southeast Asia, countries of the former Eastern Bloc and (to a lesser extent) from Latin America. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, large numbers of eastern European women have advertised themselves in such a way, primarily from Russia , Belarus , Ukraine , and Moldova. Men who list themselves in such publications are referred to as "mail-order husbands", although this is much less common. The term "mail-order bride" is both criticized by owners (and customers) of international marriage agencies and used by them as an easily recognizable term.
  • 8.2K
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response, is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson. ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control. A genre of videos which intend to stimulate ASMR has emerged, of which over 13 million are published on YouTube.
  • 909
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Moon Man (Internet Meme)
Mac Tonight is a fictional character used in the marketing for McDonald's restaurants during the mid-1980s. Known for his crescent moon head, sunglasses and piano-playing, the character used the song "Mack the Knife" which was made famous in the United States by Bobby Darin. Throughout the campaign, Mac was portrayed by actor Doug Jones in his fourth Hollywood job. Originally conceived as a promotion to increase dinner sales by Southern California licensees, Mac Tonight's popularity led McDonald's to take it nationwide in 1987. Although McDonald's ceased airing the commercials and retired the character after settling a lawsuit brought by Darin's estate in 1989, the company reintroduced the character nineteen years later throughout Southeast Asia in 2007.
  • 11.5K
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
University of Florida Taser Incident
The University of Florida Taser incident was an incident in which a University of Florida student was stunned with a taser at a forum featuring then U.S. Senator John Kerry. On September 17, 2007, Kerry addressed a Constitution Day forum at the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, which was organized by the ACCENT Speakers Bureau, an agency of the university's student government. Andrew Meyer, a 21-year-old fourth-year undergraduate mass communication student, had initially been allowed to ask a question after the close of the question period. He asked Kerry whether he was a member of Skull and Bones, as George W. Bush is, implying that Kerry did not contest Bush's presidency because of their shared affiliation. Meyer was forcibly pulled away from the microphone. He was immediately restrained and forcibly removed and was subsequently arrested by university police. During his arrest, Meyer struggled and screamed for help. While six officers held Meyer down, one of the officers drive-stunned him with a taser following Meyer's shouted plea to the police, "Don't tase me, bro!" Several videos of the episode were posted on the Web, with one version reaching 7 million views on YouTube. The New Oxford American Dictionary listed tase or taze as one of the words of the year for 2007, popularized by the widespread use of the phrase. Meyer registered the phrase as a trademark in September 2007.
  • 1.1K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Gadsden Flag
The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a timber rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Beneath the rattlesnake are the words: "Dont Tread on Me". Some modern versions of the flag include an apostrophe. The flag is named after politician Christopher Gadsden (1724–1805), who designed it in 1775 during the American Revolution. It was used by the Continental Marines as an early motto flag, along with the Moultrie flag. It is often used in the United States as a symbol for gun rights and limited government. There are Americans today that still display the Gadsden flag in support of freedom, independence, and for the United States military.
  • 8.1K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Ifrit
Ifrit, also spelled as efreet and afrit (Arabic: ʻIfrīt: عفريت, pl ʻAfārīt: عفاريت), is a powerful type of demon in Islamic mythology. The afarit are often associated with the underworld and also identified with the spirits of the dead, and have been compared to evil geniī loci in European culture. In Quran, hadith and Mi'raj narrations the term is always followed by the phrase among the jinn. In later folklore, they developed into independent entities, identified as powerful demons or spirits of the dead who sometimes inhabit desolate places such as ruins and temples. Their true habitat is the underworld.
  • 13.5K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Internet Challenge
On the internet, a challenge is a genre of videos in which users record themselves performing an action and then dare others to repeat it. They play a role in internet meme culture, with many challenges spreading through such memes. Examples include the ALS Ice Bucket challenge, which went viral in mid-2014 and the TrashTag Challenge which went viral in 2019. An internet challenge is similar to the common children's dare game in which they dare each other to perform an action that one would not normally do. Some challenges/talks predate the internet; some periodically resurface in a somewhat different form. The popularity of internet challenges is explained by people's, especially teenagers', need to gain attention and be liked.
  • 553
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Fairy Tale
A fairy tale, fairytale, wonder tale, magic tale, or Märchen is an instance of a folklore genre that takes the form of a short story. Such stories typically feature entities such as dwarfs, dragons, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, mermaids, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, or witches, and usually magic or enchantments. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending) or "fairy-tale romance". Colloquially, the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not only is not true, but could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real; fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place "once upon a time" rather than in actual times. Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form; the name "fairy tale" ("conte de fées" in French) was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, some to the Bronze Age more than 6,500 years ago. Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales.
  • 9.1K
  • 17 Nov 2022
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