the buzz log
Rick Roll, Poker Face, Mind Game: What's the Buzz
Our picks from the day's hottest searches.
- Rick Astley virus (breakout). An Aussie designer has inflicted the Rickroll on unlocked iPhones.
- Joe Cada (+1,021%). It's a numbers game: The youngest ever World Series of Poker winner, the 21 year old won $8.5 million. Now he can legally celebrate with a drink.
- Leukemia (+298). The cancer's getting a closer look after news of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's diagnosis. His rare chronic myeloid leukemia is "treatable."
- Artificial Christmas Trees (+130%). The spirit may be festive, but beware the environmental costs in faking.
- Mind Flex Game (+120%). The Mattel game that requires brainwaves to play debuted at CES in January, and went on sale October. Looks like a hot holiday item, price tag aside.
Filed under: Viral, Music, Poker, Trees, Christmas, Cancer, iPhone
The Hunt for Tolkien Fan Fiction
J.R.R. Tolkien in 38 minutes. For free. Online. What are you waiting for?
Actually, many have not waited, as searches have surged for the fan fiction film, "The Hunt for Gollum," which debuted on May 3 online and at the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film free premiere.
Billed as a prequel to "The Lord of the Rings," this new storyline tells a brief tale of Ranger Aragon and wizard Gandolph seeking Gollum, the mutated Hobbit. The filmmakers, who call themselves "a bunch of Tolkien enthusiasts," modestly call their effort "an unofficial home movie," but a contagious enthusiasm is making this a viral favorite. BBC News describes the venture as a "lavish production" that got permission from Tolkien's estate by being a non-profit enterprise.
With a cast of 10s (say, 150) and a $3,000 budget, the mini-epic dips into the beloved Tolkien minutiae of Ranger life and pays high-def homage to the epic standards set by director Peter Jackson's cinematic trilogy. And, even the volunteer actor who plays Aragon looks like he could be an English cousin to big-screen counterpart Viggo Mortensen.
Fan fiction has always had a huge online following, with regular lookups on Yahoo! for "harry potter fanfiction," "twilight fan fiction," "ncis fanfiction," "the l word fanfiction" and "sailor moon fanfiction." By all rights, this latest respectable entry into Rings lore should, as GigaOm and the blogosphere point out, inspire studios and other "content owners to get engaged with their fan bases" by equipping die-hards with the tools to make such amateur creations and keep the mania going. That would be a fantasy fiction come true.
Filed under: Movies, Literature, Viral, Videos, Cyberculture, Fan Fiction
How Do You Know Me? Let Me Give You 25 Ways
But enough about me. Here's 25 more things about me.
In the old days, when friends gathered around the piano to sing songs and share tales, anyone who reeled off a list of personal pecadillos, preferences and other assorted personal trivia would probably be put in charge of changing the chamber pot.
But in the (post)modern age of memoirs, email questionnaires, and social networking, such odes to oneself now take on a chain-letter charm, and lots of Buzz. All Things Digital, which normally deals in the matter of tech company fortunes, delved into Facebook's "self-absorbed new craze" called "25 Random Things About Me," in which people list personal "facts, habits or goals."
The social part of it cleverly lies in the instructions: "Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note about 25 random things... At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged ... [Here comes the kicker] If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you." About me? Really? 25? How flattering. Isn't this the same pitch Bernard Madoff used?
The exercise (or meme, as culturalists like to call it) has triggered a spectrum of reaction from the blogosphere, from philosophical musings to delighting in shared discovery to bemoaning the pressure upon the tagged to come up with 25 reasonably intriguing factoids. The notion, like a writing assignment, has also inspired blogospheric riffs and confessions, like the female rabbi who, in a Houston Chronicle blog, admitted to listening to Rush Limbaugh. Technorati created a tag page devoted to assorted randomness.
A small Search uptick has registered on Yahoo! for variations of 25RTAM, probably out of voyeurism. Then again, who's to say that, in Talented Mr. Ripley or Single White Female-like fashion, someone won't be "borrowing" tidbits from other people's lists and cobble together a more fascinating profile?
Of course, in the natural evolution of Facebook fads, clubs have sprung up around the 25RTAM issues. Groups with more than 20 members, to date (listed in order of total members):
- I Have Not Been Tagged for the "25 Random Things About Me" Chain Letter
- 25 Random Things
- NO! I Will Not Post "25 Random Things About ME!"
- Stop Tagging Me in 25 Random Things Posts You Tards
- Don't Write 25 Things
- I Like the "25 Random Things About You"...BUT!!!
- I Refuse To List 25 Random Things About Myself
- I Refuse to Complete the 25 Random Things List
- I'm Tired of Learning 25 Random Things About People
Next craze? We're guessing a toss-up between "25 Random Things You Didn't Know I Knew About You (AKA The Stalker Edition)" and "25 Random Books I Could've Written Instead of Frittering It All Away in Lists."
Filed under: Viral, Social Networking, Internet
Confirmed: A Tiger Walks on Water
Tiger Woods is one of the most dominant athletes alive. But is he really a mortal like the rest of us? Footage of the golfer walking on water has some folks wondering if he's actually something more... divine.
Well, not really. The footage was just a viral video. Still, though obviously a joke, the clip has started a firestorm of buzz. So what's the story? Apparently, in an older version of the Tiger Woods video game, players could "walk on water" when their golf balls landed in the drink. Fans of the games noticed this and pointed out the bug by uploading clips to the Web. EA Sports, the publisher of the series, decided to have a fight back by posting a video of Tiger casually strolling on water a la Jesus. The clip concludes with, "It's not a glitch, he's just that good." In your face, gamers!
Naturally, news that EA had gone to great lengths to have a little fun stirred up the bloggers. An article from USA Today notes that the video is getting millions of views and that another of Tiger responding to a Rubik's Cube will likely garner a lot more eyeballs. Meanwhile, Mashable writes that it is nice to see major companies like EA "get" the Web subculture. Indeed, a clever response to customer criticism goes a long way. Finally, though the ad may seem original, TrendHunter points out that this isn't the first time an athlete has been compared to Jesus Christ. In "The Theater of Dreams," an upcoming musical, David Beckham gets the whole son of God treatment. No word on whether he trades in his cleats for sandals.
Filed under: Video Games, Viral, Tiger Woods
From Matt to Ben... to Seth?
Over on the new Yahoo! Buzz, folks are discussing how Sarah Silverman's music video (the one with Matt Damon) is spawning decreasingly hilarious spinoffs. The original had Sarah and Matt. The next one starred Sarah's boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck. Now, there's a new one with Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogan.
This latest R-rated clip isn't all that funny (who knew viral videos could jump the shark so quickly), but it has inspired a slew of searches on the lovely Ms. Banks. Lookups on the beautiful blonde are up 68% and related searches on her upcoming comedy, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," co-starring Mr. Rogan, are beginning to surge. Here's hoping their movie (due out this year) is more original than the tune.
Filed under: Viral
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford 400 | Breakout! |
| 2 | Indonesia Ferry | Breakout! |
| 3 | Jordan Chandler | 3481% |
| 4 | Evan Chandler | 2322% |
| 5 | American Music Awards | 1841% |
| 6 | John F. Kennedy | 1529% |
| 7 | Turkey Stuffing Recipes | 1361% |
| 8 | Liam Hemsworth | 1172% |
| 9 | Lou Dobbs | 1142% |
| 10 | Hendrick Motorsports | 888% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Black Friday | +340 | 1290 |
| 2 | NFL | +489 | 670 |
| 3 | Jennifer Lopez | +451 | 515 |
| 4 | New Moon | -67 | 250 |
| 5 | American Music Awards | +236 | 249 |
| 6 | UFC | -36 | 239 |
| 7 | Miley Cyrus | +66 | 169 |
| 8 | Hulu | -11 | 154 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
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