Tag Archives: Internet

A can of Spam is opened every three seconds

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student, fast food employee
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant claimed to have heard this information through the internet community Facebook. He said that he read it as a status update, but then later found the same information on the internet site Tumblr.

Did you know that a can of Spam is opened every three seconds in the world?

Odd facts of sensationalism are common within internet communities, and my informant could recall having heard several similar facts even over the past week. He expressed some doubt as to its literal truth, assuming it was a average or approximation, but nonetheless accepted its essence as fact. Variations on this fact can be found throughout the internet community on unofficial chat boards or fact sites such as http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=697753 or http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2163808 but is also listed as fact on slightly more reputable sites such as http://forgetmagazine.com/032301.htm.

World of Warcraft Legends – Leeroy Jenkins

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Barista - Starbucks
Residence: Lake Forest, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/16/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant tells me that the Leeroy Jenkins story is pretty short, and that the results of it are far more interesting than the original story.  Basically the story goes that this group of 15 guys were in a raid dungeon getting ready for a big fight, and they were talking about their plan, when one of the members just decides to screw the whole plan and charge right in.  He screams his name, “LEEROYYYYYYYY JENKINNNNSSSSS” really loudly in their chat, and just runs in.  The rest of his group is forced to follow and they all end up dying in the encounter.  Fortunately, because one of the group members was recording the event, we can see the whole thing happen on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

This video became an instant hit among players of World of Warcraft, with players showing the video to their friends.  I myself was shown the video by one of my friends who also played the game.  There were many videos that only WoW players would have found amusing, but no one else would really get.  However, the Leeroy Jenkins video and story started to spread to other video games and even outside of gamer culture.  If you go online, you can find fan art of Leeroy, comics, demotivational posters referring to Leeroy, custom Warcraft figurines.  The video became so huge that Blizzard, the developers of World of Warcraft, invited the actual player of the character Leeroy to come give a quick speech at BlizzCon in 2007, and do the trademark “Leeroyyyyyyy Jenkinnnnnssssss!” shout.  The also put a reference to Leeroy in the game itself.  Essentially, re-enacting the Leeroy Jenkins video will earn the player an achievement called “Leeroyyyyyyyy!” which also rewards the player with the title “Jenkins” that he or she may put on their character.

Within the gaming community as a whole, shouting “Leeroy Jenkins!” is synonymous with shouting “CHARGE!” and is usually shouted either at the beginning of a game, or when the player goes “balls to the wall” or “goes Rambo.”  Even players who have never played World of Warcraft in their life understand the meaning of the phrase.  In this sense, “Leeroy Jenkins” has become a folk saying.

As for the origins of the story, my informant tells me that the player simply thought the plan was ready and just charged in ahead.  According to other sources I have heard in the past, some say that Leeroy was away from his computer getting food while the plan was being discussed and so he didn’t hear it, and when he got back he assumed they were all ready to go and so he just charged in.  Others say that he thought the plan was stupid and knew they would all die anyway and so Leeroy just decided to charge in and have fun.  One other variant I have heard is that the guild who made the video did it as a joke video, knowing full well that their plan was stupid and so they were just trying to be funny.  This is the version I like to believe because everyone I know who has done the fight shown in the video says that their plan is stupid and would never work ever.  According to Leeroy himself, he and his guild buddies were just drinking at the time and being generally stupid, though he will neither confirm nor deny if the whole thing was staged.

Internet Predator

Nationality: Mexican- American
Age: 41
Occupation: Quality Assurance Manager
Residence: Harbor City, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/2012
Primary Language: English

“…Just remember there are a lot of fucking sickos and psychos and rapists and other terrible people that will say and do whatever they can to get you to meet up with them to hook up or do bad things to you or whatever. It worries me that you spend so much time on the internet. I heard just the other day from a guy at work that some guy was found dead in his apartment after he got some kid he had met through the internet to come over, and it just goes to show that you can’t trust anybody you meet like that. Not even if they aren’t old.”

My informant for this piece is a concerned father lecturing his daughter on the dangers of the internet. There are many tales circulating, many of them quite true, about internet predators that meet people throught the internet and do terrible things to them. This particular warning stands out in that it’s the younger party that’s the actual attacker. This may be a sort of comment on how it’s the younger generation who have a firm grip on today’s technology and maybe a subconcious fear of the young taking advantage of the old in a reverse of the usual “elderly man takes advantage of a young teen” story.

It’s certainly a vague story, but there is something threatening about the open-endedness of it.

Annotation: This particular story, though vague in detail, is brought to life in a chilling horror movie by the name of Hard Candy (2005), in which a 14 year old girl (Ellen Page, leading actress of Juno) turns the tables on a pedophile she met through the internet.