ate my balls
{{short description|Early internet meme}}
"Ate my balls" is one of the earliest examples of an internet meme. It was widely shared in the late 1990s when adherents created web pages to depict a particular celebrity, fictional character, or other subject's zeal for eating testicles. Often, the site would consist of a humorous fictitious story or comic featuring edited photos about the titular individual; the photo editing was often crude and featured the character next to comic-book style speech in a thought balloon.{{cite book |last1=Barry |first1=Dave |title=Dave Barry in Cyberspace |date=1997 |publisher=Fawcett Columbine |isbn=9780449912300 |page=155}}
History
The fad was started in 1996 by Nehal Patel, a student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a "Mr. T Ate My Balls" web page.{{cite news |last=Miles |first=Milo |title=21st: "Ate My Balls" ate my balls |work=Salon.com |date=August 10, 1997 |url=http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/1997/08/10/balls/ |access-date=December 2, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090208131728/http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/1997/08/10/balls |archive-date=February 8, 2009 |url-status=dead}} Later, the meme also featured subjects like Chewbacca, Monica Lewinsky,{{cite news |last1=Bezane |first1=Conor |title=Eating balls on the Internet |url=https://www.iowastatedaily.com/eating-balls-on-the-internet/article_a1174de9-e700-56cf-a34b-243cff40b199.html |access-date=June 17, 2020 |newspaper=Iowa State Daily |date=March 30, 1998}} Mr. Spock,{{cite web |last1=Gardner |first1=Eriq |title=Glenn Beck Satire Site Fights Back |url=https://www.adweek.com/digital/glenn-beck-satire-site-fights-back-100482/ |work=Adweek |access-date=June 17, 2020 |date=September 29, 2009}}{{Subscription required}} Britney Spears, Pokémon, eBay, and Mexican archaeology, among others.{{cite magazine |title=Keep on Munching |url=https://www.wired.com/2000/05/keep-on-munching/ |magazine=Wired |access-date=June 17, 2020 |date=May 22, 2000}} The meme became so popular that a related webring was created and a company registered the atemyballs.com domain in hopes of selling it for profit.{{cite news |last1=Casimir |first1=Jon |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55636088/ |title=Groins of the Realm |newspaper=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=May 30, 1998}} In 2000, the Miami Herald noted that Patel's original website had received over 800,000 hits.{{cite news |title=Mr. T |newspaper=Miami Herald |date=June 23, 2000 |page=124 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/55636096/}} Dave Barry covered the "Ate my balls" phenomenon in his 1996 book Dave Barry in Cyberspace. The meme's popularity waned after 2000 and it eventually fell out of popular use after most of the websites featuring it were deleted, often due to the shutdown of early free web hosts such as Geocities.{{cite web |url=https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/best-memes-of-all-time |work=Thrillist |title=Best memes of all time |page=34 |date=February 8, 2020 |access-date=June 18, 2020}}
In 2008, artist Drew briefly revived it by creating a website called "Andrew Zimmern Ate My Balls"; a reference to the host of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, which often features cooked animal testicles as culinary dishes.{{cite web |last1=Fairweather |first1=Drew |title=Andrew Zimmern Ate My Balls |url=http://www.andrewzimmernatemyballs.com |website=andrewzimmernatemyballs.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090315062624/http://www.andrewzimmernatemyballs.com/ |archive-date=March 15, 2009}}
The "Ate my balls" meme was referenced in the 2009 legal dispute Beck v. Eiland-Hall, as an example of legally protected parody.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web | url = http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~nkpatel/mr.t/ | title = Mr. T Ate My Balls | date = December 2, 1998| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/19981202133702/http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~nkpatel/mr.t/ | archive-date = December 2, 1998 }}
Category:Internet memes introduced in the 1990s