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Watch It for the Meme

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"Now we sit through William Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations."

Just as Tropes Are Not Bad, neither are memes per se. True, they get old by the 9001st time they're played, but there's a reason they get played a thousand times and more. Who hasn't ever had some lulz with them?

There's the fanbase that has been ever since the beginning of the show, and there's the second wave that watches the show/plays the game/reads the book after exposure to the meme. It's not (most of the times) Viral Marketing since it's fans rather than marketroids behind them. Think What's uuuup! vs All Your Base Are Belong to Us.

This is right before people endlessly repeating them makes it annoying and, ironically, may make you want to avoid it as much as possible. Related to I Read It for the Articles, Just Here for Godzilla, Come for the X, Stay for the Y. Spoiler marks are used in order to keep you from unneeded exposure. May inadvertently result in Beam Me Up, Scotty!

Compare Bile Fascination, where people watch / play / listen to it for the crap quality.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Watching Tekkaman Blade to hear the voice that broke microphones.
  • Or the dub of the original Tekkaman for the SPACE LANCE!
  • Watching Bleach or getting a Vocaloid for the Leek Spin; also looking for more music by Loituma.
    • Misao's dialogues set to Ievan Polkka have surely added to the fanbase of Lucky Star. Too bad there's not so much of Misao in the anime.
  • Speaking of Lucky Star, most people watch it for Konata (after hearing her Gourmet Race) or her Haruhi impressions, or the other Gourmet Races.
  • School Days: A lot of people watched it only after hearing that they went for the bad ending. Also, Nice Boat.
  • Watching Rozen Maiden for the desu of it. Especially funny since a lot of other characters, and in fact real people speak that way, but not to the level Suiseiseki does it.
  • There are people that watch Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for the Cool Shades, drills, Kamina's manliness, and the Lensman Arms Race which leads to mecha that use galaxies as shurikens.

    Comic Books 
  • All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder: Most people read this for the origin of “I’m the Goddamn Batman,” and to a lesser extent “Out of my way, sperm bank” and “Damn you and your lemonade!”
  • The New Guardians is an otherwise-failed attempt to produce a "topical" comic book series, but remains in the public consciousness thanks to beloved one-shot antagonist Snowflame, an Addiction-Powered and charismatic cult leader who literally worships cocaine.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animation 

    Films — Live-Action 

    Food 
  • Some people buy and eat Gorilla Munch just for the infamous gorilla on the box, associated with the phrase "That rustled my jimmies".
    • Sadly, the box has been recently changed, and now features a baby gorilla, rather than the meme's art.
  • Arguably Doritos and/or Mountain Dew. Because of Montage Parodies.
  • Who hasn't seen a plate of cookies and wanted to fly into a gluttonous frenzy of "ME WANT COOOOOOKIES! OM-NOM-NOM-NOM-NOM!"
    Literature 
  • Most people knowing about The Golden Demon without being a Bungo Stray Dogs fan would have heard about the Signature Scene in chapter 8 where the hero kicks the heroine to the ground, not to mention started reading the novel for that scene in the first place.
    Live-Action TV 
  • Chappelle's Show is a perfect example of a show people watch so they can quote it with their friends.
  • LazyTown is a show about teaching kids to eat healthy by using dancing and puppets. Although it's aimed at preschoolers, it has spawned countless memes.
  • The episode "Robbie's Dream Team" gained a lot of attention due to the song "We Are Number One" becoming a popular YouTube meme.
  • Thanks to Tumblr, the only reason anyone bothers to watch the '80s British kids show Emu's All Live Pink Windmill Show is for the scene in the first episode where the kids all enthusiastically introduce themselvesnote . It got so popular that nine of the original ten cast members who did that scene did a re-enactment for Red Nose Day 2017.
  • Watching Game of Thrones to find out what's the big deal about Winter is Coming, Where are my dragons?!? or Hodor.
  • Checking out Schitt's Creek to discover the context of Eww, David or You're my Mariah Carey or any of the seemingly infinite gifs of the characters reacting to something.
  • A number of people had their interest in Supernatural piqued by the explosion of Destielputinelection memes.
  • Deciding to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for the whole "Sauron is Eminem" meme.
  • The obscure local children's show Kids Corner from Bismarck, North Dakota fell into this status when people watched the episode "Jasper's Hospital Experience" because it was the origin of the "We're Not Candy" Public Service Announcement that became a meme in the spring of 2023.

    Music 
  • "JFK, blown away - what else do I have to say?!" If you can remember any part of "We Didn't Start the Fire" other than that, you have earned the right to call yourself a true admirer of that song.
  • "Roundabout" received a new surge in popularity after being featured as the ending theme in the first season of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime.
  • Smash Mouth wrote a song called 'All Star'. And some other stuff, but you're listening to it for All-Star.
  • Tally Hall was moderately popular in the mid-2000s, but 15 years after they disbanded, memes using their songs (mostly "Ruler of Everything") made them much more well-known.
  • Big Enough is a gloriously cheesy song about two cowboys (Alex Cameron & Kirin J. Callinan) wondering whether or not this town is big enough for the two of them, eventually deciding that it's not just big enough for the two of them, but for every country on Earth. However, most people only know the chorus, sung by Jimmy Barnes. To give you an idea why, the following is the official transcription of the first chorus:Chorus 

    Professional Wrestling 

    Roleplay 
  • Even much of the Journal Roleplay community doesn't realize that the "steals the bike and runs/at least ride it, you asshole" meme came from Drama Drama Duck, but the meme has brought people into the hobby itself to see and participate in similar silly antics.

    Theater 
  • Avenue Q is popular because of "The Internet Is for Porn" song, as well as "If You Were Gay" and "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," both of which are frequent sources of quotes and YouTube parodies.
  • Hamilton has a Shout-Out to the 1969 musical 1776, where Hamilton briefly sings the chorus of the opening number "Sit Down, John!" and follows it up with a bleeped expletive. (The same expletive is uncensored elsewhere in the show, but in this instance, the bleeping is funnier than the expletive.) If YouTube comments are anything to judge by, a lot of young Hamilton fans only looked up "Sit Down, John!" to add in the expletive.

    Video Games 

    Visual Novels 

    Web Animation 
  • The vast majority of Ratboy Genius's fanbase came to if from the "Potato Knish" meme.
  • Any common Youtube Poop material (such as the CD-i games and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog) after watching YouTube Poop. Also, sometimes it draws attention to the material even when viewers of said YTP may have seen the material elsewhere. For example, some might have seen ads involving Billy Mays without particularly paying much attention to them, and started paying closer attention to such ads after they're being parodied in YTP.

    Web Original 
  • TV Tropes:
    • This very wiki has its memes, making noobs get deeper in.
    • Becoming a Troper just so you can edit this website and add your examples.

    Web Videos 
  • Atop the Fourth Wall:
    • In Linkara's review of All-Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, he introduces the part involving the line "I'm the Goddamn Batman" by saying: "And here it is. The moment of truth. The moment everyone remembers this comic for." After he reads the line, he says, "Ladies and gentlemen... we have... an Internet meme!!"
    • He later posted a video saying that he would not review any more non-terrible comics merely so people could hear him recite a meme. Although, it should be noted that he did recite the two most commonly requested memetastic lines from the requested stories: "Sandra Brown, you have to get out of here! Your vagina is haunted!" and The Joker's Silver Age "Boner" Caper. ("Boner. Boner boner. Boner boning of boner. Bonerboner. Erect Penis.")
  • Obscurus Lupa specialises in this trope, reviewing both Gymkata and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, among others.
  • Chuggaaconroy:
    • Many people watch his Let's Play of Pikmin solely to find out who this Steve guy everyone is talking about is.
    • Chugga later discusses with his fellow Runaway Guys how this happened with LazyTown, specifically with the "you are a pirate" song, stating that a lot fewer people would be interested in the program if it weren't for that song.
  • The Steve Moustache Show got most of its views from people who want to hear what a WTF Boom would sound like without the boom.
  • Watching the Game Grumps' Let's Play of Sonic '06 because of this particular freakout Arin has in part 20.
  • Watching anything made by JonTron, thanks to clips and YouTube Poops made from his videos.

    Western Animation 

Alternative Title(s): Must Seek Leek

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