James Rolfe encourages fans to come up with remixes or covers of the Nerd's theme song, which he sometimes plays on the show. Many of his catchphrases are also frequently invoked and imitated.
The sound clip (and portrait) of him yelling "ASS! FUCK!" from the Top Gun review is one of the most-common memetic catchphrases used, typically in remixes of popular melodies on Youtube.
Some other popular phrases: "What a shitload of fuck." / "This game is ass!" / "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!!"note The first is popular as a negative reaction in general; the second is used in response to video games one doesn't like; the last one is especially popular to use for outlandish or questionable decisions.
His joking pronunciation ofDestoroyah as "DESOTOROYAH!" has become something of a memetic mutation amongst giant monster movie fans.
"Where did YOU learn to fly?" Explanation A quote said by Skylar from the Atari Jaguar game Cybermorph, which became notorious after the game was included in the Nerd's Atari Jaguar review and was repeated and mutated many times on the Internet.
This line was given a Shout-Out by Spoony when a similar floating head appeared in his review of Terror T.R.A.X.
"Kill all babies?!"Explanation His reaction to one of the multiple-choice answers to a question in Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land, shown in "Bible Games 2".
He uses one himself, "Welcome to die!" from the X Men arcade game, as he destroys the NES games based on the franchise in much the same fashion as Magneto.
"HOLY SHIT, IT'S SPIDER-MAN!"Explanation AVGN's excited reaction to the web slinger's arrival during the "Spider-Man" video. A clip of this moment became a popular subject for video edits, using it as a Bait-and-Switch punchline related to people dropping into various locations.
"This game sucks my spider-balls!"Explanation Spidey gets fed up with the Atari 2600 Spider-Man game.
"Where did their hair go?!"Explanation Kyle Justin improvises lyrics during the Ikari Warriors review, making the Nerd hold back his laughter.
From his Shit Pickle videos, "Monkey cheese" has been used as an alternate descriptor for Word-Salad Humor.
A lesser example is "What a horrible night to have a curse."Explanation This slowly-appearing text interrupts gameplay frequently as it transitions from day to night.
"Awww, come on, you really want to make me play this? Well, I'm gonna do it just for you. Cause I like ya a lot." Explanation Before AVGN finally begins playing Superman 64 on the Nintendo 64.
"Oh don't you talk about my boxes! I LIKE BOXES!" Explanation AVGN's reaction to the Nostalgia Critic's confusion about a pile of boxes during their final battle.
"You're a poopyhead!"Explanation One of the Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head type insults spoken by the Nerd in a response to the Nostalgia Critic. In 2019, it became a popular source for remixes.
"Hey. You wanna listen to some tunes?"Explanation A clip from the Nerd's review of the licensed Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure NES game, in which he imitates a game mechanic where the player can throw cassette tapes on the ground to play music that distracts enemies. The clip became a popular subject for video edits, replacing the song on the Nerd's tape with various other pieces of music.
64 bits! 32 bits! 16 bits. 8 bits. 4 bits! 2 BITS! 1 BIT! HALF BIT, QUARTER BIT...THE WRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!Explanation A fad based on a video involving an edit of this scene from his "Tiger Electronics Games" video where the video lowers in both visual and audial quality for each "bit". For the meme, the effect from this video is applied to many other characters, with the Nerd's voiceover in the background.
128 bits... 256 bits... 512 bits... Explanation An inverse of this meme would also surface, where the "bits" countdown would be in reverse order, and the characters in the videos would get more realistic and detailed as it went on. Many of these videos add extended countdowns where different voiceovers would add more "bits" to the list, such as "128 bits" and "4096 bits". A lot of the characters in these later levels tend to be uncannily realistic or real-life versions of them.
The pen throw during his response against the Nostalgia Critic is oft-parodied, by cutting to a fatal stab wound scene and made it like the Nerd's pen throw did it. Or sometimes, someone threw a sharp object, the Nerd grabs the object (actually just his pen throw played backwards) and puts it to his pocket like nobody's business.
1. Get the Knife. 2. Get the Knife. 3. Get the Knife! note With the release of Ghosts n' Goblins Resurrection, various people quote this scene from the Ghosts n' Goblins review as a big tip.
1. Don't get the Knife. 2. Don't get the Knife. 3. Don't get the Knife! note The Planet of the Apes review has The Nerd invert the above-mentioned meme after finding out that the knife is the worst weapon in the game.
"So I gotta find a way to harness his power, and I think I found a way. That's right, we're gonna cheat!" Explanation In 2020, a video was uploaded to YouTube splicing a clip from his Transformers review where he mentions (in)famous gamer Billy Mitchell with a clip from his Ghostbusters review where he uses a Game Genie to bypass the stairs section of the game as a Take That! towards the many cheating allegations filed against Mitchell.
"Pop this piece of crap in, and what do you get?" Well.. A somewhat popular bait-and-switch meme from 2019, where The Nerd would pop in the cartridge for Ghostbusters in his NES, but something else would show up on the TV, often prompting The Nerd to spit out his beer and yell out a huge "OH MY GOD!!".
"There goes the onion." Explanation An outtake from the Shrek episode had the Nerd accidentally dropping an onion in his mouth, and saying this line. Since James was tied up during that scene, it was a lot of work to retrieve the onion and get it back in his mouth. He also dropped it multiple times.
AVGN censored is like X without Y. Explanation When YouTube age-restricted the AVGN Season 1 compilation video, a censored version of the video was uploaded. This did not go over well with the viewers, as him cursing up a storm was seen as part of the Nerd's character, and that taking that away would be like taking away a part of something great.
: "Live like a windrammer as you fuck"
