Internet Memes: Shoop Da Woop Imma firin Mah Lazer
The orginal firin mah lazer video
Shoop Da Woop
The shoop da woop meme began a few years ago when somebody on the 4chan imageboard took a picture of the villain, Cell, from Dragon Ball Z, added blackface to it and had him firing a laser out of his mouth and screaming either “Shoop Da Woop” “Imma firin mah lazer,” or “Imma chargin mah lazer.”
Blackface was first invented in the early nineteenth century. It was created by minstral shows and vaudeville as a way for white actors to stereotypically play black characters in order to amuse their audience. These days, blackface is construed as racist and politically incorrect, but amongst the bowels of the internet, there are no rules. Anything can and will be used to create funny.
The pictures (and videos) of a blackface cell weren’t that impressive themselves, but the meme quickly spread to include all sorts of media altered to be a person with blackface firin lazers to humorous results. Political figures, cartoon characters, even other memes, (creating meme crossovers), were fodder for the "shoopers."
This meme has mostly run its course but it remains significant because it shows how a simply odd and seemingly irrelevant image can have a lasting impact upon a whole consciousness of people. And, it does, a little bit, reveal some of the underlining racist tones of an internet which is touted to be the grand equalizer that brings us all together.
Learn more about crazy internet memes
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Thomas The Tank Engine is Firin Mah Lazer
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Comments
This one makes it into a lot of youtube videos. Unlike some of the others I decided to write about, you'll find this one outside of the hardcore 'nerd' zones of the internet.
ima chargin mah lazah!
lolololol
type it in 2 google and the list is endless...
like, a big yellow sign - "warning - f****ng big lazer!"
or "caution, this sign has sharp edges"
or "warning - warning sign coming up"
or "my boss told me to change the stupid sign-so i did!"
blackface of sign gags? whats more funny...?
plz post thoughts!
I have a degree in History and frankly if you need any help with this work then you can certainly have my sword.
This video was the first time I ever saw Shoop Da Woop, cracked me up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSVNbxjdvv8
That's just stupid. I certainly didn't know this was blackface. For that matter, I didn't even know what blackface was until I read this article and looked it up. To say that there are racist undertones in a totally benign internet meme, and to then claim that a majority of people on the internet are racist, screams of poor logic.
If you polled most people on the question "Do you object to the use of Blackface in the Shoop Da Whoop meme as a means of racial stereotyping?", I think that the most common reply would be "What's blackface?"
For that matter, I'm not sure that this is even supposed to be a depiction of blackface. To me, it just looks like a large, square, red lipped cartoonish mouth. Pretty run of the mill.
lolz
imma firin mah lazer
DR OCTOGONAPUS BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGH
Hey Tom, STFU
absolute BS, everyone knew it was a black stereotype, that's what made it "funny". Why else do the other memes use ebonics like slang, use the words "nigga" or "bro", use all of those misplaced Z's and D's??
everyone (in the wider world of international internet users) knows the 4chan/stormfront crowd are one and the same, its pretty much racist internet for racist people.
Ima chargin mah la
zer...blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
THAT BE FUNNY because... IMA FIREIN MAH LAZA!!!!!!!
shoop da whoop
plsheeeeerp
Christoph Reilly 3 years ago
I have seen the Ima firen ma lazer, so I'm not completely out of touch.