"Ate my balls" is one of the earliest examples of an

internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

. 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 Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons, or word balloons) are a graphic convention used most commonly in comic books, comics, and cartoons to allow words (and much less often, pictures) to be understood as representing a char ...

History

The

fad A fad or trend is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short period. Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short- ...

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. Later, the meme also featured subjects like

Chewbacca Chewbacca ( ), nicknamed "Chewie", is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. He is a Wookiee, a tall, hirsute, bipedal, intelligent species originating from the fictional planet of Kashyyyk. Chewbacca is the loyal friend and firs ...

, Monica Lewinsky,

Mr. Spock Spock is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. He first appeared in the original ''Star Trek'' series serving aboard the starship USS ''Enterprise'' as science officer and first officer (and Kirk's Second-in-command) and ...

Britney Spears Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer. Often referred to as the " Princess of Pop", she is credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s and early 2000s. After appearing in stage productio ...

Pokémon (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...

, eBay, and Mexican archaeology, among others. 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. In 2000, the ''

Miami Herald The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a List of communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida, city in western Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County and the M ...

'' noted that Patel's original website had received over 800,000 hits.

Dave Barry David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the ''Miami Herald'' from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comic ...

covered the "Ate my balls" phenomenon in his 1996 book ''

Dave Barry in Cyberspace ''Dave Barry in Cyberspace'' is a best-selling humor book by Dave Barry. Written in 1996, this book takes the view point of a computer geek who enjoys using Windows 95. The book covers (in a comical way) such topics as The History of Computing, H ...

''. 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. 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. The "Ate my balls" meme was referenced in the 2009 legal dispute '' Beck v. Eiland-Hall'', as an example of legally protected parody.

References

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 1996 introductions Internet humor Internet memes introduced in the 1990s Sexuality in popular culture Testicle

History

See also

References

External links