“Jolie’ing”
Angelina Jolie had her right leg exposed for a pose she
struck at the Oscars in 2012. Before the
end of the event, photos of her leg are photoshopped in numerous pictures as a
photobombing leg. The picture was up,
because people thought the photo-hogging leg would be hilarious, especially
when showcased in various photos—fully demonstrating its photo-loving
nature. It was seen attached to the Statue
of Liberty, Darth
Vader, and even Meryl
Streep. As Yahoo's
Mike Krumboltz reported,
"by the time you read this, [in] about a million other things." The leg went viral within minutes through twitter,
tumblr, and other mass-media
sites that allow users to share hilarious pictures. The popular was so popular that it made it to
the #2 Most Viral Pictures by Yahoo in its year-end
review. On “Google Insights,” the
hype around Jolie’s leg began and peaked February 2012, and died down until
June and resurfaced in January and February 2013 probably as a year-end review
like Yahoo’s or a reminisce of last year’s Oscars. But no memes have been
influenced by this.
Reasons
for the meme became popular are due to the fact of the availability of social
media for internet-users to share photos and tweets that they saw were funny,
as well as ones that they made themselves.
Users can submit their own photos of themselves “jolie’ing” as the term
came to be on sites like http://angelinajolieing.tumblr.com/. Likewise, users can also follow the
whereabouts of Jolie’s leg through the fan-made twitter account,
@AngiesRightLeg. This ability to share,
laugh, and communicate worldwide using the internet and media sources made the
meme popular, because many people are able to watch the Oscars and share online
on their sentiments. As popular media tells us that watching the Oscar is “the
thing to do,” people want to take part in jolieing to show others that they are
a person on the in-group of the jolieing craze.
Participatory humor makes things funny. And who doesn’t want to a part
of the next hot, leggy thing?
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