Gaming’s best memes

Before we get into this, we need to clearly define what a meme is. Here are the official definitions:

An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.
An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.

Now that the topic has been defined, we can avoid all arguments along the lines of “that’s not a meme, it’s just a colloquial term”, and so on.

We all on the same page? Good, let’s begin.

Glorious PC Gaming Master Race

The Glorious PC Gaming Master Race are those who, you guessed it, game on a PC. The term first arose in January 2008 after an online review of The Witcher was published online by The Escapist. In the review, the game was punted as being optimised for PC so the “dirty console peasants” cannot ruin it.

Facebook pages and subreddits have since been created, along with this wonderful picture.

PC Gaming Master Race

The Griefer

The earliest known use of the word Griefer comes from a group discussion about the game Ultima Online. Ultima was one of the first MMORPGs to gain wide success, and was the first game in its genre to reach 100,000 players. Some of those players turned out to be rather annoying.

A Griefer is described as a gamer who “purposely seeks to annoy other players”, usually has a poor internet connection, and is not good at the game they are playing.

Cue: killing your own team mates, kill stealing, destroying work created by other players, flooding chatrooms with nonsense, and physically blocking other players.

Huge Like Xbox

Huge Like Xbox, or intentionally misspelled as Hueg Like Xbox, pokes fun at the original Xbox’s bulky appearance. When Microsoft unveiled the Xbox in 2000, many were quick to comment on its large size, and less than sleek appearance – especially when it was compared to the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Gamecube.

Huge Like Xbox

Video Game Logic

The earliest known use of “video game logic” as a term comes from a review of a 1986 Mac game, Dark Castle.

“Okay, you made it so touching the enemies causes instant death. That’s pretty stupid, but as a mature adult I can deal with it. There’s no need to insult us both by attempting to rationalise your insane video game logic with some bulls*** plague excuse.”

The term is used to highlight absurd plot lines, faulty mechanics, and glitches found in video games. It is also used to describe real life scenarios where a choice has to be made, or a situation does not make much sense.

Video Game Logic

Where can I download more RAM?

Downloading RAM, as the Master Race knows, is not possible. (For the less tech savvy, it is a physical component, therefore it cannot be downloaded).

The phrase is often used to troll uninformed posters and noobs who dare to venture onto gaming forums. The phrase originated in a thread created by an AppleInsider user who complained his computer was running slowly. He asked where he could download more RAM from, and the rest is history.

In 2007 the domain DownloadMoreRam.com was registered, promising users downloadable RAM.

Where can I download more RAM?

Call of Duty Dog

Call of Duty Dog is a nickname given to Riley – a German Shepard from CoD: Ghosts. The playable dog character was shown off in 2013 when the game was revealed, and immediately the jokes began rolling in. Fake Twitter profiles and Facebook pages, jokes at the expense of the game developers, and many memes with dogs dressed in military uniform did the rounds.

Here are some of the better ones we found.

Call of Duty: Ghost Dog

Dota 2 Diretide – Call Volvo

Diretide is an annual tournament which takes place in Dota 2, in celebration of Halloween. In October 2013 Valve cancelled the event, which sparked a backlash among the Dota 2 community. Various videos and comments did the rounds, bemoaning the announcement.

Here’s where things become somewhat unclear – to show their frustration, the gamers started calling Valve, Volvo – the car manufacturer. According to the word on the street, gamers call Valve Volvo when they are truly annoyed. This stems from South-East Asia gamers calling Dota, Doto, and the mispronunciation was intentionally transferred to Valve.

Gamers took this to the next level in ’13, though, and started calling Volvo dealerships and visiting Volvo Facebook pages to complain about Diretide not taking place. Eventually Valve submitted to the public pressure, and released Diretide 2013.