Following John McCain’s announcement of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate on Friday, a “little-known fact”* meme spread like crazy over Twitter. The Austin American-Statesman helped spread the news beyond the twitterverse.
Little Known Fact: On Friday, Sarah Palin became an online phenomenon.
Moments after news outlets began putting the spotlight on the Alaskan governor who is John McCain’s running mate, users of the microblogging service Twitter.com began posting tidbits about Palin’s political views, her family and anything else they could find online.
Things soon took a silly turn. Remember the fanciful “Chuck Norris facts” that were the height of Internet humor a couple of years ago? (“Chuck Norris counted to infinity — twice. Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.”)
Palin became the subject of a new version of this running joke. Among the funniest “Little Known Facts” about Palin:
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin CAN touch MC Hammer.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin is Batman.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin has a brother in England who is a professional fish-slapping dancer.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin invented SPAM.”
“Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin was a ghost the WHOLE TIME!”
And then there’s this one, which may explain the joke’s appeal:
“Little Known Fact: Even Sarah Palin didn’t know who Sarah Palin was until today.”
According to this collection of the little-known facts as they are posted in real time, Twitter user @MichaelTurk started the meme and has his own site, Palinfacts.com, devoted to the topic. A few of Turk’s gems:
- Sarah Palin isn’t allowed to wield the gavel at the convention because they’re afraid she’ll use it to kill liberals.
- Sarah Palin once one a competitive eating contest by devouring three live caribou.
- Sarah Palin once carved a perfect likeness of the Mona Lisa in a block of ice using only her teeth.
- Sarah Palin will pry your Klondike bar from your cold dead fingers.
- Sarah Palin pick retroactively makes the theme of #DNC08 “Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead”
- Sarah Palin doesn’t need a gun to hunt. She has been known to throw a bullet through an adult bull elk.
My favorite take on this meme comes from @kopper:
Little known fact: Sarah Palin has never been rickrolled. http://tinyurl.com/palin69
* Little-known fact (in the Twitterverse, anyway): “little-known” is a compound modifier and therefore should be hyphenated.
Andrew Careaga 