The Bluebird of Happiness Meme

I've been dreaming of making a meme for years. On Friday, 27th July, 2012 at 2:51 PM EST my dream became a reality. Here's how it started. In January, I posted a picture of a Blue Finch with a comment to the effect that you had been visited by the Blue Bird of Happiness. That was all. No instructions to bump it, or whatever. I just thought it was funny. It's a quaint superstition, like the one surrounding Groundhog Day and I find these kind of harmless and fun. I was especially inspired by this cartoon in the Aug 2011 issue of Mad (Got Your Nose, by Jacob Lambert) : The idea was that people would see it on the front page and do some googling to find out about it, maybe comment on it. The idea wasn't that it would use an entire thread, but would be just sort of show up wherever and give some hope to the person who sees it. It was a cute idea, but pretty much died out as soon as I stopped posting. No one followed my example. While struggling to deal with some after-effects of my breakdown last October 2011, I took up video-gaming. I'm not a big gamer. For me,the ideal game is Solitaire or Mahjongg or Blackjack. But, with a new cell-phone, I discovered Angry Birds. It gave me something to do when I felt like shit and didn't know what to do with myself --in addition to advertising my music and shirts. Friday 27th July, I didn't have to work so I was messing about at home and just threw an image together. Instead of a photo of an actual bird, I used an image of a blue bird from Angry Birds because, hey... it's cuter and put in a request to thank the bird... because let's face it, if you post on b, it is rare to hear thank you or anything like it. Also, thanking a bird from a popular game as if it has magic powers is really stupid. I posted my creation on b to some thread in the morning of the 27th around 9 AM EST and was pleasantly surprised to see a few THANK YOUs show up after it. About five. After that, there was nothing. This would correspond to the visibility of the Blue Bird on the front page. Once again, the idea was NOT that the image should start a thread. Anyways, that afternoon, just to see what would happen, I threw it up at 2:51 PM EST, starting it's own thread, and that's when it took off. Here are my texts to my brother on that fateful day... i just made this, it got a bunch of thanks! Fri, 27 Jul 2012, 2:51 PM hundreds! Fri, 27 Jul 2012 3:44 PM 543! Fri, 27 Jul 2012, 3:48 PM Walk in see this what do Fri, 27 Jul 2012, 4:27 PM other people mad3 these Sun, 29 Jul 2012, 3:07 AM Sun, 29 Jul 2012, 3:16 AM guy described it as the most brutal meme he's ever encountered Sun, 29 Jul 2012, 3:30 AM new one someone made Sun, 29 Jul 2012, 10:35 AM Anyway, that's how it started. Since then people have been making others. Here are some other examples of the Bluebird of Happiness meme with dates first seen. The ones with a blue border were also made by me : July 29, 2012 July 29, 2012 July 29, 2012 July 29, 2012 July 29, 2012 July 29, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 July 30, 2012 Aug 1, 2012 Aug 1, 2012 Aug 1, 2012 Aug 2, 2012 Aug 3, 2012 Aug 4, 2012 Aug 6, 2012 July 30, 2012 Aug 1, 2012 Aug 7, 2012 Anyways. I hope you found this informative. Have a nice day! and THANK YOU! --MonkSolo I also made a t-shirt (cause it's what i do)... click for more info..