November 11th, 2003

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Sports
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The Mattress Line

Here’s an interesting example of a meme in action. I regularly read and post to the Canucks newsgroup. A fellow poster, one Asweepay (don’t ask, I don’t know), posted this message about the Canucks current forward line of Sedin-Sedin-King:


Allright, let’s hear your suggestions for line names for the Sedins and King.

Mine are
“The Mattress Line”
Why ??? 2 twins and a king.

Everybody thinks that’s pretty funny, and, crediting Asweepay for his brilliance, I email the folks at Sportspage (the most popular local TV sports show). I get the following reply from one of the hosts:


very solid Darren …….
we might just use it!!
Thanks much!!
Sincerely,
BMac

A meme is born. Not only is it heard shortly thereafter on Sportspage, but the term starts showing up all over the place. It’s heard on CKNW (local talk radio), then on the NHL Network and most recently on ESPN, TSN and CNN. It has also turned up in other discussion forums. That was quick.

It’s remarkable to me how quickly these ideas move through our culture. As an experiment, I’m going to use this entry to try to keep track of as many of the “mattress line” occurences as I can. A chart may result.

UPDATE: The term ‘Mattress Line’ has now appeared in USA Today, Canucks.com and various other forums and fan sites.

Comments: 9 Responses so far

d
October 28th, 2003
11:48 am

asweepay was the nickname of a friend of mine in junior high.. well, that’s how you say it…

you’re supposed to spell it like this: asswipe.

:)

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Todd
October 30th, 2003
12:39 am

Nice! What’s also great about the spread of memes now is that we can observe how they travel by consolidating and ordering their occurrences in places like discussion boards, usenet, blogs and so on. I would imagine you could use google and a bit of easy programming to find pages with your meme and then sort the search results by date of posting, then go from there as deep as you want to.

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MJ
November 2nd, 2003
5:37 pm

I think Asweepay comes from a 1992 Saturday Night Live skit:

UPS Man (Rob Schneider): Package for a Mr. Asswipe.

Nicolas Cage: Um, excuse me, that’s “Ahhs-Wee-Pay.”

UPS Man: Whatever, asswipe.

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Mel
November 4th, 2003
7:41 pm

“The Mattress Line” seems pretty official - they’ve used it in this week’s poll on Canucks.com

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Rob
November 11th, 2003
9:23 am

Didn’t you post this 2 weeks ago originally? Or should I now be referred to as Future Boy?

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Todd
November 11th, 2003
12:22 pm

Man this is like deja vu all over again. Did I make that comment, or will I do so sometime soon?

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Darren
November 11th, 2003
12:32 pm

If all you smart alecs click the ‘Continue reading’ link, you’ll see that I’ve updated this entry with a couple of new ‘mattress line’ hits. Cheeky monkeys. DB.

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Jen
November 11th, 2003
1:49 pm

That whole Asweepay thing reminds me of a trick a friend of mine played on a poor co-op once. He managed to convince the kid that the word “Fragile” on all the shipping boxes was actually pronounced “fra-gee-lee” because it’s the name of their Italian Specialty Box manufacturer.

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reemer
November 24th, 2003
9:50 am

saw it in this week’s SI (College Basketball preview) in Inside Hockey…

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