What does „do the barrel roll“ mean?
Do a barrel roll refers to an internet meme that is primarily used to caption images or gifs of people, animals, and objects performing a 360-degree turn away from the camera (or attempting to). It is also a sarcastic alternative to questions being asked online.
Where does do the roll barrel come from?
This is a mark of a real life athletics feat, in which an airplane does a single turn along its longitudinal axis. The maneuver became popular in the 1920s, with the onset of military aircraft correspondence.
Know Your Meme reports that Do a barrel roll takes its name from the gaming console Star Fox 64, in which a character named Peppy Hare (known as Peppy Bunny on Google Images) repeatedly demanded that the player perform the stunt to avert getting shot by lasers. Peppy Hare’s insistent challenge inspired the unforgettable victory over the lasers motif.
Star Fox’s Kyle Hill explained in April 2014 that the typical maneuver by which pilots convert the wings of an aircraft into a helicopter is not a barrel roll, but known as an aileron roll. Unfortunately, Hill went on to explain at length that this maneuver would not even benefit a spaceship.
In terms of opposition party members, the sarcasm present when someone tells you to do a barrel roll probably hinges on the absurdity, or at least uselessness, of the tactic in question.
The original support base of the meme was The image-posting website 4chan in the early 2000s. It was primarily used to caption photos and videos of people, animals, and things doing absolutely nothing at all or unsuccessfully.
Who uses it? Who is using do the barrel roll?
The earliest entry on Urban Dictionary, from January 30, 2004, points out an answer to all questions of life, the universe, and everything with a reference to doing a barrel roll in jest. For instance, if a friend asks you for advice (e.g., “I’m so unprepared for tomorrow’s final exam. What should I do?”), you might respond in a less than helpful fashion by saying, “Do the barrel roll.”
Considering the passing of time, this now decade-old meme remains popular even as memes continue to be popular. People use it on social media sites as a catch-all answer to any number of questions, and sometimes it refers to a real-life scenario where it is literally rolling all over. It is said in a variety of online chat rooms as a non-sequitur.
Any time a live stream includes a video game, it’s not uncommon for people to request that the gamer their own “do a barrel roll!” Some people may only try this with the intention of seeing the gamer try to execute the action or in order to make themselves feel like a jerk.
In November 2011, Google added an easter egg to their search results. Entering “do a barrel roll” into Google would result in the entire results page rotating 360 degrees.
How do you do the barrel roll trick?
In 2011, Google rolled out a barrel-roll feature for its search engine that was still being used as of this writing. To enable an authentic Google-style barrel roll, all you have to do to perform it is type the keyword “do a barrel roll” into the search bar and hit enter.
Do a barrel roll – history.
- Barrel roll has been used since dogfighting emerged as a strategy for aerial combat.
- The torpedo attack originated as a military aircraft maneuver in 1913.
- After dogfighting’s debut in 1913, the barrel roll was utilized by airplane fighters in flight combat.
- The barrel roll manoeuvre was integrated into a video game titled Star Fox that was released in the Unites States in September 1993. At the level where the player could struggle with enemies, a double tap of buttons L and R allowed the character to roll the barrel around them in order to avoid lasers.
- The phrase “do a barrel roll” comes from after one level in the Nintendo 64 video game Star Fox 64. You are about to run in to four stationary turrets, they are not damaged, and they are covering four areas. When you get near the turret, your character pays the price and he flies right into the side of the turret, mid-air, and rolls right across it
The first Urban Dictionary1 definition was created on January 30, 2004. During the Tom Green raids of 2006, the term was sometimes used to prank call Green during his show. It is frequently cited on the image board 4chan and one of the first archived threads6 dates back to August 2, 2007.
On Facebook’s official page[7], there are currently 14,796 people involved with the self-titled fan page, and there have been more than 200 lolcat submissions uploaded as of November 3rd, 2011. For more about fan page memes, refer to the website Immense Viral.
Google Easter Egg
On November 3. 2011, the Google search engine enabled an Easter egg for the search query “to the a barrel roll” that would rotate the entire screen 360 degrees. The hack was later covered by Kotaku[2], The Huffington Post[3] and Tech Crunch[4] on the same day.
