Ninja is alive and well (Picture: Getty)
It may be a fictional disease, but it has proved highly contagious across the internet in recent days with thousands now talking about ‘Ligma’.
The obvious question arises, ‘what is Ligma?’ and that is the whole point of the pretty questionable joke, because the answer is meant to be funny.
This all came about from someone on Instagram posting a fake picture that suggested the renowned gamer Ninja was dead.
The post included the caption ‘let’s make fake news’ so it was clearly a joke and it got very silly, very quickly.
Ligma has not killed anyone (Picture: Getty Images)
Tyler ‘Ninja’ Belvins’ fictional death was blamed on the equally fictional disease ‘Ligma’ by someone else on Instagram and this rumour became pretty popular.
When those unaware of the joke asked what ‘Ligma’ is, the witty protagonist can reply, ‘ligma balls’.
Then we all have a big old laugh and no one is actually dead or infected with a deadly new disease.
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Here is an example of the first-class gag in action on Twitter…
It first appeared that Ninja wasn’t a fan of the joke as he asked Twitch moderators to ban users from commenting the word ‘Ligma’ in chat.
However, he seems to have come round to it, as he himself tweeted it at YouTube star PewDiePie and the two internet celebs had a lovely old time and lolled all the way home.
Ligma — Ninja (@Ninja) July 22, 2018
Not only is Ligma nothing to fear, but it can do plenty for the health of your internet following.
Internet comedian SupremePatty posted this video of his own ‘Ligma’ diagnosis and at the time of writing it has been viewed over 3.1m times.
Get well soon Patty.
Ligma is no joke @therealdrmiami @millz A post shared by Supreme Patty (@supremepatty) on Jul 20, 2018 at 7:23pm PDT
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Being a celebrity in 2018 is all about access: people want influencers to constantly create new content, or they expect regular fan interaction. The golden YouTube standard is daily uploads, while Twitch streamers broadcast for hours on end. So when Twitch’s biggest Fortnite streamer, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins went offline for some of the day last week, fans wondered if something had happened to him. That’s when a troll stepped in to “explain” the situation.
The aptly named Instagram account “Ninja Hater” created a terrible Photoshop that put the Fortnite extraordinaire next to deceased figures such as Michael Jackson and Tupac. It was obviously fake — the appended caption read, “lets make fake news,” meaning that the user wanted people to believe Blevins had died during his brief disappearance. Sure enough, the next day another Instagram account reposted the image and said they couldn’t believe that Blevins had died of ligma.
Ligma, for the record, is not a real medical condition. Actually, it’s a joke: the whole point is that people don’t know what it is, so when you mention it, they’re likely to ask, “What’s ligma?” That’s when you’re supposed to say “lick my nuts.” Yup, that’s it. That’s the whole joke! It’s basically the newest iteration of “bofa deez nuts.” The term was not invented with the Ninja death hoax, as Urban Dictionary has an entry dating back to June 13th, but this latest stunt has definitely pushed the word into mainstream consciousness. This would explain why nearly everyone on Blevins’ YouTube comments are talking about ligma:
Blevins can’t tweet anything right now without half the replies being about ligma, and there are YouTube videos about ligma with millions of views:
It’s gotten so bad that Blevins has had to ban the word ligma from his chat, though he’s probably still not safe from seeing it. The joke has spread so that people are just generally trying to trick each other into asking what ligma is:
All of this is facilitated by memes that make ligma seem real:
For everyone asking what Ligma is , pic.twitter.com/4rlOfGFs9l — KEEM (@KEEMSTAR) July 23, 2018
Mostly, though, ligma is just an excuse to shitpost:
Press F to Cure Ligma.
Raise awareness.
Race towards a cure. pic.twitter.com/gJkCeOhZgf — MatPat (@MatPatGT) July 22, 2018
By this point, Blevins has accepted that his fans are fixated on ligma, and has started cracking jokes of his own about it:
As ligma spreads, internet denizens are also starting to move on to other similar types of jokes that people might not know about in an effort to keep things fresh. (Like sugma — as in, “suck my nuts.”) But even if the internet moves away and forgets about ligma, the fact this happened at all cements Blevins’ status on the internet: you know you’re big when people make up death hoaxes about you.
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Ninja_Hater is an Instagram account with just over 3,000 followers, but a joke post from July 16 has turned into a major hoax centered around the word “ligma.”
Ligma is a joke similar to any joke in the “Deez Nuts” camp; someone says “ligma,” and when another person asks what ligma means, the response is, “ligma balls.” The play on words picked up speed this past week after a number of meme accounts on Instagram and Twitter started trolling people by claiming Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins died from “ligma,” insinuating it was a disease.
Ninja_Hater is credited with starting the hoax that led to a couple of publications reporting on people’s reaction to the joke, hundreds of distressed fans and a recent PewDiePie video about the subject that’s amassed more than five million views in 24 hours. The person behind the meme account, however, told Polygon that turning ligma into a meme was a community effort.
“I personally like the joke and how it’s really kept the joke going, and even spread to other people,” Ninja_Hater, who didn’t want to be identified, told Polygon.
Here’s how Ninja and a community of meme accounts managed to turn a quick, offhanded joke into an actual death hoax.
What happened?
A subreddit dedicated to the crank launched in mid-June, but this particular incident started as a campaign to circulate a fake story about Blevins’ death. Ninja_Hate’s initial post, seen below, features Blevins standing in heaven alongside some other famous dead people, ranging from Michael Jackson and Prince to Harambe and rapper Lil Peep. Ninja_Hate captioned the photo with a plea for his followers to spread a fake message claiming Blevins died.
“My account started over trying to mess with a friend, and then I just kept it going for fun,” Ninja_Hater said. “The whole ‘Ninja dying’ joke was just to see how much it would spread, and to shake up the internet community.”
The image Ninja_Hater used started spreading on Twitter, causing fans to tweet at Blevins asking him to check in. The hoax was further spurred on by trolls — and believed by anxious fans — who noted Blevins hadn’t streamed in a day. That may not seem like an abnormal amount of time to stay away from streaming, but it is for Blevins, who often streams daily. He recently told Ethan Klein on the H3H3 Podcast that he set up a strict routine for himself.
“The schedule is: 9:30 is when I start in the morning and then I play until 4, so that’s like six, six-and-a-half hours,” Blevins said. “Then I’ll take a nice three- to four-hour break with the wife, the dogs or family — we have like family nights, too — and then come back on around 7 o’clock central until like 2, 3 in the morning. The minimum is 12 hours a day, and then I’ll sleep for less than six or seven hours.”
All of these factors led to a perfect maelstrom of confusion and miscommunication.
“Dude, i thought you died from ligma”
Ninja_Hater’s trollish hoax spread quickly on Instagram.
Another user, Spookid, who has more than 125,000 followers, shared the photo. He later left a comment on Blevins’ own Instagram account while the hoax was in its prime asking what happened to Blevins.
“What the fuck i thought you died from ligma,” Spookid wrote.
This message caught Blevins’ attention. Blevins responded by asking what ligma was, playing into the very joke the internet hoped he would. The responses to Blevins’ question, and Spookid’s original response, continue to grow as people reply with the term “ligma balls.”
The joke quickly got out of hand. A screenshot of a DM from Blevins sent to Spookid asking Spookid to stop spreading the news was posted on Spookid’s account on July 1().
A post shared by (@spookid) on Jul 17, 2018 at 7:08pm PDT
Ninja_Hater wasn’t prepared for ligma disease to go viral.
“Honestly, I imagined a few friends I had on this account would repost it, their followers get fooled a little bit, and that would be it,” they said.
Ongoing shenanigans from people on Twitter, Instagram, blog posts and replies from Blevins himself turned ligma from a joke term most people didn’t know into a Fortnite meme.
Urban Dictionary started referring to ligma as a “rare disease that usually Fortnite players carry,” adding “the disease was believed to take the life of famous streamer Ninja.” Different copypasta subreddit threads, which are dedicated to copy and pasting blocks of texts and changing aspects to reflect a meme, are full of references to ligma taking Blevins’ life. Here’s an example from an “official PSA” on Reddit.
PSA: Ligament interruption gait maximum aridity, or LIGMA for short, is a serious disease that we need to be on the look out for. It stops the use of your ligaments due to the immense heat we are facing this summer. One of the known signs is when it affects your walking. If someone you love starts to walk in a weird way, tell them, “You may need to see a doctor. I think you have LIGMA.” It just might save their life. Ninja isnt the first one to be affected by LIGMA but together, he could be the last. Rest in peace Tyler Blevins.
The meme community on Instagram took full credibility for turning ligma into something more than an offhanded joke. This is what Instagram’s meme community does; and they’re good at it.
“It’s just been amazing just getting on Instagram, and seeing a goofy little picture I made in 30 seconds everywhere I go,” Ninja_Hater said, who added they consider themselves a part of the meme community on instagram. “I’ve interacted with many other accounts small and large even before this account blew up.
“I’d consider myself a niche meme page if that makes sense.”
Instagram’s meme community is popular, but it’s not exactly mainstream. It took attention from some of YouTube’s most popular creators to really get the meme rolling.
The YouTube effect
Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg, DramaAlert and Scarce, a popular commentary channel on YouTube, all covered the meme within days of the first post. By Monday, there were close to seven million collective views between the three channels, all of which cover the term and laugh at the situation.
Capturing the attention of major YouTubers like Kjellberg, Ninja_Hater said, was something he had in mind from the very beginning. Despite a controversial past, having a creator like Kjellberg, known among the meme community as a top commentator, is a win for memesters like Ninja_Hater. Kjellberg’s channel has changed a few times over the course of his career on YouTube; his pivot to covering memes as part of his Meme Review or even “Last Week I Asked You” show is a big part of his current programming strategy.
“That was something I was hoping would happen from the very beginning,” Ninja_Hater said. “I’m definitely not a PewDiePie fan, but the fame that he has and him talking about some joke I made seemed like a crazy thought.”
Kjellberg’s video has received quite a bit of attention — including from Blevins himself. Blevins left a video in the video’s comment section jumping in on the joke. This followed a brief exchange on Twitter between Blevins and Kjellberg that included Blevins jokingly asking, “what’s ligma?”
Here’s what Blevins wrote on the video:
“RiP Ninja ... that damn ligma.”
The comment has nearly 120,000 likes, making it one of the most popular comments in YouTube history.
All of which stems from Ninja_Hater’s joke. Despite the hoax’s success, and his involvement in the situation, Ninja_Hater hasn’t spoken to Blevins. That’s not to suggest he doesn’t want to, though.
“I would be open to hearing his feelings about it if he wants to reach out to me,” Ninja_Hater said. “I think [the joke] took off because people on the internet tend to believe anything they see. Many people still DM me asking if Ninja is dead when a simple Google search shows he isn’t. It also helped that Ninja happened to be out on some personal time, which I didn’t know, actually.”
Blevins, who is not suffering from a disease called ligma and is very much alive, has returned to his normal streaming schedule.
