Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga series of all time. When it ended, Toei Animation released Dragon Ball Z. It ran for 291 episodes in Japan until early in 1996. In the original anime and the Japanese and English mangas, the character Vegeta reports to his henchman that the protagonist Goku's level is actually "over 8000."

A popular Youtube user uploaded the video "9000!! NINE THOUSAAAAANDD!" in 2006. The video received over five million views (definitely NOT over 9000) but was eventually removed. In 2008, the video returned.

This first "9000" video drew massive attention from fans of DBZ and inspired numerous remix videos. The meme quickly spread to YTMND, a popular image site. There'd already been a HAL9000 fad, centered around the sentient on-board computer from the famous Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then right before Christmas '06, a YTMND user created "How much will the PS4 retail for?" Needless to say, the trends melded together--and spawned one of the most popular internet phenomenon ever.

Circulating throughout 4Chan (the infamous imageboard site), an anonymous troublemaker claimed that he was a representative of a network of pedophiles on Oprah Winfrey's message board. Long story short, she fell for it, and it ended up on public television. Considering Oprah's popularity, this was a prank of high magnitude. The original video of the TV talk show host's message was removed for copyright reasons by Oprah's multimedia production company. But that wouldn't stop the internet which quickly became dominated with the fad.

The phrase is currently used for jokingly saying "Tons!" or "A lot!" when referring to a relatively large quantity.

--But you knew that already, didn't you?


Source(s): http://knowyourmeme.com/
The source(s) listed were not copied from verbatim. This blog is an original work.