I’m not sure of the origin, but I know the channel g4 tech tv has a segment on their show, Attack of the Show, which covers an abundance of blunders. They constantly announce these blunders as EPIC FAIL’s. I believe their coining of the term might be the reason for its reemergence.
I always thought it was like the flip side of “win,” which I’ve been seeing on message boards for years. As in, if somebody makes a particularly hilarious or scathing comment in a thread, someone will come along and say they “win the thread.” That gets shortened to just “Win.”
Anything done awesomely is a “win” (win the internet, win life, whatever), and anything awesomely screwed up becomes “fail.”
It’s an Epoch Fail!
ya rly!!
Epic fail is overused now. As far as I know, the main difference between a standard fail and an epic fail should be that the epic fail produces the exact opposite of the intended result of the attempt, or at least contains a profound sense of irony.
Epic fail #1
Epic fail #2 (though not captioned as such)
Lately people seem to be applying epic fail to anything and everything, which kind of loses impact.
My understanding is that a disaster where you were just doing something normal is a fail. A disaster where you were trying to show off is an epic fail.
Just want to make it clear that this is in itself a meme, although it’s not allowed on this board.
I’ve gotten so used to the SDMB’s rules that this particular meme actively pisses me off on other boards.
Oh, and in case anyone’s wondering, the “over 9000” thing that showed up earlier in this thread is a reference to a low-budget anime (Dragonball Z?). A scout investigates the power level of an enemy, and reports that it’s over 9000 (which is apparently supposed to be a big deal, in context).
all you need to know to understand memes
What is in itself a meme?
And what’s not allowed on his board?
And why?
Which particular meme pisses you off?
Why?
-FrL-
Quoting someone with edits to their post is a meme – usually the respondent will alter one or two words for comical effect and say, simply, “Fix’d”. This means “I fixed the tiny flaw in your post,” but usually the entire sense of the post is reversed or made nonsensical. It’s not allowed on the SDMB because we have a blanket policy that the QUOTE tag should absolutely include the other person’s words and only their words. You can excerpt another poster for brevity but misquoting while using the QUOTE tag is a no-no.
Actually it was a rather high budget anime, one of the most popular of all time, and the guy saying it was the Big Bad of that particular arc (who later became an ally about three quarters of the way through the next one). The reference to “scout” was the thing he broke, called a scouter which reads power levels. Goku (the Orange guy) hit his head and lost his memory as a baby who was sent to destroy the planet, he was considered a lower class warrior, and so the fact his power level was that high was insane (I think it was higher than the Bald Guy’s, Nappa, who is a higher class)… Goku then proceeds to wipe the floor with them. The humor just comes from the fact that the line was delivered so over the top by Vegeta’s (the guy in blue) voiceactor. And you were correct on it being DBZ.
Okay, really, when 90% of people talk about 4chan at all they’re talking about /b/, the fact that we’re talking about a meme pretty much cements it in /b/, it’s not like internet memes start in /x/ or /mu/ very often. So I was correct, albeit indirectly. 
Yep, pretty much. On other more juvenile boards, you’ll see something like:
Original post:
Response:
The rule on the SDMB against changing quotes was instituted as a defense against potential lawsuits, IIRC, but over time I’ve come to view it as simply rude. Putting words in someone else’s mouth isn’t civil discourse, even if it’s only meant as a joke.
Really? What did they spend it on? Most of the animation is just repetition of recycled frames or panning across a still image, the voice acting (at least in English translation) is terrible, and from what I’ve seen, the story isn’t anything to write home about, either.
I’m just glad it isn’t furry friday. Where’s borg tom delay when you need him?
I can’t speak about the budget, but I must defend DBZ. The best way of explaining it’s charm is by describing it as something akin to a male soap-opera, or perhaps like professional wrestling. The story is often cheesy, the action scenes aren’t the best, but you bond to the characters and get hooked. You want to see whose ‘power level’ will be highest next, what character will come back from the dead, or who will gather the dragon balls. Sure it’s not high art, but it’s entertaining in a wrestling, soap-opera way.
I guess another factor for its charm is that it came out in America when my generation was in middle school. It was the perfect anime for our time.
Oh, and btw the original Japanese is superior in every way. Funimation censored and edited DBZ to hell to make it more kiddy.
I actually can’t find the cost, oddly enough. But Dragonball was a very popular Manga in Japan before it was an anime, and usually very popular = higher budget. I could be wrong.
The English version, despite being obviously worse, does grow on you after a while though. 
You win 10 free internets.
Joe
I accidentally the cat.
Joe
/facepalm
pics or gtfo