Minions

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About

Minions are yellow, dwarf-like characters who serve as the mischievous henchmen of the main super-villain protagonist Gru in the American computer-animated comedy film franchise Despicable Me. Since making their debut appearance in the 2010 feature film, the Minions have become a hallmark of the popular film franchise, spawning an extensive line of character merchandises, several short films and even a full-length spin-off prequel film centered around their lives.

Origin

The Minions were first introduced as the supervillain antagonist Gru's personal army of clumsy but lovable assistants in the original film Despicable Me^[1] (shown below, left). Upon the premiere of Despicable Me in 2010, the film was mostly met with positive reviews from the critics and moviegoers, many of whom also highlighted the adorability of the curious and mischievous Minions for their cute appearance and quirky demeanors. In 2013, the yellow pill-shaped characters made their reprisal in the sequel film Despicable Me 2 (shown below, right), in which the Minions play a larger role in the storyline as some of them are turned into purple-furred mutant savages by another villain Eduardo Pérez.

As the popularity of the minor characters continued to grow, three short films loosely connected to the storyline of Despicable Me were released with the DVD edition that same year, Home Makeover, Orientation Day and Banana, in all of which the Minions are prominently featured as main characters. In July 2012, a simulator ride attraction named Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem opened up at Universal Studios Florida, which features a short film starring the characters. In 2013, an additional set of three short films starring the Minions, Puppy, Panic in the Mailroom, and Training Wheels were released as part of the DVD edition of Despicable Me.

Spread

Fandom

On August 18th, 2013, YouTuber Benjamin Storrusten uploaded a video compilation of the Minions' most memorable moments from the first two films in the series, accumulating more than 34 million views over the course of approximately two years.

The films Minions, yellow oval shaped creatures that help Gru in the films and are often featured heavily in the films’ trailers, have gained their own following, especially on Tumblr and DeviantArt^[21], where there are over 67,000 submissions under the Minion tag. Fan Artists often put the Minions into different fandoms, like The Simpsons. (shown below, left) Minions are often inserted into already popular image macro memes including Grumpy Cat (center) and Ancient Aliens (right).

Spin-Off Film: Minions

On June 11th, 2015, Minions, the third and prequel to the first two installments in the Despicable Me franchise that focuses on the lives of the titular characters, premiered in London, with the worldwide release scheduled for July 10th, 2015.

During the weeks leading up to the box office premiere in July, a wide variety of Minions-themed merchandises, products and tie-in advertisements began popping up in retail stores and the mainstream media under the largest-scale and most expansive promotional campaign launched by the film's distributor Universal Pictures in its history. Among the nearly a dozen companies involved in the partnership include McDonald's, General Mills, Tic Tac, Hostess, Amazon and Kotex, as well as major media and tech companies like the UK's Sky Broadband and China's VIVO, as well as Universal's parent company Comcast.

Anti-Fandom

However, due to their intrusiveness and on multiple products, as well as the insistence to continually use the Minions for advertisements organized by Comcast as well as unrelated motivational posts and images, the minions have similarly gathered an anti-fandom online. Due to the mass publicity and merchandising minions got from Comcast and other brands, multiple people became annoyed and enraged by their intrusion, mostly on Facebook in unrelated motivational quotes.

On June 5th, 2015, the subreddit /r/MinionHate was created in which users post minions intruding in brands as well as social media while having a negative reaction to them.^[2] On June 29th, the popular media site Buzzfeed wrote an article in which it posts multiple instances of people "struggling" with Minion posts.^[3] On July 1st, 2015 BuzzFeed posted an article titled "33 Things that prove minions are officially over".^[4]