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A brief history of Apu Apustaja, translated from know your meme knowyournneme.com with minor structuring.In
the beginning Apu Apustaja was an intensely forced meme originating from Ylilauta and based on Spurdo Spärde-style MS Paint art
In 2013, an anonymous user felt compelled to document the food assistance they received on Ylilauta, (Finnish imageboard akin to 4chan).
These threads typically began with a pony image and a message like, “Food assistance today: (names of food items and side dishes).”Not long after these original food-assistance threads began, other users started parody threads poking fun at socially awkward individuals receiving food aid.
These parody posts featured poorly drawn anime characters with captions in all caps, detailing exaggerated “incidents” like biting the food assistance worker or locking their "waifu" in a basement.The Apu Apustaja meme emerged when a third group of users started creating food-assistance threads written in a distorted text style resembling “Spurdo language, (see Spurdo Spärde, an another Finnish meme predating Apu)” but sounding more like a person suffering from mental retardation. Images in these threads often featured a Pepe-like character hanging from a bunk bed, eventually getting fused with drawing style and aesthetics of Spurdo Spärde and developing into what we know today as Apu Apustaja.
This meme gained significant popularity on the board by late 2016.Technically, the frog character in these images is the one being "helped" by Apu Apustaja, but the depth of the meme reveals itself in the concept that Apustaja is also a developmentally disabled frog. In this society of Apustajas / in the Apuverse, all frogs are retarded and help each other out.
Many threads have been dedicated to various Apu Apustaja creations, and one even achieved legendary status at Ylilauta.In early 2017, anti-anime sentiment on Ylilauta's Random board became so intense that anime posting was banned for several weeks. Many anti-anime users came to view the Apu meme as the opposite of anime, so anime-themed versions of Apu caused considerable irritation among anime haters and served as a way to share anime content despite the ban on the Random board.By 2020, Apu Apustaja had already spread widely to major international forums, including 4chan, where by 2021, it began to displace the original Pepe memes of the board.
In international meme culture, Apustaja is often called simply "Apu," though the full name remains surprisingly popular. In Apu-related stories, the typical word "kamerus" is often translated as "fren" in English. In international imageboard culture, Apu is also often associated with a character known as the "burger girl" ("Ashbie"), but this meme hasn’t become popular in Finnish imageboard culture.
Apu is oringed from frope, a cute frog that was drawn by Jerry Saltz a man born in Netherlands in the 1920s.
Apustuskieli (Apu language), unlike Spurdogiel (Spurdo language), can’t be defined by a few simple rules; instead, it highlights the writer's creativity and their ability to immerse themselves in the world of Apustajas. Generally, Apustuskieli breaks Finnish grammar rules, misinterprets the structure and meanings of words, and creatively alters forms.
Common features include adding an "n" at the end of the second syllable, as in “järkynttävää” or “kauhinstunttavaa” (additional "n"s are often added to long words), and interpreting the Finnish suffix "-llista" as "loista" or "lista," like “harmin loista” or “ilon lista.” Additionally, parts of words or entire words are interpreted as different word classes, creating a poetic effect.
This creative manipulation sometimes results in phrases that resemble skilled poetry, with some of the best Apustuskieli aphorisms from long Apu threads bringing to mind high-quality modern poetry (memeologists take note: Any Doctoral dissertations on Apu threads as modern poetic expressions are yet to be written).
Here it should be noted that Finnish is grammatically very complex language, in which you can use the grammar purposely wrong/in a silly way to create a still understandable, but audibly retarded versions of something you want to say.
It can be thought as kind of humorous poetry. Usually this doesn't translate to English, where Apus speech is usually just kept in mistyping various words. See also: Eggcorn, a linguistic phenomenon related to the creative wordplay in Apustuskieli.
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