There was a period of like 2 years when I was a kid where chuck Norris jokes were all the rage on the playground and I made an iPhone app that listed them all.
Jokes like “Chuck Norris is able to slam a revolving door.”
Anyway, I “built” this stupid app when I was like 13, copy-pasted like 300 jokes in there and a random one would show every time you tapped the screen.
Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.
For the first time in over a decade he was suddenly relevant in a way. People remembered he existed, and they were playing off his tough guy image.
And what did he do? Try and shut it down and start suing people. Stupid.
It took him a couple of years to come around to it. If it wasn’t for those jokes would he be remembered anywhere as well? Or would he be a much more obscure celebrity by now?
The Ruby gem "Faker" is used for generating fake data for testing, like legit-looking names, emails, phone numbers, lorum ipsum text, etc. About 10 years ago I was working on a messaging app, and wanted some real messages to see in the UI while I was developing it. One of the best engineering decisions I've made in my career was to pick the Chuck Norris Facts generator for the messages, so every time I re-seeded my local db or looked at a review app on staging, I was greeted by two fake people sending a half-dozen Chuck Norris facts to each other.
In India, we have Rajni (Rajnikanth) jokes that keep increasing in number and are still pretty popular...
I remember reading 'The Vinci Code' in college which was very popular those days and getting a SMS from a friend almost the same day, "Rajnikanth gave Monalisa that smile!".
I did something similar when Microsoft gave away Windows Phones for every app published on the app store. I used the Chuck Norris API though. The one I used is sadly no longer available (I think it was called CNDB). But there's a new one: https://api.chucknorris.io
Having been near the epicenter, I recall that Vin Diesel jokes (same format) pre-dated Chuck Norris ones. I always found it a shame that the Chuck Norris ones caught on; Vin Diesel is, imo, a better role model.
> Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.
Seeing the youthful spirit run headfirst into the corprocracy of locked down devices and app stores is depressing. Twenty years ago you would have made a webapp or flash animation, most likely avoided scrutiny and not even been shaken down. Thirty years ago you would have made a QBasic program and floppy/email/dcc it to your friends, completely illegible to the corprocracy. But these days simply trying to publish through the common channels, and you're immediately subject to restrictions made for businesses.
I don’t age. I level up.
I’m 86 today! Nothing like some playful action on a sunny day to make you feel young. I’m grateful for another year, good health and the chance to keep doing what I love. Thank you all for being the best fans in the world. Your support through the years has meant more to me than you’ll ever know.
God Bless,
Chuck Norris
Jokes aside, this octogenarian was living his golden years enviably. He was summiting peaks last fall, doing 500 lb barbell curls, and still sparring in his birthday video just 10 days ago. We’ve all gotta go sometime, but the way Chuck Norris went out was the way I’d want to go—able to do it all right up until the end. He was a lot of folks’ childhood hero, but that title is freshly renewed in my eyes. I have new inspiration in my fitness endeavors going forward.
While normally making jokes after a person's death would be socially questionable, in this case Chuck Norris himself loved the Chuck Norris jokes. For me at least, a good sense of humor is maybe the most endearing personality trait. RIP
I can only assume Chuck has decided to relieve the grim reaper of his duties, leaving us all here to meet our own end not with a scythe but a roundhouse kick.
I remember trade chat (/2) in wow on the Medivh server would often turn into Chuck Norris jokes. There were always about how bad ass Chuck was. How tough and impossibly manly.
One of my favorites.
Chuck Norris jumped into a lake. Chuck Norris didn't get wet. The lake got Chucked.
Trade chat (like /b/) was never great, but one of the first WoW addons I developed was designed to filter out garbage like this, and make idling with your guildies in Ironforge tolerable.
It's funny for a while, in measured amounts, and then it becomes tiresome.
17 years ago we launched the first "Chuck Norris Facts" app for Android (March 2009). It was a big success until end of 2010 when Chuck Norris sent his lawyers after us to get the app removed from the Android market. Chuck Norris won, we took the app down
From Reddit: "I heard that the opening 27 minutes of Saving Private Ryan were loosely based on a game of dodgeball played by Chuck Norris in 2nd grade." ;-)
Chuck Norris (and Michael Landon) were golden age role models for young men. Strong but thoughtful, firm but compassionate, and deeply principled but also practical. Yes, these were acting roles but they picked those roles for a reason. Rest in peace, Chuck.
So I guess Chuck Norris has now keys for the Pearly Gates and is the one who gets to pick the heavenly club members. I'm sure roundhouse kicks are somehow part of the process.
So many commenters here are, or choose to be, completely obvlivious to the fact that Chuck Norris was a racist little man who decried Obama becoming president, supported Trump through both campaigns, and openly hated muslims and gay people.
He was a hero in tech and science as well. I recall during my PhD studies, we always create new memes on our field that Chuck can finish things in no time. In loving memory of Chuck Norris.
I even remember the times he was not vintage yet, but the real thing. Maybe even watched his famous fight scene with Bruce Lee on the cheap cinemas back in the day. Good days. RIP .
Oh wow, coincidentally I watched a Chuck Norris film recently with my (90 year old) grandmother, which resulted in me diving down a bunch of Chuck Norris memes for the first time in more than a decade.
Not even every important influential person in tech gets the black bar. You think an actor who is mostly known for low-effort internet memes and pretending to be a cowboy on tv deserves it?
My mother told me, "Chuck Norris passed today at 86" and my mind immediately went to, "I would never expect him to pass anyone on the sidewalk at any slower speed."
Was it the part where he wanted public schools to force the Bible on everyone's children, regardless of their family's faith?
Or was it the part where he attacked the Boy Scouts for lifting their ban on gay members, because he broadly hates the LGBTQ+ community?
Or, likewise, when he staunchly supported Prop 8, because he felt that the government should enforce strict "traditional family values", and deny consenting adults he doesn't like to marry each other?
Or was it when he said that a Black president would bring "1000 years of darkness"?
Or was it when he said that Muslims were going to destroy America with Sharia law, merely for existing?
Or was it the part where he supported aggressive ICE action against anyone perceived to be foreign?
Just trying to understand how someone this despicable deserves the compliment you gave him. The only good version of Chuck Norris I know about is the pretend version from memes.
Total Gym XLS has a 1-1.25" carriage bar for adding weight. 5gal bucket weights are the correct diameter to leave a gap between the weights and the floor.
> Curbing violent crime is still more about what we do than it is about what government does. The answer is still more about nature’s law within us than it is about man’s law outside of us.
— Chuck Norris, 2012
What a load of horseshit. Government is "what we do." It's not imposed by alien pod-persons.
Very cool thread. Middle school jokes and culture wars. I’m so glad we don’t allow political threads on here and can instead bask in the intellectual might of people talking about TV man the did/didn’t like.
There was a period of like 2 years when I was a kid where chuck Norris jokes were all the rage on the playground and I made an iPhone app that listed them all.
Jokes like “Chuck Norris is able to slam a revolving door.”
Anyway, I “built” this stupid app when I was like 13, copy-pasted like 300 jokes in there and a random one would show every time you tapped the screen.
Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.
It was so funny how that whole thing happened.
For the first time in over a decade he was suddenly relevant in a way. People remembered he existed, and they were playing off his tough guy image.
And what did he do? Try and shut it down and start suing people. Stupid.
It took him a couple of years to come around to it. If it wasn’t for those jokes would he be remembered anywhere as well? Or would he be a much more obscure celebrity by now?
The Ruby gem "Faker" is used for generating fake data for testing, like legit-looking names, emails, phone numbers, lorum ipsum text, etc. About 10 years ago I was working on a messaging app, and wanted some real messages to see in the UI while I was developing it. One of the best engineering decisions I've made in my career was to pick the Chuck Norris Facts generator for the messages, so every time I re-seeded my local db or looked at a review app on staging, I was greeted by two fake people sending a half-dozen Chuck Norris facts to each other.
https://github.com/faker-ruby/faker/blob/main/lib/locales/en...
His estate? While he was still alive?
Jeff Dean got his Chuck Norris app published by Chuck Norris.
I'm pretty sure they were all the rage when _I_ was at school, but that was long before the iPhone.
I'm curious on what grounds they blocked the app.
I knew of "Walker, Texas Ranger" but the jokes definitely kept him relevant to my generation (age: 49) for a resurgent period of time.
The only one I remember offhand:
"Chuck Norris doesn't do pushups, he pushes the world down."
The expendables had a scene that was basically the meme in live action, highly recommend. It’s all over YouTube.
I printed out all the jokes on my dad's home office printer and sold copies at school. This was pre smartphones.
John Wick wears Chuck Norris pajamas. RIP to a legend.
Was this before or after Mike Huckabee started publicly offering Chuck Norris as his solution to "border security" on the campaign trail?
In India, we have Rajni (Rajnikanth) jokes that keep increasing in number and are still pretty popular...
I remember reading 'The Vinci Code' in college which was very popular those days and getting a SMS from a friend almost the same day, "Rajnikanth gave Monalisa that smile!".
I'm still enjoying the Nolan jokes / memes, but in a weird way because of course, via https://www.reddit.com/r/CroppedNorrisJokes/
I did something similar when Microsoft gave away Windows Phones for every app published on the app store. I used the Chuck Norris API though. The one I used is sadly no longer available (I think it was called CNDB). But there's a new one: https://api.chucknorris.io
Only God could defeat Chuck Norris.
In had one app like that from Cydia Loved it.
i created a Facebook App that did something similar, it posted random jokes on your wall
This was like 2005-2006
Having been near the epicenter, I recall that Vin Diesel jokes (same format) pre-dated Chuck Norris ones. I always found it a shame that the Chuck Norris ones caught on; Vin Diesel is, imo, a better role model.
I bet Vin wouldn't have blocked your app.
> Chuck Norris’s estate blocked the app from going live. I wish I had printed that rejection out and framed it.
Seeing the youthful spirit run headfirst into the corprocracy of locked down devices and app stores is depressing. Twenty years ago you would have made a webapp or flash animation, most likely avoided scrutiny and not even been shaken down. Thirty years ago you would have made a QBasic program and floppy/email/dcc it to your friends, completely illegible to the corprocracy. But these days simply trying to publish through the common channels, and you're immediately subject to restrictions made for businesses.
Death had to take Chuck Norris sleeping, for if he had been awake, there would have been a fight.
Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep. He waits.
Chuck Norris never slept, he just waited
And yet death was defeated. And with that, Chuck Norris took up its mantle.
they were better when they were Vin Diesel jokes.
Haha, good one.
I will have to steal this one for my upcoming valedictorian speech.
The crowd is going to love it.
from his instagram for his last birthday ( https://www.instagram.com/p/DVtiSHbETbX/ )
Literally 10 days ago
Jokes aside, this octogenarian was living his golden years enviably. He was summiting peaks last fall, doing 500 lb barbell curls, and still sparring in his birthday video just 10 days ago. We’ve all gotta go sometime, but the way Chuck Norris went out was the way I’d want to go—able to do it all right up until the end. He was a lot of folks’ childhood hero, but that title is freshly renewed in my eyes. I have new inspiration in my fitness endeavors going forward.
> 500 lb barbell curls
?
He was supposed to die last year, but death took a while to muster the courage to call him.
Death once had a near-Chuck experience
He finally defeated life
While normally making jokes after a person's death would be socially questionable, in this case Chuck Norris himself loved the Chuck Norris jokes. For me at least, a good sense of humor is maybe the most endearing personality trait. RIP
I can only assume Chuck has decided to relieve the grim reaper of his duties, leaving us all here to meet our own end not with a scythe but a roundhouse kick.
Shades of Piers Anthony's "On a Pale Horse," Death showed up to take Chuck Norris and Chuck killed him, taking his place.
Chuck Norris once slapped Pi so hard it became rational for a moment.
RIP dude, we’d continue the jokes, may your soul laughs as hard as we do.
Chuck Norris once bet 42 is a prime. He won.
Sorry, but these Chuck Norris jokes are more like Bruce Schneier facts: https://www.schneierfacts.com/
Chuck Norris haven't died, he just went to carry out the Last Judgement of God (ant probably torture Satan on the way).
I'm sure he'll get better soon
Chuck never dies.
one of my favorite stack overflow questions: Why does HTML think “chucknorris” is a color?
https://stackoverflow.com/q/8318911
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that early browser developers must have really been on quite a lot of drugs.
Some recent discussion on that one a couple Advents ago:
https://htmhell.dev/adventcalendar/2024/20/ (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42468318)
I remember trade chat (/2) in wow on the Medivh server would often turn into Chuck Norris jokes. There were always about how bad ass Chuck was. How tough and impossibly manly.
One of my favorites.
Chuck Norris jumped into a lake. Chuck Norris didn't get wet. The lake got Chucked.
Trade chat (like /b/) was never great, but one of the first WoW addons I developed was designed to filter out garbage like this, and make idling with your guildies in Ironforge tolerable.
It's funny for a while, in measured amounts, and then it becomes tiresome.
17 years ago we launched the first "Chuck Norris Facts" app for Android (March 2009). It was a big success until end of 2010 when Chuck Norris sent his lawyers after us to get the app removed from the Android market. Chuck Norris won, we took the app down
I fear the crime wave as the thugs hear about this and take the streets back. Be careful out there people.
From Reddit: "I heard that the opening 27 minutes of Saving Private Ryan were loosely based on a game of dodgeball played by Chuck Norris in 2nd grade." ;-)
Death will soon realize that he messed with the wrong man.
Chuck Norris didn’t die, we simply phased out of his reality.
Chuck Norris (and Michael Landon) were golden age role models for young men. Strong but thoughtful, firm but compassionate, and deeply principled but also practical. Yes, these were acting roles but they picked those roles for a reason. Rest in peace, Chuck.
"Deeply principled" really doesn't describe Obama birther conspiracists.
Chuck Norris was no role model, unless you want your young men to grow up as fascist Christian nationalist homophobes.
He was openly maga and a homophobe and a transphobe. I wouldn’t consider these qualities for a role model.
It's a trick; he will come back unscathed in the next episode.
There's not a body inside Chuck Norris's casket, there's just a fist.
So I guess Chuck Norris has now keys for the Pearly Gates and is the one who gets to pick the heavenly club members. I'm sure roundhouse kicks are somehow part of the process.
Why do I feel like an era has ended...
Rest in peace.
Clickbait. He is not dead, he just decided to retire from the world of mortals.
Chuck Norris doesn't upvote on Hacker News. His presence alone sends posts to the front page. No more.
The Grim Reaper wished that Chuck Norris had only come to play chess with him!
Chuck Norris dominated WoW Barrens chat back in the day. It was kind of weird and amazing at the same time.
So many commenters here are, or choose to be, completely obvlivious to the fact that Chuck Norris was a racist little man who decried Obama becoming president, supported Trump through both campaigns, and openly hated muslims and gay people.
Yeah, really tough guy.
Yeah, I was pretty bummed with how Chuck Norris and Hulk Hogan turned out in the end.
Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice.
Chuck Norris didn't die. He simply moved to a parallel Earth that needed him.
He was a hero in tech and science as well. I recall during my PhD studies, we always create new memes on our field that Chuck can finish things in no time. In loving memory of Chuck Norris.
The earth was too scared to have him on it anymore...
Chuck Norris let him win
I even remember the times he was not vintage yet, but the real thing. Maybe even watched his famous fight scene with Bruce Lee on the cheap cinemas back in the day. Good days. RIP .
Oh wow, coincidentally I watched a Chuck Norris film recently with my (90 year old) grandmother, which resulted in me diving down a bunch of Chuck Norris memes for the first time in more than a decade.
RIP
Chuck Norris does not go to heaven, heaven comes to him.
What in the Hell could possibly take down Chuck Norris??? We are all DOOMED!!!
Chuck Norris doesn’t die. Death gets Chuck Norris.
Oh this guy is a legend. Did he do anything with tech peripherally? I hope we can put up a dark top for him as an exception.
Not even every important influential person in tech gets the black bar. You think an actor who is mostly known for low-effort internet memes and pretending to be a cowboy on tv deserves it?
I grew up watching action films in the 80s and 90s. I always like Chuck Norris ones as they had a humour and ridiclousness about them
Films like Missing in Action ,or delta force where the motorbike fires a rocket were just great at the time
I get he had some funny views later in life - but the films were a laugh at the time
Anyone remember barrens chat?
Chuck Norris doesn’t die.
Wishing him speedy recovery! Legend
@dang, given Norris' contributions to Internet culture - the memes - shouldn't he be honored with the black mourning ribbon?
He was known to be racist (at least in later life), so a black mourning ribbon wouldn't be appropriate.
This just means we're in a simulated universe. He's respawned elsewhere.
He immediately asked the ferryman for a coin to get to the other side.
Walker told me I have AIDS https://youtu.be/pQZX0nzvMag
I remember having a "Chuck" plugin installed on our Jenkins back in mid 2010's. Gave me a Chuckle every time i forgot it was there.
Chuck Norris hasn’t died, he summoned the death. RIP.
Chuck Norris decided to take the final sleep on his own. Death tried years ago, but Chuck didn't feel like it.
Chuck Norris died? I didn't think that was possible...
https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/01/13/chuck-norris-homophob...
My mother told me, "Chuck Norris passed today at 86" and my mind immediately went to, "I would never expect him to pass anyone on the sidewalk at any slower speed."
An absolute class act of a human. Life well lived.
He had some pretty awful views that he was pretty loud about, especially later in life. He also cheated on his wife at one point.
However, so as not to speak (purely) ill of the dead, I will say that he was an accomplished martial artist with a prolific film career.
My dad was a film reporter in the late '70s/early '80s, and told me that Chuck Norris had been one of the friendliest celebrities he had ever met.
My dad had some antiquated views himself too. People can have/be both, I suppose.
"Class act" is doing a lot of lifting there
Yeah, his support of the Obama "birther" conspiracy was super classy.
What exactly made him a "class act"?
Was it the part where he wanted public schools to force the Bible on everyone's children, regardless of their family's faith?
Or was it the part where he attacked the Boy Scouts for lifting their ban on gay members, because he broadly hates the LGBTQ+ community?
Or, likewise, when he staunchly supported Prop 8, because he felt that the government should enforce strict "traditional family values", and deny consenting adults he doesn't like to marry each other?
Or was it when he said that a Black president would bring "1000 years of darkness"?
Or was it when he said that Muslims were going to destroy America with Sharia law, merely for existing?
Or was it the part where he supported aggressive ICE action against anyone perceived to be foreign?
Just trying to understand how someone this despicable deserves the compliment you gave him. The only good version of Chuck Norris I know about is the pretend version from memes.
First Wade Boggs and now this. Just awful.
What a legend.
I enjoyed reading the comments here. RIP.
The Grim Reaper requested permissions from Chuck Norris to take his soul.
The only person that can train LLMs with his mind.
Strange if you never heard about Bruce <s>Lee</s> Schneier.
My condolences, he was one of my favorite childhood actor :(
Chuck Norris didn't die -- Death just became Chuck Norris
Death did not come for Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris came for Death.
Death has Chucknorrised?
Chuck Norris didn't have a near death experience, Death had an experience near him.
Chuck Norris didn't die, Death chucknorried.
Wouldn't be suprised, if he dies back and announces a film for next year.
He made it that far in life, that even if you might disagree with him on all and everything, you would still like him.
Just like Val Kilmer?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/mar/18/val-kilmer-resu...
RIP both...
A part of internet dies with him. RIP.
Godspeed. ;~;7
The headline is incorrect. Chuck Norris didn't die, he transcended.
Also, the grim reaper hasn't yet gathered the courage to tell him.
He hasn’t died, he’s just moved on to an eternity of roundhouse kicking Satan.
Death becomes Chuck Norris.
RIP legend
"Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal."
― Chuck Norris
Honestly some of the most successful PR ever to paint a conservative religious bigoted homophobic freak as simply a meme of hyper-masculinity.
They're not that far apart, honestly.
He'll be missed. I basically grew up on his movies.
he has become death.
Chuck Norris doesn't die. He prepares himself for the next battle, with Jeff Dean.
He kicked it, but the consequences of his long-standing support of the march toward hatred and division linger on.
The section on his Wikipedia page is helpfully succinct if you want to understand the basis of my not joining in the japes and jokes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris#Political_views
I'm surprised Chuck Norris agreed to this.
Total Gym XLS has a 1-1.25" carriage bar for adding weight. 5gal bucket weights are the correct diameter to leave a gap between the weights and the floor.
Chuck Norris facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts
> "Chuck Norris actually died 20 years ago, but Death hasn't built up the courage to tell him yet."
Death finally worked up the nerve.
How did he die?
Boredom, last enemy to defeat was life itself.
He was 86 years old
The headline is inaccurate. Chuck Norris is alive and kicking in another dimension.
Chuck Norris disagrees.
“We’d like to keep the circumstances private”
Yes, but now I’m like, super suspicious.
He was defeated by Mr Rogers in a blood-stained sweater. Understandable they're keeping that quiet.
(Ok, ok, technically it was Gandalf the Gray and White, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail's Black Knight)
There is nothing suspicious about a celebrity's family just wanting to deal with death in private.
> Curbing violent crime is still more about what we do than it is about what government does. The answer is still more about nature’s law within us than it is about man’s law outside of us. — Chuck Norris, 2012
What a load of horseshit. Government is "what we do." It's not imposed by alien pod-persons.
And he opposed marriage equality. What a scumbag.
> What a load of horseshit. Government is "what we do." It's not imposed by alien pod-persons.
On the other hand, when eventually the reckoning for this administration comes, would you welcome the idea of collective responsibility?
Very cool thread. Middle school jokes and culture wars. I’m so glad we don’t allow political threads on here and can instead bask in the intellectual might of people talking about TV man the did/didn’t like.
Chuck Norris promising the USA will have 1,000 years of darkness if Obama wins in 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ae9b-B_EQ0