- Do you remember your first meme?
Over the past few decades, the millions of internet memes
that have floated across our screens have shifted
from message board sh**posts
to an essential form of human communication.
They have become digital soapboxes
for political movements, have inspired international
acts of charity, and of course, have been co-opted by
corporations in the form of mostly
cringe-inducing advertisements.
So in this episode, we're doing things a little differently.
Instead of starting from the beginning,
we're going backwards through time to dissect how memes
became an internet phenomenon.
And more importantly, how they potentially predate
the internet by thousands of years.
January, 2021: At President Biden's inauguration,
Senator Bernie Sanders is photographed while being adorable,
igniting the first truly viral meme of the new year.
2020: Another ultimately unsuccessful presidential candidate
Mike Bloomberg commissions the most popular
online meme accounts to make meme ads
for his floundering campaign in one of the most
"fellow kids" moments ever, which just goes
to show you just how far we've come since..
2015: As evidenced by this Google Trends graph,
the concept of internet memes is
broaching mainstream America: Katy Perry's Left Shark,
Pizza Rat, and The Dress, brings memes
from the dregs of the internet to something
your mom brings up during book club.
2012: A picture of pissed off looking Arizona-based
feline Tartar Sauce is posted to Reddit,
and Tartar Sauce becomes "Grumpy Cat,"
proof that viral success can translate
into a lucrative business, even for a cat!
The early 2010s: Scumbag Steve,
Good Guy Greg, Condescending Wonka,
Forever Alone, Confession Bear,
and Overly Attached Girlfriend
help solidify memes as internet shorthand,
as sites like Reddit and 4chan
become fertile breeding ground for memes.
2008: Loss.
2007: Know Your Meme launches as a video series
from Rocketboom, covering the history
of viral memes like Dramatic Chipmunk.
Soon, if becomes a database-style website,
and the de facto meme resource on the internet.
2006: YouTuber Eric Hellwig prank calls a Michigan
radio station by playing a mostly forgotten
‘80s one-hit wonder, inventing the Rickroll,
showing that memes don't need to be static images,
and that Rick Astley still slaps.
2005: You probably make a Chuck Norris
fact away message on AIM.
In the late ‘90s: logging onto the internet
sounded like this..
and the White Text on an Image meme sees its genesis with
"All your base are belong to us," an awkward translation
of an ‘80s Sega game called Zero Wing.
According to local news broadcasts,
it makes “no sense whatsoever.”
1996: In an attempt to show how motion graphics work,
designer Michael Girard creates
Baby Cha-Cha, aka The Dancing Baby.
It spreads across early internet message boards,
and makes its way onto network TV in Ally McBeal.
In many ways, this is the first
widely consumed internet meme.
1994: I draw a Stussy S, aka Cool S, aka Secret S
into my social studies textbook, continuing
a long tradition of doodling memes in the real world.
The late ‘80s: Artist Shepard Fairey,
who would later design Barack Obama's
ultra meme-able Hope poster, makes a sticker
of wrestler Andre the Giant that's plastered
all over the world. He's sued by Andre's lawyers
and then creates a more stylized version
featuring the word "Obey,"
which is still widely distributed.
1976: British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins
releases his book "The Selfish Gene," in which he coins
the term "meme" as an idea, behavior, concept, or style
that is spread from person to person.
1970: Lord of the Rings inspired "Frodo Lives!" graffiti
appears throughout England, proving that nerds
never needed the internet to sh**post.
In the 1940s: American GI's in WWII begin drawing
the now ubiquitous "Kilroy Was Here" image
all over the world, inspired by a welding inspector
who marked his complete inspections with the doodle.
1921: As uncovered by Twitter,
this comic strip is weirdly still relevant,
but we're not at the first meme yet.
Let's go back thousands of years to two images
that were widely remixed, distributed from person to person,
and represent shared knowledge much like modern day memes.
Memento Mori: The message that
all humans one day must die, commonly accompanied
by macabre images like skulls and crossbones,
has been found in nearly every
civilization dating back to ancient Rome.
Genitalia: Recreations of our naughty bits
have been lining medieval texts, archaic art,
and cave walls for thousands of years.
Henry Jenkins, media professor
at the University of Southern California, told Thrillist:
"Not only is it representative of human vitality
and sex, it also took on meaning as a subversive
statement against societal norms,
their intent is very similar to
so many of the current memes in our culture."
In case you didn't know, people still draw dicks.
So we salute you memes! For making our shared knowledge
a little more animated, and confirming something
we've always known: life, at it's core, is all about
dancing, mortality, and genitalia.
Which, actually is kinda what Ally McBeal was about.
Really makes you think..