The world’s first meme: is it true that he appeared in 1921
Bi-bi-si tries to find out whether a cartoon of 1921 the first known meme to mankind.
The Internet user anywhere can stumble upon meme “Expectation/reality”, but is it true that it all started with a sketch 97-year-old?
This picture caused a stir among users of Twitter. They immediately began to wonder whether this is the first ever meme.
But bi-Bi-si has managed to find a version of this joke, which appeared at least a year earlier, in 1919 or in 1920.
In both figures well-known joke “Expectation/reality”, where two pictures are in sharp contrast between them.
Sketch 1921 signed: “you think You look when lights flash. And you really look like”.
First posted on the Internet the user under the name Yesterday’s Print, which, by his own admission, regularly seeks out the historical image to highlight Parallels between past and present.
Later the picture began to repost with the words: “You and the guy, which, she said, don’t worry”, which in itself is a reference to another modern meme.
pic.twitter.com/eqWQVUxAFy
— ✨Your MUSE✨ (@badgirlfriend9) April 15, 2018.
Where did the picture?
Comic found in the pages of the satirical magazine in 1921 under the name of The Judge, who printed the University of Iowa.
Subsequently, the figure found in another journal — Wisconsin Octopus, which was printed in the University of Wisconsin from 1919 to 1959.
We looked through the editions of this magazine and found the picture on the subject of “Expectation/reality” appeared in the edition before — in 1919 or 1920.
Here it is:
- The concept of the meme and its concept was first developed by the famous English biologist and science educator Richard Dickinson in the book “the Selfish gene” 1976
- Dawkins called memes “ideas that spread from brain to brain”
- The Oxford English dictionary defines “meme” as an image, video or text that will be copied and spread by Internet users, often in different variations