When did memes actually start?

[agent817]

So I've been doing some research lately, especially after watching some of Justin Whang's videos on some memes that were common way back when, as well as other internet fads like Rotten.com and such. One meme (or "fad," as it was known at the time) in particular was Brian Peppers, a man who was supposedly a registered sex offender and was also known for his appearance due to a condition. From what I understand, that meme was well-known in the mid-2000s because it was known on YMTND (You're the man now, dog!), and because it was the mid-2000s, it was likely found on Myspace profiles, whether it's under comments or as part of a user's bio or interests. Hell, I might have come across one of those Brian Peppers memes back in those days but thought nothing of it, except for maybe how the guy looked, but that's about it.

It would seem that memes became more and more common in the late-2000s to early-2010s as people posted stuff on Facebook and Twitter. Hell, memes were also a bit known on YouTube depending on the video.

But now that I think about it, did people post stuff like this in the early-2000s? The only places I could think of that it would be common would be on message boards, Ebaum's World, maybe on AOL in some way. I remember getting chain letters back in the early-2000s, but that's about it.

So when did they become a thing? I had read that memes started in the 1970s, or later than that, but weren't on the internet like they are currently.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

The whole "KILROY WAS HERE" thing was a meme from WW2...

Or do you mean just Internet memes?

[agent817]

Feb 4, 2022 1:44:16 GMT -5 El Pollo Guerrera said:

The whole "KILROY WAS HERE" thing was a meme from WW2...

Or do you mean just Internet memes?

For the sake of this discussion, I mean internet memes.

[chazraps]

Oh yeah, like I'd say around Napster is when the early memes started. My first knowledge would be essentially someone writing a parody song, and then people using that as a springboard to make offshoot different takes on the same jokes (whichever came first, the horribly unfunny and racist "Combo #5" and "Tai Mai Shu" creating a lot of anti-Asian parodies, and then a lot of pro-Asian parodies like "Got Rice" being made in response.)

Or all the responses in the summer of 2000 of re-written Eminem songs, like the fake Christina Aguilera take on "The Real Slim Shady," the ICP created "Slim Anus," Scott Thompson of 'Kids in the Hall' doing a take on "Stan" all for different websites or media outlets. Napster and the subsequent file sharing sites (after Napster was Aimster - NOT Aol's Instant Messenger - but a peer to peer platform created by some music law guy named after his college-aged daughter that wound up being the bridge into the Kazaa / Limewire era) showed there was an quick way to duplicate and share the same joke. It kind of acted as a petrie dish testing ground for things that were funnier and that lead to stuff like Ebaum's World, Something Awful and the like, as well as internet creators like Andy Milonakis getting national attention for dumb stuff they made in their house.

There's also how huge messageboard culture was in the early 2000s, with many places having their own in-jokes. Things that today would be entirely uncomprehensible were the long-running joke du jour for all sorts of communities.

If I had to guess, the one-two punch of MySpace and YTMND really elevated memes to internet immortality. Quick running easy to share websites, giving us Dramatic Hamster, "Do a barrell Roll," the revitalization of Conan's Walker lever, Batman dancing with the incomprehensible noise, the kid on MySpace whose suicide note was a bulletin while Simple Plan's "Untitled" played, the dramatic reading of the break-up letter ("you made me touch his hand for stupid reasons"), Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hilton don't change facial expressions, Bill Cosby on Family Guy/Simpsons, etc. That 2004-2006 run primed us all for the rise of YouTube and eventually Tay Zonday, who was being hailed at "the final boss of the internet" and the "end boss of memes" in the summer of 2007 because people couldn't imagine any meme being meme-ier.

The next year you had meme-generators and popular meme formats becoming the paint-by-numbers for everyone to get in on it. Sarcastic Wonka, Xzibit saying "Sup dog?", Courage Wolf, etc.

[Bones58]

LOLcatz and CAN I HAZ CHEEZEBURGER were the first internet memes I can vividly remember having the standard Impact font template back in the mid ‘00s

[Bam Neeley]

Yeah there's the standard impact font image macro from messageboards like fark and somethingawful. If you go further in the past you get stuff like "All you base are belong to us" and ASCII art like Roflcopter.

Also tons of flash animations which were hosted on newgrounds etc

And if you want to dig even further in the past you get more text centric like "Geek Code" which was putting a cryptic message as you usenet signature which could be then decoded to get the user's stats.

[James Fabiano]

Well there's also the running jokes on USENET boards.

One of the earliest wrestling internet memes, for instance, was from 1991..."It's Steve DiSalvo!"
(This started when someone saw the Diamond Studd and remarked it didn't look like Scott Hall, but the aforementioned DiSalvo. From there, every question about a wrestler's true identity would be met with, "It's Steve DiSalvo!")

[Hypnosis]

Feb 4, 2022 9:48:41 GMT -5 Bam Neeley said:

Yeah there's the standard impact font image macro from messageboards like fark and somethingawful. If you go further in the past you get stuff like "All you base are belong to us" and ASCII art like Roflcopter.

Also tons of flash animations which were hosted on newgrounds etc

And if you want to dig even further in the past you get more text centric like "Geek Code" which was putting a cryptic message as you usenet signature which could be then decoded to get the user's stats.

Newgrounds was my first exposure to internet memes in 2000, so around that time period is a good answer.

[Push R Truth]

I remember lots of pictures in the mid 90's that would have likes Bill Gates/Mr T/Chewbacca and other celebrities with speech bubbles that were all based around their desire to "eat balls". I think it was straight up called "Mt T Ate My Balls".


EDIT: Yup found it - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ate_my_balls

[chrom]

It's Over 9000 from the Ocean DBZ Dub

[bibboid]

Back in the 80’s and 90’s we used to fax cartoons and jokes and games to each other. They would jump from business to business until the got copied so many times that they became blurry and unreadable.

[Heartbreaker]

As far as I remember the first internet meme I saw was the "You kicked my dog" video in the early 2000s. Had no idea until years later that it actually started in the mid 90s along with "All your base are belong to us", the Hamster dance and a bunch of others. So it seems mid 90s is when they became a thing.

[koreycaskets]

All your bass are belong to us.

[Mozenrath]

"MR. T. ATE MY BALLS" from 1996 stands out as one of the earliest memes in terms of memes that were images and not solely text.

[A Platypus Rave]

Feb 5, 2022 1:03:23 GMT -5 Heartbreaker said:

As far as I remember the first internet meme I saw was the "You kicked my dog" video in the early 2000s. Had no idea until years later that it actually started in the mid 90s along with "All your base are belong to us", the Hamster dance and a bunch of others. So it seems mid 90s is when they became a thing.

Yeah, All Your Base is absolutely one... and Hamster Dance pretty much existed to be a meme.

[Rumble McSkirmish]

Back in the 90's (I was on a very famous TV show...) that "Dancing Baby" animation was one of the first Memes to gain mainstream appeal due to its inclusion on the then hit TV show Ally McBeal, at the time it was parodied as much as the Matrix's Bullet Time scenes.

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

Feb 5, 2022 2:03:30 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

"MR. T. ATE MY BALLS" from 1996 stands out as one of the earliest memes in terms of memes that were images and not solely text.

This is the one I was going to say; it's the earliest one I can remember. The dancing baby was the first really huge one, though.


Part of the issue is the very ambiguous definition of the word meme, though.

[dirtyoldman]

Anyone remember the Mr T versus pages? There was 100s of them. Did run a little thin after a while.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

For a literal answer, in 1976 by Richard Dawkins.

[Hassan bin Sober]

I remember being introduced to some memes through Yahoo chat.