Is this 1921 cartoon the first ever meme?
Is this 1921 cartoon the first recorded meme?
When this comic was posted to Twitter, it caused excitement as people began to wonder if it was the first meme - a format-dependent joke, typically of a picture with a caption or subtitle - ever published.
But we've found a version of the joke using the same format printed at least a year earlier in either 1919 or 1920.
Both draw from the same template of the 'Expectations vs. Reality' joke, which contrasts two pictures side-by-side with an obvious discrepancy between them.
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Narration:
The comic was found in a 1921 edition of satirical magazine The Judge, published by the University of Iowa.
Within The Judge, the comic is then credited to a different magazine - the Wisconsin Octopus, published at the University of Wisconsin between 1919 and 1959.
By looking through the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, we were able to view a few early editions of the Wisconsin Octopus magazine, and found this is not the first time the 'Expectations vs. Reality'-format joke appeared in print.
In an edition published in either 1919 or 1920, the following comic (which is very dated by today's standards) can be found:
What is a meme?
The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene
Dawkins called memes "ideas that spread from brain to brain"
The Oxford English Dictionary defines memes as images, videos or text that are copied and spread by internet users, often with variations.
Menage your risk
"Digital currencies are speculative investments that carry significant risk and do not inherently represent tangible value. Their worth is driven by market perception, not underlying assets or traditional economic fundamentals."