Cat memes went viral 100 years ago

[bitwize]

The influence of 100-year-old viral memes can still be felt today. We use the terms "foo" and "bar" in programming as standardized nonce words or even variable names; "foo" in particular is traceable at least as far back as the 1930s comic Smokey Stover, whose author Bill Holman was fond of putting nonsensical words, puns, and sight gags in his comics. The main character was a goofy fireman who drove a tiny two-wheeled fire truck actually called the Foomobile. This comic kicked off a sort of foo-mania in popular culture, as exemplified by certain Warner Bros. cartoons, in which for instance Daffy Duck would hold up a sign reading "Silence Is Foo!" "Foo" was related to "phooey" and "faux pas" and carried similar connotations of silliness or stupidity; it would combine with WWII slang "FUBAR" to form "foobar".

I gave up attempting to grok the appeal of "foo" when I realized it was probably just a 1930s dank meme, and "you had to be there" to fully appreciate it. But recently we're seeing this whole process play out again so we can witness, as it happens, the rise of a new nonsense word into popular culture: "skibidi".

[thaumasiotes]

> The influence of 100-year-old viral memes can still be felt today. We use the terms "foo" and "bar"

I think the term "OK" is a better example.

[AStonesThrow]

Recently President Biden broadcast a campaign ad where he begins with "Let's cut the malarkey", and I recognized that as a possibly Irish-adjacent neologism, so I looked it up, and apparently it was this guy: the great grand-daddy of all turn-of-the-century memes and coinages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tad_Dorgan

[drewcoo]

Foo, bar, baz, etc. are more metasyntactic variables than nonces.

https://jargon-i18n.com/en/M/metasyntactic-variable.html

I don't think they're related to FUBAR . . . that would be fugazi.

Nonsense pop terms are not this. They're slang. Blame (mostly) teenaged girls for that stuff, not elite (mostly male) engineers of yore.

[shagie]

100? How about 150?

https://www.photohistory-sussex.co.uk/BTNPointerCats.htm

http://www.19thcenturyphotos.com/Henry-Pointer's-cats-124601...

https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/104XHB

Complete with meme captions.

[IncRnd]

For an older picture than those - here is a daguerreotype taken sometime between 1840 and 1860, 164 to 184 years ago.

https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/daguerreotypes-at-harvard/...

For an even earlier drawing of some big cats, see the Lascaux cave from arond 17,000 years ago.

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/explore-the-fresco-o...

[nosianu]

150? Thousands? Well, not sure if the hieroglyphics contained cat memes, but at least we get sculptures and images.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/11/26/in-ancient-egypt-c...

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/egypt-cat-statues-mummies...

Maybe I'm stretching the original topic a bit just to post some cat content. Formal dinner: https://i.imgur.com/LBvzu3H.jpeg

[throwaway290]

does this count? 200 years if true. https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Lot/402-russian-lubo...

[wslh]

I don't know how a UK medium such as the BBC forgot to mention the now well-known Louis Wain (an English artist) [1][2]. I share the same surname with him but am not related. My uncle, an antiquarian, gave me an original postcard from him. Before that, I discovered him in a low-quality encyclopedia at a girlfriend's house, in an entry on schizophrenia [3].

[1] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wain

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10687506/

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Louis-Wain-Pictures-of-c...

[delichon]

The jackalope meme is in its nineties. The Kokopelli meme is over a thousand years old and has lately been rehydrated. Venus of Willendorf is around 25k years old. One can play this game for a long time.

[fragmede]

Kilroy was here

[thierrydamiba]

Cats are fascinating because the best and the worst people in our lives could be described as cat like.

You know a cool cat. You also know a skittish cat.

Most animal connotations have a singular meaning, but cats, cats refuse to be boxed in.

[AStonesThrow]

> cats refuse to be boxed in

Cats sometimes refuse to be boxed in; other times an empty box is a cat's favorite plaything and habitat. Other times, the boxed-in cat is simultaneously alive and dead until the opening of the box. That's the beauty of cats: you just never know.

[mrbungie]

Cats refuse to be boxed in figuratively.

Because literally they do love boxes, both sitting on 2d squares and hiding inside 3d boxes.

[interludead]

It’s like they embody all the contradictions in human nature

[gniv]

And if you were rich enough you would commission life-sized sculptures: https://x.com/garyniv/status/1802586931395440883

[AStonesThrow]

Didn't Ancient Egypt basically build a civilization and cult of worship based entirely on cat memes, with a particular monument to prove it?

[TacticalCoder]

I don't know why it's near universal. Ancient egypt had them. Japan loves them.

My stupid cat was acting crazy tonight and I was wondering: "How comes you still make me laugh you silly cat?". The thing was, as usual, attacking its rear legs and them legs were fighting back, going for the head.

I just opened the link to another frontpage article "The perils of transition to 64-bit time" and... Sure enough a cat picture greeted me.

I mean... It never gets old.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis

[DevScout]

Even 100 years ago, people were finding ways to share cute cat content — it really underscores how consistent human behavior is despite evolving technologies. Postcards were like early social media is particularly interesting.

[TheRealPomax]

Linguistic note: neither "meme" (in the modern sense, not the Dawkins sense) nor "going viral" existed 20 years ago, let alone 100 years. The nature of how culture spread makes both words wildly inapplicable, even if the underlying idea is somewhat similar.

[eterm]

This is completely false.

Meme even in the modern internet sense, was used in the 90's, here's Memepool from 1998:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memepool

[richardfontana]

"Going viral" probably existed 20 years ago, though perhaps barely. I don't have access to the OED but several web sources say OED's earliest recorded usage was from 2004.

[jxy]

from OED:

the modern sense of "meme"

> 2. An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations. Also with modifying word, as internet meme, etc.

> 1998

> The next thing you know, his friends have forwarded it [sc. an animation of a dancing baby] on and it's become a net meme.

> Sci. & Technol. Week (transcript of CNN TV programme) (Nexis) 24 January

the modern sense of "viral"

> Chiefly Marketing. Of, designating, or involving the rapid spread of information (esp. about a product or service) amongst customers by word of mouth, e-mail, etc. to go viral: to propagate in such a manner; to (be) spread widely and rapidly.

> 1989

> The staff almost unanimously voted with their feet as long waiting lists developed for use of the Macintoshes... ‘It's viral marketing. You get one or two in and they spread throughout the company.’

> PC User (Nexis) 27 September 31

Edit: format

[t-3]

I don't remember any instances of the term "going viral", but "meme" was definitely around 20 years ago. 4chan launched in 2003.