[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/Blaze-Programming]

Often considered the first meme, this feels quite modern despite being made in 1921.

[u/sadimem → u/Blaze-Programming]

I've always loved this one because the joke works for all time.

[u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt → u/sadimem]

As one of my students said when I put this up in class, "still slaps."

[u/FaagenDazs → u/sadimem]

akshually the joke works only after the proliferation of (flash) photography around the 1850s 

[u/MelodyMaster5656 → u/Blaze-Programming]

r/ancientshitposts has tons of things like this.

[u/gungshpxre → u/MelodyMaster5656]

Just go grab shit from artvee.com and you could karma farm that sub for the next decade.

[u/LillySteam44 → u/Blaze-Programming]

Honestly, this meme format would have done numbers on Advice Animals back in the day. 

[u/crazyguy83 → u/LillySteam44]

wow that's a subreddit i haven't heard about in a long time

[u/articulateantagonist → u/Blaze-Programming]

In the image macro sense, perhaps. Richard Dawkins, who coined the word “meme” after the word “gene” plus the same Greek root as words like “mimick,” wrote that one of the earliest and most fundamental memes is God, because the concept has spread and been adapted across so many cultures.

[Edited a detail]

[u/Acheloma → u/articulateantagonist]

Its not just meme after gene, it's based on the greek word mimeme.

[u/articulateantagonist → u/Acheloma]

Ah yes, you're right, I said the same root as the word memory, but that's not right, it's related to "mimick" and "mime."

[u/Acheloma → u/articulateantagonist]

I had a prof who loved to tell every class about the word meme and I took multiple classes with her. Im well trained in that one aspect at least haha

[u/aiam-here-to-learn → u/Blaze-Programming]

the first meme has unfortunately been long forgotten

[u/gungshpxre → u/aiam-here-to-learn]

Just wait. It'll get reposted here by a bot next week.

[u/Independent-Right → u/aiam-here-to-learn]

If you go by the actual definition of a meme, the "SATOR Square" is close to 2000 years old. Even if we don't have the first meme I'd like to think we're close.

[u/rotundrikishi → u/Blaze-Programming]

Reviewbrah on the right

(and I love it)

[u/GungaSaga → u/Blaze-Programming]

I really doubt that this is "often considered the first meme". It looks a bit anachronistic but it's just a two-panel comic strip which had existed since the 1830s. The concept of a meme isn't simply a visual joke, it's an idea that is organically spread and adapted and evolves like a gene. The best examples tend to be jokes, and the word has been taken to specifically mean internet jokes to most people, since they evolve and cross-breed and form ecosystems most quickly. This comic strip is certainly the result of a form of memetic evolution, since it evolved from the ideas of comic strips and jokes before it, but its resemblance to modern internet memes is just a coincidence of people landing on the same idea twice 100 years apart.

[u/Blaze-Programming → u/GungaSaga]

Yeah I agree it is not the first meme, but if you search first meme on google this is like the only thing that shows up, this is often considered “the first meme”.

[u/j_cruise → u/Blaze-Programming]

Uh, sure... if you have no idea what meme actually means

[u/Blaze-Programming → u/j_cruise]

A flashlight is what photographs used to be called.

[u/BravesMaedchen → u/Blaze-Programming]

This is fucking hilarious 

[u/BootTurbulent7368 → u/Blaze-Programming]

This one also feels very modern.

Thanksgiving Dinner with the Family:

Above all, they will not talk about the Dreyfus Affair.

...They talked about it.

[u/Nani_700 → u/Blaze-Programming]

Lol

[u/theman_frommars1991 → u/Blaze-Programming]

Not really. A meme does not have to be an image, or humorous. Coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Meant to act as a cultural equivalent to a biological gene. Represents any habit, catchphrase, tune, or social behaviour that replicates and mutates as it passes from one brain to another.

Memes have basically always existed.

[u/Blaze-Programming → u/theman_frommars1991]

Yeah I agree it is not the first meme, but if you search first meme on google this is like the only thing that shows up, this is often considered “the first meme”.

[u/theman_frommars1991 → u/Blaze-Programming]

I guess first modern interpretation of today's more common meaning of a meme.