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Trying to remember memes before the internet and the taco bell chihuahua comes to mind. Maybe even Bill Clinton’s cat? Oh I know “Where’s The Beef?” THAT was for sure before the internet as some homes and universities were online in lik 1995 or w/e
The word
OKAYEarly 1800s, colonial United States. Collage students made a game out of abbreviating phonetic misspellings of terms. There are others, but ‘Okay’ is the only one that stood the test of time. ‘Okay’ broke the language barrier. ‘Okay’ is standard vernacular across the world. ‘Okay’ stands for ‘all correct’. All Correct --> Oll Korrect --> O.K. --> Okay
it’s like a goddamn chain of tumblr reblogs. but across continents. across centuries
What’s it abbreviated from?
All Correct --> Oll Korrect --> O.K. --> Okay
Maybe even Bill Clinton’s cat?
This?..
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I’ll leave this here for the youngsters…
Socks Clinton (c. 1989 – February 20, 2009) was the pet cat of the Clinton family, the first family of the United States from 1993 to 2001. An adopted stray cat, he was the only pet of the Clintons during the early years of the administration, and his likeness hosted the children’s version of the White House website. After Clinton left office, Socks resided with former Clinton secretary Betty Currie and her husband, owing to continuing conflicts with the Clintons’ dog Buddy.
I entirely forgot about Buddy. Shame on me?
[Ninja edit: Without googling - I have no idea what Buddy looked like. I have no memory at all. Buddy, sorry buddy. Haha.]
Have you heard the conspiracy theory about why the cat is named socks?
Nope. What is it?
All your base are belong to us immediately comes to mind - that one was kinda right at the start of everything, and although quite a bit earlier, “Kilroy was here”
Spuds MacKenzie
The budweiser frogs are the one I think of, until like 2005 memes were just from commercials
Yeah it has to be something everyone sees so Superbowl commercials used to be the biggest memes every year, although occasionally it’d be a line from a movie or something.
It’s not pre “internet”, but the earliest memes I remember were passed around in email chains. Stuff like dancing baby, the video of that office worker going ham on his computer, those websites with a gif some text and a sound file that spurred the creation of ytmnd.
Fax machines had their own meme cultures!
