Is this 1921 cartoon the first ever 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.
The comic was first posted to Tumblr by 'Yesterday's Print' - a user that shares historical content to "highlight the parallels of past and present".
It was subsequently reposted with new captions such as "you/the guy she tells you not to worry about", referencing yet another contemporary template meme.
Where does it come from?
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.
Is it 'the first meme'?
According to the definition, a single image cannot be a meme. It has to be copied and spread with variations to the original image.
So on its own, the 1921 comic is not a meme. But coupled with the comic from either 1919 or 1920, it begins to fit the definition, as the two comics are variations on the same style - using two panels and captions to set-up an expectation and contrast it with reality.
Source 2
