this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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Antique Memes Roadshow

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Giving you the backstory and appraisals of vintage memes!

Submissions should be vintage memes or commentary about vintage memes. Commenters are advised to appraise the internet value and provenance meme antiquities.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I think they were still lingering around somewhat. I just cleared off my old laptop last night and found advice animal memes from 2014 on it. I'll probably drop a few of the better ones in 196 on Monday, maybe I'll spread the love to antique memes roadshow.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

If my memory serves me right (it usually doesn't lol), it was mostly by 2015 that they were on their death throes, having been mostly usurped by the MLG era; I remember being upset that things like advice animals and rage comics were suddenly considered "things only clueless old people on facebook post nowadays" circa 2015. But they were still around in a smaller scale around 2014, so I think it still counts?

But I'm looking forward to seeing you share more old memes! I love 'em.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Philosoraptor is timeless

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Advice Animals were much earlier, in the late 2000s. I remember seeing them on gaming forums before Reddit was even a thing, when SA and Digg still reigned supreme.

Know Your Meme traces them back to 2006.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/advice-animals

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well, memes sometimes last longer than the era they starred in.

I remember finding this chart showing the various meme eras (I don't remember where I found it, sadly):

And I definitely remember seeing old memes still being used after their debut "era" - I remember seeing some from the "experimental" era (1995-2004) like the Dancing Banana, All Your Base Are Belong to Us and less-commonly YTMND and Homestar Runner references in the Classic Era (2004-2009), and likewise I saw memes from that era (Pingas, demotivational posters, Leeroy Jenkins jokes/references, Chuck Norris, Over 9000, Keyboard Cat, etc) still being used well into 2012-2013 despite that already being a new "meme era".

And as I mentioned in another comment, Rage Comics and Advice Animals still persisted into 2014 (mostly dying/fading into obscurity around 2015), by which point "dank" memes were already at full swing; and I definitely recall still seeing some Surreal Memes in use around the early 2020s, so I'd say the boundaries of meme popularity are fairly fuzzy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Ah, forgive my word usage. I meant to say that they first started in that era, not that they were solely used back then. I do appreciate how informative your comment is, nonetheless!