How Old Is The First Meme Ever?

Memes, in the sense of highly relatable funny pictures, videos, GIFs, etc. oftentimes with a caption, are everywhere these days. From your computer screens to smartphones, TVs, magazines, and all the way down to graffiti and even tattoos. Yes, there are crazy people who tattoo memes on their skin. Like, come on, you’re gonna be stuck with that image of the Overly Attached Girlfriend (or something way worse) on your, umm, let’s say, rear. You should never ink passing fads on your body.

Either way, the memes are at an all-time high right now, with some people even calling themselves meme experts or meme lords. Must be the best job ever. With so many of these funny memes around it’s very easy to forget how it all started. Have you ever asked yourself what was the first meme that saw the light of day? Even though every other relatable funny picture nowadays is taken from the Spongebob cartoon, the very first meme was posted in a magazine, but it was just as hilarious! Here it is:

As you can tell, it’s a classic “expectations vs reality” template. And it’s pretty good, considering its age. So when was the first meme made? Almost 100 years ago! This picture was found in a satirical magazine called “The Judge”, which was published in 1921, making it the first meme in history. In my opinion, it still holds up. From what you can see, it’s still alive and kicking.