Is 'Kilroy Was Here' the original meme?

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WBUR

Reddit, Technology

4.2 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2021

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

We often think of memes as living solely online. But the term “meme” was coined in the 1970s -- before the birth of the internet -- by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. And, more surprisingly, the image that's often considered to "the first meme" appeared as early as the 1940s.

A figure with a bulbous head and sausage fingers, peering over a wall, mysteriously popped up all over the globe during World War II, accompanied with three simple words: “Kilroy Was Here.” The phrase’s original meaning may come from the belly of warships, but what it came to represent bears many characteristics of a true-blue internet meme. In the first episode of our meme series, we tell the story of where "Kilroy Was Here" came from, how it spread, and what it tells us about the essence of memes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	WBWR's last scene is back with surprising news stories about people, places, and things
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0:32.4	A few years ago, a man named Phil Edwards was looking for a secret treasure from World
0:37.6	War II, even though he felt no real deep connection to World War II.
0:43.2	It was something he was doing for work.
0:45.4	Phil's work?
0:46.4	I feel like a certain set of people you are so famous for.
0:51.6	Do you know what I mean?
0:52.9	Like they're like, oh my god, you make the explainers, you make the Vox explainers.
0:58.0	A lot of people talk about Bitcoin, is it?
0:59.8	New kind of thing.
1:00.8	There's a two-letter word that we hear everywhere.
1:02.8	That seems teacher immune system had to respond to the threat.
1:06.1	And traditionally, there's four.
1:07.8	Yep, Phil makes those explainer videos for Vox.
1:10.8	But is official title?
1:12.3	I'm very proud that I got a femur of corresponded on my business cards.
1:16.3	Phil's search for this secret treasure was for a video he was making about something that
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