# For the pre-Internet crowd: what'a good example of a pre-Intenet "meme"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 8, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660 "2014-07-08T18:39:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/61 "2014-07-09T04:03:27Z")
Sometime around 1978 or '78, at UCSD, I began to see ‘YEEN’, a crudely drawn grinning face on bathroom stalls. Whatever or whoever YEEN was I do not know, but I do know that not long thereafter he appeared on the play money/scrip that was printed up for one of our annual Casino Night charity events. Is **Biffy The Elephant Shrew** in the house? You were there around the same time, so if you know anything more about YEEN please 'fess up! ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/62 "2014-07-09T04:11:46Z")
Whether there’s any help in determining a viable definition of what a _meme_ is, or not, [http://www.quickmeme.com/](http://www.quickmeme.com/) has some fun stuff to check out. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/63 "2014-07-09T04:52:39Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Would “jumping the shark” qualify? No, because “jumping the shark” got its start on the Internet. The phrase was created by Jon Hein in 1997, who started the website [jumptheshark.com](http://jumptheshark.com). ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/64 "2014-07-09T05:07:42Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > And men’s shirts also had a small loop at shoulder height in the back – a loop like found inside jackets to hang them by though these were smaller. I never knew what they were for, but kids would yank on them to tear them off. Occasionally you’d rip the back of the shirt instead. “Fag Tag!”…Chicago Area circa 1995. ☹ Stupid. I’m also familiar with Perdiddle and Slugbug. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/65 "2014-07-09T05:26:23Z")
One from Australia - There was a non-alcoholic drink (presumably tasted like scotch or something) sold in the 1970s - the marketing campaign was ‘Claytons. The drink you have when you’re not having a drink’. AS a result, the term ‘Claytons’ means - something not quite right, or just done for show. eg ‘The government held a Claytons inquiry into the corruption scandal’ (sometimes followed by the punchline - ‘The inquiry you have when you’re not having an inquiry’). The Clayton’s drink is still sold (in tiny volumes) in Australia (but has no market presence), but the phrase is still used - just last week, a major bank was forced to apologise for some dodgy practice - it turned out to be the usual weasel-words, and I saw at least one news report referring to the ‘Claytons apology’. I wonder if the post-70s generations are aware of where the phrase originates from… ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/66 "2014-07-09T06:14:10Z")
Perhaps also the jump-rope and clapping songs…“My mommy told me,” “Miss Suzy,” “O Little Playmate,” etc. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/67 "2014-07-09T06:29:39Z")
Every joke you ever heard pre-internet. It’s amazing how what are effectively short stories spread. A punchline even functions as a kind of “parity check” to ensure that the joke doesn’t mutate too much from its original form. Myths, fairy tales, and other folklore. Urban legends. Childhood rhymes and traditional songs sometimes survive essentially unchanged for hundreds of years, a feature that some scientists in the [Human Interference Task Force](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force) proposed using to warn future humans about the dangers of nuclear waste (entertainingly talked about on [99 Percent Invisible](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/)). The [“Nigerian” scam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner) is nearly 400 years old; the modern version, which is usually some form of copypasta, is just an updated variation. Commercials are attempts to artificially create memes, as are the “viral” campaigns that seem to (thankfully) be dying down now. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/68 "2014-07-09T06:44:06Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Given that a “meme” in its original construction means a unit of cultural transmission analogous to the gene then pretty much anything can be a meme, not just pictures of cats with captions, catch phrases from TV shows, or graffiti. The idea of a meme is a pretty good meme. > > John 3:16 was a popular one. On the other hand NONE of these things can really be _memes_, precisely because the word itself even exists. People didn’t do these things self-consciously–they were simply forms of amusements. Internet memes, on the other hands, are mostly done specifically with the intention of engaging in a meme above all else. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/69 "2014-07-09T06:56:43Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > Every joke you ever heard pre-internet. It’s amazing how what are effectively short stories spread. A punchline even functions as a kind of “parity check” to ensure that the joke doesn’t mutate too much from its original form. > > Myths, fairy tales, and other folklore. Urban legends. Childhood rhymes and traditional songs sometimes survive essentially unchanged for hundreds of years, a feature that some scientists in the [Human Interference Task Force](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force) proposed using to warn future humans about the dangers of nuclear waste (entertainingly talked about on [99 Percent Invisible](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/ten-thousand-years/)). > > The [“Nigerian” scam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Prisoner) is nearly 400 years old; the modern version, which is usually some form of copypasta, is just an updated variation. > > Commercials are attempts to artificially create memes, as are the “viral” campaigns that seem to (thankfully) be dying down now. > [@guizot](#): > > On the other hand NONE of these things can really be _memes_, precisely because the word itself even exists. People didn’t do these things self-consciously–they were simply forms of amusements. Internet memes, on the other hands, are mostly done specifically with the intention of engaging in a meme above all else. These are very cromulent posts guys. ---
**Author:** ![Mesquite-oh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a183cd/32.png) [@Mesquite-oh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mesquite-oh)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/70 "2014-07-09T07:25:54Z")
I always wondered how the Rod Stewart had to go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped and Richard Gere and the hamster thing spread to every single fellow middle schooler that I knew. It is not like Time Magazine or 60 Minutes did a story on it or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/71 "2014-07-09T22:41:24Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > No, because “jumping the shark” got its start on the Internet. The phrase was created by Jon Hein in 1997, who started the website [jumptheshark.com](http://jumptheshark.com). But it alludes to a _Happy Days_ episode in which the Fonz literally [jumps a shark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days#.22Jumping_the_shark.22) while waterskiing. (No, it wasn’t in Lake Michigan, basically all the characters were vacationing together in California.) ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/72 "2014-07-09T23:05:50Z")
> [@Mesquite-oh](#): > > I always wondered how the Rod Stewart had to go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped and Richard Gere and the hamster thing spread to every single fellow middle schooler that I knew. It is not like Time Magazine or 60 Minutes did a story on it or anything. In keeping with this, we all knew back in the day that [my beloved] Alice Cooper would drink whatever sick thing you could put in a cup that’d been passed around the concert venue. Similarly, some rocker was totally responsible for breaking a poor, hapless puppy’s legs on stage every night for the sheer debauchery of their audience. What a despicable bunch of fans there were in the 70s, right? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/73 "2014-07-09T23:35:39Z")
> [@Mesquite-oh](#): > > I always wondered how the Rod Stewart had to go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped and Richard Gere and the hamster thing spread to every single fellow middle schooler that I knew. It is not like Time Magazine or 60 Minutes did a story on it or anything. We also got the ‘Famous Rock Star and Female News Reader who Had To Be Rushed To Emergency To have A Bottle Removed From A Delicate Area’. I had a mate from a minor town who insisted the incident happened there since ‘They didn’t want the publicity from going to the big-city hospital’. On the same theme, here in Aus there are a whole string of historical stories around ‘A Sportsman Doesn’t Get a Fair Go At His Club, And Keeps Being Left Off The Team Because He’s Shagging The Coach’s Daughter’. That gets a big run, particularly around selection for the national Cricket Team (because star player from your home state/town NEVER gets selected, while THAT DUD from the other state/town somehow keeps getting a game). Does that legend exist in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2014, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/74 "2014-07-09T23:49:41Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > On the same theme, here in Aus there are a whole string of historical stories around ‘A Sportsman Doesn’t Get a Fair Go At His Club, And Keeps Being Left Off The Team Because He’s Shagging The Coach’s Daughter’. > That gets a big run, particularly around selection for the national Cricket Team (because star player from your home state/town NEVER gets selected, while THAT DUD from the other state/town somehow keeps getting a game). > > Does that legend exist in the US? Ask [Chris Snee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Snee#Personal). ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/75 "2014-07-10T00:02:26Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Sometime around 1978 or '78, at UCSD, I began to see ‘YEEN’, a crudely drawn grinning face on bathroom stalls. Whatever or whoever YEEN was I do not know, but I do know that not long thereafter he appeared on the play money/scrip that was printed up for one of our annual Casino Night charity events. > > Is **Biffy The Elephant Shrew** in the house? You were there around the same time, so if you know anything more about YEEN please 'fess up! [http://ucsdmag.ucsd.edu/magazine/vol4no2/upfront/to\_editor.htm](http://ucsdmag.ucsd.edu/magazine/vol4no2/upfront/to_editor.htm) > [@](#): > > YEEN BY THOV > I can answer Richard Stevens’ question about the YEEN cartoons in the APIS building stairwells. They were painted by a classmate of ours. The signature “Thov” was a phonetic reversal of his last name, Voth. This page has a photograph of YEEN. > **[San Diego Union-Tribune](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/)** > > San Diego, California and National News > [@](#): > > In the late 1970’s, the UCSD computer science department housed a brilliant young grad student who was — even by the standards of his peers — notably eccentric. > > Exhibit A was his penchant for drawing Yeen — a cartoon character of his own devising — on all available surfaces, which given the institutional context translated into random book covers, blackboards, and most notably the walls of the stairwells of the Applied Physics and Mathematics building. > > Thirty years later, the grad student is now a successful high-tech executive in San Diego, and a recognized leader and technical authority in his field. And yet Yeens can still be found on the walls of the stairwells of the Applied Physics and Mathematics building ---
**Author:** ![Yarster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7c8e57/32.png) [@Yarster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yarster)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/76 "2014-07-10T00:08:43Z")
How about every person/celebrity/public figure having a major victory of some sort and announcing: “I’m going to Disneyland”. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/77 "2014-07-10T00:18:09Z")
> [@Yarster](#): > > How about every person/celebrity/public figure having a major victory of some sort and announcing: “I’m going to Disneyland”. I’d say no, that was a deliberate marketing campaign. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/78 "2014-07-10T00:51:24Z")
Was Redskins (formerly Bucs) QB Doug Williams the first winning athlete to say that after winning Superbowl XXII? (Played in Jan 1988 for the 1987 season.) It seemed pretty spontaneous when I saw him say it. ---
**Author:** ![Space\_Vegetable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Space\_Vegetable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Space_Vegetable)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/79 "2014-07-10T10:03:06Z")
The term “OK” comes from “a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s”, [per Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/503/what-does-ok-stand-for). Seems like the fad was their version of LOLcats. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660/80 "2014-07-10T18:28:10Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > But it alludes to a _Happy Days_ episode in which the Fonz literally [jumps a shark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Days#.22Jumping_the_shark.22) while waterskiing. (No, it wasn’t in Lake Michigan, basically all the characters were vacationing together in California.) But people didn’t say “jumping the shark” before the Internet. It didn’t become a meme until the website popularized it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-the-pre-internet-crowd-whata-good-example-of-a-pre-intenet-meme/692660.md?page=5)