In the comments in an article about the Russian invasion:
VLADIMIR: Russia now has the most superior weapons and military technologies. NATO countries are behind in all main fields.
REPLIER: Potato.
I seem to have heard ‘Potato’ being used as a derisive response, but I can’t recall the meaning. Does it have one? Or is it just a non-sequitur? If it’s a non-sequitur, why ‘potato’? (Yes, I know non-sequiturs are supposed to be random; but they’re funnier if they have a ‘meaning’.)
Not sure if this is the origin but Stephen Colbert does jokes about “Russian versions” of things that you can’t get in Russia anymore since the war.
Sort of like “We do not need American McDonalds restaurant burgers anymore! We have superior Russian Big Mac. Is potato.”
Obviously the jokes are much funnier than that but he’s been running with random “Is potato” jokes since the war began.
So this joke is along the same lines as Colbert’s schtick. Superior weapons? Is potato.
I see “potato” as a description of something subpar lately. For example, a trail-cam picture is blurry, but the person is asking for species identification. They’ll say, “sorry for the potato quality picture “.
Maybe an imgur thing? Similar to “banana for scale”.
I have heard of “potato” being used to describe inferior computers, i.e. “I can’t run that game, I have a potato PC”. In fact, it’s such a common term that at least one game actually has graphics settings of High, Medium, Low, and Potato.
Apparently the word is spreading out from its PC game roots and is now being used more generically.
This is what I somewhat recalled.
I poked around on google a bit, and apparently “potato” being used to refer an old or low quality computer dates to around 2008 on youtube, when people started making comments about poor quality videos being recorded on a potato.
I knew the term wasn’t recent but I wasn’t aware that it went back that far.
Potatoes can be used in the production of vodka, which Russia produces. I wonder if that connection plays into the joke too.
I’ve also seen the “filmed with a potato” comments.
As far as I know, its origins are in the old potato clocks and similar electronics that were literally run off the electrical charge in a potato (or pair of potatoes). So the original joke for computers and other electronics were that yours was low enough quality/power that it could be run off a potato.
In Portal II, at one point, the malicious AI that’s the series antagonist is reduced to running on a potato-powered PC that the player carries around with them. It came out in 2011, so it’s not the origin of the meme, but I think it did a lot to propel it in popularity.
PotatOS!
Perhaps it’s a reference to “I Can Count to Potato”? (Warning: ableism)
Darn you, @Miller , I was just about to post that!
“How are you doing? Me? I’m a potato.”
When in times long past you wanted to make a print of something like a seal or an official stamp you could try forging it with a potato. The quality was abysmal, this was carried over to graphics settings, but is much older. It was the lowest level of forgery, it was a derisory term. Today it is still used for children stamps:
Perhaps that is what is referenced, my WAG.
I barely remember this term being used more often in the 1950’s. I believe it was used to infer of little value.
No matter how early I go to bed, I can never seem to get a potato clock…
Is that the one that runs on the PotatoChip?
I think potato was used as shorthand for all the food shortages and other deprivations the Russian people saw decades ago, long before Colbert revived it. Stories about Russians coming to America and being stunned by the cornucopia in supermarkets were around in the 1950s. Everybody in the west knew that Russia spent its budget on military hardware and not on people. Making the potato - also, as said, used for vodka, the national drink that was also a symbol - the punchline of any joke didn’t need further explanation.
I just started playing the game Live a Live on Switch. In one of the scenarios there’s a password that switches back and forth. In addition to the serious answers, there’s an option to respond “potato.” I have no idea if that has anything to do with where the meme started, if the people who made the game picked it randomly, or were copying something even earlier. The original game was released in 1994.
ETA: I have no idea if the joke option of potato was added to the Switch release or was present in the 1994 original.
Not in board games, where we use the standard reference pear.