© 2024 254 North Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401 | 910.343.1640
News Classical 91.3 Wilmington 92.7 Wilmington 96.7 Southport
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

America's Search For Meming

Hanging up the wash. Circa June 14, 1914.
Harry Whittier Frees
/
Library of Congress
Hanging up the wash. Circa June 14, 1914.

One reason Internet memes — the quirky photos with societal observations that are passed along like genes or around like germs — work so well, is that they tap into something of the moment, a fleeting notion that captures the here and now.

A visual meme is more like a snapshot than an "iconic image" — such as V-J Day in Times Square-- says NPR photo editor Claire O'Neill. An iconic photo is timeless. But "what's 'timeless' about memes is not so much the image, or joke itself, but the timeless thing it is revealing about people."

Visual memes "are a form of observational humor," Claire says: "Everyone knows what it feels like to feel this way."

A meme will probably not live forever, Claire says, but that "sense of feeling bewildered will."

So when we found — in casual research — decades-old images in the archives of the Library of Congress that remind us of memes today, we couldn't help but wonder what kind of smart or snarky memes they would have inspired in their times. Any suggestions? Please keep it civil.

KYM/Frank A. Rinehart / KnowYourMeme/Library of Congress
/
KnowYourMeme/Library of Congress

1) Amicable Fellow With Cigarette. On the left, present-day meme of Good Guy Greg from KnowYourMeme and, on the right, The Connoisseur, created by Frank A. Rinehart, 1899, from the archives of the Library of Congress.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

/ KnowYourMeme.com and Library of Congress
/
KnowYourMeme.com and Library of Congress

2) Amicable Woman With Eager Smile. On the left, present-day meme of Overly Attached Girlfriend from KnowYourMemeand, on the right, The Stenographer, 1923, from the archives of the Library of Congress.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

3) Cat in Human Attire. On the left, present-day meme of Business Cat from KnowYourMemeand, on the right, Hanging Up the Wash, one in a series by Harry Whittier Frees, 1914, from the archives of the Library of Congress.

After pondering the differences between memes and iconic photos, Claire O'Neill adds: "To make a long story short, this pretty much sums up howIfeel about all this stuff."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Protojournalist:Experimental storytelling for the LURVers – Listeners, Users, Readers, Viewers — of NPR.@NPRtpj

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tags
Linton Weeks joined NPR in the summer of 2008, as its national correspondent for Digital News. He immediately hit the campaign trail, covering the Democratic and Republican National Conventions; fact-checking the debates; and exploring the candidates, the issues and the electorate.