About

The Papa's Boat meme refers to the poem ("The Old World") from the 2010 School Certificate English Test, where year 10 students were to read the poem and answer a few questions.

The Poem:

"Papa is
uncomfortable
in his old man shape.
Tinkering
salt cured hands
twitch for
wire to solder,
rope to lap,
metal to twist.

Papa stopped smoking.
The old pipe
stays on the bedside table, and
the greasy smell
stays in
his clothes,
his paper bag face,
his waterproof hair.

Papa
kept the sea,
sold the boat,
kept the stories,
sold the boat,
kept the sea
in a blue knit jumper
and a roving telescope –
water
trickles into the lounge room,
yachts sail past his chair.

Papa knew the man
who could swallow wine glasses,
who floated naked down the river,
who ate a car – one spoonful
at a time.
We believed his
murky eyes, his
wheezing roar.
But mum looked
Skep-tik-al.

Papa surveys the old world
From his armchair,
spinnaker set.
He doesn’t believe
in email."

The Aftermath

A lot of 'inside' jokes where made about this poem by year 10, but this soon tumbled over into Facebook and thats when it all started to become stupid and annoying, though every New South Wales student who had Facebook didn't really care because they had a joke "no one" knew about.

Fan groups popped up everywhere during the days and weeks following that test.

Some good examples are:

• Papa: You can take my boat, but you'll never take my stories!

• That awkward moment when Papa keeps his boat.

• I throw my Papa in air sometimes saying ayo, where'd my boat go?

• Come over lets play COD ? Pffft fuck that im chillin with Papa.

Other years and random facebook peeps quickly got sick of these pages and made their own:

• Yr 10. papa is gay and so is the SC. shutup

• The awkward moment when Yr 10 realize how pathetic the papa groups are.

• Dear yr 10, we dont care about papa or his boat

Year 10 then made more, most of them time badly written come backs:

• That akward moment wen yr 11's get jealous of papa and year 10's

• Other years are just jealous they didn't get Papa in there SC exam

And if things didn't get bad enough, someone ended up creating Papa a Facebook account:

• Papa Paperbagface