We Are All Africans

About

We Are All Africans is a photoshop meme based on a photograph of Richard Dawkins wearing a T-shirt with the phrase "We Are All Africans" printed on the front, which is typically replaced with humorous text referencing various internet in-jokes.

Origin

On his official Twitter feed,^[1] Dawkins is shown wearing a T-shirt with the expression "We Are All Africans" printed on the front, an item which is sold by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science^[8] (shown below, left). On February 27th, 2014, Dawkins tweeted "We are all African apes. That's what my T-shirt means" (shown below, right). Within three years, the tweet gained over 370 retweets and 330 likes.^[1]

On February 5th, 2015, Tumblr^[9] user wifuthief posted an edited version of the photograph with the phrase "we are all shitposters" photoshopped on the front (shown below). Within two years, the post gained over 25,400 notes.

The OOA Theory

The expression is meant to convey the prevailing "Out of Africa" (OOA) hypothesis in paleoanthropology, which asserts that modern humans (Homo sapiens) originated in the African continent, with subsequent lineages migrating to populate the rest of the entire globe.^[2]

Spread

On February 6th, 2015, Tumblr user sitcorn^[4] posted the picture with "Mega Milk" illustration photoshopped on to the front of the shirt (shown below, left). On February 9th, Tumblr user shiroanagisawa^[5] posted an edited version of the picture with the words "Jaded Teenage Girls" placed over the word "Africans" (shown below, right). Within two years, the posts gathered upwards of 24,000 and 15,500 notes respectively.

The following day, the Meme Documentation Tumblr^[3] blog published a post explaining the photoshop meme. On March 9th, Tumblr user jumex^[6] posted the picture edited with the word ""Problematic"": (shown below, left). On May 4th, Tumblr user sympolite^[7] posted a photoshopped version with the phrase "Down With Cis" written on the front (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References