Twitter User Unearths Relatable Meme From 1921

Scrolling through the droll funnies of a satirical magazine from the turn of the twentieth century, one Twitter user has found a 97-year-old instance of the "What You Think You Look Like vs. What You Actually Look Like" joke, an evergreen meme used to illustrate the humor in grandiose self-perception and continues to see use to this very day.

Over the weekend, Twitter user @YoRHaw tweeted her discovery of a comic strip concocted by the whimsical lads at the Wisconsin Octopus and featured in a 1921 issue of the early 20th century weekly satirical magazine Judge.

this comic strip from 1921 is really relatable to this day pic.twitter.com/DXCpl923Iy

— wida (@YoRHaw) April 15, 2018

In both substance and form, the comic is hardly distinguishable from satirical tweets of the 2010s about selfie obsession and self-image issues; one can almost see this poor chap imagining himself as a debonair Gatsby-type while he poses for a picture, only to be struck with the disappointing reality in the limelight, quite literally.

Naturally, other Twitter users were delighted to see that their great grandparents appreciated shitposts just as much as they do.

Vintage shitpost https://t.co/zX2KBl8cx8

— Sprang Break… FO'EVER… (@NavyHuskie) April 15, 2018

Humanity's relationship with the camera https://t.co/9TCykGV3UC

— Stān (@Fourteenpounds) April 15, 2018

if you can't handle/you don't deserve https://t.co/zpQI1T5M58

— Rebecca Christopher (@christrebecca) April 15, 2018

Twitter user @svederik made a particularly salient observation about what comic says about the unknown timeline of meme culture.

We’ve been making memes for over a hundred years. We just didn’t have the internet.

— Scott Pell (@svederik) April 15, 2018

To echo Ida's point, this isn't the first time someone has dug up an uncanny prototype of present-day memes from long before the times of the Internet, especially when it comes to exploring the psychology of self-perception in everyday situations. Some of the most notable examples include (shown below, left to right):

• An "Expectations vs. Reality" comic published by The Sunday Record-Herald in 1903
• A "What People Think I Do vs. What I Really Do" comic published by the Wellesly Legenda in 1909
• A "World According to New York" cover illustration published by The New Yorker in 1976