Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

I'm trying to find the origin of 'What is this I don't even' on 4chanarchive.org (assuming the origin is from 4chan), but I cant figure out how it works. Do you have to go to the last page after you searched for the phrase and click on 'previous' until you find it, or is there another way? (I'm kinda new on this subject, so there ^^)

4chanarchive doesn't archive every post. It only Archives posts that threads gets voted on. So if the origin of "What is this I don’t even" was never voted to archive, then it wouldn't be in there.

but I can say that "What is this I don’t even" was a line Kenan said from a SNL sketch with Taylor Lautner, maybe picked up to IRL from 4chan.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/114955/saturday-night-live-taylor-lautner#s-p1-so-i0
48:10
at 48:30 Kenan says "I Don't even.."

Um… That episode is only about 6 weeks old. [EDIT: Ah, you meant crossover to mainsream media. I need to lrn2read.]

4chanarchive isn't great for finding the origin of a meme, but it's useful for providing examples of a meme's popularity.
The best way to search 4chanarchive is usually to google a phrase in quotes, and constrain the search to 4chanarchive.org

example:

"what is this i don't even" site:4chanarchive.org

Enter that ^^ into Google, then find the earliest occurrence. It most likely won't be the origin, but will be the first time the thread was ever popular enough to be archived.

that's where i said
"picked up to IRL from 4chan."
TO Real Life, from 4chan.

The only way I can think that phrase could of became a meme is by a get.

Because I remember going on /b/ and seeing everyone using it like it just exploded.

Above comment is fail. A get does not a meme make.

good news everyone-

i just found a new lead on the possible origin of what is this i don't even.
Anonymous comment can be found in this rule34 thread (NSFW/ u can't unsee it!!!) posted on April 26, 2007. The image speaks for itself, see comment #51.

oh and @Memedude, there's probably different ways to narrow google searches down, but i find using custom date range really helpful.

Is there a way to confirm that the 51th comment was written around the same date that gross image was posted ?
'Cause I can't see how the picture in itself is relevant to the meme.

Many phrase memes became memes because of GETs. i.e Epin. Also you can't tell the date of that comment, only the picture

yeah, i did a quick search on way back machine, and comment #51 was registered sometime after jan. 2008. pardon my false alarm :P

the second earliest instance i could find was a Gamespot thread dating back to 10/2007, though i'm not sure how it would've started as a thread title.

doing research on this is not an easy task, as lots of search results pertain to user signatures that are unrelated to post dates. well, better luck another day!

Updated again. I only need more examples.

how do you do a search based on time?