About

Daddy, What Did You Do During the Great War? refers to an English recruitment poster released in 1915, encouraging men to enlist in the British army for World War I. Over 100 years later, the poster became an exploitable on Reddit.

Starting in March 2020, a flipped version of the poster regained popularity as Fucking Legend Dad.

Origin

In 1915, during the World War I, British book illustrator and poster designer Savile Lumley designed^[4][5] propaganda poster "What Did You Do in the Great War, Daddy?" The poster depicts a man sitting in an armchair, his daughter sitting in his lap holding a book and his son playing with toy soldiers on the floor (poster shown below). The poster was spread through English newspapers in 1915.^[1]

Spread

The poster remained a notable example of war propaganda over the course of the century.^[2][3] It saw some use as an exploitable in the early 2010s as edits appeared featuring different characters in the poster. For example, on October 12th, 2016, Twitter user @pepethetroll posted an image referencing the supposed Meme Wars that took place during the 2016 United States Presidential Election. Another version featuring Battlefield was posted to /r/gaming, gaining over 5,900 upvotes (shown below, right).

In early April of 2018, an exploitable variation of the poster began spreading on /r/dankmemes, depicting a four-panel iteration of the poster. Some popular examples include a version with a Fortnite victory that gained over 1,300 upvotes (shown below, left). Another variation showed a soldier who did not kill Adolf Hitler, gaining over 640 upvotes (shown below, right).

Fucking Legend Dad

On March 17th, 2020, Facebook^[6] page Delboy posted the first known meme based on a flipped version of the poster, adding a dialogue between the man and the children. The post referenced the Toiler Paper Crisis that took place in the early weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. The post received over 300 reactions and 460 shares in ten months (shown below)

On March 20th, 2020, a recaption version of the meme created by an unknown user went viral on Facebook (shown below). March 20th posts by pages Sugar Free Science^[7] and Don't Touch This^[8] and user Jennifer Saunders Fans^[9] received over 2,300 shares, 2,500 shares and 5,800 shares in ten months, respectively.

On March 24th, 2020, Redditor^[10] Micko-Sode reposted the meme to /r/funny subreddit, where it received over 5,900 upvotes in six months.

Between March 20th and March 25th, now-deleted Facebook page SoundLad posted a version of the meme in which the boy commented "fucking legend" on his father's response. On March 25th, 2020, Redditor^[11] 4CloverLeaf posted the earliest found version of the meme featuring the dialogue to /r/trees subreddit, where it gained over 22,500 upvotes in six months (shown below).

In the following weeks, the meme format gained notable presence in memes on Facebook and Reddit, mostly with the versions featuring the "fucking legend" comment.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

Unavailable

External References