About

Dexter Showing Caveman His Lab or Get With The Times refers to an image of Dexter from the cartoon Dexter's Laboratory holding a confused caveman's hand and eagerly showing him around his laboratory. The image comes from a 1998 episode of the show and has been used in memes including image macros and photoshops as early as 2019. It is often used as an object-labeling format with the caveman representing someone who uses old or outdated methods and the lab equipment labeled as something new or an updated method that confuses the caveman.

Origin

On February 25th, 1998, season two episode 28^[1] of Dexter's Laboratory, titled "Old Flame," aired on television. In the episode, Dexter brings the first caveman to discover fire into the present day. On May 30th, 2019, Imgur^[2] user Lishoovalle11 posted a screenshot from the episode of Dexter showing the confused caveman, who is holding a torch, around his laboratory (shown below). This is the earliest available screenshot of the scene uploaded online.

On October 23rd, 2019, Redditor u/flowzy02 posted a labeled version of the image to /r/gaming^[3] with the caveman labeled "console gamers" and Dexter and the lab equipment labeled as the advantages of PC gaming, garnering over 780 upvotes in just under two years (shown below). This is the earliest known meme using the image.

Spread

On November 11th, 2019, a now-deleted Redditor posted a photoshopped version of the image to /r/me_irl^[4] about showing a FIFA video game player "there's better games," the caveman representing the FIFA player, gaining over 3,600 upvotes in roughly two years (shown below).

On March 27th, 2020, iFunny^[5] user Slut posted a screenshot of a now-deleted tweet using the image with the caption, "Visiting your friend's Animal Crossing town when they time travel and you don't," gaining over 49,000 smiles in a year-and-a-half (shown below, left). On April 27th, Instagram^[6] page @_codehub_ posted a programming meme using the format, gaining over 10,900 likes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On July 5th, Twitter^[8] user @filmeastereggs used the image, among others, in a post describing how the caveman from the episode resembles the caveman "Spear" from Genndy Tartakovsky's 2019 cartoon series Primal, who also created Dexter's Laboratory, gaining over 3,400 likes and 450 retweets in roughly a year (shown below).

On September 13th, 2021, Redditor u/KLASHINOV posted a version of the meme to /r/dankmemes^[7] about showing a man who pays for Onlyfans content that free adult content exists online, gaining over 12,000 upvotes in under a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References