Dream Socratic Seminar

About

Dream Socratic Seminar is a phrase used alongside images of various celebrities or characters that the user would like to have a Socratic seminar with. The images are often photoshopped onto an image of several school desks assembled in a circle, and the poster sometimes provides a topic that they would discuss. It is an extension of the Dream Blunt Rotation meme, both of which went viral in March 2021.

Origin

A Socratic seminar, named after Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of discussion in which a "leader" asks open-ended questions to a group based on a topic or text, meant to inspire critical thinking.^[8]

In March 2021, a Twitter trend prompting users to post their "Dream Blunt Rotations," meaning dream guests they'd like to smoke cannabis with, went viral on Twitter, acting as a precursor to the meme (examples shown below).

On March 12th, TikToker^[1] @lilyhasatiktok posted a green-screen video in which she stands in front of an empty Socratic seminar made up of school desks assembled in a circle, with the on-screen text, "forget dream 🍃 circle, here's my dream socratic seminar" followed by a number of images of celebrities, including Alex Jones, h3h3 Productions, Sue Sylvester and Jesus (shown below). The video gained over 214,000 views in two weeks.

On the same date, Twitter^[2] user @golfed posted "dream socratic seminar rotation pt 1" along with four images of various characters (shown below, left). This is the first instance of the format on Twitter. Later that day, Twitter^[3] user @mollyarn0ld then tweeted, "my dream socratic seminar" along with the same image of desks arranged into a circle used in @lilyhasatiktok's TikTok, but with her dream Socratic seminar choices photoshopped over the desks (shown below, right). This is the first version of the meme to use the desk image on Twitter.

Spread

New variations of the format continued to spread on Twitter and TikTok throughout March 2021.

On March 13th, TikToker^[4] @googlythirdeye posted a video showing a dream Socratic seminar meant to cause pure chaos, including Kanye West, Gibby, and Trisha Paytas among others, garnering over 525,000 views in two weeks (shown below, left). On March 16th, TikToker^[5] @lilimandel posted another chaotic Socratic seminar combo including Gun Girl and Dwight Schrute from The Office among others, garnering over 1.5 million views in 10 days (shown below, right).

On March 17th, Twitter^[6] user @alterego posted, "bro look who’s all at the socratic seminar" along with a photoshopped desk image consisting of various anime characters from videogames and series, including Genshin Impact and Yu-Gi-Oh!, garnering over 7,300 likes and 2,000 retweets in a week (shown below).

Variations of the post continued on Twitter over the course of the week, (various examples shown below) also seeing spread on Instagram late in the month.

On March 24th, Instagram^[7] user @salad.snake posted a dream Socratic seminar image to Instagram, writing, "My ideal Socratic Seminar. Topic: Women’s Rights" including images of Michael Richards, Charlie from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and Picolo from Dragon Ball, garnering over 40,000 likes in under a day (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References