The album In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by band Neutral Milk Hotel has long been a meme on the /mu/ board of 4chan.org. Lyrics from the album are often quoted and altered versions of the album art are included in posts.

One day, a user under the name -ism !L.7AITHTQ. decided it to create a thread under the following heading.

"GUITARISTS OF /MU/

ITT: we upload a cover of ITAOTS to http://kiwi6.com/ or whatever hotlinking site you prefer (kiwi6 needs no registration or anything) and then listen to each others and have a general dick sizing contest.

Bonus points for anyone who does something inventive or actually records seperate tracks then cleans them up and mixes them."

This thread was popular, leading to a copy cat thread the next day which was widely hailed as a wonderful thread drawing many inventive and wacky contributions. One anon suggested that this thread become a weekly tradition and since it was on a Thursday so began ITAOTS cover Thursday.

An archive of both those threads appeared on chanarchive.org and a copy of both appear in picture form on this page.

http://chanarchive.org/4chan/mu/34203/

http://chanarchive.org/4chan/mu/34321