About

Iceberg Tiers Parodies are usually images of an iceberg, captioned humorously so as to convey that the tip of the iceberg is the summation of the knowledge of most people, while the much larger submerged part of the iceberg is the sum of all knowledge of a particular topic. These parodies are often used in the context of imageboards like 4chan to ridicule outsiders, but they have also spread to fandoms. The image of the iceberg is typically used as an exploitable meme format with object labeling captions added in descending order the deeper you go.

Origin

It is unknown where the iceberg metaphor originates from in general usage. Sigmund Freud used an iceberg metaphor to describe the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind,^[1] and another academic named Edward T. Hall created the "Cultural Iceberg Model" as a way to discuss cultural differences.^[2] The earliest known example of the iceberg metaphor being used as a parody image was uploaded to Imgur on May 31st, 2011, although it probably dates from sometime earlier than that. In the visible part of the iceberg are the logos for many popular websites which are easily accessible via Google or URL, while below the waterline were different types of websites that were only accessible by those who can access the deep web. The image has received over 150,000 views on Imgur,^[3] and an associated Reddit post in the subreddit /r/askreddit received 161 points (74% upvoted).^[4]

Spread

On June 12th, 2012, the user enfdude submitted the image to the subreddit /r/4chan, inquiring as to what the deep web was; the post received 252 points (79% upvoted) and 128 comments.^[5] In early 2015, more parody images began to appear on 4chan, which were collected in a blog post on the blog Morbo's World on May 15th, 2015.^[6] As recently as December 2015, new parodies are being collected and created on /mu/ and /v/. ^[7]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References