About

Prince Philip, born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, was a member of the British Royal Family. He is the Duke of Edinburgh. Born in 1921, Prince Philip was a highly decorated member of the family and the longest-living male in the history of the Royal Family. Online, his elderly appearance has made him the subject of several jokes.

History

Prince Philip was born in Greece as the Prince of Greece and Denmark on June 10th, 1921.^[1] His family was exiled from Greece shortly after his birth, and after serving in World War II, married the daughter of George VI, the eventual Queen, Elizabeth II. He was named Duke of Edinburgh shortly before his 1947 wedding and was given the title of British prince in 1957. He had a decorated military service and oversaw hundreds of charities in his 60+ years of service in the Royal Family before retiring in 2017 at the age of 96.

On April 9th, 2021, Prince Philip died at Windsor Castle.

Online History

Online, Philip has been the subject of numerous jokes concerning his elderly appearance.

Hospital Photo

Prince Philip Leaving Hospital is an image macro series based on a photograph of then 98-year-old Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, sitting in a car. On December 24th, 2019, The Daily Mirror reported that Prince Philip had been discharged from the hospital. The Mirror and other tabloids and media outlets published the photograph Peter Macdiarmid. They also tweeted the story and received more than 19,000 likes and 3,900 retweets (shown below).

That day, people began mocking the photograph. Twitter user @stickysimba retweeted the Daily Mirror and wrote, "This man is dead, they just defrosted him and put him in the front seat of the car." The tweet received more than 188,000 likes and 47,000 retweets in less than two days (shown below, left). Hours later, Redditor DocterJohnSmith shared the tweet on the /r/BlackPeopleTwitter subreddit. The post received more than 13,000 points (98% upvoted) and 375 comments. Twitter user @Ully2710 shared a joke about the image, comparing it to a scene from the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. The tweet received more than 16,000 likes and 4,200 retweets in less than two days (shown below, center). Later that day, Redditor shada_de_da_dum posted the photograph in the /r/photoshopbattles subreddit. The post received more than 18,000 points (90% upvoted) and 780 comments in less than two days. Throughout the day, people posted digitally-altered versions of the image (example below, right).

"Prince Philip Looks Several Decades Younger" Headline

On July 28th, 2020, The Daily Express^[2] posted an article with a headline saying Philip looked "several decades younger" in new pictures. The headline prompted a series of jokes from Twitter users about how elderly Philip appeared in the pictures. User @the_blueprint^[3] joked, "Doesn't look a day older than 'died in 1986'" (shown below, left). User @keewa^[4] joked, "Several decades younger than what? A Galapagos tortoise?" (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References