About

Skilometer is a play on the word "kilometer" and a slang term meaning "British smile" most often used in the joke "Europeans when you smile instead of skilometer," a joke about how British people use the metric system of measurement rather than the imperial measurement system that the U.S. uses. The earliest known use of the joke in a meme is a Reddit post made on October 2020 to the /r/memes subreddit, becoming further popularized over the following years.

Origin

On October 31st, 2020, u/Awesome_Me_17 posted a meme to /r/memes^[1] joking that Europeans "skilometer" instead of "smile," a reference to how Europeans use the metric system rather than the imperial system like the U.S., with metric using kilometers rather than meters, garnering over 45,000 upvotes in four years (shown below).

Spread

The meme gained viral spread and inspired further memes using the term "skilometer" over the following years. On October 31st, 2020, it was reposted to 9GAG,^[2] garnering over 11,000 upvotes in four years. On November 3rd, it was posted to the Facebook^[3] page thelanguagenerds, garnering over 6,200 reactions in the same span of time.

On February 2nd, 2022, a new meme using the same joke was posted to /r/memes,^[4] garnering over 79,000 views in two years (shown below).

On April 25th, 2024, iFunny^[5] user genericsadgirl posted a meme using the joke alongside a reaction image of Bella from the Twilight series, garnering over 6,600 smiles in two weeks (shown below). On May 3rd, X^[6] user @Havoc_Six reposted the meme, garnering over 500 likes in six days.

Various Examples

@erenlenox

Skilometer

♬ original sound – e 🇲🇽

@marillys_ #foryoupage #fyp #cat #europe #kilometer ♬ original sound – Marce

Search Interest

External References