The two fonts I remember were Comic Sans, used for putting words in the mouths of pets, or Impact for most other things.

This was a “viral video”, but was it a “meme”?

This is more-or-less the format used for the motivational posters that were popular in offices in the 90s or so. People made fun of those with demotivational posters. But, those weren’t really “memes”, IMO.

But, the earliest thing that I think deserve the name “memes” (normally called Image Macros) were on the Something Awful forums (and soon after that on 4chan). In the early days they were mostly animal based: “lolcat”, “doge”, the “O RLY?” owl, etc.

Can someone point to “memes” that had the text underneath the picture, rather than using the impact font and written directly on top of the picture?

It’s strange how no matter when someone was born, the best period in world history is the one when they happened to be kids.

Will Poulter

In “We’re the Millers”, the source of this image (from 2013) he was a goofy-looking kid.

Now, on The Bear he’s Hot Chef Luca.

Not quite as much, but not enough to make a major difference.

Yeah, it used to be sunup to sundown, 6 days a week. And the seventh was hardly a day of rest. And, there was no retirement at 65. There was working until you died, or at least working until you were very feeble and hoping that your children would take care of you in your old age (which just added to the work they had to do). Work also wasn’t this thing that you had to start doing after university. It was this thing you started going before you hit puberty. You’d be feeding the animals, or helping mend the clothing as a child, and that work would continue for your entire life.

And, even if things were distributed more equitably, work would still be necessary. In fact, if things were distributed more equitably, it wouldn’t be illegal immigrants or immigrants on short-term visas doing a lot of the agricultural work, it would be the kinds of people who complain about their 9-5 jobs.

The sad fact is that getting enough variety on your plate, a comfortable roof over your head, and entertainment in your eyes requires a lot of work from a lot of people. It would be really nice if we lived in a post-scarcity world with replicators to provide any food anybody desired, and robots to repair everything that broke. But, we’re not there yet. Spending all day working 5 days a week feels rough, and maybe if things were more fairly distributed we’d only be working 3 days a week. But, until we invent the replicator, we’re still going to need farms, and farms will need farm workers, and farm workers will need mattresses and roofs and vehicles, and those vehicles will require tires, and those tires will need to be tested for safety, and those safety testers will need computers, and those computers will need programmers, and those programmers will need caffeine…

I love that this goofy-looking kid is now the (other) heartthrob from The Bear.