Secrets of a Famous Meme Revealed
by Tod Seelie
I accidentally created one of the first viral memes. This was in 2004, a long time before anyone would understand the words “viral” or “meme” the way we do now. Two women with matching fake black eyes, bandages, fake blood, and wearing white T-shirts that read, respectively, “I KILL EVERYTHING I FUCK” and “I FUCK EVERYTHING I KILL.”
This image coincidentally hit like a meteor just as the identity-sharing internet exploded into mainstream culture. Using internet tools to share/blog/post/broadcast your likes/dislikes, aesthetic tastes, inside jokes, and other markers of identity with a potential worldwide audience came into its own during this period. (For context, Myspace debuted in 2003, Facebook in 2004, Reddit in 2005, and Tumblr in 2007.)
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