Monday, March 28, 2022

My accidental part in meme history (whoops)


 So, back in the early 2000's I used to hang out in a bunch of online groups. Early social media stuff like LiveJournal, YahooGroups (formerly eGroups), MSN Groups, etc., and I really enjoyed sharing spooky or weird images on those platforms. I would use most of the popular search engines at the time (Alta Vista was a personal favorite because I felt like most people weren't using it) and do my best to find stuff that was just odd to look at. 

In my circle of friends at the time, we didn't really use the word meme (we knew it but mispronounced it usually as "me-me"), and instead used the phrase "image virus", which came from an artist online who became somewhat famous for his "HTML Image Virus" trend. At some point the term memes became more prominent and "image virus" slowly dissipated into obscurity. 


About a month ago (or over a month ago) I was  contacted by a person who was a part of a investigation group trying to find the origins of the famous "Jeff the Killer" image that was used for creepypasta stories. An earlier version of that Jeff image, apparently called "prettyFace" was an image I recognized from nearly 20 years ago because I do remember finding it in one of my searches and sharing it around. This person who contacted me told me the shocking news that he had found me after a lengthy search online and by his own research says I may have been the first person in the West to share this image outside of Japan. I was of course shocked. 

As usual, "Bob" was right, "The stupider it looks, the more important it probably is."

I will admit, I didn't really connect the prettyFace image to the Jeff image at all. Maybe because they're so prominent in the internet zeitgeist, at least for me, that I just got used to them. I do recall there being one or two other images alongside the prettyFace image, but that might also be my own faulty memory. I found it on an image board of some kind where a bunch of images were being shared. At one point I may even have had those images but that was several computers ago. 

What I find interesting is that the YouTuber BlameitonJorge is once again circling around my interests. He has already mentioned the Church of the SubGenius, The MayDay Mystery, and now this. I feel like one day I'm might have to reach out and say hi to the guy 😆

To be fair, I don't know if I am the first person in the West to share this image. When I saw it floating around I thought folks just found it the same way I did. If it was me though, what a ripple effect. How funny that a dumb image I shared on a dumb message board somewhere would come back to haunt me after all these years. 

I hope the folks investigating find the origins of the image. Like a lot of the world mysteries I'm sure the answer will be incredibly mundane, but it's never about the destination it's about the journey. 

Here are some links if you want to understand this whole thing:



2 comments:

  1. Crazy ! Im part of that search! I have been following and tracking where the origenal came from for a while now.We still haven't found the origenal image this was made from.

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    1. No kidding! Are you part of the Discord group as well? A lot of good folks there are working together to find the original.

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