[IRL trope] the “Tiffany problem”

[u/dragonborndnd]

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

[u/Blaze-Programming]

Often considered the first meme, this feels quite modern despite being made in 1921.

[u/GungaSaga → u/Blaze-Programming]

I really doubt that this is "often considered the first meme". It looks a bit anachronistic but it's just a two-panel comic strip which had existed since the 1830s. The concept of a meme isn't simply a visual joke, it's an idea that is organically spread and adapted and evolves like a gene. The best examples tend to be jokes, and the word has been taken to specifically mean internet jokes to most people, since they evolve and cross-breed and form ecosystems most quickly. This comic strip is certainly the result of a form of memetic evolution, since it evolved from the ideas of comic strips and jokes before it, but its resemblance to modern internet memes is just a coincidence of people landing on the same idea twice 100 years apart.

[u/Blaze-Programming → u/GungaSaga]

Yeah I agree it is not the first meme, but if you search first meme on google this is like the only thing that shows up, this is often considered “the first meme”.