A list selected by Hipster Kitty

Memes were a thing decades before they toted the notoriety that the Internet passed onto them. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins invented the word as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Here are some memes that were memes before memes were cool:

The Urinating Calvin

Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson stands out from most cartoonists in that he refused almost all merchandise and brand collaboration offers that came his way. Despite Watterson’s efforts, trademark violators have taken original images of Calvin filling up water balloons to create forgeries that see him urinating on popular car company logos, typically to be placed on car windows and bumper stickers. In 2010, Watterson commented on the phenomenon, saying, “I clearly miscalculated how popular it would be to show Calvin urinating on a Ford logo.”

Also sprach Zarathustra

Making its pop culture debut in Stanley Kubrick’s film interpretation of Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel” and the later, expanded version called 2001: A Space Odyssey, the opening from Johan Strauss II’s tone poem is one of the most commonly exploited musical clips of all time. Whereas Strauss’s piece was inspired by Nietzsche’s treatise of the same name and 2001 used the recording as a motif signifying evolutionary transformations, first from ape to man, then from man to Star-Child, the song has since been adopted by commercial culture to promote products as revolutionary items.

The sports training movie montage

Originating in American cinema but also making their way into martial arts films from East Asia, sports training montages typically depict characters engaging in the tedious training activities that precede crucial, climactic scenes that test the effectiveness of said training. Because the technique is so simple, its over-use has become a source of frequent parody in comedy films.

“D’oh!”

Begetted by a script prompt that urged voice actor Dan Castellaneta to utter an “annoyed grunt,” “d’oh” has been adopted by Simpsons fans and non-fans alike to the point that it has become a commonplace in modern speech. In 2001, the phrase was inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary.

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