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The Phrase “Kilroy Was Here” (2017)

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Re: The Phrase “Kilroy Was Here” (2017)

#21

Post by hunter2_ »

andrewprock wrote: post #10

The oddest part of the story is the suggestion that the concept of meme arose with the internet, instead of with Richard Dawkins in the mid 1970s.

The parenthetical (em-dash-ical?) quip about the internet serves to educate the least knowledgeable, while all other usage of the word suggests no such thing. In fact, the first usage is a link to a page clearly attributing the word to Dawkins.

Re: The Phrase “Kilroy Was Here” (2017)

#23

Post by niccl »

mobb_solo wrote: post #22

In his 'obscene' opus set in WW2, Thomas Pynchon proposed that the scrawling of Kilroy was in fact originally part of a schematic representing a "band-pass filter". https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/Ki...

My father told me of once that when he was working at the RAF research Establishment at Farnborough, someone was was very pleased to have created a circuit which would plot a Chad on an oscilloscope. A little recursion...

Re: The Phrase “Kilroy Was Here” (2017)

#27

Post by Zuider »

The explanation I heard was that during the second world war, as the US and British forces advanced in Europe, the Americans would chalk 'Kilroy was here' on some landmark, and the British would add the Chad graphic, reminiscent of a gang sign. 'Chad' used to be associated with protests against shortages due to war rationing, a forlorn figure peering over a wall exclaiming "Wot, no fish?" or "Wot, no sugar?"

Re: The Phrase “Kilroy Was Here” (2017)

#28

Post by aaron695 »

There's seems to be no evidence of it before WW2.

"Foo was here" was 1942 in Australia (You'd suspect foo was from FUBAR) - https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247899915

Kilroy seems to have merged with Chad from the British, post war?

You can see with Bugs Bunny it was just the words - https://rhslegend.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Bugs-Bunny-...

I think the welder story is the best bet - https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2011/04/15/kilroy-was-here

"Kilroy is 78 years old now and remembers the transit company contest that recognized his dad and said he’ll never forget what the Kilroy family was given for winning: a trolley car."

Re: The Phrase “Kilroy Was Here” (2017)

#29

Post by Zuider »

andrewprock wrote: post #10

The oddest part of the story is the suggestion that the concept of meme arose with the internet, instead of with Richard Dawkins in the mid 1970s.

Richard Dawkins' concept of a meme is much broader and more abstract, a self-perpetuating idea (that need not be graphical in nature.) The internet meme, while it still fits Dawkins' concept of a meme, is a distinctive phenomenon, and is essentially graffiti released from its former physical constraints, allowing it to spread virally, often without any clear reason behind its popularity. The Chad/Kilroy meme, because of its origins in worldwide troop movement during WWII which enhanced its spread, bears a striking resemblance to a modern internet meme for that reason.
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