Here's where this 'success kid' pic and other Internet memes originally came from

Memes are everywhere. Easily sharable on any social media platform, and instantly remixable with little technical effort, they've become visual vehicles to share our thoughts with the outside world.But where do they come from'That's whereKnowYourMeme comes in, a sort of Wikipedia for memesthatcovers a meme's journey from inception to viral hit, along with its inevitable decline,andin some cases, its crossover into popular culture.Hereare the origin stories behind 7 of the most widely sharedmemes on the internet.ErmahgerdA meme so ubquidious that its origin was explained in a long-form Vanity Fair article, the viral phenom started innocently enough. Maggie Goldenberger, the "ermehgerd" girl had the picture taken while her and her friends took turns dressing up in the most ridiculous clothes they could find while striking funny faces and poses. These images were eventually scanned and uploaded to Facebook, where the Reddit userxWavy randomly came across it.xWavy posted it on Reddit, where the initial thread titled "BERKS" received over 17,000 upvotes.PhilosoraptorAlthoughterm "philosoraptor" can be traced back to a forum post created back in 1998, the popularized visual of the portmandeau was created in 2008. The image was created by Sam Smith as a t-shirt design for the website LonelyDinosaur. The spread of the Philosoraptor is an product of good timing, the image became popular just as memegenerator.com launched, letting people add their own text without any image editing programs.The Neil deGrasse Tyson reactionThe digitally outlinedimage of Tyson, typically associated with the phrase: "Watch out guys, we're dealing with a ba***s over here," was created because of a reaction Tyson gave in a video praising Isaac Newton in 2011. The reaction was turned into a GIF, which was posted by Reddit userHippopoptimus_Prime in the r/trees subreddit. The drawn image was created by Reddit userOnlyhereforthelaughs, which was posted in the/r/f7u12 subreddit, where it was seen by Redditerfairlydeadfellow who provided the associated caption.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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