I Found a Picture of Your Grandfather

About

I Found a Picture of Your Grandfather is an exploitable series of comparison memes, juxtaposing a representation of masculinity or femininity from the past with one from the present. While initially used to promote traditional gender roles, it has since been appropriated ironically.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the meme was posted by Wordpress^[1] user peterlengyel on February 24th, 2016 as an example of a homophobic meme. The instance compares the representation of a "grandfather" in 2016, which is shown through a photograph of a traditional male, and 2090, which is represented as a man dressed as a cat (shown below).

Spread

That year, on August 22nd, 2016, Imgur ^[2] user ADMIRALKITTENS shared the meme, receiving more than 71,000 views and 1,600 points. The following day, Redditor ^[3] Le_Faveau shared the meme on the /r/funny subreddit. The post received more than 7,100 points (84% upvoted) and 320 comments in a little more than three years.

Later that year, on November 23rd, 2016, Tumblr ^[5] user okaymad posted a variation of the meme that compares a woman from the past with a woman taking a photograph of herself in her underwear. The post received more than 116,000 notes in less than three years (shown below, left).

In response to the post, Tumblr^[7] user gallusrostromegalus shared a story about finding a series of naked photographs of her great-great grandmother. They wrote:

We’re going through my Mom’s side of the family, laughing at the pictures of Grandma putting wrapping paper on the dog, and grandpa pulling faces at the camera, when we find an old brown envelope.

The fuck? says my sister, because she’s been in to Great-Aunt Liz’s Rumballs, and I open the envelope. Inside are four tickets to the titanic, unused, and Mom tells us the story of how her ancestors ALMOST came over on the Titanic, but Great-Aunt Liz got the measles and forced everyone into quarantine, thus saving their lives.

The OTHER thing in the envelope are seven Photographs, dated 1890. They are of my Great-Great Grandmother.

They are nudes.

They are NOT tasteful nudes.

Like, these are Violating-Terms-Of-Service-On-Most-Platforms- OBSCENE.

The response was covered by the Independent^[8] in the article "Woman destroys slut shaming meme by sharing incredible story about her great-great-grandmother."

On March 18th, 2018, Facebook ^[4] account nerdbotmedia posted a variation on the format, featuring a World War II Nazi soldier as the grandfather and a boy with a Snapchat dog filter over his face. The post received more than 162,000 shares, 18,000 reactions and 6,200 comments in less than two years (shown below, center).

On October 30th, 2019 iFunny ^[6] user Asshole_Chan shared a variation that received more than 1,000 reactions (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References