Mr. T Ate My Balls

1996

Date: 1996 · Place: GeoCities (RodeoDrive/1234), USA · Figures: Nehal Patel, originator, college student · Tags: Image Macro Ancestor, GeoCities, Format Franchise 01. The First Format Franchise In 1996, Nehal Patel, a student at the University of Illinois, makes a GeoCities page consisting of scanned photos of Mr. T with crude captions like I ate your balls. The page goes around campus, then around the early web. Within months there are Alf Ate My Balls, Oprah Ate My Balls, Pikachu Ate My Balls, and hundreds more, each on its own GeoCities page. 02. Format Over Content It is the first internet franchise based purely on a swappable variable. The grammar is celebrity image + ate my balls caption. Change the celebrity, keep the format, get a new page. This is the structural skeleton of every image macro to follow, from LOLCats to Distracted Boyfriend. Wired covers the phenomenon in 1997 in a piece titled The Balls That Ate The Internet, the first time a mainstream tech magazine tries to explain a meme-of-memes. Sources • Wired, 'The Balls That Ate The Internet' (Steve Silberman, January 1997) • Know Your Meme, 'Mr. T Ate My Balls' • Archive.org Wayback, RodeoDrive/1234 GeoCities snapshots (1996-1998)