When we think of memes today, we picture dancing babies, grumpy cats, or absurdly specific niche jokes circulating across TikTok and Reddit. But the idea of a meme—an idea or behavior that spreads from person to person—didn’t start with the internet. In fact, it predates Instagram filters, LOLcats, and even electricity.

Long before our timelines were flooded with catchphrases and image macros, humanity was creating and sharing memes. They just didn’t call them that yet. In this article, we’ll take a journey through time to uncover the earliest viral trends in human history—and what they reveal about our social DNA.

What Is a Meme, Really?

The term “meme” was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. He used it to describe an idea, behavior, or style that spreads within a culture through imitation—kind of like a gene, but for information.

So, by that definition, a meme isn’t limited to digital content. It can be anything: a gesture, a fashion choice, a phrase, even a way of cooking food. And guess what? Humans have been doing this for tens of thousands of years.

1. The OG Meme: The Handprint on the Cave Wall

Let’s start with prehistoric cave art. Walk into a cave like El Castillo in Spain or Sulawesi in Indonesia, and you’ll see handprints stenciled onto the walls using red ochre. These prints are among the oldest known forms of human expression, dating back more than 40,000 years.

Why handprints? Because they were simple, repeatable, and meaningful. They were a way to say, “I was here.” And because they appear in different places and times across the world, they suggest a shared impulse—one that spread across cultures long before Snapchat streaks.

2. The Original “Tagging”: Graffiti in Pompeii

Fast forward to ancient Rome. The ruins of Pompeii are filled with graffiti—some rude, some poetic, some downright hilarious. People scratched jokes, advertisements, political slogans, and declarations of love into stone walls, not unlike comment sections today.

One classic example? “We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus.” It’s the ancient version of carving your name into a park bench.

These wall writings were public, repeatable, and socially contagious. If that’s not memetic behavior, what is?

3. The Fashion Meme: The Roman Mullets and Wigs

In the first few centuries CE, Roman men and women went through hairstyle trends the way we go through TikTok filters. Emperor Nero’s reign popularized mullet-like cuts and elaborate wigs made of imported hair.

These styles spread not through Instagram, but through sculpture, coinage, and good old-fashioned social imitation. People copied their emperors and elite influencers—sound familiar?

4. Medieval Memes: Marginalia and Doodles

Ever seen a medieval manuscript featuring a snail fighting a knight, or rabbits wielding swords? Welcome to the weird world of marginalia—doodles and illustrations in the margins of illuminated texts.

These images often had nothing to do with the main story. They were little jokes, parodies, or artistic flexes passed from scribe to scribe, much like inside jokes among coworkers or fandoms.

The fact that bizarre rabbit imagery recurs in multiple manuscripts suggests these were more than random drawings. They were part of a visual meme culture.

5. The Catchphrase Craze: Proverbial Sayings

Proverbs are perhaps the most successful memes of all time. “Early to bed, early to rise,” “A stitch in time saves nine,” “Don’t count your chickens”—these expressions have been repeated for centuries, spreading wisdom (or at least advice) across generations.

They survived not because of authorship or ownership, but because they were catchy, easy to remember, and applicable. Kind of like the 15-second soundbites of their day.

6. The Printing Press Boom: Reproduction Goes Viral

The invention of the printing press in the 15th century was like flipping a meme switch. Suddenly, ideas could be copied and spread en masse. Pamphlets, broadsheets, and woodcut prints became the memes of their era.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses spread like wildfire across Europe, not unlike a tweet that goes mega-viral. Satirical cartoons, religious leaflets, and moral tales all became early examples of analog virality.

7. Dance Crazes of the Past: The Original TikTok Trends

The internet didn’t invent dance challenges. Consider the “Dancing Plague” of 1518 in Strasbourg, where dozens of people danced for days on end, reportedly to exhaustion or death. While the cause is debated (mass hysteria? ergot poisoning?), it shows how contagious behaviors could spread pre-internet.

Other less dangerous dance crazes, like the minuet or the Charleston, became wildly popular across social classes. They were repeatable, performative, and social—just like a TikTok trend.

Why These Memes Mattered

Memes—whether digital or dusty—fulfill a deep social need. They allow us to connect, to laugh, to remember, and to signal identity. Prehistoric handprints, Roman graffiti, medieval doodles—they weren’t throwaway content. They were how people said, “I’m here, and this is what I think is funny, important, or worth remembering.”

These early memes also show how culture evolves not just top-down (from rulers or elites) but bottom-up—from everyday people sharing ideas in organic, sometimes chaotic ways.

What This Tells Us About Today’s Memes

Understanding the ancient roots of memetic behavior helps us realize two things:

1. We’re not as new or unique as we think.
2. Our need to share, remix, and replicate is timeless.

Sure, today’s memes are faster, more visual, and algorithm-driven. But the impulse behind them—the joy of imitation, the power of a shared laugh, the speed of cultural mutation—is as old as human society.

So the next time you see a meme go viral, remember: it’s part of a lineage that stretches back to the Stone Age.

Final Thoughts

From cave walls to comment threads, humans have always been memers. The formats may change, but the behavior doesn’t. Memes are more than just jokes—they’re cultural code, passed from brain to brain across time and space.

We’ve been going viral long before the internet. And we’ll keep doing it, one shared laugh at a time.