Deep Dull History of Joseph Ducreux — Meme
Joseph Ducreux was an eighteenth century French artist who is known primarily for his questionable self portrait paintings. The picture illustrated above is a popular self portrait of Joseph Ducreux in the guise of a mockingbird completed in 1793. The painting depicts the artist with a cane, haughty smirk, and a finger pointing towards the observer. Joseph Ducreux had no idea what importance his self portrait would have in the world of the Internet — realistically how could he when the light bulb was invented in 1879 let alone the internet.
The portrait resurfaced in 2009 — over two centuries later, in the form of a meme. This meme read “Disregard Females, Acquire Currency,” an antiquated translation of “F#*k Bi$!@es, Get Money,” a quote from either Lil Wayne’s Money on My Mind from 2005 or Notorious B.I.G’s Get Money from 1995.
Joseph Ducreux, an artist once known for his unorthodox depictions of himself, is now known by today’s youth for his infamous meme. This meme is known for its old-fashioned translations of modern day rap and hip-hop music scribed over the iconic painting.
One of the main reasons I believe that this meme has held its high status in the universe of hilarious memes is the thinking that it requires to understand the joke. If you think about all the work that goes into every meme it is incredible! First a person has to locate a song or quote of interest; next they have to properly translate the song or quote — yes it must be correct or its not funny! DUH, thirdly the creator must post the meme to a popular page. The last step comes from you, the observer; you must decode the ancient terminology to the accurate song or quote in which the meme depicts. Think about how ingenious this is, someone pretty much came up with a modern day crossword puzzle, Sudoku or any other tedious game that you can play while chillaxing on the toilet.
Try and translate the memes below and see how long it takes you — the answers are available in the caption.
The fame of this meme was credited in the Tournament of Memes hosted by Reddit. Joseph Ducreux came in first place in the 2013 competition. Other popular memes during the time that Joseph Ducreux concurred were Introspective Pug, Skeptical Third World Kid, and Overly Attached Girlfriend.
The theme of this meme has been revamped to countless variations over the past few years after its release in 2009. A second painting, self-portrait of the artist yawning, by Joseph Ducreux is sometimes used in similar contexts of the original meme. Other variations include shopping a photo of Steve Buscemi’s face over that of Joseph Ducreux; this was done because the altered facial expression has a better relation to different quotes or song lyrics.
Other variations of the meme include shopping the faces of different animals over that of Joseph Ducreux. This widens the use of the meme to a whole new genre of humor. It is pretty hilarious picturing your dog speaking in an old fashioned manner.
The flexibility of this meme’s use allowed it to spread like wildfire over the Internet and now it is in high demand to be seen everywhere. You can find depictions of this meme anywhere; from gifs, figurines; t-shirts; infant attire and much more. The artwork has actually resurfaced in popularity in the art culture now and can be seen as decorations in people’s homes. There are even more people visiting museums to see the original portraits of Joseph Ducreux. This almost gives a little class to our generations form of art interest.
As a young university student, I dabble in the arts of meme design here and there. Now let me warn you they are some knee slappers /s. I am going to give this whole Joseph Ducreux meme thing a go, let me know what you think!
“Thy master claims the encyclopedia of all knowledges are mummer’s farce, yet the youth is taught by scripts ripened over two decades,”
This translates to…
“Professors say that Wikipedia is not a reliable resource, instead have class use 20-year-old textbooks.”
In this meme I used a topic that relates best to my struggle, outdated textbooks. I hate going through lecture materials and being updated in class that my textbook will tell me something different since times have changed since the publication of the reading material. I also chose the meme with Steve Buscemi’s face over that of Joseph Ducreux; this was done because his face almost has a tired appearance to it; kind of like my face when I’m told to disregard my reference book because its so old that it still thinks dinosaurs exist.
Always remember that everything you see on the internet most likely has a history to it. Make some time to learn it, you’ll be surprised about what you might find out.
