{"id":1917,"date":"2020-05-07T01:26:42","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T01:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/?p=1917"},"modified":"2020-05-07T01:26:45","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T01:26:45","slug":"the-universal-s-a-global-pre-digital-meme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/2020\/05\/07\/the-universal-s-a-global-pre-digital-meme\/","title":{"rendered":"The Universal S: A Global Pre Digital Meme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Has<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Do you recognize this symbol?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chances are that the answer is yes. But what is it? Is it an S? An 8? A sideways infinity sign?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve probably seen it in children\u2019s notebooks and on graffitied walls, or maybe you even like to draw it yourself? That\u2019s because for over a century this symbol has been replicated in classrooms and on walls in every continent (well, except for Antarctica). And It\u2019s even found in places which don\u2019t use the Roman alphabet. Though pattern is universal in the sense that it can be found everywhere, no one can be sure when or how it originated, or even what <\/em>it symbolizes. Can we really consider it a symbol <\/em>if its meaning is unknown? Or is it simply symbolic of our propensity to replicate and an obsession with symmetry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cool<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If there is no explicit meaning then perhaps it can be better labelled a \u2018meme\u2019, a term which was coined by the public intellectual Richard Dawkins in his seminal work from 1976 The Selfish Gene<\/em>\u2014a man who I unfortunately failed to see speak at St Andrews in 2018. In this book, Dawkins seeks to explain why some ideas, even those which are dangerous or trivial, like martyrdom for example, continue to persist and proliferate. What he argues is that ideas, regardless of their merit, are in constant competition to survive in a state of natural selection. These ideas can spread like viruses, unconcerned with the wellbeing of their hosts (I.E. penance and martyrdom) and the term meme itself is derived from the Greek \u201cmimeme\u201d, meaning something imitated or viral. Thus, this \u2018Universal S\u2019 should be thought of not as a symbol, but rather as a meme, because it has no apparent meaning or utility, yet like a virus it continues to persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the advent of the internet and mass media this memetic phenomenon has become even more apparent and it seems that no matter where we look our image world is already mediated<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, the word meme has become entirely associated with the internet, even if it\u2019s not a uniquely digital. There are a few other pre-digital examples of memes which come to mind, like Kilroy, a WW2 era graffiti cartoon of unknown origin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"How<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t have the time in this post to explain the entire (albeit short) history of the Universal S and the search for its origins, but I\u2019ll try and give a short summary of evidence thus far and the leading theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most plausible theory is that the S was an easily replicated pattern to be included into textiles, carvings, and other designs which may have stretched back to the middle ages or even before, possibly representative of the ancient symbol of infinity or the ouroboros (snake eating itself). However, it\u2019s hard to find concrete evidence of this is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another theory is that the S was simply a geometric puzzle included in challenge books from the 19th<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> century. These books, such as matchstick books, may have for example asked you to \u201cdraw an S or an eight using 14 lines or matchsticks.\u201d This challenge then would have been shared between classmates, families, and co-workers as a way to pass time. And without any inherent symbolic meaning or use past this, no one would have ever taken the time to formally document its origins or spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most comprehensive study I could find therefore comes from the Scandinavian youtuber, Lemmino, who spent years exploring puzzle books, forums, and graffiti. Though he can\u2019t be sure where the S originated, the earliest use he could find was in an engineering guide pamphlet from 1890. Lemmino also discovered another important usage of two Universal S\u2019s in artist Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s seminal work, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Derelict.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Portrait<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Because the Universal S is so insignificant, it has gone more or less undetected in academia and formal channels. In fact, the only theory relating to the S I could find from an academic came from Paul Cobley, a professor of Language and Media at Middelsex University who offers a simple, yet insightful argument that the S spread so far because \u201cIt\u2019s fun to draw\u201d. And maybe this is the answer to such an unimportant question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you recognize this symbol? Chances are that the answer is yes. But what is it? Is it an S? An 8? A sideways infinity sign? You\u2019ve probably seen it in children\u2019s notebooks and on graffitied walls, or maybe you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-uV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1918,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917\/revisions\/1918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}