Kilroy Was Here: The Story Behind One of the First Viral Memes in Modern History 

Love the new Magic Spoon subscription model. w00t w00t. Oh, new chocolate & peanut butter too!

To quote something from my childhood, "Ha ha ha I laugh with joy, 'cause I was here before Kilroy".

i gotta be honest: i do not dig the new thumbnail style lol. looks a little too goofy

Magic Spoon is the best!

Hey Simon, could you wait 10 seconds before forcing us to listen to you eat the cereal. I know blaze boy gives no F's but the dry reach inducing sound of you chewing is now permanently associated in my brain with magic spoon and i would appreciate a few extra seconds to realize it is a magic spoon sponsored video before i vomit into my any brand other than what i am sure would be delicious but still vomit inducing magic spoon cereal.

Most likely true😝🤗🤣🤣🤗

Anywhere I've been.

That, and penises scrawled everywhere. That's been going on since at least Roman times, it's just something soldiers do.

He was on trains when I was a kid

Afghanistan also

Given diggers have been to Iraq as well I wonder if Foo is hanging around there as well.

. Killroy was Here ( ¤ ¤ ) ----- W ---- (_) ---- W ----- .

Simon missed a beat here, as Styx had an album named "Kilroy Was Here" in 1983, so the "meme" did not quite fade away into obscurity. Mr Roboto (Domo arigato, Mr Roboto, domo....domo...) was one of the more popular songs from it, used to play on the radio a lot.

Great minds think alike.

Nice pfp ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Legend has it that the first life form to have evolved the ability to leave the water and walk on land was greeted by a a mysterious inscription on a nearby rock. You already know what that inscription said, but unfortunately that first life form was illiterate, so tragically the significance of the event for both life on Earth and for the "Kilroy was here" phrase went unappreciated for millennia. Until now.

Sounds like Americans and British have a similar relationship to what Australia and New Zealand have with Turkey. Once we were bitter enemies for 4 years and now you never hear a negative comment from either side about the other it’s all just respect and love.

Today's enemies can be tomorrow's friends. Granted it helps when the particular generation that holds a grudge die off.

@@Klaaism Yes and I know myself and some friends do our best to let go of any preconceived feelings for the people of another country because of what we hear in the media or even experienced ourselves. I’m not saying it’s easy but it does feel good for yourself to be a more generous person. I’m getting older now and it’s becoming easier for me to see where I was wrong.

@@francispitts9440 the longer I've been away from the mainstream news, the more I question the evidence for their claims, when people tell me about how horrible the world is based apon what they see there?

How do you know when someone served as a Marine?…… they’ll tell you

I was born in 1981 and remember seeing it in the 90s along with the little neon Kilroy people would put on their bug catcher on the front of their truck.

i was born in '92 and drew it on desks in high school myself, so it's still going i'd imagine

Born in 1985, and every now and then I'll throw a Kilroy in some obscure or difficult to reach spot just to enhance the ubiquity of this cultural treasure.

Same age. I also remember something about “Frodo Lives” stickers.

Back in the days of flyposting often saw "bill posters will be prosecuted" on empty buildings plastered with "illegal" posters for records,movies etc, Luckily My dad was a printer and signwriter and one of my fondest memories is just for fun he did a load of stickers saying "bill posters was here" "bill posters is innocent" "free bill posters" and my fav "bill posters was framed" I was in my early teens and thought it was hilarious to stick them up at bus stops,phone boxes and of course flyposting sites .

@@desperatelyseekingrealnews I can't remember whether it was on "The Benny Hill Show" or "Not the Nine O'Clock News," but there was a bit showing a fence with the sign "Bill Posters Will Be Prosecuted," followed by several scrawlings of graffiti, each in a different hand: "Bill Posters is innocent!" "Free Bill Posters!" "In each packet of corn flakes."

I grew up in the 70s and it was kilroy everywhere in my area.

@@desperatelyseekingrealnews or Even Bill Stickers.

Chad got pregnant in the US elections once. 'Hanging Chads' too. Yr 2000 I think.

More like the us army was everywhere

@@twitchymactwitchit2501 *is

. Killroy was Here ( ¤ ¤ ) ----- W ---- (_) ---- W ----- .

tell me about it, my star spangled prick saw Kilroy in my wife's womb.

The grand message we should take away from all this is that we are all constantly treading around in Kilroy's turf. We should keep that in mind and be respectful.

I want to thank you!

Domo arigato 😆

I saw them on that tour. Worst-concert-EVER!

Better than what I find carved into the walls of most public restrooms.

Lol that's cute. My Dad used to draw Kilroy from time to time on our mail or in our notebooks when I was growing up in the 90's and early 2000's.

Same except mine was always a brick wall.

I went to Colorado City in 2012, had the best bacon and cheese pizza at a place called Big’s Pizza lol

We had Kilroys in small town Massachusetts at the same time. I don't know about "everywhere", but at least in the bathrooms at school and at the local pizza places. I know at least some of them were put there by pure civilians (kids that were not military brats & not in ROTC), Kilroy just took on a life of his own I guess!

Found it on the whiteboard in 6th grade once or twice. Don't know who did it or why.

80s Texas I can attest . Killroy was Here ( ¤ ¤ ) ----- W ---- (_) ---- W ----- .

@@dawakat08 Someone who has been there without the misfortune of having lived there!!!

Yes, I remember that when I was at Striker

Same with Fob Salerno "Rocket City"

Kilroy, always just above Wagner

@@devin9580 I lived at Salerno, the OCCP and Gurbuz. We were in charge of the Tani police station. When were you there?

@@udonenomee2117 I was there in 2011 I helped set up the BDOC and the eye in the sky under 1st infantry 3rd brigade out of Fort Knox. I was in 1-6th field artillery.

Figured I'd share the image: photos.app.goo.gl/wfjujvQAABvTr6F78

@@brookriddick9024 Good God, that is distressingly wholesome.

I had a Commodore 64! Was the computer I learned on. It was hard to learn Dos after programming in Basic. Loved that thing!

@@CieJe.Alexander i also had a C64, great computers for the time.

That was my introduction to Kilroy. I actually thought Dennis DeYoung was Kilroy :) I was 7.

I believe that was "Jody"?

The original tramp stamp?

can confirm, the star spangled prick sighted kilroy in my wife's womb. i better not make her mad my wife now has options.

If you were promoted while in service, would it have still been a private area?

Targeted advertising

@@rektralph6778 Simon bugs our phones confirmed.

@@nevobac I knew there was something nefarious going on behind that glorious beard

I looked it up, same as you, maybe yesterday or the day before! Wtf!

@@garlottos this used to be the clever thing 10 year old me used to say when we played smash bros and I beat Roy. Haha. That memory came from nowhere and prompted me to look into Kilroy. Guess I’ll just think about these things out loud now and have Today I Found Out to explain it to me the following day.

While being ridden by an RPG--armed Jesus?

Dad stop, ur embarrassing me

*Yorick

@@devenscience8894 Hi Deven Science! I can't quote the source directly, (In my defence it's a comment on a RU-vid video not a dissertation...) But this comes from a book of actual Graffiti reproduced on pages of "wall" from the author's experience or submitted to him (or her?). These books were published in late 70's to early 80's. The joke is flagged by the use of a capital as the last letter of yorliK rather than the first as in your example Yorick. It becomes less humourous the more the joke is explained. But I understand your point and you are correct in terms of the Shakespeare quote, except that the correction should have been "..Yorick..... Horatio."

@@devenscience8894 ↗😶↘

nice :)

@@devenscience8894 Good grief, man. The joke went right over your head. 😂

I knew him as "The Shithouse Poet"

Epic!

I protect the right to arm bears

Oh! I just watched the video on the Universal S and learned that the term "meme" as a thing by the 70s and 80s. It's just that I had not heard nor used it until Internet culture glommed onto the term around the late 90s early 2000s.

Oh yes, our parents were of the WWII generation, our like my Dad came of age just in time for Korea.

Oh please tell me it was where engine mounts would have been!?

The one picture I saw it was up on the nose of the glider, so close

My great uncle who got a Purple heart in WWII for standing on the deck of his little minesweeper he commanded when he got deafened in one ear during a fatal mine capture accident showed me how to draw Chad and write the phrase. This was back in the seventies. I only ever met my very wealthy great uncle D twice in my life. A few years later I met him again, and again he was accompanied by "Joe", a former US Navy buddy. It was so clear they were a committed, loving couple. My grandmother, Uncle D's older sister thought somehow Uncle D would spread gay cooties and my older brother and I would be come gay. it doesn't work like that and we're not gay, but it would have been morally edifying to us if we could have been open about this. It also would have made my mom rich. Uncle D was basically oilfield trash from Oklahoma who had parents who got there with enough money that his mom had a piano and his older sisters had piano lessons. He grew up poor and like a lot of gay boys with the good fortune to have two indulgent older sisters, he got out, first to Oklahoma State, then to OCS, then to the Navy. After the war he used his GI benefits to attend Harvard business even though he did not have a degree. Having a command of a tiny minesweeper and a Purple Heart for a deaf ear was enough. After that Uncle D went to Madison Avenue and got a chance to manage Colgate-Palmolive's account. He hired Madge the Manicurist. These ads ran into the late seventies. My mom insisted on Colgate toothpaste and Palmolive dish liquid. But Uncle D had bigger dreams. By the late sixties he started investing in properties on Fire Island and also in Ft. Lauderdale. He built the gay culture of those places, and got deservedly rich for having the guts to think it was possible. When he died my mother got a token $5000 from the estate. I am not bitter about the money, though there could have been more, I am bitter because I never was allowed to know this supremely interesting man.

Domo arigato

@@jimcappa6815 Domo

@@dand8530 Domo

What, no sh!t-t!ckets?

@@kennyepperson2867 If you've got time to wipe, you're not doing it right.

I'm out of milk!

@@Klaaism kilroy drank your milk.