calculations meme

Kyle Murphy/Flickr (CC-BY-SA)

The calculator meme is here to add up your hot takes

Whatever happened to just typing in 80085?

Photo of David Britton 

David Britton

Internet Culture

Posted on Apr 10, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 3:10 pm CDT

In 2016, a man from Scotland who goes by Aidan CC on Twitter posted a calculator made out of ASCII characters. Above the calculator, he wrote: “According to my calculations.” On the calculator’s screen, he wrote: “ur maws ur da”.

It’s a fairly common joke in Scotland that was made funnier by the amount of effort put into creating the calculator art.

It’s not clear if Aidan CC was actually the first to use the calculator meme or just an early adopter, but since being posted nearly three years ago, it has received a modest, yet respectable 202 retweets and 319 likes. Not bad for a guy who only has a little over 1,000 followers now, and probably had far less at the time.

https://twitter.com/AidanCC/status/756276406829588480

Once the art was available for anyone to copy and paste, it became a snowclone meme, meaning one where you fill in a missing part of the phrase, basically the mad lib of memes.

People also sometimes scrapped the calculator and just used what looked like a complex math equation.

For some reason, the meme began making a comeback in 2019 and has been all over Twitter this month. It’s mainly being used in a wholesome, almost overly sweet fashion.

https://twitter.com/idevol_1/status/1115923763093225473

Although a few users seem to remember what Twitter is really for: calling out other people on things they enjoy.

https://twitter.com/emilyfruendt/status/1115433725079228416

And, of course, defending Taylor Swift.

https://twitter.com/slaylegend_13/status/1114681908242210817

Thus far, there don’t seem to be any real standout versions of the meme. In fact, at this point, no one has even topped Adian CC’s “Your Mom” joke from 2016.

Of course, like vultures drawn to the smell of a dying corpse, brand Twitter is hopping on board, hoping to show all the kids how cool they are.

If no one comes up with anything good soon, by our calculations, this meme will be dead in a week.

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*First Published: Apr 10, 2019, 2:39 pm CDT

David Britton

David Britton is a writer and comedian based in Rhinebeck, New York who focuses on internet culture, memes, and viral news stories. He also writes for the Hard Times and is the creator of StoriesAboutWizards.com.

David Britton