HA! HA! guy

From FamousPictures

HA! HA! Guy


Picture Taken On: ????
Place: ????
Behind the Camera: Print Ad
In the picture:Print Ad
[ NO VIDEO ]

HA! HA! (also known as The HA! HA! Quaker) refers to an Internet phenomenon based on a vintage advertisement for Forbes' Insoluble Dry Plates (a brand of photographic plate) dating from the late 19th century^[1]^[2]^[3], featuring what appears to be a laughing Quaker, with a customized subtitle in place of the advertisement's original wording.

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History and appearances

The meme's first appearance was in January 2003 on the SomethingAwful.com forums, with the wording edited to read "HA! HA! I'm using the Internet!". The creator later uploaded the original version of the image, which showed that the real wording read "Forbes' Insoluble Dry Plates".

The image received additional attention on Fark during the weekend of July 15 - July 17, 2005, when relentless postings of the image (a period that has been named 'the grey wave') prompted a site administrator to post a link that encouraged members to post HA! HA! guy images in its discussion thread, hoping that they would get it out of their systems. Far from killing the meme, the thread (Fark Forum Thread 1578737 (page is extremely large, will take a long time to load, and may crash your browser)) topped the list of Fark's most popular recent threads, with about 2,400 comments.

Like most such memes, the frequency of the image's appearances decreased significantly after the initial excitement subsided. However, it remains a staple Farkism.

The thread made a repeat appearance on July 17th 2006 with new and old HAHA! Photoshops.[1]

In September 2008, Goodwill sold a painting entitled "Midland Man 1874" which is identical to the popular HA! HA! guy. This link will expire, so this sentence can be removed after Wikipedia has sourced this tidbit of extra information. HA! HA! guy painted original image Imageshack hosted image from the Goodwill website

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Reference

↑ Ebay Auction for a Small Forbes Photographic Dry Plate Box
↑ Google Books scanned historical journal: The American amateur photographer, Volume 2, 1890 -- Photographic plate product comparison table including Forbes Insoluble Portrait, Forbes Insoluble Brilliant
↑ Google Books scanned historical journal: Photographic times and American photographer, Volume 13, Scovill Manufacturing Co., 1883 -- Mr. James Inglis was an expert in the development of gelatine-based dry photographic plates that are considered "insoluble" in that there is "no frilling" when the plate is exposed to moisture.

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