It is the Twenty-First Century if none of you have realized that piece of factual information thus far. Many actually relish in the fact and claim how far we as a society have come. However, if you were to peak backwards on the timeline, there is no evidence to support this internal notion we all have. This could be applied politically, economically, and socially but I will spare you of writing a dark humored post on the subject of history repeating itself for two reasons: One, it is election year and anything and everything is considered controversial at the moment and two, I have spent almost 10 hours of my summer studying the gory and bloody French Revolution so I need the mental break and do something happy and quirky. So I give you three hilariously accurate examples that socially we have not come as far as our public education would insist we have.
1. Emojis are the Twenty-First Century hieroglyphs.
Don't believe me? Try to go a single day without using of or thinking of the use of an emoji while writing. Of course we think of Ancient Egypt and the very formal style of picture writing used in tombs and on other artifacts, but the use of hieroglyphic languages actually made a resurgence in the late Sixteenth Century and experienced an almost all time high at the turn of the Twentieth Century. So no Pizza Hut, you are not ahead of the game with using a depiction of a pizza to then receive that item, but everyone sure does seem to think it is a revolutionary idea.
2. Avant Garde Fashion's height (pun-intended) was in the late Seventeenth Century.
I did end up back in my European history summer course for this example but it is so true: Marie Antoinette was the poster child for avant garde. Don't believe me, she once had her hair twisted into a bird cage, complete with a live bird. That's dedication. Meanwhile the best thing the fashion industry can do is simply re-invent the puffy shoulder pads for the one thousandth time. There is edgy and then there is cutting edge... coming from a girl with a vertical labret piercing.
3. Memes are just the Newspaper Cartoons of the Internet.
Memes are used to convey a loaded message with few words and mostly reliant on iconic images. They have a social, political or cultural message to convey, which reaches the masses in a format that even the illiterate could engage with. You can easily guess what this old newspaper thought about King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (see previous) who were later beheaded by their subjects.
