Dinosaurs are majestic and sometimes terrifying creatures. They ruled the world for millions of years before there became extinct 65 million years ago.
The release of dinosaur-focused movies like "Jurrassic Park" and Disney's "Dinosaur" saw the popularity of these terrible reptiles rise to new heights. Many a child would instantly recognize a T. Rex, a Velociraptor, an Iguanodon, and a Triceratops on sight.
With this recognition, however, comes the possibility of the creation of interesting takes on them to popularize them and their creators.
One of them is the Philosoraptor, which became the face of a meme for years to come.
It Was First Used For A T-Shirt Design
The Philosoraptor began as an original illustration released and copyrighted by creator Sam Smith as a T-Shirt design for sale on the "Lonely Dinosaur" online store, per Know Your Meme.
According to Smith's correspondence with the publication, the art that became the Philosoraptor was conceived sometime in the early summer of 2008 but was only created until late summer, with the t-shirts bearing the design going into production in August and September 2008.
The Philosoraptor Consists Of Two Raptors And An Eagle
Smith added that the design was a mix of several velociraptor images he found online, which he then compressed into one-color images and mixed them together. In actuality, the design consists of two velociraptor pictures - one as the base and the other for its mouth - and a picture of an eagle's talon that was resized and edited to look like a raptor claw.
Read More: 5 Technological Advancements That Could Help with Cancer Treatment
The Philosoraptor's Inspiration Came From A Human (And A Joke)
The inspiration came from Smith's friend, Devin, who was a [hilosophy major and was always hunched over his desk thinking. Smith then decided to call him a philosoraptor, which was already a joke name circulating on the internet at the time.
Business Insider's report provides much insight into when the term was first coined. According to the publication's report, the term can be traced back children's site called "Enchanted Learning" in 1998.
Philosorptor Made Its Online Debut In 4Chan
The Lonely Dinosaur's design first appeared on the web for meme-ing purposes appeared on Feb. 18, 2009, in 4chan and soon, it became a meme format with enough popularity for memegenerator.com to use. It
Smosh would later publish a listicle containing 20 notable Philosoraptor examples.
Memegenerator.net would later register 38,000 Philosoraptor instances and 12 different template variations on July 2011.
Memers became Angry At the Philosoraptor's Creator
Many who do not know of the image's origins would later say the Smith and The Lonely Dinosaur cut and pasted the image on the web to join the meme bandwagon and profit from it.
Smith would later address this backlash and told the staff of the Lonely Dinosaur that it was alright for people to use the philosoraptor's image for their memes. Smith put the image on a creative commons non-commercial license to not do any harm to the people who used the image to make memes with it.
However, Smith does want to make it clear to the world through Know Your Meme at the time that he and the Lonely Dinosaur conceived and created the image of the philosoraptor we know and love today to create a complete history of the meme's origin.
Related Article: [VIRAL FLASHBACK] What's the Real Story Behind the Sad Keanu Meme?
