How to date a meme's first use without trusting the first result

Most meme origin stories are the first account that got repeated, not the first use. Here is a method that gets you closer. 1. Separate the format from the source image "Distracted Boyfriend" the meme and the stock photograph it uses have different dates. Date both. The photograph's photographer and agency are usually findable through reverse image search, and the stock listing has an upload date. 2. Reverse image search, sorted by age Use more than one engine (Google Lens, Bing, Yandex, TinEye). TinEye can sort results by oldest first, which is the single most useful setting for this. Note that "oldest found" is not "first": it is the oldest copy that engine indexed. 3. Search with date limits Search the exact phrase in quotes with a date range set to before the earliest date you have. On Reddit and forums, search inside the site for the phrase. Old forum posts often survive only in the Wayback Machine (see the CDX API thread on the Lost Media board). 4. Check the archive of the claimed origin If an explainer says it started on a particular forum thread, open that thread in the Wayback Machine and look at the post date yourself. 5. Write it down properly State the earliest instance you found, where, the date and timezone if known, the URL and an archive capture. Then say "earliest found", not "origin". The enforcement record Memes are made of copyrighted photos, and the rights holders do sometimes win. The best-known case: in January 2018, a US federal jury awarded Grumpy Cat Limited $710,001 against Grenade Beverage, which had used the cat's image beyond what its licence allowed. Using a meme image commercially is a licensing question, not a free-for-all. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumpy_Cat https://tineye.com Know Your Meme is a useful starting index, and it is wrong often enough that every date there should be checked against the primary post.