An image macro is a picture with text superimposed, usually a caption at the top and bottom. It was one of the most common forms of internet meme in the 2000s, and the format still underlies modern captioned jokes.
The format is one of the oldest building blocks of the meme, and the sections below cover its name, its look, its famous families and its legacy.
Where the term “image macro” comes from
The term originated on the Something Awful forums in the early 2000s, according to Wikipedia’s entry on the format. The name came from forum software: a “macro” was a short bit of text a user could type, and the software would automatically parse and expand it into the code for a pre-defined image.
That in turn relates to the computer-science idea of a macro instruction, a short command that stands in for a longer one. The photographic sense of “macro”, meaning extreme close-up shots, has nothing to do with it. The format is also called a “Top Text, Bottom Text” meme, a plainer description of how it looks on screen.
The underlying habit is older than the name. Wikipedia’s lolcat entry notes that the British portrait photographer Harry Pointer created a carte de visite series of cats posed in various situations in the early 1870s, and that Harry Whittier Frees and Walter Potter, who used taxidermied animals, are other early figures. Captioned animal pictures were a Victorian pastime long before forum software gave the format its label.
How an image macro is built
Wikipedia describes an image macro as a picture, or artwork, with some form of text superimposed, and notes that the text frequently appears at the top and bottom of the image. The picture supplies the emotion or character, and the caption supplies the joke or catchphrase.
Not every image macro is humorous, though witty messages and catchphrases were the norm in the 2000s. The core ingredients are simple:
- A recognizable base image, such as a cat, a stock character or a famous face.
- Bold, high-contrast lettering so the caption reads at thumbnail size.
- A split caption, with a setup on top and a punchline below.
Because the base image stays fixed while the words change, the format works as a template. That property is why it connects closely to the exploitable meme, a picture built to be reused with new text. A viewer who recognizes the picture already knows the genre of joke, so the caption only has to deliver the variation.
The Impact typeface behind the look
The classic lettering is a typeface called Impact, designed by Geoffrey Lee. Lee recalled in his own account that it was released in 1968, as part of a craze for condensed sans-serif typefaces in Europe in the 1960s, and that he proposed designing a series after he joined the Hamburg-based Mergenthaler in 1965. It was one of the last typefaces released in metal by the British foundry Stephenson Blake.
Wikipedia’s article on the typeface says the design rights were acquired by Monotype, which licensed it to Microsoft as part of a font package for Windows in the 1980s and 1990s. That distribution put Impact on a vast number of home computers, which is why it was available to anyone who opened an image editor.
The typeface suits the format for practical reasons. Its thick strokes, compressed letterspacing and minimal interior counterform were aimed, as the name suggests, to “have an impact”. Wikipedia notes that it is frequently used in image macros with a white colour and a black stroke, because of its intense consistency, readability and accessibility regardless of the background image. The article adds that in the 2010s it gained popularity for its use in image macros and other internet memes.
Lolcats and the first big wave
Lolcats, images of expressive cats paired with text, are considered the first notable occurrence of image macros. Wikipedia notes that cats and other animals have been a popular choice for humorously captioned images since the mid-2000s, and that lolcats built their own separate subculture.
The record gives several dates. The first recorded use of the term “lolcat” was on an anonymous imageboard. The word was in use as early as June 2006, and the domain name lolcats.com was registered on June 14, 2006. The domain name caturday.com had been registered earlier, on April 30, 2005. The first image on the site “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?” was posted on January 11, 2007, and was allegedly from the Something Awful website.
The captions follow their own dialect. “Lolcat” is a compound of the acronym LOL and the word cat, and typical jokes take the form “Im in ur [noun], [verb]-ing ur [related noun].” Recurring characters grew up around the pictures. “Ceiling Cat” began as a cat looking out of a hole in a ceiling, and the corresponding “Basement Cat” is a black cat who lives in the basement. The pair are said to represent good and evil in the lolcat universe, as in the LOLCat Bible Translation Project.
The influence reached outside the meme itself. The syntax of lolcat captions became the basis for LOLCODE, an esoteric programming language, and a 2016 taxidermy cat installation mimicking Ceiling Cat, by the artists Eva and Franco Mattes, is in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Advice animals and stock characters
A second family, advice animals, also called stock-character macros, places a picture of a certain person or figure in front of a colored background. Wikipedia explains that these characters often share the same image while different internet users choose different humorous captions.
Three examples show how each character carries a fixed personality. Bad Luck Brian captions are used for unfortunate situations, Success Kid captions depict an everyday situation involving good luck, and Scumbag Steve captions describe an unfriendly action taken by somebody. Viewers know the type of joke before reading a word, which makes the format easy to read and easy to imitate.
Why the format spread in 2007
Beginning in 2007, lolcats and similar image macros spread beyond the initial communities that created them and became widely popular. The format needed no special software, and a viewer could grasp the joke in seconds. Those traits suit a viral meme, which depends on fast sharing and easy imitation.
The coverage shows how quickly the idea crossed over. Time wrote about lolcats and observed that they have “a distinctly old-school, early 1990s, Usenet feel”, a sign that the magazine saw them as a rare, non-commercialized phenomenon. The American Dialect Society also named “Lolcat” a runner-up in the “Most Creative” category of its Word of the Year awards.
A newer layout has become more common since the mid-2010s, with text placed in a caption bar or over the image in a cleaner style rather than in the older top-and-bottom lettering.
What image macros led to
Wikipedia credits image macros as the foundation for newer, more complex meme styles that emerged in the mid to late 2010s, including object labelling, blank filling, text changing and deconstruction memes. Related formats include the motivational poster and the rage comic.
Anyone reading a captioned reaction image today is looking at a descendant of the Something Awful macro, even when the lettering has changed. The core trick, a fixed picture and a swappable caption, survived every redesign.
Frequently asked questions
What is an image macro?
An image macro is a picture with text superimposed, often at the top and bottom, as Wikipedia defines it. It is also called a “Top Text, Bottom Text” meme.
Where did the name come from?
The term originated on the Something Awful forums, where a short text “macro” expanded into the code for a pre-defined image.
Which font do image macros use?
The classic choice is Impact, designed by Geoffrey Lee and released in 1968, usually set in white with a black stroke so it stays readable on any background.
Are lolcats image macros?
Yes. Wikipedia considers lolcats the first notable occurrence of image macros, and they became widely popular beginning in 2007.
Is every image macro a joke?
No. Wikipedia notes that witty messages and catchphrases were common in 2000s image macros, but not all image macros are necessarily humorous.
