I was not a cool kid. Up until high school, my experiences with friendship generally started with convenience and were maintained by mutual interests. But because I was not cool, these interests were a bit unorthodox. I was obsessed with reading ultra-bleak history tomes, as well as even bleaker fiction. Much of my choices surrounded World War II, and in particular, the Holocaust. I had learned at a young age that my grandfather’s family was all but exterminated in their home in Ukraine, for the simple fact that they were Jewish. I became obsessed with learning about the tragedy and checked out nearly every book about its history.
Years later, my morbid historical interests have mellowed. While genocides still frighten and horrify me, I’ve taken to enjoying my history in the easily consumable form of memes. Thanks to the broad subject matter of history, there’s a thriving meme community dedicated to pumping out these hilarious tidbits of historical humor. We see hundreds of history memes circulate every week from Reddit to Facebook and Instagram, and then back again. We’d be jerks not to share the week’s gems with you. So without further ado, let’s take a stroll along the funny side of history. Sometimes humor is the only way we can cope with the horrors of humanity.