A Brief History of Whisper Memes and Why They’re a Return to Form

We all remember the days of yore when many memes were Image Macros with top text and bottom text galore, written in that iconic bold white font. We like to think we’ve changed a lot since then, that those memes were the primitive ways of our forefathers, but the appeal of superimposed text onto a funny image is a timeless classic we may never leave behind. 

In its heyday, Whisper was by no means a comedy app. Whisper launched in 2012 as an app for people to share their illicit secrets and confessions anonymously. The content of these posts and confessions tended to skew quite earnest, from devastating accounts of the struggles of mental illness to describing shocking acts of infidelity. Despite these sincere origins, posts using the Whisper font and format have circulated on Twitter recently, making them one of the most enduring meme formats the social media platform has seen in the past year. 

One of the first popular Whisper posts to be circulated as a popular meme was Is It Really Possible for an Emo girl and a Country Boy to Be in a Relationship. The post was initially submitted to Whisper in 2015 by a user presumably seriously grappling with this question, blissfully unaware of what it would become. Although there was some circulation online of the image is 2019, the image macro blew up on Twitter on several instances in 2021. Over the past year, wacky Whisper memes haven't stopped coming. This new ironic take on Whisper is here to stay. 

Whisper memes work so well because everyone knows the earnest nature of most Whisper posts. Everyone knows that the average Whisper post says, “My husband is cheating on me. How do I get revenge?” superimposed onto a beautiful sunset on the beach. So, when an image of Timothée Chalamet with the words “pap smear” plastered over his face appears on your feed in that classic Whisper font, you can’t help but revel in its absurdity and accept it into your life. 

The popularity of Whisper memes as the newest image macro of this decade shows the enduring nature of the format. While classics like Bad Luck Brian and Unhelpful High School Teacher might have gone for pairings of pictures and jokes that worked in harmony, Whisper memes prove that the most disjointed combination of words and pictures can create comedic synergy.