Anti-Joke Chicken

About

Anti-Joke Chicken is an image macro series featuring an image of a hen accompanied by a top line of text that sounds like the introduction of a joke, but the bottom line provides an unexpected anticlimax. The chicken is centered within a typical advice animal starburst background.

Origin

Anti-humor^[1] existed well before the Internet was invented. While anti-humor comes in many forms, one of the most common is the one used in this meme: a joke-like setup followed by a non-punchline. This forms a sort of meta-joke in which ironic humor is found in the lack of any standard form of humor. One of the most well-known anti-humor jokes is the classic:

Q:Why did the chicken cross the road?
A:To get to the other side!

Dating back at least to the mid-1800s, this joke contains no inherent humor within the punchline, and is likely a partial inspiration for this meme.^[2]

The above is the original photo on which the image macro was based. It was taken by the owner of the hen, professional ophthalmic photographer Marshall E. Tyler,^[3] at his home in North Carolina.

Spread

A Reddit thread was created on February 20th, 2011 called "It's the anti-joke chicken!!!!" and linked to an imgur page containing four derivatives. The poster claimed that they found the images on 4chan :

I wish I had created this meme, but I must give credit where credit is due: these images were found deep in the ugly bowels of /b/.^[4]

Anti-joke threads have been popular on 4chan for several years, and the earliest 4chan archive thread dates back to June 30th, 2007.^[5] The first Anti-Joke Chicken image on Quickmeme was created on February 22nd, 2011.^[6]

Notable Examples

Template

Search Interest

Search queries for "anti joke chicken" had the first spike in March of 2011.

External References

^[1] Wikipedia – Anti-humor

^[2] Wikipedia – Why did the chicken cross the road?

^[3] Marshall E. Tyler, CRA, FOPS

^[4] Reddit – It's the anti-joke chicken!!!! / 2/20/2011

^[5] 4chan Archive – ITT antihumor / 6/30/07 (Warning: some NSFW content)

^[6] Quickmeme – Anti-Joke Chicken / 2/22/2011

^[7] Antijoke.com