Atlas Holding The Earth

About

Atlas Holding The Earth refers to two different pictures made to represent the titan called Atlas who was reportedly cursed with having to hold up the Earth in Ancient Greek mythology. Online, the two art pieces are both used in object labeling and image macro memes to signify something that is doing the heavy lifting and carrying another thing, whether physical or a concept.

Origin

In 1991, the artist Boris Vallejo^[1] created a piece called Atlas as part of a series of trading cards. The piece, showing a very buff and muscular Atlas holding up planet Earth using just his arms, became the dominant image used for memes in the following decades (shown below).

On November 6th, 2009, the first usage of the image as part of a meme was posted to the site blogtownhall by the user Kasper.^[2] The image used Photoshop to superimpose the face of Barack Obama over the head of Atlas and had the Earth labeled with the Obamacare symbol and the surrounding void around him given the communism hammer and sickle, meant to indicate that Obama was carrying Obamacare as something to do with communism (shown below).

Spread

On October 16th, 2019, Imgflip user DustinKlassen^[3] uploaded one of the first non-political versions of the meme that set the tone on it being about a singular thing carrying a larger object. In their version of the meme, the thing being carried is World of Warcraft, which was believed to be in decline during that time period due to the Battle For Azeroth expansion, while the thing believed to be carrying them is the Blizzard art team (shown below).

On August 1st, 2021, a newer version of the Atlas meme was posted, which used an art piece that is over 350 years old. Now using the classical art version made by Gercino in 1646, Redditor icouldntfindame^[4] posted in the /r/memetemplatesofficial subreddit, earning over 5,000 upvotes in three years while showcasing an Atlas that is wearier and having to use part of his back to support the Earth (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References