Dick Pic

Submission 40,761

About

Dick Pic is the colloquial term for an image of a penis typically sent through electronic devices.

Origin

On December 28th, 1993, the term dick pic was used in a Usenet^[8] newsgroup and became the first known example of its use online. The terms dick and pic, separately, have been used since the 1830s.^[1]

Spread

In the early 200s, as texting and camera phones became more popular the term Dick Pic became more relevant. The relevancy prompted Psychology Today^[7] and the Guardian^[3] to publish articles on the why a person would want to send a dick pic. In 2017, listicles^[13] of women responding to unsolicited dick pics begun circulating. Art shows and feminist conferences like "A Lifetime of Dick Pics"^[12] began to gain popularity as women began speaking out against unwarranted dick pics. On March 21st, 2017, Vice^[5] published an article on sites and forums where dick pics are welcomed like the Tumblr page CritiqueMyDick.^[2]

On August 9th 2017, the dating site OkCupid^[6] wrote in a blog post titled, "Because You’re Better Than a Dick Pic" that they were "introducing a new OkCupid Member Pledge. Now, before our members can interact with the OkCupid community across the site and on the latest version of our app, they must first agree not to send any harassing or unwanted, sexually explicit messages."^[6] By that time, dating apps like Tinder and Bumble adopted anti-nudity clauses in their terms of service to prevent dick pics.^[11] On January 8th, 2019, the Guardian^[3] called the unsolicited dick pics "cyber-flashing."

Weinergate

The term "dick pic" saw a surge of Google searches due to Weinergate which was a controversy surrounding a tweet posted by former New York Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner's Twitter account that included a picture of a bulging penis under a pair of grey boxer briefs.

On July 22nd, 2013, the Arizona nightlife website The Dirty^[9] published an article reporting that Weiner had allegedly exchanged sexting messages with a young woman through Facebook following his resignation from the congressional office in August 2011. The post contained a screenshot showing an SMS conversation between Weiner and the woman, who wishes remain anonymous (shown below, left), as well as a censored photograph of his exposed genitalia (shown below, right).

I Showed You My Dick Please Respond

I Showed You My Dick Please Respond refers to several snapchat-style images of unattractive boys with a variation of the text "I showed you my dick, please respond" over them, implying that they've recently sent a picture of their penis to a woman and are being ignored. After the pictures spread, the text became a snowclone in which "dick" is replaced. On January 29th, 2014, Tumblr user sassafrassle^[10] posted an image she had received of a boy's face with a variation of the text laid over it (shown below). The post gained 283 notes.

#DickPicAlternatives

On June 20th, 2019, the hashtag #DickPicsAlternative began trending on Twitter. Twitter users used the hashtag to post pictures of what people on the receiving end might actually want to see (examples, shown below).