Waiting for Dad

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Part of a series on Object Labeling. [View Related Entries]

About

Waiting for Dad refers to an edited version of 1954 advertisement by Arrow Casual Wear in which a family with knives is hiding behind the door waiting for the father. Online, the image has been used as an exploitable, particularly for object labeling.

Origin

On June 14, 1954, LIFE magazine volume 36 number 24 was published. In the magazine, an advertisement by Arrow Casual Wear appeared featuring a family waiting for the return of father with folded shirts in their hands.^[1]

Spread

On October 26th, 2011, The Meta Picture posted the first known edit of the image made by an unknown author, with shirts replaced with knives.^[2]

On November 9th, 2011, the image was posted to Photokillers.ru as a template for Photoshop edits,^[3] with multiple edits of the image submitted in the comments (shown below).^[4]^[5]

On June 29th, 2018, Tumblr user KARASKA posted a more refined edit of the advertisement, with the post gaining over 300 likes and reblogs in one year (shown below, left).^[6] On July 10th, 2018, the image was reposted to Aburdist Memes for Nihilist Dreams Facebook group, gaining over 1,900 likes in the same period.^[7] On July 23rd, 2018, Memedroid user reachisaperson posted an object-labeling meme by an unknown author to the site, which garnered over 1400 points (shown below, right).^[8] On the same day, Redditor gspesh posted the image to /r/MemeEconomy subreddit where it gained over 2,100 upvotes in six months.^[9]

In the following year, the format saw moderate spread online, with notable examples appearing in /r/HistoryMemes^[8]^[9] and other online communities.