5 Comments

what is airThere's a meme brewing on Tumblr called "What is Air?" I found out about it on 4chan, who has declared war on Tumblr because of their alleged tendancy to steal ideas and memes from 4chan without giving credit.

This whole thing is making me feel out of touch and old! And nobody seems to know what it means. Here's what I've been able to figure out so far.

First I contacted Tumblr's community manager, Topherchris (Chris Price). He'd come across the meme before, but had no idea where it came from or what it meant:

I first saw "WHAT IS AIR" as a reply to one of my posts several months ago. Having no idea what it meant, I assumed they were confused or making an obscure reference to the fact that I had asthma as a small child. After that, I started seeing it more and more, and it was interesting at first. Lately it's become an inside joke that no one in any circle actually gets. I suspect by next week people will be hunted down and killed as a result of its usage.

keep calm and ask what is air?


So Topher turned the qustion over to TumblrBot, Tumblr's resident answer bot:

AIR IS THE PART OF THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE THAT HUMANS BREATHE. WHY ARE SO MANY OF YOU UNCLEAR ABOUT THIS VERY BASIC CONCEPT?

So, no answers yet. I searched on Tumblr for "What is air" and found hundreds of posts featuring Tumblr users posting the mysterious phrase to Omegle, the anonymous chatting site. I don't really get it.



This post brought to you by Canadian banks.


The troll seems boring and lame. Basically you just go on Omegle and ask strangers "what is air?" until they get so annoyed that they disconnect. That's it!

what is air memegenerator

Omegle users (I didn't even know they had a community) aren't happy. Like this wonderfully angry teen girl posting on YouTube.

The "what is air" trend seems to be mostly spread by teenagers. Lots of scene girls. The posts go back so far that I was unable to find the early evolution of this meme. If you know what this is all about, don't hesitate to comment to help us fill in the blanks. I'm not the only curious one.

Meanwhile, the Tumblr raid has incurred the wrath of 4chan. Then Tumblr fought back and damage was heavy.