Jobs In The Past / Jobs Now

Submission 8,538

Part of a series on Wojak. [View Related Entries]

About

Jobs In The Past / Jobs Now is an exploitable image macro template in which creators replace and recaption the Wojaks to represent dystopian perceptions of what future jobs will be compared to the already dystopian jobs of the present day (examples being TikToker, standup comedian, influencer or cosplayer, among others). The meme template started in mid-2022 on Twitter from user Orwell & Goode (@OrwellNGoode) who received criticism for their romanticization of medieval jobs.

Origin

On August 10th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user OrwellNGoode tweeted a meme that used Chad, bodybuilding Wojaks to represent medieval jobs of the past such as blacksmith, porter, carpenter and royal guard. OrwellNGoode compared them to "Jobs Now," being OnlyFans, YouTuber, cosplayer, Twitch streamer, TikToker, stand-up comedian, influencer and Reddit mod. OrwellNGoode's meme essentially labeled the "Jobs Now" as inferior to the "Jobs Of The Past." In 10 days, the meme received roughly 128,700 likes (shown below).

Spread

After OrwellNGoode's tweet on August 10th, 2022, they received critical reactions for their perception of modern jobs. For instance, minutes after the tweet was posted, Twitter^[2] user Asensii20 replied, "Your job is twitter," earning roughly 16,800 likes in 10 days.

On August 10th, 2022, Twitter^[6] user squirtle855 replied with the first-known variant of the template, replacing the "Jobs Now" with a "Plummer" and adding Robert Downey Jr. Comments to the bottom. The meme received roughly 4,500 likes in 10 days (shown below).

On August 11th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user paynushaver furthered the criticism of OrwellNGoode in a quote retweet meme that inserted a photograph of OrwellNGoode's face into the "Jobs Now" section, earning roughly 30,000 likes in nine days (shown below, left). The photo was ripped from a 2020 tweet^[4] that claimed OrwellNGoode is a "fascist bigot" who writes disinformation articles for National File.^[5]

Also on August 11th, 2022, Twitter^[7] user timbahontoast posted a QT that included a new, ironic iteration, essentially making all of the jobs referenced medieval. The meme received roughly 84,800 likes in nine days (shown below, right).

On August 12th, 2022, Instagram^[8] user neem_official reposted an iteration originally created by Twitter^[9] user margbarrusiye a day prior. The iteration inserted monkey/ape Wojaks on top, poking fun at ironic Atheist memes (shown below, left). The Instagram post received roughly 3,100 likes in one week.

On August 20th, 2022, an Andrew Tate iteration landed on /r/MemeEconomy,^[10] earning over 540 upvotes in less than a day (shown below, right).