Philosoraptor

2008Advice animal / image macrosemi-active

Also known as: Philosoraptor Meme · Philosoraptor

Philosoraptor is a 2008 advice animal image macro created by Sam Smith, featuring a contemplative velociraptor posed with philosophical questions, logical paradoxes, and wordplay riddles.

Philosoraptor is an advice animal image macro featuring an illustration of a velociraptor in a contemplative pose, paired with captions posing philosophical questions, logical paradoxes, or wordplay riddles. Created by artist Sam Smith as a T-shirt design in 2008, the image was adopted by 4chan users in early 2009 and quickly became one of the most popular advice animal formats on the internet, reaching "God Tier" status on Memegenerator by 2011.

advice animalsimage macro memes4chan memest shirt origin memesearly 2010s memes

Overview

Philosoraptor features a single-color illustration of a velociraptor with one talon raised near its chin and a distant, thoughtful gaze, mimicking the classic "thinker" pose4. Captions are split into two lines of white Impact text, top and bottom, with the upper line setting up a premise and the lower line delivering a paradox, pun, or rhetorical twist. Typical examples include questions like "If guns don't kill people, people do, do toasters not toast toast?" and "If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?"6.

The format belongs to the advice animal family, a category of image macros built around a central character on a colored background with humorous captioned text. What set Philosoraptor apart from other advice animals was its focus on intellectual humor rather than social situations or motivational messages10.

The word "philosoraptor" existed online well before the meme. One of the earliest known uses dates to December 28, 1998, when a ten-year-old named Hope from Kentucky used the term on the children's educational site EnchantedLearning3. Because "philosoraptor" and "velociraptor" sound so similar, multiple people arrived at the portmanteau independently over the years. A philosophy-politics blog called Philosoraptor ran on Blogspot starting in March 20037, and a user with the same name gained notoriety on the Democratic Underground forums3.

The illustration that became the meme was created by Sam Smith, a designer who ran an online T-shirt shop called Lonely Dinosaur. Smith conceived the idea in early summer 2008, inspired by his college friend Devin, a philosophy major who was always hunched over his desk deep in thought1. Smith's friends had already nicknamed Devin "philosoraptor" because of this habit.

Smith built the final image by combining several velociraptor images he found online, compressing them into single-color silhouettes and layering them together. He removed the jaw from one image and repositioned it to create an open-mouthed look, used an eagle talon as the basis for the raptor claw, and nudged the eye slit slightly to the right to give it that signature faraway stare1. He copyrighted the design on October 8, 2008, and began selling T-shirts through Lonely Dinosaur3.

The earliest known pre-Smith visual of a philosophical raptor appeared on March 30, 2007, on a YTMND page titled "New species of dinosaur discovered!" which showed a photoshopped velociraptor from Jurassic Park holding a copy of Plato's complete works3. This predates Smith's design but used a different image entirely.

Origin & Background

Platform
Lonely Dinosaur (original design), 4chan /b/ (meme format)
Creator
Sam Smith
Date
2008 (design), 2009 (meme format)

The word "philosoraptor" existed online well before the meme. One of the earliest known uses dates to December 28, 1998, when a ten-year-old named Hope from Kentucky used the term on the children's educational site EnchantedLearning. Because "philosoraptor" and "velociraptor" sound so similar, multiple people arrived at the portmanteau independently over the years. A philosophy-politics blog called Philosoraptor ran on Blogspot starting in March 2003, and a user with the same name gained notoriety on the Democratic Underground forums.

The illustration that became the meme was created by Sam Smith, a designer who ran an online T-shirt shop called Lonely Dinosaur. Smith conceived the idea in early summer 2008, inspired by his college friend Devin, a philosophy major who was always hunched over his desk deep in thought. Smith's friends had already nicknamed Devin "philosoraptor" because of this habit.

Smith built the final image by combining several velociraptor images he found online, compressing them into single-color silhouettes and layering them together. He removed the jaw from one image and repositioned it to create an open-mouthed look, used an eagle talon as the basis for the raptor claw, and nudged the eye slit slightly to the right to give it that signature faraway stare. He copyrighted the design on October 8, 2008, and began selling T-shirts through Lonely Dinosaur.

The earliest known pre-Smith visual of a philosophical raptor appeared on March 30, 2007, on a YTMND page titled "New species of dinosaur discovered!" which showed a photoshopped velociraptor from Jurassic Park holding a copy of Plato's complete works. This predates Smith's design but used a different image entirely.

How It Spread

The jump from T-shirt graphic to internet meme happened in February 2009. On February 18, the earliest archived image macro using Smith's Lonely Dinosaur illustration appeared on 4chan's /b/ board. Around the same time, Memegenerator.net launched and gave users an easy tool for slapping text onto the image, which accelerated adoption across the web.

By November 2009, Philosoraptor was added to the Advice Dog "variations" section on Encyclopedia Dramatica, an important marker of legitimacy in the advice animal ecosystem. That same month, on November 26, an Urban Dictionary entry was created defining the meme.

Smith learned about his design's viral second life around December 2009. Rather than fighting it, he embraced the community's use. In an email, he wrote: "We're not exactly sure who started putting text over it, and far be it from us to try and control a meme." He and the Lonely Dinosaur team applied a Creative Commons non-commercial license to the image. But Smith also noted a downside in an interview: "now everyone thinks that the shirt we're selling is just something we cut and pasted off the web, which kind of sucks for us".

The meme's popularity surged through 2010 and 2011. On October 25, 2010, Smosh published a listicle of 20 notable Philosoraptor examples. The following month, The Mary Sue posted a gallery of 50 Philosoraptor musings, calling it "the contemplative dinosaur that makes us think even as we laugh". By July 2011, Memegenerator recorded over 38,000 Philosoraptor instances across 12 different templates, earning it "God Tier" status on the platform.

The meme kept generating creative output into 2012. On December 29, 2011, YouTuber Chris Schultz released an original pop song with lyrics drawn from Philosoraptor captions. On August 28, 2012, the animeme YouTube channel uploaded animated versions of Philosoraptor image macros. The meme hit peak search interest in early 2012, after which it began a gradual decline.

In October 2013, a thread on Quora invited users to share their best Philosoraptor jokes, showing the format still had legs in discussion communities. Observer published a retrospective on the meme's origin story in March 2016 alongside other classic memes like Trollface and Doge.

Platforms

4chanTumblrRedditimage boards9GAG

Timeline

2008-01-01

Philosoraptor image macro format created

2008-06-01

Spreads across image boards and Tumblr

2009-06-01

Becomes popular format for philosophical humor

2010-06-01

Peak popularity with widespread usage

2011-01-01

Brands and companies started using Philosoraptor in marketing

2013-01-01

Declines as other meme formats rise

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Philosoraptor format follows a simple template. The image stays the same: Smith's velociraptor illustration on a green gradient background. The humor comes entirely from the text:

1

Top text sets up a premise, observation, or conditional statement

2

Bottom text delivers a paradox, logical twist, or absurd conclusion

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Philosoraptor was one of the defining advice animals of the late 2000s and early 2010s, helping establish image macros as a mainstream internet format. Its success on Memegenerator, where it reached "God Tier" with 38,000+ instances, demonstrated that meme templates with a specific intellectual niche could sustain long-term engagement.

The meme also highlighted tensions around creator rights in meme culture. Smith's situation, where his original commercial design was repurposed without credit, became an early example of the friction between meme virality and intellectual property. His decision to apply a Creative Commons license rather than issue takedowns set a tone for how creators could engage with meme communities without alienating them.

The Mary Sue's 50-item gallery and Smosh's listicle helped push the meme beyond imageboard culture into a wider audience. Philosoraptor's format also influenced the broader advice animal ecosystem by proving that image macros could carry intellectual or philosophical humor, not just social commentary or motivational messages.

Fun Facts

The word "philosoraptor" was used online as early as 1998, a full decade before Smith created the iconic image.

Smith's design process involved combining multiple velociraptor images with an eagle talon, which he flattened and edited to look like a raptor claw.

The Blogspot blog "Philosoraptor" that ran starting in 2003 was a politics and philosophy blog completely unrelated to the meme.

Google search interest for Philosoraptor peaked in December 2008, just two months after Smith filed his copyright.

The meme was grouped alongside "stoner memes" like Conspiracy Keanu, with users joking that Philosoraptor "asks the questions the sheep don't even think about".

Derivatives & Variations

Variations with different dinosaur characters

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Variations with different philosophical or absurd questions

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Similar formats with different animals

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Philosoraptor merchandise and fan art

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

References in other meme formats

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Frequently Asked Questions

Philosoraptor

2008Advice animal / image macrosemi-active

Also known as: Philosoraptor Meme · Philosoraptor

Philosoraptor is a 2008 advice animal image macro created by Sam Smith, featuring a contemplative velociraptor posed with philosophical questions, logical paradoxes, and wordplay riddles.

Philosoraptor is an advice animal image macro featuring an illustration of a velociraptor in a contemplative pose, paired with captions posing philosophical questions, logical paradoxes, or wordplay riddles. Created by artist Sam Smith as a T-shirt design in 2008, the image was adopted by 4chan users in early 2009 and quickly became one of the most popular advice animal formats on the internet, reaching "God Tier" status on Memegenerator by 2011.

advice animals image macro memes 4chan memes t shirt origin memes early 2010s memes

Overview

Philosoraptor features a single-color illustration of a velociraptor with one talon raised near its chin and a distant, thoughtful gaze, mimicking the classic "thinker" pose. Captions are split into two lines of white Impact text, top and bottom, with the upper line setting up a premise and the lower line delivering a paradox, pun, or rhetorical twist. Typical examples include questions like "If guns don't kill people, people do, do toasters not toast toast?" and "If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?".

The format belongs to the advice animal family, a category of image macros built around a central character on a colored background with humorous captioned text. What set Philosoraptor apart from other advice animals was its focus on intellectual humor rather than social situations or motivational messages.

The word "philosoraptor" existed online well before the meme. One of the earliest known uses dates to December 28, 1998, when a ten-year-old named Hope from Kentucky used the term on the children's educational site EnchantedLearning. Because "philosoraptor" and "velociraptor" sound so similar, multiple people arrived at the portmanteau independently over the years. A philosophy-politics blog called Philosoraptor ran on Blogspot starting in March 2003, and a user with the same name gained notoriety on the Democratic Underground forums.

The illustration that became the meme was created by Sam Smith, a designer who ran an online T-shirt shop called Lonely Dinosaur. Smith conceived the idea in early summer 2008, inspired by his college friend Devin, a philosophy major who was always hunched over his desk deep in thought. Smith's friends had already nicknamed Devin "philosoraptor" because of this habit.

Smith built the final image by combining several velociraptor images he found online, compressing them into single-color silhouettes and layering them together. He removed the jaw from one image and repositioned it to create an open-mouthed look, used an eagle talon as the basis for the raptor claw, and nudged the eye slit slightly to the right to give it that signature faraway stare. He copyrighted the design on October 8, 2008, and began selling T-shirts through Lonely Dinosaur.

The earliest known pre-Smith visual of a philosophical raptor appeared on March 30, 2007, on a YTMND page titled "New species of dinosaur discovered!" which showed a photoshopped velociraptor from Jurassic Park holding a copy of Plato's complete works. This predates Smith's design but used a different image entirely.

Origin & Background

Platform
Lonely Dinosaur (original design), 4chan /b/ (meme format)
Creator
Sam Smith
Date
2008 (design), 2009 (meme format)

The word "philosoraptor" existed online well before the meme. One of the earliest known uses dates to December 28, 1998, when a ten-year-old named Hope from Kentucky used the term on the children's educational site EnchantedLearning. Because "philosoraptor" and "velociraptor" sound so similar, multiple people arrived at the portmanteau independently over the years. A philosophy-politics blog called Philosoraptor ran on Blogspot starting in March 2003, and a user with the same name gained notoriety on the Democratic Underground forums.

The illustration that became the meme was created by Sam Smith, a designer who ran an online T-shirt shop called Lonely Dinosaur. Smith conceived the idea in early summer 2008, inspired by his college friend Devin, a philosophy major who was always hunched over his desk deep in thought. Smith's friends had already nicknamed Devin "philosoraptor" because of this habit.

Smith built the final image by combining several velociraptor images he found online, compressing them into single-color silhouettes and layering them together. He removed the jaw from one image and repositioned it to create an open-mouthed look, used an eagle talon as the basis for the raptor claw, and nudged the eye slit slightly to the right to give it that signature faraway stare. He copyrighted the design on October 8, 2008, and began selling T-shirts through Lonely Dinosaur.

The earliest known pre-Smith visual of a philosophical raptor appeared on March 30, 2007, on a YTMND page titled "New species of dinosaur discovered!" which showed a photoshopped velociraptor from Jurassic Park holding a copy of Plato's complete works. This predates Smith's design but used a different image entirely.

How It Spread

The jump from T-shirt graphic to internet meme happened in February 2009. On February 18, the earliest archived image macro using Smith's Lonely Dinosaur illustration appeared on 4chan's /b/ board. Around the same time, Memegenerator.net launched and gave users an easy tool for slapping text onto the image, which accelerated adoption across the web.

By November 2009, Philosoraptor was added to the Advice Dog "variations" section on Encyclopedia Dramatica, an important marker of legitimacy in the advice animal ecosystem. That same month, on November 26, an Urban Dictionary entry was created defining the meme.

Smith learned about his design's viral second life around December 2009. Rather than fighting it, he embraced the community's use. In an email, he wrote: "We're not exactly sure who started putting text over it, and far be it from us to try and control a meme." He and the Lonely Dinosaur team applied a Creative Commons non-commercial license to the image. But Smith also noted a downside in an interview: "now everyone thinks that the shirt we're selling is just something we cut and pasted off the web, which kind of sucks for us".

The meme's popularity surged through 2010 and 2011. On October 25, 2010, Smosh published a listicle of 20 notable Philosoraptor examples. The following month, The Mary Sue posted a gallery of 50 Philosoraptor musings, calling it "the contemplative dinosaur that makes us think even as we laugh". By July 2011, Memegenerator recorded over 38,000 Philosoraptor instances across 12 different templates, earning it "God Tier" status on the platform.

The meme kept generating creative output into 2012. On December 29, 2011, YouTuber Chris Schultz released an original pop song with lyrics drawn from Philosoraptor captions. On August 28, 2012, the animeme YouTube channel uploaded animated versions of Philosoraptor image macros. The meme hit peak search interest in early 2012, after which it began a gradual decline.

In October 2013, a thread on Quora invited users to share their best Philosoraptor jokes, showing the format still had legs in discussion communities. Observer published a retrospective on the meme's origin story in March 2016 alongside other classic memes like Trollface and Doge.

Platforms

4chanTumblrRedditimage boards9GAG

Timeline

2008-01-01

Philosoraptor image macro format created

2008-06-01

Spreads across image boards and Tumblr

2009-06-01

Becomes popular format for philosophical humor

2010-06-01

Peak popularity with widespread usage

2011-01-01

Brands and companies started using Philosoraptor in marketing

2013-01-01

Declines as other meme formats rise

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Philosoraptor format follows a simple template. The image stays the same: Smith's velociraptor illustration on a green gradient background. The humor comes entirely from the text:

1

Top text sets up a premise, observation, or conditional statement

2

Bottom text delivers a paradox, logical twist, or absurd conclusion

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Philosoraptor was one of the defining advice animals of the late 2000s and early 2010s, helping establish image macros as a mainstream internet format. Its success on Memegenerator, where it reached "God Tier" with 38,000+ instances, demonstrated that meme templates with a specific intellectual niche could sustain long-term engagement.

The meme also highlighted tensions around creator rights in meme culture. Smith's situation, where his original commercial design was repurposed without credit, became an early example of the friction between meme virality and intellectual property. His decision to apply a Creative Commons license rather than issue takedowns set a tone for how creators could engage with meme communities without alienating them.

The Mary Sue's 50-item gallery and Smosh's listicle helped push the meme beyond imageboard culture into a wider audience. Philosoraptor's format also influenced the broader advice animal ecosystem by proving that image macros could carry intellectual or philosophical humor, not just social commentary or motivational messages.

Fun Facts

The word "philosoraptor" was used online as early as 1998, a full decade before Smith created the iconic image.

Smith's design process involved combining multiple velociraptor images with an eagle talon, which he flattened and edited to look like a raptor claw.

The Blogspot blog "Philosoraptor" that ran starting in 2003 was a politics and philosophy blog completely unrelated to the meme.

Google search interest for Philosoraptor peaked in December 2008, just two months after Smith filed his copyright.

The meme was grouped alongside "stoner memes" like Conspiracy Keanu, with users joking that Philosoraptor "asks the questions the sheep don't even think about".

Derivatives & Variations

Variations with different dinosaur characters

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Variations with different philosophical or absurd questions

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Similar formats with different animals

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Philosoraptor merchandise and fan art

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

References in other meme formats

A variation of Philosoraptor

(2008)

Frequently Asked Questions