# The More You Know
The More You Know is a long-running NBC public service announcement series that debuted in September 1989 with a Tom Brokaw spot about education[1]. Its celebrity-led format and signature rainbow comet trail logo became a parody target through the 2000s, eventually spawning an image macro template built around fake, absurd or sarcastic 'facts.'
## Origin
The first The More You Know spot aired on September 9th, 1989, with NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw delivering a message about the value of education[2]. Hundreds of NBC-affiliated celebrities followed, including Jennifer Aniston, Zach Braff and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, along with sitting presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama[2]. The series collected a Peabody Award, a Gracie Award and a Special Christopher Award between 1993 and 2007[2].
Parody of the format started on television well before the meme life. Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Family Guy mocked the spots during the 1990s, and in 2006 both The Office and Scrubs ran their own send-ups within roughly two months of each other, a run that Adweek flagged as a sign the gag was becoming an easy sitcom crutch[4].
- **Platform:** NBC television (origin) / YouTube and deviantART (parody spread)
- **Creator:** NBC Universal (PSA series); meme parodies by unknown users
- **Date:** 1989
## Overview
The More You Know is an NBC Universal public service announcement campaign that pairs a brief educational message, usually delivered by a celebrity, with an animated rainbow comet-trail logo designed by Paul Johnson[2]. The spots have aired on NBC since 1989, which makes the series one of the longest-running network PSA campaigns in American TV[2].
As a meme, the format works by hijacking the earnest PSA structure. Image macros slap the comet-trail logo and the phrase 'The More You Know' onto a joke 'fact' that is either wrong, cynical, obvious or crude, letting the mismatch between the wholesome branding and the dumb payload do the work[2]. The phrase itself also functions as a standalone sarcastic tag online, often attached to pointless trivia with the hashtag #themoreyouknow[3].
## How It Spread
Video parodies of the PSA started showing up on YouTube by March 2007, with similar clips appearing on MetaCafe, CreativeCow and Funny or Die later that year[2]. One of the earliest known fan-made parodies was shared in 2006 by Usenet user Perkoff on the rec.music.beatles newsgroup, though the YouTube upload has since been removed[2]. An example of the YouTube parody wave, a compilation of Conan O'Brien 'More You Know' spoofs, is still viewable on the platform[5].
In September 2007, a 'Plz Account' built around the comet-trail logo was created on deviantART, giving users a reusable asset to drop into their own art and reaction images[2]. From the late 2000s, the logo started appearing in image macros of fake or joke facts collected on humor sites like Memebase and We Know Memes[2]. Urban Dictionary entries from around the same period described the phrase as a sarcastic tag used after reciting something useless or obvious, confirming its drift from PSA tagline to generic internet punchline[3].
By October 2013, Know Your Meme counted more than 3.8 million YouTube search results for 'The More You Know Parody' and tracked over 33,000 uses of #themoreyouknow on Twitter in a single month[2]. Scrubs' own 'The More You Know' bit was called out directly in Adweek's 2006 column about sitcoms leaning on ad parodies[4].
## How to Use
The usual image-macro build is a screenshot or recreation of the rainbow comet-trail logo with the words 'The More You Know' set over or beside a short 'fact.' Common conventions include stating something blatantly false, darkly cynical or painfully obvious, so the mock-educational tone clashes with the content[2]. Online, people often skip the image entirely and type 'the more you know' or #themoreyouknow after a throwaway comment to flag it as sarcastic trivia[3].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is The More You Know?
It is an NBC Universal public service announcement series launched in 1989 that pairs celebrity-delivered educational messages with an animated rainbow comet-trail logo, and it became an image-macro and catchphrase template online[2].
### Where did The More You Know come from?
The first spot aired on NBC on September 9th, 1989, with Tom Brokaw talking about education; parodies started showing up on sitcoms in the 2000s and on YouTube by March 2007[2].
### What does The More You Know mean?
Online it is used as a sarcastic tag after a useless, obvious or made-up 'fact,' leaning on the earnest tone of the original PSA for ironic effect[3].
### How do you use The More You Know?
People typically overlay the comet-trail logo and the phrase 'The More You Know' on a joke fact, or just type 'the more you know' or #themoreyouknow after a throwaway bit of trivia[2][3].
### Is The More You Know still popular?
The PSA series is still produced by NBC Universal[1], and the parody format was still being tagged tens of thousands of times a month on Twitter as of October 2013[2].
## References
1. [https://www.themoreyouknow.com/]()
2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-more-you-know]()
3. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20More%20You%20Know]()
4. [https://www.adweek.com/adfreak/ad-jokes-sitcoms-classic-or-crutch-18946]()
5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrOa-f05AwU]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/the-more-you-know
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