# This Place Is Not A Place Of Honor
> This Place Is Not A Place Of Honor is a 1993 Sandia National Laboratories nuclear-waste warning that became a late-2010s viral copypasta and reaction text, used as ominous shorthand for anything to be avoided.
"This Place Is Not a Place of Honor" is a passage from a 1993 U.S. government report about warning future civilizations away from buried nuclear waste. The full text, written by experts at Sandia National Laboratories for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, went viral in the late 2010s after circulating on Reddit and Tumblr, where users found its ominous, poetic tone both haunting and oddly funny[1]. The message became a popular copypasta, reaction image source, and shorthand for anything that should be avoided, blending genuine existential dread with internet humor.
## Origin
In 1981, the U.S. Department of Energy convened the Human Interference Task Force, a panel including engineers, archaeologists, linguists, and communication experts[2]. Their job: figure out how to warn humans 10,000 years in the future to stay away from underground nuclear waste repositories. The task force produced early recommendations about marker systems and oral transmission of warnings[2].
Building on that work, Sandia National Laboratories published the full report in November 1993, authored by Kathleen M. Trauth, Stephen C. Hora, and Robert V. Guzowski[1]. The expert panel laid out seven principles for marker development, including that the site must be marked, messages must be truthful, and multiple means of communication should be used (language, pictographs, scientific diagrams)[1]. They estimated that the markers' effectiveness at deterring intrusion would decrease over time, varying by who was intruding and why[1].
The report included proposed warning messages at multiple levels of complexity. The most famous passage, beginning "This place is not a place of honor," was crafted to use simple, translatable language that linguists predicted would retain meaning across thousands of years[3].
- **Platform:** Reddit / Tumblr (viral spread), Sandia National Laboratories report (source)
- **Creator:** Kathleen M. Trauth, Stephen C. Hora, Robert V. Guzowski (report authors)
- **Date:** 1993 (source), ~2017-2018 (meme spread)
## Overview
The meme centers on a specific passage from a U.S. Department of Energy report titled *Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant*, published in November 1993[1]. The key text reads:
> This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it! Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
The passage was designed to communicate danger across millennia to people who might not share any language or cultural framework with present-day humans[3]. Online, it found a second life as internet users latched onto its dramatic, almost poetic cadence. People use it as copypasta applied to mundane or absurd contexts, paste it over images of cursed locations, or reference it when describing anything ominous or forbidden.
## How It Spread
The passage drifted around academic and niche internet circles for years before hitting mainstream meme culture. Poet Shastra Deo encountered the message in late 2017 while scrolling an AskReddit thread about creepy Wikipedia articles[4]. At the time, she took it seriously as source material for her poetry collection *The Exclusion Zone*, later noting that her work on the text "started before this message... became a meme"[4]. This suggests the transition from obscure government document to internet joke was already underway by 2017-2018.
Reddit and Tumblr were the primary vectors. Users shared the passage in threads about unsettling facts, existential horror, and "things that keep you up at night." The text's combination of bureaucratic formality and raw dread made it perfect for the internet's appetite for the uncanny. It spread as copypasta applied to everything from messy apartments to cursed Discord servers to public restrooms.
The broader field of nuclear semiotics also attracted online attention. Thomas Sebeok's 1981 proposal for an "Atomic Priesthood," a secretive group that would preserve knowledge of waste sites through rituals and myths modeled on the Catholic Church, captured imaginations on Reddit and Twitter[2][3]. Similarly, the "Ray Cat Solution" proposed by Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri, which involved genetically engineering cats to change color near radiation and then creating folk songs about the color-changing cats, became its own micro-meme[3].
The Sandia report's proposed monument designs also went viral as images. These massive, hostile-looking structures were meant to convey menace and danger through scale and shape alone, using visual language of "hostility, fear, menacing" to scare people away from the land[3]. Screenshots of the spike fields and black monoliths circulated widely on Tumblr and Twitter as prime examples of "hostile architecture" taken to an extreme.
## How to Use
The most common use is as copypasta. People typically copy the full passage (or key phrases like "nothing valued is here" or "what is here was dangerous and repulsive to us") and apply it to images or situations where something looks cursed, forbidden, or deeply unpleasant. Common applications include:
1. **Image overlay:** Place the WIPP text over a photo of somewhere awful (a neglected bathroom, a weird room, a suburban eyesore).
2. **Caption format:** Post a photo with "This place is not a place of honor" as the caption, letting the image do the rest.
3. **Quote reaction:** Drop a fragment of the passage in reply to someone sharing something disturbing or inexplicable.
4. **Self-deprecating humor:** Apply the text to your own living space, browser history, or life choices.
## Cultural Impact
The passage crossed from meme into legitimate cultural influence. Poet Shastra Deo built her entire second collection, *The Exclusion Zone*, around the WIPP warning message and nuclear semiotics, treating the text as poetry before it was widely known as a meme[4]. She described the passage as reading like a poem when she first encountered it, and structured part of her book as a Choose Your Own Adventure through a far-future nuclear waste repository[4].
Nuclear semiotics attracted academic and journalistic attention well beyond meme culture. The Method Quarterly's 2014 feature explored the real-world stakes at Hanford, where the challenge of communicating danger across millennia was not theoretical but urgently practical[2]. Gina Phu's analysis on Substack framed nuclear semiotics as a field sitting at the intersection of science, art, and philosophy, with distinct subcommunities of scientists, enthusiasts, and skeptics[3].
The Atomic Priesthood concept, originally proposed by semiotician Thomas Sebeok, sparked debates about secrecy, religion, and institutional trust that extended far beyond the original nuclear waste context[2][3]. The idea that a secretive, self-selecting group would guard dangerous knowledge through ritual and myth struck some commentators as uncomfortably close to existing power structures.
## Fun Facts
- The Sandia report recommended markers made from materials with little recycle value so future scavengers wouldn't tear them apart for raw materials[1].
- A real earworm song was composed specifically to be catchy enough to survive 10,000 years of oral tradition, warning people about radiation through a tune about cats[2].
- The report acknowledged that no marker system could guarantee effectiveness for the full 10,000-year timeframe, noting that efficacy would decrease over time[1].
- Shastra Deo's poetry collection based on the passage was already in development before the text became a meme, making her one of the earliest serious artistic interpreters of the material[4].
- The $30 billion collected for the never-built Yucca Mountain repository was eventually halted by a court order after the Obama administration abandoned the project[2].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is "This Place Is Not a Place of Honor"?
It's a passage from a 1993 U.S. government report by Sandia National Laboratories, designed to warn future humans away from buried nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Online, it went viral as copypasta and a meme format[1].
### Where did the meme come from?
The original text appeared in *Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant*, published in November 1993 by Trauth, Hora, and Guzowski[1]. It spread online through Reddit and Tumblr threads about creepy or unsettling facts[4].
### What does the passage mean?
The text was designed to communicate danger across 10,000 years to people who might not share any modern language or culture. It uses simple, emotionally blunt language to convey that the site contains something deadly and worthless, discouraging exploration[3].
### How do you use the meme?
Most people copy the text (or key phrases like "nothing valued is here") and overlay it on images of cursed, unpleasant, or forbidden-looking places as humorous contrast[3].
### Is "This Place Is Not a Place of Honor" still popular?
Yes. The meme still circulates on Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter, and the broader topic of nuclear semiotics draws regular interest from new audiences discovering the concept[3][4].
### What is nuclear semiotics?
Nuclear semiotics is the study of how to create signs and symbols that communicate danger across millennia, specifically for marking nuclear waste storage sites. It was developed starting in the 1980s by the U.S. Department of Energy's Human Interference Task Force[2][3].
### What is the Atomic Priesthood?
A concept proposed by linguist Thomas Sebeok and physicist Alvin Weinberg, suggesting a secretive group modeled on religious institutions that would preserve knowledge about nuclear waste locations through rituals and myths[2][3].
### What are the Ray Cats?
A proposal by Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri to genetically engineer cats that change color near radiation, paired with folk songs to ensure the knowledge persists across generations[2][3].
### What was the Human Interference Task Force?
A panel convened by the U.S. Department of Energy in 1981, including engineers, archaeologists, linguists, and communication experts, tasked with figuring out how to keep future humans away from nuclear waste repositories[2].
### What are the spike field monuments?
Proposed physical markers from the Sandia report featuring massive fields of concrete spikes, walls of thorns, and other hostile structures designed to convey danger through intimidating scale and shape[3].
### Why did the passage go viral?
Its combination of bureaucratic formality and raw existential dread hit the internet's sweet spot for uncanny content. The text reads like accidental poetry, making it perfect for both serious discussion and comedic reuse[4].
### What is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant?
WIPP is a U.S. Department of Energy facility in New Mexico designed for long-term storage of nuclear waste. The 1993 report was specifically about how to mark and protect this site for 10,000 years[1].
## References
1. [Expert judgment on markers to deter inadvertent human intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - UNT Digital Library]()
2. [The Cat Went Over Radioactive Mountain | Method]()
3. [This Place is Not a Place of Honor: Decoding Nuclear Semiotics and their Subcultures]()
4. [List of Internet phenomena]()
5. [5 Questions with Shastra Deo — LIMINAL]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/this-place-is-not-a-place-of-honor
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library