# Unknown Pleasures The Unknown Pleasures album cover, Peter Saville's 1979 sleeve for Joy Division's debut record, became one of the most recognizable images in post-punk before escaping the album entirely to live online as an exploitable template. By the early 2010s, the stacked pulsar waves showed up on Disney merchandise, Tumblr parody shirts, and listicles, turning a radio astronomy diagram into a go-to meme format. ## Origin Joy Division released Unknown Pleasures on June 15th, 1979, with sleeve art by Peter Saville[4]. The waveforms came from CP 1919, the first radio pulsar discovered, originally charted in a January 1971 issue of Scientific American before being reprinted in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy that Morris flipped through[3]. The pulsar imagery is in the public domain, which later let brands reproduce it without permission[1]. - **Platform:** Album artwork (source) / Tumblr and blogs (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 1979 ## Overview Peter Saville's sleeve stacks 100 radio pulse readings from pulsar CP 1919, a graphic drummer Stephen Morris pulled from the 1977 Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy[3]. Saville flipped the diagram from black-on-white to white-on-black, giving it the stark look that fans copied onto shirts for decades[1]. As a meme, Unknown Pleasures works as a visual exploitable. People swap the pulsar waves for other silhouettes, overlay the lines on unrelated subjects, or build jokes around people wearing the shirt without knowing the band[4]. Common formats include Mickey Mouse mashups, pop culture spoofs, and digs at fashion-first fans who claim they found the sleeve on Tumblr[3]. ## How It Spread The sleeve became a shirt staple through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, which set up the parody wave of the early 2010s[4]. In January 2012, Disney put a "Waves Mickey Mouse" T-shirt on its online store for $24.95, superimposing Mickey's head onto Saville's pulsar design[1]. Pushback from the indie community was fast, Disney pulled the shirt, and resale copies climbed past $200 on eBay[2]. Joy Division bassist Peter Hook called the Disney crossover "a funny one" and told Billboard he tried to buy one before they sold out[1]. On May 21st, 2013, Laughing Squid wrote up a parody shirt by designer Adam Kurtz that reproduced the sleeve under the text "What is this? I've seen it on Tumblr"[6]. The same day, Buzzfeed ran a listicle collecting 14 pop culture spoofs built on the design[3]. A single-topic Tumblr called "People Wearing a Joy Division Shirt" compiled candid photos of shirt wearers in the wild[7], and a 20wattsmag piece needled fans who wore the shirt for the look rather than the music[8]. Later edits paired the waves with unrelated text, including memes referencing Michael Flynn's redacted Russian investigation memo and "Pee Is Stored In the Balls"[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Unknown Pleasures? Unknown Pleasures is the 1979 debut Joy Division album whose Peter Saville sleeve of stacked pulsar waves became an exploitable meme and T-shirt template[1]. ### Where did Unknown Pleasures come from? Saville based the cover on radio pulse data from pulsar CP 1919, pulled from the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy and inverted to white-on-black[3]. ### What does Unknown Pleasures mean? As a meme, it points to the sleeve itself as a format, where people swap in other silhouettes, pair the waves with unrelated jokes, or riff on shirt wearers who don't know the band[4]. ### How do you use Unknown Pleasures? People overlay the stacked waves onto a new shape like Mickey Mouse, replace the pulsar with other content, or make jokes about Tumblr-era shirt wearers, like Adam Kurtz's "I've seen it on Tumblr" parody[6]. ### Is Unknown Pleasures still popular? The sleeve is still a steady design reference since the 2012 Disney flap, with later edits pairing it with newer memes like "Pee Is Stored In the Balls"[4]. ## References 1. [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/disney-joy-division-t-shirt-unknown-pleasures-284782]() 2. [https://pitchfork.com/news/45229-rip-joy-divison-mickey-mouse-shirt/]() 3. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/travisrandg/14-pop-culture-spoofs-inspired-by-joy-divisions-5d61]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/unknown-pleasures]() 5. [https://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/out-blue]() 6. [https://laughingsquid.com/what-is-this-unknown-pleasure-a-joy-division-album-t-shirt-for-the-tumblr-generation/]() 7. [https://peoplewearingajoydivisiontshirt.tumblr.com/]() 8. [http://20wattsmag.com/2013/09/you-are-wearing-a-joy-division-shirt-because-of-fashion-and-not-music/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/unknown-pleasures Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library