# Vaping Vaping, the practice of inhaling vapor from an electronic cigarette or similar device, grew from a niche smoking alternative in the 2000s into online shorthand mocked relentlessly across Reddit and YouTube by the mid-2010s. What started as a harm-reduction product pitch spawned a wave of comedy sketches, cloud-chasing trick videos, and the enduring stereotype of the obnoxious vape bro. ## Origin The hardware history runs deeper than the meme. Inventor Herbert Gilbert patented a smokeless, non-tobacco cigarette design in 1963, though it never reached production[4]. In the late 1970s, computer entrepreneur Phil Ray and his physician Dr. Norman Jacobson developed the "Favor Smoke-Free Cigarette," and Jacobson's trial write-up is credited with the first use of the words "vaping" and "vapers" to describe the activity and its users[1]. The device commercially credited with launching the current wave is Hon Lik's 2003 e-cigarette, which began international distribution in 2006[3]. The word "vape" entered general internet slang on March 31, 2004, when Urban Dictionary user SweeperOfDreams submitted an entry defining it as a term for vaporizer use with cannabis and tobacco[6]. The dedicated /r/Vaping subreddit launched on January 17, 2010, giving the growing hobby a hub for gear talk and juice reviews[3]. - **Platform:** Product origin: China (Hon Lik, 2003) / Meme spread: YouTube and Reddit (2013-2015) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2003 ## Overview Vaping refers to inhaling vapor produced by heating liquid or plant material in a battery-powered device, pitched by its early users as a cleaner alternative to combustion smoking[1]. The modern e-cigarette format that drove the hobby online was built by Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik in 2003 and started exporting globally in 2006[3]. By the early 2010s, the practice had its own slang, its own subreddits, and its own uniform of oversized mods and sweet-smelling juice flavors. The meme side of vaping is mostly mockery of the hobbyists rather than the devices themselves. YouTube sketches, reaction GIFs, and Reddit threads piled on the vape bro stereotype: a guy exhaling car-sized clouds, performing jellyfish tricks, and bragging about strawberry cheesecake juice flavors[2]. Urban Dictionary entries from the era captured the tone bluntly, with definitions calling vaping "the quickest way to make all your friends hate you" and "the reason you're single"[6]. The visual shorthand for vape culture became the fat cloud exhale and the comically large mod box, both of which fed trick-video channels and parody sketches alike. ## How It Spread The meme took shape on YouTube first. On September 2, 2013, the channel 1O1Films uploaded "Vapers Be Like," a sketch series mocking vaporizer enthusiasts that set the template for later parodies[1]. On May 4, 2014, YouTuber PDX1K posted a trick-vaping compilation that pulled over 2.9 million views and 1,700 comments across the next two years, cementing cloud chasing as its own spectator genre[1]. Text coverage followed the videos. Listverse published "10 Facts That Everyone Gets Wrong About Vaping" on November 12, 2014, treating the hobby as mainstream enough to need debunking[1]. On March 17, 2015, Redditor quagdingo77 posted a GIF of a man vaping in a car with loud speakers to /r/oddlysatisfying, which earned over 4,600 votes at 90% upvoted in seven months[1]. The ASAPScience YouTube channel joined the explainer wave on August 16, 2015, with a video comparing smoking and vaping that pulled over 2.4 million views and 5,200 comments in two months[5]. By that fall, confused outsiders were asking what the joke even was. On October 8, 2015, Redditor Creamofcelery opened a /r/OutOfTheLoop thread titled "Why do I keep hearing people make fun of vaping?" that collected roughly 2,500 votes and 800 comments in its first two weeks[1], a decent marker for when the mockery had outrun the practice itself. ## How to Use The meme typically mocks the vape bro archetype rather than celebrating the hobby. Common conventions include exaggerated cloud exhales, lines like "bro, I just got this new juice," oversized mod props, and jellyfish or dragon trick impressions. Parody sketches often open with a character pulling out a comically large device, then cutting to an overblown trick or an eye-rolling bystander. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Vaping? Vaping is the practice of inhaling vapor from a battery-powered device that heats liquid or plant material without burning it, framed by early users as a lower-harm alternative to smoking[2]. ### Where did Vaping come from? The modern e-cigarette was built by Hon Lik in Beijing in 2003 and exported internationally starting in 2006, though earlier attempts date back to Herbert Gilbert's 1963 design[1]. ### What does Vaping mean? The word 'vaping' was first used in the late 1970s by Dr. Norman Jacobson to describe users of Phil Ray's Favor Smoke-Free Cigarette, and Urban Dictionary logged the slang term 'vape' on March 31, 2004[2]. ### How do you use Vaping? As a meme, vaping is used to mock the vape bro archetype through parody sketches like 1O1Films' 'Vapers Be Like' (2013) and trick-cloud videos like PDX1K's 2014 upload[1]. ### Is Vaping still popular? Vaping is a classic online joke tied to the 2013-2015 wave of mockery documented on Reddit and YouTube, with explainer threads like the October 2015 /r/OutOfTheLoop post marking its peak as a punchline[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2014/06/vaping-origins-1970s.html]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuajZh3MkSk]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/vaping]() 4. [https://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2013/10/interview-inventor-e-cigarette-herbert-a-gilbert.html]() 5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWl7Z1GjfDk]() 6. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Vaping]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/vaping Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library