Pics or it Didn’t Happen
Meaning
Pics or it didn’t happen is a frequently seen phrase on comments, chats and message boards.
It is mostly used to express disbelief about a far-fetched story, asking for photos to serve as proof about its occurrence.
Origin
“Pics or it didn’t happen” started cropping up on the Tribal War forums in 2003, with one of the earliest appearances arising in a thread on June 20th, as the original poster was bragging about having a pillow fight with a girl.
Another member of the forum, Blitzkrieg replied to this boasting with “obligatory ‘pix or it didn’t happen’”.
The expression would appear once more that year on Tribal War when a user was flexing with the fact, that he could contract his scrotum.
Spread and Usage
In the following years, “pics or it didn’t happen” would appear on other forums like Something Awful, Yellow World and Epic Games.
It first appeared on 4chan in January, 2007 and was already included into the first version of Rules of the Internet on February 15th.
Since that time, the phrase appears everywhere online from Twitter to Reddit and Tumblr to Facebook.
External References
- The Guardian – ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ – the mantra of the Instagram era
- Spaceandculture.com – Review: Pics or it didn’t happen
- Know Your Meme – Pics or It Didn’t Happen
Facebook
Twitter