Work in progress
About
identifying X typically refers to a photoshop and snowclone meme consisting of the subject of the image carefully examining a commonplace and easily identifiable object. In its snowclone variants, the image is generally captioned with “Yep, it’s X.”
Origin
The original image from which the meme was derived was the cover of the book Identifying Wood: Accurate Results with Simple Tools[1] by R. Bruce Hoadley, published in 1990.[2]
(Researching precise origin)
The earliest known variation of the meme was created by adding the caption “Yep, it’s wood.” to the image, thereby highlighting the humor behind writing an entire book dedicated to identifying something so commonplace.
Spread
On May 22nd, 2007, a thread[3] was posted on the community website FARK requesting photoshops of the book cover. The thread, receiving 36 replies prior to being archived, produced several notable examples of the meme (shown below).
Notable Examples
