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Meme: Unicorns (née Ponies)

Origin: TheTXI

Cultural Height: April 1st, 2009

Background: The pony meme began without fanfare early in TheTXI's time as a member of Stack Overflow. Its first recorded usages can be traced back to long-running comment threads and arguments on both Stack Overflow and User Voice. The comment "I like ponies" would be interjected into threads, seemingly at random, which inevitably led to those threads getting completely derailed.

Before long, it became evident that TheTXI was not the only SOpedian who found ponies to be the most wonderfullest things ever. Ponies' popularity grew to the point where Jeff Atwood and the Stack Overflow development team implemented the Cornify button on all questions and answers on April Fools' Day 2009. From there, the popularity of ponies — and their magical weaponized form, unicorns — grew exponentially.

For April Fools' Day 2010, all avatar requests were sent to Unicornify instead of Gravatar, resulting in every user having a personal unicorn for the day.

For April Fools' Day 2011, voting on questions triggered unicorn animations.

For April Fools' Day 2014, unicoins were added to stack, allowing users to mine coins that could then be used to purchase different powers for use on stack sites.  What are Stack Overflow unicoins?

For April Fools' Day 2019, a time machine version of SO was created to show how the site would have looked should it have been around in 1998. A unicorn was included in the page's background as well as ASCII art in the HTML source.

Historical notes: In 2006, for April Fools' Day, Slashdot switched to a pink ponies theme. This subsequently led to an "OMG Ponies" Slashdot meme.

Meme: Unicorns (née Ponies)

Originator: TheTXI

Cultural Height: April 1st, 2009

Background: The pony meme began without fanfare early in TheTXI's time as a member of Stack Overflow. Its first recorded usages can be traced back to long-running comment threads and arguments on both Stack Overflow and User Voice. The comment "I like ponies" would be interjected into threads, seemingly at random, which inevitably led to those threads getting completely derailed.

Before long, it became evident that TheTXI was not the only SOpedian who found ponies to be the most wonderfullest things ever. Ponies' popularity grew to the point where Jeff Atwood and the Stack Overflow development team implemented the Cornify button on all questions and answers for April Fools' Day 2009. From there, the popularity of ponies — and their magical weaponized form, unicorns — grew exponentially.

Other Official References:
For April Fools' Day 2010, all avatar requests were sent to Unicornify instead of Gravatar, resulting in every user having a personal unicorn for the day.

On April Fools' Day 2011, voting on questions triggered unicorn animations.

On April Fools' Day 2012, the Clippycorn, a parody to Clippy Microsoft Office Assistant, was appearing at various conditions offering users a semi-joke tips on site usage.

For April Fools' Day 2014, unicoins were added to stack, allowing users to mine coins that could then be used to purchase different powers for use on stack sites. What are Stack Overflow unicoins?

For April Fools' Day 2019, a time machine version of SO was created to show how the site would have looked should it have been around in 1998. A unicorn was included in the page's background as well as ASCII art in the HTML source.

Related: In 2006, for April Fools' Day, Slashdot switched to a pink ponies theme. This subsequently led to an "OMG Ponies" Slashdot meme.

Meme: Unicorns (née Ponies)

Origin: TheTXI

Cultural Height: April 1st, 2009

Background: The pony meme began without fanfare early in TheTXI's time as a member of Stack Overflow. Its first recorded usages can be traced back to long-running comment threads and arguments on both Stack Overflow and User Voice. The comment "I like ponies" would be interjected into threads, seemingly at random, which inevitably led to those threads getting completely derailed.

Before long, it became evident that TheTXI was not the only SOpedian who found ponies to be the most wonderfullest things ever. Ponies' popularity grew to the point where Jeff Atwood and the Stack Overflow development team implemented the Cornify button on all questions and answers on April Fools' Day 2009. From there, the popularity of ponies — and their magical weaponized form, unicorns — grew exponentially.

For April Fools' Day 2010, all avatar requests were sent to Unicornify instead of Gravatar, resulting in every user having a personal unicorn for the day.

For April Fools' Day 2011, voting on questions triggered unicorn animations.

For April Fools' Day 2014 unicoins were added to stack, allowing users to mine coins that could then be used to purchase different powers for use on stack sites. What are Stack Overflow unicoins?

Historical notes: In 2006, for April Fools' Day, Slashdot switched to a pink ponies theme. This subsequently led to an "OMG Ponies" Slashdot meme.

Meme: Unicorns (née Ponies)

Origin: TheTXI

Cultural Height: April 1st, 2009

Background: The pony meme began without fanfare early in TheTXI's time as a member of Stack Overflow. Its first recorded usages can be traced back to long-running comment threads and arguments on both Stack Overflow and User Voice. The comment "I like ponies" would be interjected into threads, seemingly at random, which inevitably led to those threads getting completely derailed.

Before long, it became evident that TheTXI was not the only SOpedian who found ponies to be the most wonderfullest things ever. Ponies' popularity grew to the point where Jeff Atwood and the Stack Overflow development team implemented the Cornify button on all questions and answers on April Fools' Day 2009. From there, the popularity of ponies — and their magical weaponized form, unicorns — grew exponentially.

For April Fools' Day 2010, all avatar requests were sent to Unicornify instead of Gravatar, resulting in every user having a personal unicorn for the day.

For April Fools' Day 2011, voting on questions triggered unicorn animations.

For April Fools' Day 2014, unicoins were added to stack, allowing users to mine coins that could then be used to purchase different powers for use on stack sites. What are Stack Overflow unicoins?

For April Fools' Day 2019, a time machine version of SO was created to show how the site would have looked should it have been around in 1998. A unicorn was included in the page's background as well as ASCII art in the HTML source.

Historical notes: In 2006, for April Fools' Day, Slashdot switched to a pink ponies theme. This subsequently led to an "OMG Ponies" Slashdot meme.

Meme: Unicorns (née Ponies)

Origin: TheTXI

Cultural Height: April 1st, 2009

Background: The pony meme began without fanfare early in TheTXI's time as a member of Stack Overflow. Its first recorded usages can be traced back to long-running comment threads and arguments on both Stack Overflow and User Voice. The comment "I like ponies" would be interjected into threads, seemingly at random, which inevitably led to those threads getting completely derailed.

Before long, it became evident that TheTXI was not the only SOpedian who found ponies to be the most wonderfullest things ever. Ponies' popularity grew to the point where Jeff Atwood and the Stack Overflow development team implemented the Cornify button on all questions and answers on April Fools' Day 2009. From there, the popularity of ponies — and their magical weaponized form, unicorns — grew exponentially.

For April Fools' Day 2010, all avatar requests were sent to Unicornify instead of Gravatar, resulting in every user having a personal unicorn for the day.

For April Fools' Day 2011, voting on questions triggered unicorn animations.

For April Fools' Day 2014 unicoins were added to stack, allowing users to mine coins that could then be used to purchase different powers for use on stack sites. What are Stack Overflow unicoins?

Historical notes: In 2006, for April Fools' Day, Slashdot switched to a pink ponies theme. This subsequently led to an "OMG Ponies" Slashdot meme.

Meme: Unicorns (née Ponies)

Origin: TheTXI

Cultural Height: April 1st, 2009

Background: The pony meme began without fanfare early in TheTXI's time as a member of Stack Overflow. Its first recorded usages can be traced back to long-running comment threads and arguments on both Stack Overflow and User Voice. The comment "I like ponies" would be interjected into threads, seemingly at random, which inevitably led to those threads getting completely derailed.

Before long, it became evident that TheTXI was not the only SOpedian who found ponies to be the most wonderfullest things ever. Ponies' popularity grew to the point where Jeff Atwood and the Stack Overflow development team implemented the Cornify button on all questions and answers on April Fools' Day 2009. From there, the popularity of ponies — and their magical weaponized form, unicorns — grew exponentially.

For April Fools' Day 2010, all avatar requests were sent to Unicornify instead of Gravatar, resulting in every user having a personal unicorn for the day.

For April Fools' Day 2011, voting on questions triggered unicorn animations.

For April Fools' Day 2014 unicoins were added to stack, allowing users to mine coins that could then be used to purchase different powers for use on stack sites. What are Stack Overflow unicoins?

Historical notes: In 2006, for April Fools' Day, Slashdot switched to a pink ponies theme. This subsequently led to an "OMG Ponies" Slashdot meme.