Megan Garber traces how a metaphysical question became an ironic meme:
The concept of the spirit animal comes, most directly, from Native American spirituality. In that tradition, though there are variations across tribes and cultures, the spirit animal—otherwise known as a “totem animal” – generally takes the form of a single animal with which a person or a clan shares a certain set of characteristics, and therefore a kinship. The animal acts as a guide and protector for humans. In death, the humans’ spirits are absorbed into the animal.
The Internet– whose principal spirit animals include Taylor Swift, Jonathan Swift, and the KFC Double Down– has taken that metaphysical tradition and turned it into LOLs. That transformation happened gradually, and then quickly. As the Internet librarian Amanda Brennan told me, news groups and chat boards dedicated to wiccanism, paganism, and shamanism discussed sprit animals – unironically – in the 1990s. By the mid-2000s, personality quizzes offering to help people find their spirit animals began emerging. These were also earnest. The first ironic use of “spirit animal” may date back to August 2006, on one of the Shroomery.org message boards. As Brennan put it in an email,
While the thread began as an honest inquiry into animals people have formed bonds with through tripping, the user weathereporter88 claimed their spirit animal was Samuel Jackson. This one-off comment was not acknowledged by the other posters. This usage appeared online again in October 2007, when a blogger from This Recording asserted the Mad Men character Peggy Olsen was their spirit animal for being “off the hook awesome.”
So, yep: Samuel L. Jackson may have been the first of the Internet’s spirit animals. Peggy Olson may have been the second.
(Photo by Neil Girling)
The Dish 