ViralWorld

Trash Doves

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Biggest memes ever30 of 32

2017·The platform era·funny

A purple pigeon drawn for a sticker pack that became, without warning, the most-shared image in Thailand.

At a glanceThe facts

Spread in
2017
Format
GIF
Era
The platform era
Made by
Syd Weiler, an artist based in Sarasota, Florida
Where it started
A sticker set for iMessage, then Facebook Messenger
Used to say
The head-banging bird, posted over and over in comment sections
Origin
Not an upload originally
Available
Not held by ViralWorld

What this wasThe story

Syd Weiler designed a set of stickers in 2016 featuring a large-eyed purple pigeon. One of them is animated: the bird slams its head up and down with total commitment. Released on Facebook in January 2017, that single sticker became a phenomenon in Thailand within weeks, then everywhere else.

Weiler wrote in 2019 about what the episode was actually like — harassment, widespread infringement of the artwork, and depression — which is one of the very few first-person accounts by an artist of having a drawing go globally viral, and it is not a happy one. She later released a second set on her own terms.

Why it matteredWhat changed

A purple pigeon from a set of chat stickers flooded comment sections across Facebook within a fortnight of its release there. Its creator later wrote about the harassment that came with it.

TimelineIn order

  1. Posted

    The sticker set is released for iMessage.1

  2. Picked up

    Facebook, having licensed the drawings, adds them to Messenger with an animated head-banging bird.1

  3. Took off

    A Thai Facebook page posts a video pairing the bird with a dancing cat. It is watched 3.5 million times in days.1

  4. Later

    Weiler writes about the period, and the depression that followed it.1

How it spreadFrom one place to everywhere

More from hereIn this collection

Why it is here: copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast

This spread as an animated file passed from person to person, not as a video upload. Originally published on Facebook.

Where it came fromWhat we know

There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.

Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This spread as an animated file passed from person to person, not as a video upload. Originally published on Facebook.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

More from 2017You were there

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — Trash Doves

Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things

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