P. S. I'll find my frog.

February 10, 2022 8:03 AM

In September 2004, a toy frog was lost. The internet became excited. It was soon explained. This is a Doubles Joubilee repost of links by darukaru, azul, and vaportrail. It appears that nearly all of the links in posts and comments still work, with one mysterious exception. The meme lifetime models in this paper may need an additional nostalgia/obsession term that becomes significant at late times.

Also, a bonus paper [possibly only paywalled] that includes Hopkin and Metafilter for digital humanities wonks from back in the day when memes were new and exciting.

posted by eotvos (19 comments total)

Aw, I loved Hopkin. I painted a mug dedicated to Hopkin that's still our favorite mug. The way people were taking this simple little statement and remixing it was so funny to me, and it all felt very sweet.
posted by bleep at 8:17 AM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

My favourite iteration of this meme is Flash Tub's hilariously cliche-riddled film noir adaptation.
posted by oulipian at 9:00 AM on February 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

As context, these threads are the first time I learned that metafilter existed. Maybe from a boingboing link? (It took me another five years and encouragement from a friend to actually sign up and pay attention.) Also, there's a scientific instrument that took data for years and produced important results using detectors that had five-micron-scale hopkins hidden among the pixels as "lithography test structures." Nobody ever noticed, or at least nobody ever told me they noticed. It's on a part of the wafer you don't look at much after it's finished.
posted by eotvos at 9:35 AM on February 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

OMG, I had forgotten all about this. The Internet was such a different place then.
posted by briank at 9:45 AM on February 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: another high-traffic community website.
posted by snofoam at 9:59 AM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Some day I'll learn how to spell jubilee. Not today, it seems. (Time to look up old posts about English-language spelling reform.)
posted by eotvos at 10:01 AM on February 10, 2022

To this day whenever I misplace something, I take a deep breath and confidently say, “I will find my frog.”
posted by Monochrome at 10:05 AM on February 10, 2022 [11 favorites]

I had totally forgotten hopkin green frog! Thank you for restoring this memory.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:07 AM on February 10, 2022

Truly the intarnet needs a Hopkins Joubilee!
posted by BlueHorse at 10:31 AM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Somehow this story still makes me sad though.
posted by aramaic at 11:25 AM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Oh hey I made one of the 'shops on lostfrog.org (probably after seeing it here). Kind of heartwarming to see it's still there. Thanks, eotvos!
posted by 7segment at 11:30 AM on February 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

I still regularly think of hopkins green frog for no reason. Also, whenever if I looking for object, him name is hopkin green object. I lose my object.

p.s. I'll find my object, who took my object, who found my object!!
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:50 PM on February 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

Some day I'll learn how to spell jubilee. Not today, it seems.

Thousands of Souvenirs for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Feature Embarrassing Misprint
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:35 PM on February 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I hope the young person who lost their frog is living a good life now.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:16 PM on February 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

I think about this often.
posted by neuron at 4:00 PM on February 10, 2022

I set up a MeFi account in 2005 but had been lurking for a year or so before that. I can’t remember how I found the site, but I am pretty sure that MeFi was where I found out about Hopkin - darukaru’s original post seems very familiar.

At the time my wife and I were both very charmed by it. We bought a small plush frog toy which was instantly named Hopkin, and which years later is now played with by our daughter. And “him name is” as a way of mentioning someone’s name, and “I’ll find my frog”, are still phrases we use.
posted by greycap at 9:35 PM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Unrelated to the article, but doesn't the autopoietic nature of language mean the spelling of "jubilee" is now substantially closer to the putative misspelling of the word on the commemorative coins.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 10:56 PM on February 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Man, time flies. Not something from MeFi but this explanation from some person of why the fellow's mom said one thing about the frog and the dad another has not aged super well: "The family is of an ethnicity that often emphasizes patriarchy and the adults clearly speak English as a second language." ಠ__ಠ
posted by spisspisspis at 12:23 AM on February 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was really hoping this post was to announce that the frog had finally been found.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 3:28 AM on February 11, 2022 [1 favorite]