Loco Mag has 69 issues? Nice.
For the nearly 22 years that I’ve been alive, 69 has always been funny. It was a meme before memes even existed. I dropped a few 69 jokes as early as second grade, not at all knowing what it meant but knowing it made people laugh. As I got older and learned what it meant, it only got funnier. Somewhere along the way though, the word “nice” became the associated response to anything pertaining to that number.
It’s so widely accepted that even the president isn’t safe from the “nice” chains. Both former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump (and probably President Biden at this point too) have faced the flood of 69 spam. One of my personal favorites comes from the r/space subreddit wherein a post announces that there have been 69 moons discovered around Jupiter. Every single comment has been removed by the subreddit admin, but we know what they say:
But how did this start? Where did we learn the funny sex number and why is it a timeless joke? Where did 69 come from? See what I did there? Nice.
According to the undeniable source, Know Your Meme, the 69 sex position dates all the way back to the late 18th century in France (shocker). It didn’t appear in American pop culture until the 1980s though, thanks to Rick James’ “She Blew My Mind (69 Times)” and Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ’69”. James’ references were pretty on the nose (and the song is so damn good), but Adams’ were a bit subtler and sparked some discussion of whether the song was about sex or not. He later confirmed that it was. Nice.
The Know Your Meme article also lists the following clip from the 1989 cinematic masterpiece that is Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which my dad showed me at a relatively young age. The film follows two morons, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves), who travel through time in a phone booth making fools of themselves throughout different points in history. It’s like Doctor Who but American. I definitely didn’t get all the jokes at the time, but this film only gets funnier with time.
In 2003, the first internet post about the legendary number was made. User starflier on Urban dictionary made the following post describing the slang term:
From there, 69 became one of the first memes ever, etching itself onto the Mount Rushmore of internet legends forever. That’s how it happened. And for the next five years, that’s how it would stay. That was, until the “nice” era began.
One of the earliest connections between 69 and nice came from user @Oblivion on Twitter, who wrote the following:
There’s no telling what prompted this user to include “Nice.” with the tweet. The punchline had already passed. The 69 joke was complete. Yet one single word, revolutionized the entire meme.
It’s speculated that the following clip from the 2006 episode of South Park titled “Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy” is a key influence in @Oblivion and many others’ use of “nice” in conjunction with 69. The clip shows Kyle (using a fake name) reporting a kindergarten teacher for having sex with a boy. Upon learning the details of the story, the cops all respond with “nice.”
This response became a trend, and continued to grow in popularity until it became as widely understood as saying “bless you” when someone sneezes (still not really sure why we do that though). Athletes began to choose #69 for their jerseys to make the commentators say unintentionally funny things, the YY company stock became a meme for hitting $69.69, and of course 69 somehow entered every meme format of the last decade.
Now that we’re all caught up, I wanted to leave you all with some of my personal favorite 69 and “nice” moments from my time on the internet. Enjoy!
You get the idea. They’re not thoughtful or intelligent jokes at all, but nothing makes me smile like seeing someone get hit with a “nice” chain without realizing why. With the history of the meme in mind, I send you out into the world with this newfound knowledge. And since this is the 69th issue of Loco Mag, I ask you to please spam “nice” on all of our socials. This is the way.
Featured image credited to Shane via Unsplash.
