Meaning
What does Political Compass mean?
The Political Compass meme is a two-axis political template of libertarian/authoritarian right and left and economic-left/economic-right.
It was originally made to help people by taking a survey to know exactly where they stand in politics.
Online it quickly became a meme template, and many used it to make parody edits.
Origin
What's the origin of Political Compass?
The original model of the political spectrum was created by Politicalcompass.org, and the term “political compass” was copyrighted by Pace News Limited in 2001.
It constitutes of economic right and left on the horizontal line and authoritarian-libertarian on the central line. Authoritarian right, left and libertarian right and left are the resultant fields.
The “political compass” website, since 2004, shared various elections in english-speaking countries using the template.
The first ever meme appeared on August 29th, 2012 by an unknown user in a Warosu.org thread.
Spread & Usage
How did Political Compass spread?
In the following years, several “political compass” models have made for many parody edits, however, since March 2016, memes and parodies have been made more regularly.
Later, memes expanded to pop culture references as well, almost like Alignment charts. Popular variations involve SpongeBob Squarepants and The Simpsons, for example.
Also, a Facebook page going by the name Political Compass Memes was created on June 15th, 2016, to post only “political compass” edits.
External resources
- Know Your Meme – Political Compass