About
Skateboarding Professor, sometimes referred to as Skating Professor, is an advice animal-style image macro series based on a photograph of University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Tom Winter riding his skateboard on campus. The captions typically incorporate various technical terms and references relating to skateboarding culture into expressions that are often heard during college lectures.
Origin
Redditor Tr0llzor[1] posted a photo to the pics subreddit[2] on April 4th, 2012 of Doctor Thomas Winter, a professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln who became notorious for getting around the campus with a skateboard. The post hit the front page with 31,534 upvotes and 2521 points overall.
Later that day, an image macro featuring the photo titled “Hip Professor Harold”[3] was posted to the Advice Animals subreddit, but only received 6 points. On April 5th, another image macro of the professor was posted[4] with a caption referencing a skateboarding trick known as a manual.[5] This post received 6674 upvotes and 1319 points overall.
Thomas Winter
Doctor Thomas Winter, a classics and religious studies professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has been teaching since 1970.[7] He has been skateboarding around the campus since 1993, when he made the conscious effort to lead a more active life.[6] In 2008, Winter was profiled by the Daily Nebraskan[6] in which he called himself a “role model” for students who see him skating at age of 62. On Rate My Professors[8], Winter has an overall score of 3.3 out of 5. Shortly after rising to viral fame, Professor Winter announced that he will retire from his position following the end of the school year on May 10th, 2013.
Spread
On April 6th, several image macros from the Reddit thread were posted to FunnyJunk,[10] Skateboarding Magazine[14] and the popular Tumblr blog Pleated Jeans[13], where it received over 14,000 notes in three days. In the following 48 hours, Dr. Winter’s skateboarding photo was featured on Yahoo! News,[11] Mashable[12] and Digital Journal.[15] By April 9th, 2012, the Quickmeme[9] page had garnered more than 500 submissions of image macros.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]Reddit – Profile for Tr0llzor
[2]Reddit – One of the Professors at my school. He’s always skating around campus
[3]Reddit – Hip Professor Harold
[4]Reddit – Skating Professor
[5]About.com – Manual / Nose Manual
[6]Daily Nebraskan – Professor skateboards for fitness, transportation
[7]Lincoln Journal Star – Skateboarding professor becomes Internet sensation
[8]Rate My Professors – Tom Winter
[9]Quickmeme – Skating Prof
[10]FunnyJunk – Skateboarding Professor Explanations
[11]Yahoo! News – 68-Year-Old Skateboarding Professor Becomes Viral Meme
[12]Mashable – 68-Year-Old Skateboarding Professor Becomes Viral Meme
[13]Pleated Jeans – Skating Prof
[14]Skateboarding Magazine – Top 10 Skateboarding Professor Memes
[15]Digital Journal – Tom Winter, 68-year-old skateboarding professor goes viral
[16]Huffington Post – Tom Winter, Skateboarding Professor, Will Drift Into Retirement Later This Year
[17]Daily Nebraskan – Skateboarding professor Thomas Winter announces retirement
[18]Jenkem Magazine – AN INTERVIEWWITHTHE 69 YEAROLDSKATEBOARDINGPROFESSOR: TOMWINTER