Always Has Been

The 'Always Has Been' meme template features two astronauts in space, with one pointing a pistol at the back of the other's head, all against the backdrop of Earth. This striking visual setup creates an immediate sense of tension and dramatic revelation. Originating around 2020, the meme quickly gained traction across social media platforms, particularly Reddit, becoming a popular format for expressing sudden, often unsettling, realizations about various aspects of life, culture, or even the universe itself. The astronaut holding the gun often sports an Ohio flag patch, an absurd and unexplained detail that has become an iconic, recurring element adding an extra layer of bizarre humor to the template.

Typically, the meme is used to illustrate a moment of profound, usually uncomfortable, enlightenment where a perceived truth is revealed to be a long-standing reality. The format involves a dialogue: the first astronaut asks, 'Wait, it's all [X]?', to which the second astronaut (the one holding the gun) replies, 'Always has been.' The humor stems from the dramatic, high-stakes imagery of a cosmic execution juxtaposed with often mundane, obvious, or comically absurd 'truths.' It effectively captures the feeling of hindsight bias, the moment when something that should have been obvious suddenly clicks, often too late, or when a widely accepted belief is dramatically debunked.

Culturally, 'Always Has Been' taps into a shared human experience of discovering an underlying reality that was hidden in plain sight. It can convey a sense of existential dread, cynical humor, or a relatable 'aha!' moment. The meme's versatility allows it to be applied to a wide range of topics, from personal quirks and internet culture to political observations and philosophical quandaries. The Ohio astronaut detail has also spawned its own sub-genre of jokes, playfully implying Ohio's unexpected or conspiratorial influence over everything, cementing the meme's place as a uniquely absurd and widely recognizable internet phenomenon.