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Cow Tools is a cartoon from Gary Larson's The Far Side, published in October of 1982. It depicts a cow standing in front of a table of bizarre, misshapen implements with the caption "Cow tools". The cartoon confused many readers, who wrote or phoned in seeking an explanation of the joke. In response to the controversy, Larson issued a press release clarifying that the thrust of the cartoon was simply that, if a cow were to make tools, they would "lack something in sophistication". It has been described as "arguably the most loathed Far Side strip ever".
the original artwork for cow tools.
In 2012, the online discourse surrounding the "Cow Tools" comic percolated on platforms like Twitter. For example, Twitter user me_irl was one of the first online to talk about the comic, posting a tweet on October 2nd, 2012, which received seven likes in roughly nine years.On March 20th, 2016, the /r/cowtools subreddit was created. The first post to the subreddit was made by Redditor sega_95, which was just an Imgur link to the "Cow Tools" comic. On November 26th, 2017, Twitter user saralautman tweeted a picture of a "Cow Tools" tattoo that she'd gotten on her forearm. The tweet received 197 likes in roughly four years after being posted. In 2021, "Cow Tools" memes became abundant on Instagram. For instance, Instagram account donotresearch_ascended posted a Whisper style meme on July 12th, 2021. The post received 587 likes over five months. Also, on September 12th, 2021, Instagram account owen_kung reposted the Donnie Darko meme above, where it received roughly 12,000 likes over the course of three months. Inspired by the attention on sites like Instagram, "Cow Tools" memes amassed a resurgence in prominence in the latter half of 2021. More memes referring to the Far Side comic appeared on Twitter, among other platforms, in 2021 and going into early 2022.
Larson took the unusual step of issuing a press release, explaining the joke and apologizing for the confusion caused:
Years later, in The Prehistory of the Far Side, Larson further explained that he was inspired by the idea that tool use was the characteristic that separated mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom.