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They thought the earth was flat

This is a two-panel comparison meme designed to debunk the common popular misconception that people living in the medieval period believed the Earth was flat. The top panel displays a smug, condescending neckbeard Wojak character with crossed arms, paired with text quoting the common false claim: "Medieval people believed the Earth was flat", representing people who unknowingly spread this historical myth. The bottom panel shifts to an illustration of a medieval cathedral or university interior, featuring a serious, stoic Chad character styled as a medieval scholar, with accompanying text explaining that medieval universities actually taught Aristotle's widely accepted theory of a spherical Earth, contrasting the false myth with historical fact for humorous and educational effect.
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Text content

Top panel text: 'Medieval people believed the Earth was flat'; Bottom panel text: 'Meanwhile medieval universities teaching Aristotle's spherical Earth'

Overview

This is a two-panel comparison meme designed to debunk the common popular misconception that people living in the medieval period believed the Earth was flat. The top panel displays a smug, condescending neckbeard Wojak character with crossed arms, paired with text quoting the common false claim: "Medieval people believed the Earth was flat", representing people who unknowingly spread this historical myth. The bottom panel shifts to an illustration of a medieval cathedral or university interior, featuring a serious, stoic Chad character styled as a medieval scholar, with accompanying text explaining that medieval universities actually taught Aristotle's widely accepted theory of a spherical Earth, contrasting the false myth with historical fact for humorous and educational effect.

Origin notes

This meme was sourced from an RSS feed of the Reddit r/Meme subreddit, with the original posted title "They thought the earth was flat". It uses the ubiquitous two-panel Wojak vs Chad meme format, a popular internet meme structure used to contrast ill-informed or bad opinions with correct or superior ones, to humorously correct a widely held false belief about medieval history.

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