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Absurd Joke Explaining Pyramid Construction With Newton Inventing Gravity

This meme displays a screenshot of a Veritasium YouTube video titled 'How Were the Pyramids Built?', which has accumulated 7.5 million views over 7 years, with a photo of the Great Pyramid of Giza as the video thumbnail. Two sections of the screenshot are circled in red: first the video title, second a top comment that reads 'Well the pyramids were built before Isaac Newton invented gravity, so the stones weight wasn\'t a problem.' The humor comes from the absurd, intentionally wrong premise that Isaac Newton 'invented' gravity rather than discovering and formalizing its rules, implying that gravity did not exist before Newton, so moving the massive pyramid stones was not difficult, as a silly answer to the longstanding question of how the pyramids were constructed.
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Well the pyramids were built before Isaac Newton invented gravity, so the stones weight wasn't a problem.

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How Were the Pyramids Built? 7.5M views · 7 years ago

Overview

This meme displays a screenshot of a Veritasium YouTube video titled 'How Were the Pyramids Built?', which has accumulated 7.5 million views over 7 years, with a photo of the Great Pyramid of Giza as the video thumbnail. Two sections of the screenshot are circled in red: first the video title, second a top comment that reads 'Well the pyramids were built before Isaac Newton invented gravity, so the stones weight wasn\'t a problem.' The humor comes from the absurd, intentionally wrong premise that Isaac Newton 'invented' gravity rather than discovering and formalizing its rules, implying that gravity did not exist before Newton, so moving the massive pyramid stones was not difficult, as a silly answer to the longstanding question of how the pyramids were constructed.

Origin notes

The source material is a public comment left under a real Veritasium YouTube video about pyramid construction. The screenshot was edited to circle the relevant text for comedic effect, then shared on the X (formerly Twitter) account @WholesomeMeme, distributed via RSS feed as a wholesome, lighthearted joke.

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