Moby Dick: Memes, Dick Jokes, and Queer Subtext

Lines from Moby Dick translated into popular memes are amusing./nThe 'Call Me Ishmael' meme is popular./nThe distracted boyfriend meme is commonly used with the novel's plot as the original girlfriend and distractions related to whaling taxonomy as the distracting girl./nMany people share the daily dick joke from the novel./nMoby Dick remains widely read today and is an outlier in literature of its time./nMelville's writings contain queer subtext and scenes of mutual masturbation./nThe name 'Moby Dick' is significant as 'dick' had the same meaning in 1851 as it does today./nSperm whales got their name 'spermaceti whales' because their oil was believed to resemble a jackalet./nIt was hard to imagine how the jackalet got in the sperm whales' heads.