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Peter Steiner’s poignant 1993 New Yorker cartoon, On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog, became a viral sensation long before Facebook was even a thing.

The single-panel cartoon struck a nerve with people during a time when we only just got to know the online world, spawning mugs, t-shirts and even a 1995 play.

Since then, it’s gone on to be the most frequently reprinted cartoon in the magazine’s history, and it recently sold at auction for a stunning $175,000 (R3.3 million), the highest sum ever paid for a single cartoon.

And even though the New York Times proclaimed that the illustration “captured the spirit of the internet” and Bill Gates paid $200 (R3,800) to have it reprinted in his 1995 book The Road Ahead, Steiner confessed that his intention “wasn’t about the internet at all. It had to do with how I felt like I was getting away with something.”

 

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“I realized the cartoon is autobiographical and that it’s about being an imposter or feeling like an imposter,” Steiner added. “I’ve had several checkered careers, and in everyone, I felt like a bit of a fraud.”

I think many people have that syndrome, the sense that, yeah, I’ve got everybody fooled: ‘They think I know what I’m doing, and they think I’m good at this.’

As is typical, the cartoon’s initial release barely registered as news. But it left a strong enough impression that its popularity rose over time, almost as if it was a prophecy of things to come.

In addition to contributing to magazines like Saturday Review and National Lampoon, Steiner has now produced more than 400 cartoons for The New Yorker. He has gone on to have a prosperous career as a painter and spy novelist, but for better or worse, On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog, will likely be his most remembered work.

[source:artnet]