Social Media Celebrates Mother’s Day With #MILF
While celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who each held festivals to honor the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, it wasn’t until 1908 that any modern observation began.
Ann Reeves Jarvis had started “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in the mid 19th century to teach women in her native West Virginia how to properly care for their children. After the American Civil War, she went onto organize a “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” which was meant to promote reconciliation in the still-divided nation.
After Jarvis’ death in 1905, her daughter Anna Jarvis conceived a holiday to honor the sacrifices mothers often made for their children. The result was the creation of “Mother’s Day” in 1908, and six years later, in 1914, it became an official holiday.
Fast forward to 2022 and this year’s Mother’s Day has been marked on social media not with #MothersDay, but rather with #MILF, a reference to a rather raunchy anagram.
The word reportedly first originated in the long-forgotten comedy magazine Motorbooty Magazine in 1990, but subsequently entered the modern lexicon via an Internet Usenet Group on January 12, 1995 when a user named “ChiPhiMike” employed the term “MILF” while discussing an issue of Playboy magazine.
MILF reached the mainstream when it was used to describe actress Jennifer Coolidge, who appeared as “Stifler’s Mom” in the 1999 teen sex comedy American Pie. MILF soon became a popular slang term, especially with teens and college students, and then quickly became a popular category of pornography on DVDs and the Internet. According to PornHub, MILF is now one of the most popular search terms for adult content.
Trending On Mother’s Day
On Sunday morning, #MILF was trending with more than 88,000 tweets, with many sharing images of actresses and models. However, not everyone saw the humor, and many called out the inappropriateness of #MILF trending on a day meant to honor mothers and motherhood.
“Nowadays people have to take such things with a grain of salt,” said technology analyst Susan Schreiner of C4Trends. “There is so much to get upset about in the world.”
However Schreiner said the timing this year was especially unfortunate.
“It could be questioned whether this is ever in good humor,” she explained. “Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be worth getting upset about, but under the current circumstances with the Supreme Court leak, this is really in poor taste and it is offensive. It isn’t a way to honor the mothers of the world.”
And There Was Family Guy
Among the tweets that featured #MILF was one from the official social media account for Fox Broadcasting’s Family Guy (@FamilyGuyonFox). It included an image of TV mom Lois dressed provocatively and the caption, “let’s milf it up tonight!”
The show has always been about pushing boundaries, yet some may feel it crossed the line on Mother’s Day.
“It all depends on which side of the coin you’re on,” explained brand marketing expert and social media pundit Scott Steinberg. “Some people, and not just women, will find it distasteful. On the flipside, we’ve have decades of raunchy humor that has found an audience. It is unlikely viewers of Family Guy will be offended. It isn’t how I’d choose to celebrate the women in my life, but that sense of humor isn’t for everyone.