canyonwalker | (Reply)

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According to this Know Your Meme page avocado toast became a meme in 2017 after an Australian tycoon sneered in a TV interview that he was able to buy his first home and build his riches because he didn't waste his money on lavish things like "smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each." An Australian news article excerpted it, and it went viral.

I believe avocado toast as a thing actually to eat became popular in the US as a result of the meme going viral. I live in a part of the US where avocados grow natively and I regularly buy them at the store (after a friend stopped bringing me bags full of them from the tree in his back yard after he moved) and I'd never heard of avocado toast until 2017/2018 when this meme emerged.

It looks like one of those cases of "A name given in scorn and adopted in pride." Millennials, who were the targets of the sneering, figured they might as well try the dish— and they found it was tasty. Other quick searches I tried indicate that it has been a thing on brunch menus in Australia for a long time. That would explain why it was an Australian billionaire who mocked it and Australia where it first went viral.