Alright, admit it: we’ve all done it. You discovered it when you were younger, you experimented with it sometime around middle school and by high school it was practically old news. And by “it” I of course mean… drawing that weird S shaped symbol on things! Wait, what did you think I was going to say?

Anyway, since seemingly the dawn of time people have been sketching this simple design, but what is it and where does it come from? Join us as NYU Local’s crack investigative team digs deeper into the enigma that is, “The Mysterious S.”

The 14 line symbol’s origin is shrouded in mystery, and the design goes by many names, but we do know this: a ton of people remember it. People frequently discuss the mystery on Reddit, YouTube and other corners of the Internet, and there’s even a FaceBook page dedicated to it has over 350,000 likes. Some people claim to have been drawing it since the 1960s, and students are undoubtedly still pencilling the damn thing in their notebooks to this day.

A variety of theories exist regarding its origins. Most focus primarily on the symbol’s apparent similarity to other logos: it’s been called the “Suzuki S” for its similarity to the motorcycle company’s logo, the “Super S” because it resembles Superman’s iconic symbol, or even the “Styx S” because it looks very much like the “S” in the late 70s rock band Styx’s stylized name.

However, while the lined symbol more-or-less resembles all of these logos, it doesn’t explain the thing’s rampant popularity. I mean, Suzuki, Superman and Styx are all great and whatever, but you don’t see people plastering Honda, Batman or Def Leppard logos all over their schoolwork (well, maybe some of you did, but that’s the not the point).

The point is, there has to be something more special about the Mysterious S to make it so damn ubiquitous. Our two part theory is this:

1. The Mysterious S is rooted in ancient symbols, not one person or thing.

Bum bum BUM! Stay with me here though. Though the symbol’s current form seems to only go back as far the the 60s, people have been obsessed with similar symbols for damn near forever. Variations on the theme of endless knots have been going around worldwide for centuries, perhaps most recognizably with the widely-known “Infinity Symbol” (just please don’t get it tattooed on your wrist). The point is, no one in particular invented the Mysterious S: it’s been around in one form or another since we humans have been making designs.

2. Graffiti culture, Stussy, and puzzles solidified the Mysterious S in its current form.

This part gets a little tricky. If you Google “graffiti S” you’ll see a variety of modern graffiti stylings of the letter, some pretty similar to the Mysterious S’s design. It would be reasonable to assume that people have been tagging designs similar to the Mysterious S since people have been tagging with aerosol cans at all.

While others may have preceded it, artists related to skate/surf clothing line Stussy definitely used the 14 line version of the letter S, as shown exactly in this vintage promo video and somewhat in its early clothing designs.

This design lent itself to being spread rapidly not only because it resembled other graffiti tags and was popularized somewhat by a skate brand, but because of the challenging aspect of it. The Mysterious S basically functions as a simple puzzle: “Can you make an S out of these six lines?” Once you solve it, you draw it again and again just as people like drawing things like 3D cubes and hatched patterns once they learn how.

So basically, I think this combination of graffiti and puzzle background was the perfect mix to get this thing spread from here to Hell and back again. Similarities to other popular logos (as mentioned earlier) probably didn’t hurt either in causing it to spread like nobody’s business.

I wouldn’t go as far to say this mystery is solved, but I think we’ve got a pretty good theory about the Mysterious S. But what do you think? Is the S something different, maybe even a supernatural phenomenon? The world may never know!

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