About

"Banana for Scale" is an expression indicating that a banana has been placed in the frame of a photograph to reveal the true-to-life size of another object on display in relative scale.

Origin

On March 30th, 2005, a photo of a banana placed against a TV set was posted on the blog Rockdogdesigns with a description explaining the TV was for sale:

"I don’t know how big the screen is, we’re moving and I can’t find the tape measurer. But I do have a banana. For scale. Oh wait, my husband says it’s 19inches. Oh well, I’ll leave the banana for interest. Please be interested.









Spread

On August 30th, 2010, blogger Andy Herald posted a photograph of a safe to Facebook with a banana laying next to it for scale (shown below), to which several of his friends commented with jokes about the fruit.





On August 24th, 2012, Herald published an infographic for using a banana as a unit of measurement (shown below) to the parenting humor blog HowToBeADad.





On June 11th, 2013, Imgur user KingOPancakes submitted a photo album titled "How to win a bet when you lose a bet," which contained photographs of a complicated prank lock box containing a $15 Dunkin Donuts card. In two of the photographs, a banana is shown for scale (shown below).





On November 13th, Imgur user TwoBiteBrownie posted an image gallery containing several photographs of a hidden staircase discovered behind a bookshelf (shown below). In one of the photographs, several objects and candy wrappers are shown next to a banana peel, which he explains was put there "for scale" (shown below).





On November 26th, Redditor r0bbE submitted a photograph of a large banana placed next to a keyboard and a smaller banana "for scale" (shown below, left) to the /r/pics subreddit. In the first 21 days, the post gained over 11,300 up votes and 530 comments. The subreddit /r/BananasForScale was created on November 29th. As of April 2014, the subreddit has over 400 redditors. On December 8th, Reddit ASharkToof submitted a photograph of himself with actor Tom Hanks looking perplexed at a large banana being held "for scale" (shown below, right) to the /r/pics subreddit. Within nine days, the post garnered upwards of 25,700 up votes and 490 comments. On December 17th, 2013, the Internet news blog The Daily Dot published an article about the spread of the banana photo fad on the web.





Guitar for Temperature

On January 15th, 2013, Redditor ExtraAnchovies submitted a photograph of his frozen pool in Phoenix, Arizona with an acoustic guitar resting on the ice to the /r/pics subreddit. On the Imgur page for the photograph, user Moonkey replied with the comment "Banana for scale, guitar for temperature. Got it," which became the post's highest-voted comment. On April 20th, Imgur user Beltoraze reposted the frozen pool image with the title "Guitar for Temperature." On March 8th, Imgur user DagnyWasHere submitted a post titled "Ever wondered about the origin of Imgur inside jokes?", which listed the frozen pool picture as the origin of the "guitar for scale" joke.





Double Bed for Scale

Double Bed For Scale is a joke that spread on Reddit after a post about an apartment listing that showed a "double bed for scale" in various rooms made the front page on /r/all. On March 21st, 2017, Redditor dosh_jonaldson posted a thread to /r/funny titled "Apartment hunting. This ad said 'double bed shown for scale'…" with a picture of a four-panel image evidently advertising an apartment. In every panel, a fully made double bed is in a different room, including a hallway, bathroom, and kitchen (shown below).





The post was a massive success, gaining over 115,000 points on Reddit, hitting the top of /r/all. This led to jokes being made on various other threads where commenters' jokes about wanting a double bed for scale. For example, in a post showing a GIF of a man jumping over a pool, Rekkooh commented that he would need a double bed for scale and gained over 1,200 upvotes.





Mashable covered the popular post the day it was posted. Two threads were posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop asking about the trend as well.

Search Interest

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External References