User:Joebengo/pluto

"When I was your age, Pluto was a Planet" is an internet phenomena started August 24, 2006 when Pluto was officially demoted by the International Astronomical Union. The first use of the catch phrase was through the social network Facebook. Now the catch phrase is seen all over the internet in groups on Myspace, Last.fm, etc. The catch phrase has come to represent the overall loss of Pluto as a planet and the 76 years of teaching that Pluto was the ninth planet from February 18, 1930 - August 24, 2006.

Orgin
On August 24, 2006, Steven Klimczak, a Texas high school senior heard in class that Pluto was no longer a planet and decided that he would create a Facebook group to commemorate the event. Within three weeks the group had reached over 50,000 people and two weeks after that there were nearly 500,000 members of the group. As of August of 2007 (one year after the start of the group) there were nearly 900,000 members. Klimczak was interviewed by NASA regarding the demotion of the planet and was also interviewed twice by The New York Times in reference to why he started the group.

Profit
Shortly after the demotion of Pluto as a planet many people sought to profit from the event.Cafepress.com reported a spike of 2,500 pluto designs on some 50,000 products. Kilmczak also decided to profit from the group he created and started selling T-shirts for $13.50 for members in December of 2006.