NY Post Tells Drake: "Calm Down. You Didn't Trademark 'Yolo'"
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Drake publicly called out a few retailers who were trying to make profit off of the term YOLO, which was made highly public by Drake using it in his past songs. However, despite the fact that Drake may have been the one to make YOLO an internationally used and highly popular term, he wasn't the originator of the phrase. The New York Post addressed the matter and provided dates in which YOLO has appeared throughout history, dating back to the 1700's.
"Drake, you need to calm down. You didn't trademark YOLO. In fact, you weren't even the first person to say it! The U.S. Trademark database actually shows several earlier attempts to use YOLO commercially. A company selling T-shirts, tank tops, hats, and sweatshirts filed an application in 1993 to obtain a trademark for YOLO. That filing was abandoned a year later, but other companies filed for trademarks or service marks incorporating YOLO and "You Only Live Once" for products like artificial suntanning, sportswear, and driver safety pamphlets, among others. But the acronym and the meaning behind it actually has a long history before the '90s, dating all the way back to the 1700s, meaning no one alive today can claim the blame credit for it. While the exact wording changes a bit (with some incarnations employing "we" instead of "you," or rearranging the order of the words themselves), the meaning is the same throughout history. Let's take a look back at all the instances we could find of YOLO throughout the years.
"In February of 1837, YOLO turned up in a story published in The Lady's Magazine and Museum urging readers to behave cautiously to avoid contracting a deadly disease: "Due respect for your prayer, my worthy master; but my principle is, the further from the danger the safer. We only live once; and life itself is so burdensome, and full of care, that it cannot at all be pleasant to be carried out of this world by such a naughty and ugly conveyance as this cholera." Once again, "we" is used instead of "you," but the meaning is the same. In 1937, the film noir You Only Live Once was released, directed by Fritz Lang starring Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney."
Source: sohh.com
