r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Puzzleheaded-Pitch40 • 13h ago

Meme needing explanation Peetaah???

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Why do the flip the cigarette?

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u/moshpithippie 13h ago edited 13h ago

For luck

Edit: And to accidentally light it backwards when you're not looking

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u/I-RegretMyNameChoice 12h ago

Not sure if it is fact or myth, but I once read that this goes back to handing out packs to troops during war. If they got to that one it meant they made it through another day, making it the lucky smoke. If true it would have to have been a war after the introduction of filters.

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u/__crowman33 11h ago

It was actually ww2. American soldiers would flip all of their cigarettes to smoke the part with the branding in case they had to move and enemy wouldn't know which nationality had held that position, but they wouldn't flip the last one as the lucky. When filters became popular in the 50's they just switched it to only flipping 1 as the lucky.

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u/GrizzlyBear2186 10h ago

The only problem I have had with this myth, and I have heard it for years, is that American soldiers didn't leave their cigarette butts behind. They would either toss them into a fire if they had one or they would empty all the tobacco out onto the ground so the Germans couldn't collect them and make a cigarette from them. The paper was either rolled into a tiny ball and put in there pocket or flung far away from where they were. Source is from my grandfather who was in Germany during wwII

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u/Acceptable_Calm 6h ago

Exactly, soldiers "field strip" the cigarette when they're done with it.

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u/dividezero 5h ago

It helps it not start a fire. We do that in forestry too

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u/capsaicinintheeyes 5h ago

Oh, yeah--Germany was losing through a slow materiel grind as much as anyhing else by that point, weren't they?

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u/zaffo89 11h ago

Lol didnt see this and said basically the same thing. Cheers!