Any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with no. Older than Betteridge, but he was the one to post it, which is how laws get named.
The headnote is right but it undersells how ordinary this was at the time. Nobody using Betteridge's Law in 2013 thought of it as a thing with a name; it was just how you talked, and naming it is what started the clock.
We used to argue about Betteridge's Law on a forum that no longer exists, run by a man whose name I never knew, and I would give a lot to read those threads again. The argument was better than anything I have read about it since.
There was a fortnight in 2013 when Betteridge's Law was the only thing anyone at my work talked about, and one of us printed something about it out. Printed. On paper. It was on the kitchen noticeboard for a year.
The birth label needs a month. Betteridge's Law did not appear vaguely in 2009; there is a specific thread and a specific week, and the record loses something by rounding it to a year.
Evidence, with a photograph: a building society's mobile onboarding flow, 23 January. Betteridge's Law, spoken aloud by the chair, then repeated slowly for the minutes.
Sighting, 16 February, a driving instructor's Facebook page. Betteridge's Law, used correctly, in full, with no visible irony. Nobody involved is under fifty.
The tell with Betteridge's Law is who is saying it. In 2009 it marked you as early. By 2013 it marked you as present. After that it marked you as someone who had not checked recently.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
