I have been unable to trace the origin of this particular image, but I think that I have been able to trace the origin of the meme that it demonstrates.
Semiotics, the Encyclopedia Britannica explains, is “the study of signs and sign-using behavior.” You can think of it as a field of philosophy and, I think, linguistics. Semiotics is concerned with the relationship between signs for reality and reality itself, which is certainly what language is used for.
Jean Baudrillard, a Twentieth Century French philosopher, was a leading figure in semiotics. An apparently famous 2014 blog post by Eugene Wolters explains Baudrillard’s basic approach to semiotics with the analogy of the pumpkin spice phenomenon. He argues (if I understand him correctly) that symbols progress through four stages, from reality to its absence—or from pumpkins to a flavoring that has no connection to pumpkins, despite its name.