In the world of memes, there are hundreds and thousands of variations ranging from simple jokes to complicated layers of meta-references that take a lot of prior knowledge to understand. While at their core they are simply jokes that people want to share with others who find them funny, there are good memes and bad memes. The vast majority of memes are fine in the right hands, but there are a couple that I personally, and hopefully many others, just stay clear of - mainly due to their origins and associations on the internet.
Probably the most famous one of these would be the ‘Pepe the Frog’ memes which started out somewhat innocently as a fun mainstream meme, but quickly got taken over by right-wing Trump fans and then became a poster boy of the alt-right. It’s kind of weird to be talking about a cartoon frog like this, but there is a whole documentary about the artist trying to reclaim it from hateful people. It fairly quickly moved out of the mainstream as a result, so you don’t see many people innocently posting it by accident.
The Wojak meme, however, is more complicated and problematic. This is one where both the origin and the use of the various forms of this meme are troubling. While in its purest form this started as a face not dissimilar to the ‘Rage Comics’ of the good old days - remember when the Troll Face reigned supreme? - it has spawned many variations, some of which are more problematic than others. And much like Pepe, these have been co-opted by various groups and cultures on the internet.
It’s worth knowing that memes develop differently in different places, though there is a lot of overlap and cross-pollination. Places like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook can be, for the most part, fairly innocent - at least those parts in full public view. Places like Reddit allow deeper, more troublesome silos to run free, and then you get the real scum dens like 4chan and worse. Memes that originate or spread from the latter have a deeper and darker set of connotations and hidden meanings, that are often unclear when they leave their home.
The wojak and its variants are deeply embedded with 4chan culture and ideologies, which are not particularly nice. If you’re lucky enough to have avoided it, it gained notoriety as a message board for ‘politically incorrect’ humour and has since become a place where you can see some of the most hateful, bigoted and disgusting things the internet has to offer. So you can imagine, when an image format comes out of there it isn’t exactly clean. I want to focus on a couple of examples, which will hopefully make it clear why I just avoid the whole style completely.
First is the ‘Chad’ meme - on the face of it, a fairly innocuous image often paired with the word ‘Yes’ as a reaction to some statement. Notice though, of course, the particularly Nordic features that accompany this - the blue eyes and blond hair are no accident. Furthermore the ‘Chad’ culture it links to is one that in many cases promotes male physicality and dominance over other more socially beneficial attributes. It’s not the worst offender by far, but it does lean into a lot of the alt right ideals - and you will often see it used by those types to confront people calling them racist or bigoted - they simply use the meme to say ‘I am and I’m proud’ which is… not great.
Paired with this Chad meme is the ‘Tradwife’, which by the name you can probably tell is also very popular among certain male types. Notice again that she has blonde hair and blue eyes, and is often pictured in a ‘trad’ role - as a mother, wife or some other form of subservience which people imagine women were happy with in the past. It unfortunately taps right into that alt right fantasy about ‘the good old days’ and promotes unhealthy ideas about gender roles in society. I see it used far too often in innocent situations where it just adds an unfortunate vibe to the whole thing.
From these ‘base’ models, the variants get alarming in their diversity and usage. From the depressing ‘Doomer’ and the vaguely disgusting ‘Coomer’ to the horrible caricatured versions of people that their creators dislike - so often targeting LGBTQ+ people, women not fitting traditional roles, or anyone else they deem unsavoury. It’s therefore very hard to have seen so many of these used in such confronting ways and then go back to the standard versions, without those connotations. And that, essentially, is why I will do my best not to share any of these types of memes, to limit the mainstream appeal and spread.
The final thing for me is that, on top of all this, they just kind of suck? They aren’t clever or original, and they really are just repackaged rage comics. They’re also a pretty good indicator that you’re going to hear something really dumb very soon from whoever posted it. Their editability means they are only a few lines away from becoming extremely hateful.
I’ll happily listen to feedback and opinions you might have on this - but if you weren’t aware of this before, I hope it may be an eye opening experience. I’m deliberately not showing or describing some of the worst ones that I have seen, because I wouldn’t want to put others through that. By nature of my position, I’m exposed to more of this than the usual person - often they are a dead giveaway when trying to root out and expose bigots on the internet.
Thanks as always for reading, I hope you have a great week ahead. Take care!