In the fourth, Ethan stands over his crying fiancée, Lilah, who lies on her side in a hospital bed. The third panel shows Ethan conversing with a doctor who is clearly conveying bad news. In the second, he worriedly talks to a receptionist, who points him in a certain direction.
#CTRL ALT DELETE MISCARRIAGE MEME SERIES#
In the first panel, series protagonist Ethan bursts through the doors of an emergency room. "Loss" is a 4-panel comic strip, completely without dialogue. I knew it was going to cause some ripples, and it was going to be a busy email day, but honestly by the time that specific comic went live, it was a decision that I had been living with for over a year,” Buckley told me when when I asked him about it this week. “I'm not sure what I anticipated, to be honest. “Loss.jpg” is a meme and more.In 2008, web-comic artist Tim Buckley sat down to write a dramatic four-panel strip for his long-running comic "Ctrl+Alt+Del." What he ended up creating was loss.jpg, the web’s best-known and longest-running meme about a miscarriage. It is 10 years in four panels, found in every corner of the Internet and adored by all its users. It is the perfect prototype of meme culture for innumerable reasons, more so than the fleeting “the dress” debate or the nonsensical, meaningless “Nyan Cat.” It is a symbol, the face of a cultural niche. It is easily adapted into countless contexts.Ībove all, it is rooted in bullying. “Loss.jpg,” besides withstanding the test of time by remaining relevant for more than 10 years, embodies every aspect of meme culture. Its existence as a meme comes at the expense of somebody else – of a man using art to tell an incredibly painful story from his own life – more so than the accusation that Ice Cube’s real name is “Icelandic Cubicle,” or any other meme for that matter. Not only is it the longest-running, and one of the most universally understood, memes of the decade. Thus, “loss.jpg” is the perfect meme to embody the 2010s.
We love making fun of one another, and our meme culture has long reflected that. In celebrities, political figures, and murdered gorillas, we find something to laugh at. The memes of the past 10 years all share one common characteristic: a base in poking fun at – and oftentimes harming – one another. More recently, the jeering scorn exhibited in this year’s “OK, boomer.” The treatment of Harambe’s death in 2016. Fergie’s 2018 cover of the national anthem. The mockery of Kim Kardashian’s Paper Magazine cover in 2014. “Loss.jpg”’s cruelty is precisely what crowns it the meme of the decade, because meme culture is characterized by a disregard for the thoughts and feelings of others. Why, then, would I award it the meme of the decade? Its origins are callous and rude there’s no way it could encapsulate the glorious meme culture of the 2010s. The heavy content of “loss.jpg” shocked viewers.Īs people tend to do, Internet-goers of 2010 found it hilarious and gave it a life of its own as a running joke.īuckley also reveals the storyline is based on his own experience in college, when his girlfriend at the time suffered a miscarriage of her own – pushing the memeification of “loss.jpg” (which had become less about its uncharacteristic sadness and more about the comic as a whole) past the label of “stupid and immature,” straight into “mean.”īut “loss.jpg” is insensitive, one might argue. The comic’s dark tone came out of nowhere: Ctrl+Alt+Del had a reputation as lighthearted and insubstantial, known for bad gamer jokes and cheap-looking art. Tim Buckley’s 2008 comic, part of webcomic series Ctrl+Alt+Del, consists of four panels following the main character Ethan as he enters a hospital, speaks to a doctor, and approaches his fiancee Lilah, who has just suffered a miscarriage. Perhaps the Internet’s oldest meme, “loss.jpg” exemplifies the nature of memes: blatant mockery and bullying. From “Covfefe” to “Bad Luck Brian,” I scoured the Internet in search of the most endurant, relevant, influential meme. I’ve carefully and extensively analyzed the last 10 years’ running jokes to determine the decade’s defining meme. As their influence grew over time, the 2010s became riddled with memes, until it had become defined by them. With the increasing accessibility of the Internet and the rapid spread of information, memes entered the world of mainstream pop culture as a means of expression and communication. Though the term “meme” was created in the 1970s, the meme itself didn’t truly flourish until the 2010s.
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