A depiction of a generic Wojak. It is a simplistic black-and-white drawing of a bald man with a wistful expression.
Original, generic appearance of Wojak

Wojak (/ˈwoʊdʒæk/ WOH-jak; from Polish wojak [ˈvɔjak], loosely 'soldier' or 'fighter'), also known as Feels Guy, is an Internet meme that is, in its original form, a simple, black-outlined cartoon drawing of a bald man with a wistful expression. The origin of the Wojak illustration is unknown.[1] It may have emerged in 2009 on a Polish imageboard named vichan, from where it was later reposted to the German imageboard krautchan in 2010 by a poster called "wojak". It was posted on December 16, 2009, on an image aggregation website.[2][3]

The meme subsequently grew in popularity on 4chan, where the character became associated with the phrases formerly used by wojak such as "I know that feel, bro", "that feel" or "that feel when".

History

The earliest currently known "Wojak" is the nickname of a Polish user on the English-speaking board /int/ of the defunct German imageboard Krautchan, who started posting the image around 2010, often accompanied with lament about not having a girlfriend.[4] According to him,[5] the image originally came from the Polish imageboard vichan, where it was posted with the filename "ciepła twarz.jpg" (from Polish 'warm face').[6] Brian Feldman of Intelligencer describes the meme Wojak's expression as "pained but dealing with it".[7]

The image spread to other imageboards, including 4chan, where by 2011 an image of two Wojaks hugging each other under the caption "I know that feel bro" gained popularity.[4]

Wojak was also paired with the template phrase "that feel" or "that feel when", shortened to "tfw".[4][6]

Some variants paired him with the character Pepe the Frog (catchphrase "feels good man/feels bad man") in what Feldman describes as a "platonic romance within the memescape".[6]

Variants

NPC

In October 2018, a Wojak with a gray face, pointy nose and blank, emotionless facial expression, dubbed "NPC Wojak", became a popular visual representation for people who cannot think for themselves or make their own decisions, comparing them to non-player characters – computer-automated characters within a video game. NPC Wojak has gained online notoriety.[8][9] The meme gained media attention, initially in Kotaku and The New York Times, due to its usage in parodying the supposed herd mentality of American liberals.[8][10] This usage of the meme has been attributed to Donald Trump supporters.[11] About 1,500 Twitter accounts falsely posing as liberal activists with the NPC meme as a profile picture were suspended for spreading misinformation about the 2018 United States elections.[10][11] On January 13, 2019, a conservative art collective known as "The Faction" hijacked a billboard for Real Time with Bill Maher, replacing Maher's image with that of the NPC Wojak.[12]

Coomer

In November 2019, the "Coomer" Wojak picked up in popularity with the "No Nut November" trend. The Coomer depicts a smiling Wojak edit with unkempt hair, red rimmed eyes, and an untidy beard. This Wojak is sometimes depicted with a skinny frame, and a large, muscular right arm resulting from excessive masturbation. It is generally understood to represent someone with a pornography addiction.[13] Much of this meme's popularity can be attributed to the "Coomer Pledge", a viral internet trend which dared people to abstain from masturbation for all of November, and change their profile picture to an image of the Coomer if they were to fail.[14]

Doomer

The doomer is an image macro and character archetype that first appeared on 4chan. The image typically depicts Wojak wearing a black watch cap and a black hooded sweatshirt, with dark circles under his eyes, while smoking a cigarette. The archetype often embodies nihilism, clinical depression, hopelessness, and despair, with a belief in the incipient end of the world to causes ranging from climate apocalypse, to peak oil, to alcoholism, to (more locally) opioid addiction.[15][16][17] The meme first appeared on 4chan's /r9k/ board in September 2018.[18]

A related meme format, "doomer girl", began appearing on 4chan in January 2020, and it soon moved to other online communities, including Reddit and Tumblr, often by women claiming it from its 4chan origins.[18] This format is described by The Atlantic as "a quickly sketched cartoon woman with black hair, black clothes, and sad eyes ringed with red makeup". The doomer girl character is often associated with the e-girl and alternative subcultures. The character often appears in image macros interacting with the original doomer character.[18][19] The format is often compared to rage comics.[20]

Soyjak

Soyjak, a portmanteau of "soy" and "wojak", is a variation of Wojak that combines Wojak-style illustrations with features of a soy boy or "nu-male".[21][22] It is best known for being used in online discourse, such as on 4chan to mock an opponent's position by quoting them (via "greentexting", a feature of imageboards that makes the text turn a pale green color by the usage of the > sign in front of the greentexted text) alongside a Soyjak image ("soyquoting").[23] The first example of Soyjak appeared in December 2017 on 4chan's /int/ board, created by a Swedish poster, commonly referred to as "The Swede". It quickly gained notoriety on the site, spawning many edits and variants, commonly mocking interests associated with "soy boys", including use of sites such as Reddit or 9gag, playing Nintendo Switch, or cuckoldry, among other things. Soyjaks usually have large open mouths. Aside from the original Soyjak variant, a Wojak edit with glasses and a scraggly beard, it became popular to trace real-life people perceived to fit the "soy boy" stereotype. From this variant a site was created called soyjak.party[24], an English speaking imageboard founded for the creation and discussion of Soyjaks.

Cobson

Cobson is a Variant of a Soyjak, which derives from The Lawnmower Man.

Big Brain

The Big Brain Wojak is a variation with glasses, a significantly enlarged head, and visible brain wrinkles. The most common form of Big Brain Wojak has a head so comically large that the Wojak sits on it like a chair. The meme was initially used on 4chan to mock others' political or controversial opinions. It is typically used online when attempting to call out those who are pretentious or wannabe intellectuals. There are many subsequent versions of the big brain meme, typically with slightly varying messages. The opposite of the Big Brain Wojak is the Brainlet Wojak, depicted with a tiny bump of a brain on top of a small head.[25]

Tradwife

The "tradwife" or "trad girl" Wojak depicts a blonde woman in a blue dress with a daisy pattern print. The "Tradwife" Wojak specifically embodies traditional gender roles and conservative values, often depicted as a woman dressed in vintage or modest clothing, emphasizing homemaking, traditional family values, and a rejection of modern feminist ideals.[26]

See also

  • Polandball – another meme which originated on Krautchan to make fun of the user Wojak before spreading to the English-speaking world.
  • Rage comic – a similar meme which also uses copies of black-and-white Microsoft Paint illustrations.
  • Meme Man – a 3D render of a face often used in surreal memes and reaction images.
  • Trollface – a similar internet meme character.

References

  1. ↑ "Wojak". Know Your Meme. 9 July 2015. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  2. ↑ "What do you See in This Picture?". Sad And Useless, Image 279. 25 December 2009. Archived from the original on 25 December 2009.
  3. ↑ "Random Funny Pictures". SadAndUseless.com. 16 December 2009. Archived from the original on 20 December 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 Brown, Elizabeth Nolan. "That Feeling When..." Bustle. Archived from the original on 19 October 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  5. ↑ Voyack (3 February 2012). "IAmA Wojak/Voyack/Вояк - Guy who felt first feel. AMAA".
  6. 1 2 3 Feldman, Brian (28 December 2016). "What 4chan Memes Will Go Mainstream in 2017?". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 19 October 2018. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
  7. ↑ Feldman, Brian (13 February 2017). "People Are Arguing About the Size of Their Brains Using MS-Paint Illustrations". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  8. 1 2 Alexander, Julia (23 October 2018). "The NPC meme went viral when the media gave it oxygen". The Verge. Archived from the original on 23 October 2018. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  9. ↑ Sommerlad, Joe. "What is an NPC? The liberal-bashing meme sweeping social media ahead of the US midterms". The Independent. Archived from the original on 24 October 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  10. 1 2 "Why has Twitter banned 1500 accounts and what are NPCs?". BBC News. 17 October 2018. Archived from the original on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  11. 1 2 Roose, Kevin (16 October 2018). "What Is NPC, the Pro-Trump Internet's New Favorite Insult?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 16 October 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  12. ↑ Bond, Paul (13 January 2019). "Bill Maher Labeled "NPC" by Conservative Street Artists". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 14 January 2019. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
  13. ↑ Dickson, E. J. (8 November 2019). "How a New Meme Exposes the Far-Right Roots of #NoNutNovember". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  14. ↑ Iskiev, Max (11 November 2019). "Breaking Down the 'Coomer Pledge' Taking Over No Nut November 2019". StayHipp. Archived from the original on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  15. ↑ Read, Max (1 August 2019). "Is Andrew Yang the Doomer Candidate?". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on 1 August 2019. Retrieved 17 October 2019.
  16. ↑ Keating, Shannon (11 September 2019). "Against Nihilism". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  17. ↑ Knibbs, Kate (17 February 2020). "The Hottest New Literary Genre Is 'Doomer Lit'". Wired. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  18. 1 2 3 Tiffany, Kaitlyn (3 February 2020). "The Misogynistic Joke That Became a Goth-Meme Fairy Tale". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 27 April 2020.
  19. ↑ Martinez, Ignacio (7 January 2020). "Meet 'Doomer Girl,' the new voice of a classic meme". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  20. ↑ "Meet 'Doomer Girl,' the new voice of a classic meme". The Daily Dot. 7 January 2020. Archived from the original on 4 June 2020. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  21. ↑ Abascal, Luis (4 July 2021). "Basado, charocracia, chad o pesetas y cunetas: así habla el Team Facha". Elplural (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 19 September 2021. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  22. ↑ West, Ed (14 August 2021). "Why the Left can't meme". Unherd. Archived from the original on 24 September 2021. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  23. ↑ Rawnsley, Adam (11 September 2021). "Afghanistan's Shitposting Taliban Stan Finds Right-Wing Fame". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 13 September 2021. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  24. ↑ https://soyjak.party/frames.html. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  25. ↑ Feldman, Brian (13 February 2017). "People Are Arguing About the Size of Their Brains Using MS-Paint Illustrations". Intelligencer. Retrieved 15 September 2023.
  26. ↑ Vi Maislis (16 December 2020). "Why Is Everybody Suddenly Sharing These Alt-Right Memes?". Hey Alma. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2023. The blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl is supposed to represent a "tradwife," or traditional wife: a group of real conservative women who celebrate holding traditionally feminine roles, following their husbands, and being white... In one meme, she is positioned side by side with a caricature of a "liberated feminist" — the feminist being the one mocked,.. The tradwife meme seen going around is not "just a joke," but a clear example of alt-right, racist, and antisemitic tropes entering the mainstream online discourse.
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