Friday, Apr. 06, 2018 - 3:21 p.m.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the Loss meme. I’ve been kind of interested in it lately. It’s like 10 years old now (or the comic that inspired it it), which is ANCIENT in internet time, and seems to be going strong still.

Whether is is accepted depends on the group. The leftover groups don’t allow it because they don’t want to offend people by making jokes out of miscarriage. But the joke isn’t really about miscarriage. When I first saw the original comic, I was perplexed. It just seemed sad. But context is everything, and the joke is not about miscarriage so much as it is about ham-handed, out of place sentimentalism and maybe an attempt to be Serious Art that fell very flat given the audience. And then took off way beyond the original audience, because internet.

I’m trying to figure out why I like it. Mainly I enjoy being in on the joke. The miscarriage aspect doesn’t bother me not even a little bit. I appreciate the creativity that goes into them sometimes. The range of loss memes is staggering. Some people familiar only with later iterations don’t even recognize the original when they see it.

When a loss meme is posted, 75% of reacts are angry reacts. Why? They mad because they missed it, they’re sick of the meme, or because miscarriage makes them sad? Some combination? It’s kind of like the meme version of Rick Rolling, only more tasteless.

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