What is this even talking about? Rick roll? Knives? Hieroglyphs? What do they have to do with each other?
Rick roll refers to tricking someone into opening the YouTube video for Rick Ashley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. Knives are used to cut things, and in this case the father was arranging them to look like the loss comic. Without the context, the layout of the knives appears to just be a hieroglyph, which is a symbol used to convey information.
When you bring this all together, you get a dad having fun with his kids by ironically referencing memes he doesn’t understand. Kind of like how grandma used to call every video game console a Nintendo or every Pokémon a pikachu.
The father used knives to create the Loss shorthand on the countertop. He called it “Rick-rolling” because he knows that word is associated with online trolling. He’s never seen the original Loss comic, so the arrangement of knives on the counter is more akin to hieroglyphics than anything; an arrangement of symbols to convey an idea.
Here’s the comic on the left (titled “Loss”) and its shorthand on the right that people sneak into everything to reference it.
The webcomic (called “CTRL-ALT-DEL”) was mostly comedy, but then pivoted out of the blue with this dark, dramatic, wordless strip. The whiplash in tone led to a lot of jokes and people trying to meme it and slip references to it into everything.
In case, you’re not familiar with the Loss comic, it’s this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_(Ctrl%2BAlt%2BDel)
TL;DR: It’s an unexpectedly dark comic (hence the psychic damage), and it turned into somewhat of a meme to try to remind people of it, by producing ever more abstract representations of it.
For example, you can post :.|:; here on Lemmy and someone will probably recognize it.
The dad is creating such an abstract representation by arranging knives.
Even after reading all the explanations, it still seems very forced and contrived. And definitely not humorous at all, not even grin worthy.
Context is very important here, and maybe it’s impossible to find funny if you weren’t there for it.
But as just my little take on an explanation, it’s less funny than it is shocking, which is what makes it funnier than it is shocking.
I know that’s confusing, so let me explain. CTRL+ALT+DEL is like the be all end all of snarky gamer webcomics. Week after week, Tim Buckley would have his characters make nerdy 2000s-2010s gamer puns and complain about video games. It’s pretty straightforward, just basically imagine The Gamer™ stereotype and you’re pretty much there.
Ex:
So then out of nowhere, Tim starts uploading comics that really focus on relationship drama, culminating in Loss. Then he dropped the idea of being serious in that manner altogether.
So this gamer comic about gaming drops an arc about a miscarriage then immediately goes back to being a gamer comic about gaming without a second thought.
It’s truly shocking. So shocking that if you were enveloped in that world at the time, you couldn’t help but chuckle at Tim for releasing something like this. It’s that mix of shock and (if you know the comic) an utterly unexpected situation that has given Loss staying power.
Remember, a meme is not a joke. A joke is something crafted to make us laugh, but a meme is just an idea with staying power. Yes, some memes have staying power due to their hilarity (I would say maybe “2 guys walk into a bar” jokes fall in this category - the idea is simple and can be set up to end in many different ways, but the goal and the way it’s remembered is comedic), but on the flip side a lot of memes have staying power because of the shock they cause (2 girls 1 cup, jarsquatter, Astolfo Monster can, Shrek is Love Shrek is Life).
An element of shock memes that increases their prevalence is the game of “getting” your friends. A lot of those shock clips were circulated through people saying something similar to “oh hey check out this cookie recipe I found” and then deviously sending a link to something horrific instead, thus tricking the victim.
Here’s where Loss comes back in, because there’s a third relevant category of meme here - “gotcha” memes. These memes play on the same “gotcha” value that helps spread shock memes… but they’re not necessarily shocking. People get a kick out of their friends’ reactions when they see that meme, so they send it to them to get that reaction without necessarily causing real trauma by actually sending horrific pornography.
Examples of this include Loss, Rickrolling, Darude - Sandstorm, The Game, Updog. One common factor between these? They generally rely on shared cultural experiences. If you rickroll a 10-year-old they’re just going to be like “uhm I think you sent me the wrong link,” but it’s funny to people who were there for that moment in history.
Another common factor is most of these are spread by people “getting got.” If you fall for “smells like Updog in here,” I guarantee the first thing you’re doing is going to try that out on someone else.
In short, is Loss funny? Not really. But it’s not forced either. It’s widespread because people reading gamer comics got smacked in the face out of nowhere with a miscarriage plot and it was so outrageous that they spread that feeling of “what the fuck did I just see” all over the internet.
But that’s just my two cents.
But that’s just my two cents.
That was definitely worth more than two cents. A good and thorough overview of what memes are. Thank you for making the point that memes are ideas not just jokes. The knowledge that rubbing two sticks together can start a fire is a meme.