Wojak originated on 4chan in the 2010s as a simple reaction image before being associated alongside pepe as a foil, the pepe was often a self insert and the wojak was a strawman. However the memes changed and eventually wojak outgrew pepe in popularity and memes started to focus exclusively on wojak. Wojak as a character is not cool, is not a self insert, and is often used to mock a group of people by portraying them as cringe. Wojak is the perfect strawman to internet fascists because it's emotionless, it's white, and it's weak. Marginalized groups like gays and vegans and leftists are often portrayed as wojak because the fascists need to make strawmen because if there isn't an enemy the whole ideology falls apart. That's not to say the left hasn't been using wojak in a constructive manner, but it's merely appropriation. Wojak had always been reactionary while pepe was only adopted by the right, wojak was born by it. Now I'm asking you to read a rage comic, or several. Compare how much racism and sexism and reactionary politics you find those outdated memes then look at some wojaks. The best way you can learn how bad wojak as a meme is by looking at it from a critical lens. also literal nazis made a cartoon series with wojaks

  • mr_world [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Wojak was feels guy. He's not really different from pepe. They both had a life before 2016 and/or gamergate. Wojak was about tfw mood. There was a brief meme about what feels guy's name was and that's when Wojak happened. The smirking pepe vs soyjack shit came much later.

    If this is copy pasta I'm sorry I don't recognize it as such.

  • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    ctrl+F "krautchan"
    no results

    you guys are all new to the internet aren't you

    wojak originated on krautchan around 2009 and had nothing to do with race (tho ofc the chan is racist)

    the origin comes from a literal person named Wojak, a scrawny depressed Polish kid with no gf (yea I know it's redundant, not sorry Poles). To describe his feels, he made the meme of "that feel when no gf", with the bald-headed white cartoon we all know and love.

    wojak was entirely associated with depression, "forever alone"ism, and generally tame stuff.
    unrelated: "based" came from basedgod, a Black rapper who first used it in his 2010 underground music videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq-jPa2-gdE). Check the entries on urban dictionary: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=based , anything before 2013 is the original stuff, and white chuds are downvoting the oldest entries as we speak (censoring history proves to be a very white thing once again)

    the right doesn't have many original memes, because creativity is inherently an apolitical/leftist thing
    I will never stop posting wojak and pepe and based, and yea I'll even use their original memes too because fuck them

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      pretty good, but the top one is missing FSJAL. probably a shitton of others too

      Oh yea, it's also missing the Yao Ming face: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bb/29/e0/bb29e0cfe9ccf519955a66a6aba6f7e3.png

      also dolan, if you consider that in the same format

  • SiskoDid2ThingsWrong [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Not to be a debate bro who brings up fallacies, but one thing I see plaguing the online left a lot is genetic fallacy. A lot of people around here and elsewhere seem to place a lot of virtue around somethings origin rather than the context of its current use. I've seen a lot of weird ass struggle sessions about the original bourgeois or proletariat character of various activities from golf, hiking, using various kitchen appliances, pet ownership, beer drinking, what have you, with no consideration to it's current context, and perhaps more importantly, no consideration as to whether this fucking matters? Just because rich people like something doesn't mean it's bad, just because working class people like something doesn't mean it's good, the point of socialism is to end class contradictions not hyper analyze to figure out how to be the "most worker".

    Sorry got on a tangent there. But yeah we do seem to place a weird amount of value on the origin of something rather than it's current context. Like fuck I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out some cure for cancer was invented by a Nazi half the people here would refuse to take it even if that Nazi has been dead for decades and it's 100% confirmed to work.

    • RedCoat [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I think that kind of over analysis mostly just stems from middle/upper class guilt a lot of comrades from wealthier backgrounds feel. It's very much not necessary though, similar to the point you made, a persons background is fairly insignificant vs what the actually do to help.

  • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I disagree. I was there in the early 2010s and the majority of the wojaks I have are when he was "the feel guy" and it had a lot of puns. I think it's a mischaracterization to call him a rage comic replacement. I have them all in an old folder called "Feels". They're single panel. I have such greats as

    -Voldemort only they gave him wojak's nose and eyes

    -Feel Out Boy

    -"I don't ever wanna feel that feel I felt that day" (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

    -"Good good, let the feels flow through you"

    -"et tu feelus?"

    -Garfeel

    -Feel of Fortune where the phrase on the board is _ _ _ no g _ (tfw no gf)

    -One of a Peruvian wojak where he's browsing 4chan through a boiling pot and using a guinea pig instead of a mouse

    He has not always been reactionary in the same way he is now. He hasn't always been a comic character. :wojak-nooo: , :yes-chad: , and the like are all appropriations of jokes that used to be less pointed in their... accusations.

    edit: my thesis is that there was a marked shift in tone on 4chan before and after Nazis came rolling through. While it was racist and edgy, it wasn't puritanical and strictly+explicitly white supremacist. There were characters, reactions, and tomfoolery with POC. Instead of your POV being said by a soyjack, it was greentext with George Costanza looking quizzically at you. Before it was clown world, it was Tony Kornheiser unamusedly asking why. And if you call wojak "just a nazi tool" you might overlook that tonal shift and misunderstand what it looks like when nazis start infiltrating fertile grounds.

  • 420sixtynine [any,comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I'm a bit of an angler broski, this is not the salty chartreuse tube on a nice spinnerbait you think you have, right now you're goin for bass with a worm and a bobber it might work maybe but really you're just gonna get ignored