Meme History – Trollface

Image Source: DeviantArt

I have never been so excited for a school assignment, as I am with this one. If you haven’t already met him, I would like to introduce to you my favourite meme of all time… the ever so popular, Trollface! The meme with a mischievous and smug grin on his face.

For the context of this piece of writing, and according to dictionary.com, a meme is “a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc., that is spread via the Internet and often altered in a creative of humorous way”.

The Trollface was first drawn by Carlos Ramirez, in September 2008. He posted Trollface in a comic through his DeviantArt account under the name Whynne. In this original comic he was trying to demonstrate the pointlessness in trolling on 4chan’s video game board.

Original source: DeviantArt (Censored edit by Holly Marquardt)

Trollface was somewhat of an accident, as Ramirez admitted he was actually trying to attempt to draw a different character of his, called “Rape Rodent”.

Source: Meme Wikia

You could say the Trollface holds a special place in my heart. In high school, I’ll admit, I had quite the obsession with Trollface. The Trollface has been the center of many inside jokes between me and my friends and family.

Source: Holly Marquardt

One year I even carved the Trollface into a pumpkin, and my brother and I were the Trollface for Halloween. I even use to refer to myself as “Trolly” (Trollface + Holly).

Source: Holly Marquardt and Sue Marquardt

Why the obsession, you may ask? It’s because of what the Trollface represents. The facial expression of the trollface is the same as of someone who is being an internet troll. And I really use to enjoy trolling people… a lot! Heck, even my relationship with my now future husband started off with a lot of trolling.

Source: Holly Marquardt

Anyways, enough about me, back to more about the history of Trollface.

In the months following the original comic created by Ramirez, Trollface began to gain more and more traction, especially on 4chan. Trollface is a rage comic character, and arguably the most popular rageface. Trollface was generally used to portray a character who is an internet troll in rage comics. For some period of time Trollface was also known as “coolface”. It is also known as the “problem” meme. Early 2009 Trollface was especially popular for people who posted on Reddit and with rage comic artists. Trollface gained more and more popularity, and in August of 2009 “Trollface” was added to Urban Dictionary. Now Trollface can be found in just about every corner of the internet.

The trollface is great because it is so versatile. You can slap a trollface on just about anyones head and it becomes instantly more funny, and represents someone up to no good. The remixes of the Trollface are endless, and is still an extremely popular meme today. You can find “Trollface” in just about any form of media on the internet. For example, as a bonus special treat, here is what was once one of my favourite songs, “You’ve Been Trolled”. Which is a parody of “Be Our Guest”, but explains the nature of trolling.

The trollface demonstrates exactly the opposite of basic netiquette (online etiquette).

Source: Holly Marquardt (and Trollface from DeviantArt)