Why does nobody talk about how old rage comics actually remix better than modern memes

I was scrolling through a meme archive site last Tuesday and noticed something weird. The old rage comics from like 2010 have way more room to tweak the joke compared to modern reaction images. You can swap out the text panels completely and the format still works because the faces are so generic. I spent an hour remixing a classic "F7U12" comic about a printer into a bit about my boss setting a 9am meeting. The original joke flopped but my version got 200 upvotes in 3 hours. Has anyone else had better luck remixing older formats instead of newer ones like Drake or the crying Wojak?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura21111d ago

Gotta push back a bit on the "F7U12" thing - that's actually the subreddit name, not the comic format. The classics like "Problem?" or "Forever Alone" work great for remixing because the expressions do all the heavy lifting, so you can plug in any situation and it lands. Modern formats like Wojaks have way too much specific context tied to them, which makes it harder to twist the joke around without it falling flat.

masondixon9d ago

Three hours for 200 upvotes is good but I wouldn't call that some huge win, that's pretty average for a weekday on most subs if you catch the right time zone. People act like remixing old rage comics is some lost art but really it's just that nobody cares enough to overthink a Wojak the same way they do with a "F7U12" face. I remixed a "Problem?" comic about a vending machine last month and it got like 40 upvotes before dying in new, so the magic isn't guaranteed just because it's old.