Counter-Signal Memes

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About

Counter-Signal Memes, also known as Smuggies, are MS Paint illustrations featuring caricatures of people with extreme political viewpoints, most commonly parodying liberal or left-wing ideologies. The images have widely circulated within right-wing online communities, including 4chan's /pol/ board and various subreddits.

Origin

On August 5th, 2015, the “Counter-signal Memes for Fashy Goys” Facebook^[1] page was launched, which highlights various MS Paint comics mocking left-wing arguments. The same day, a comic featuring a stick figure mocking those who express their beliefs was submitted, gaining over 160 likes in the following 10 months.^[12] However, some pages credit the creation of this comics to the now defunct Facebook page Pass Me The Comics Bro.^[11]

Precursor: I Am Silly

The comics bear a high resemblance to a series of comics titled as "I am silly", which became popular on some 4chan boards like /v/ or /b/ as mockery to argumentative comics, like the ones done by Quentin, in early 2011.^[2] The earliest and most popular instance depicts an aggressive and irrational stick figure who overreacts while engaging in an argument (shown below, left).

Spread

On September 2nd, 2015, Twitter user @wcsolo^[6] began tweeting various images taken from the Facebook page. On October 26th, Redditor kingy123 submitted an illustration of a young man expressing an appreciation for Poland Ball comics to /r/me_irl,^[9] where it gathered upwards of 4,300 votes (89% upvoted) and 250 comments prior to being archived (shown below, left). On October 28th, Redditor Red_Pilled_Redditor submitted a comic mocking slut walk participants to the /r/justlegbeardthings^[5] subreddit (shown below, right).

On November 14th, 2015, a /pol/ user submitted an MS Paint illustration of a man arguing that people should "chillax with the islamophobia" following the 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks (shown below).

On March 6th, 2016, the /r/parodymemes^[8] subreddit was launched for counter-signal meme submissions. On April 11th, FunnyJunk^[7] user fappafappafap posted a collection of counter-signal memes. On May 10th, Redditor Alpha-as-fuck submitted an Imgur gallery containing 82 MS Paint illustrations titled "Smuggies from /pol/" to /r/4chan,^[10] where it garnered upwards of 7,500 votes (80% upvoted) and 920 comments within one month (shown below).