If Only You Knew How Bad Things Really Are

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About

If Only You Knew How Bad Things Really Are is a copypasta originating from a March 2012 4chan post, used online to convey feelings of profound sadness and being unable to change one's circumstances. The screenshot of the post has been used online as an exploitable, often edited into images of people wearing an expression of suppressed internal suffering.

Origin

On March 2nd, 2012, an anonymous 4chan user posted "if only you knew how bad things really are" to an unknown board (original post no longer available).

Spread

In the following years, the expression appeared in multiple posts on 4chan, including posts on /a/,^[1] /pol/^[2] and /int/^[3] boards. The earliest post containing the phrase currently available online was made in /a/ board on June 11, 2012.^[1]

Between March 2nd, 2012 and May 26th, 2014, an anonymous 4chan user combined the image with the photograph of the US President John F. Kennedy smiling yet having a sad expression in his eyes (shown below, left). On May 26th, 2014, an anonymous 4chan user made the earliest post containing the image currently available online in the /int/ board (shown below, right).^[4] In the following days, posts containing the image appeared in /pol/,^[5] /r9k/^[6] and other boards.

In the following years, the screenshot of the post was edited onto images of various people wearing an expression of supressed suffering. For example, on October 12th, 2015, an anonymous 4chan user posted a meme based on a photograph of American presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (shown below, left).^[7] On May 23rd, an anonymous 4chan user posted a similar meme using a photograph of American actor Elijah Wood (shown below, right).^[8]