About

This Is So Sad refers to posts made in parody of posts like 5ever in which a scene of dialogue dramatically results in a character committing suicide before the other character can finish their sentence, and the bottom containing a caption with "This is so sad!" and positing some variation of "can we hit 50 likes?" and the character Sarcastic Bro on the far right corner. These posts began spreading on Reddit in early 2018. At the end of the posts, a line of text would read "This is so sad! Can we reach (X) likes?" The format was picked up in many Deep Fried Memes and shitposts.

Origin

On February 8th, a similar post to the 5ever post copypasta appeared on /r/ComedyHomicide,^[1] gaining over 650 points (shown below).

Precursor

5ever (sometimes spelled 5eva or 5evur) is a slang term meaning “more than forever" and the superlative form of its SMS shorthand "4ever." Believed to have originated from a copypasta story that began circulating in early 2011, the term is used ironically to mimic the non-standard grammar or syntax often found in online conversations. Its earliest known use as the superlative of "4ever" was introduced in a copypasta image resembling a handwritten note posted by Tumblr user Deathray-Deathray on March 10th, 2011. The image contained a short teenage romance story written in Comic Sans with a side note encouraging readers to reblog or like if they “crey.”

Spread

In the following months, jokes using similar setups began appearing on /r/DeepFriedMemes, where they were displayed with heavy distortion and unrelated images on the text. For example, a post by RoFro_ from March 15th gained over 2,900 points (shown below, left). Another post by BVB_301 from March 25th gained over 1,500 points (shown below, right).

After spreading on /r/DeepFriedMemes, the format was picked up by /r/dankmemes, where users created variations changing the word "likes" to other things one can "hit." For example, an April 14th, 2018 post changing "likes" to "faculty and staff" gained over 6,300 points (shown below, left). Another post that referenced the Younglings from the Star Wars films gained over 2,000 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References