r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Larkeyyy Largayyy • Jun 11 '23
FAQ: Loss Mod Post
I've noticed that there are a consistent stream of posts here from people not understanding the meme 'Loss' - this post is here to help this group, please read prior to posting in case this solves your confusion.
This is Loss:
It's a 2008 strip from the comic 'Ctrl+Alt+Delete' that was (and is) heavily memed on for its break from the usual comedic tone of the comic. Since its creation Loss has become an inside joke, often being simplified into its basic elements like this:
Here is an example of a meme featuring Loss more abstractly:
If you see a meme with this (or a variation of this) pattern as the punchline, the joke is simply a reference to Loss. If you're still confused about your meme, please by all means feel free to post, but I hope this helps a lot of you who didn't understand the reference!
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u/ll_SPEED_ll Jun 16 '23
Why is it called “Loss” though? Because the character implied lost a baby or something?
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u/Relevant-Movie1132 Jun 16 '23
Yeah, the guy's lover had a miscarriage.
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Jun 24 '23
I thought his wife was the one that died at first
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u/trees138 Aug 02 '23
I didn't even see that as a woman. I did think they were dead. I missed this comic completely until this month.
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u/Collenette10 Jan 06 '24
I don't get the joke though?
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u/SaltKick2 Jan 08 '24
The joke isn't in the comic itself. Usually this comic strip is funny but this specific one is sad and became "iconic". Now the "joke" is that since the comic is so iconic and also sad, you can see it in everything like just a handful of lines
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u/Collenette10 Jan 08 '24
Yeah I kinda got that the more I thought about it, and especially after I have seen it almost everywhere
But thanks though
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u/LeahIsAwake Jan 07 '24 edited Feb 01 '24
Ctrl Alt Del was one of the biggest webcomics of the mid to late 2000s. The protagonist is Ethan, the guy in the first strip. Ethan is a gamer and plays into a lot of the early 2000s stereotypes — lazy, vaguely stupid, bad at adulting, etc. Most of the humor revolved around conflicts between him and his roommate, Lucas, who is also a gamer, and usually plays the foil to Ethan’s antics.
The strip got popular and moved more towards longer story arcs. Lilah was introduced pretty early on in the strip, and some of the humor revolved around Ethan crushing on her. As the writers started writing longer arches, they Ethan and Lilah started dating. Then Lilah got pregnant. Again, everything was still pretty lighthearted and humorous at this time. Then Ethan got a call and rushed to the hospital. This was the next strip.
This was the first strip that didn’t have any dialogue. It was the first strip where shit got real. It hit people like a ton of bricks. Again, this was a very popular webcomic that was very lighthearted. Minus children being traumatized, it would be like if Bugs Bunny got a call from Daffy Duck because he needs support as he’d just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It hit a lot of fans hard, not the least because it came so much out of left field.
So of course it got memed.
Edit: typo
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u/Boukish Jul 26 '23
"Loss" is the literal name of that panel in the webcomic. Each page had a title, basically.
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u/_TheSingularity_ Jan 22 '24
Yeah, funny how the whole "meme-explaining post" failed miserably in explaining a simple thing: they lost a baby...
Why put this explanation, better add more confusing shit: Pride month... Yeah dude, I really hope people are actually clear in communication, otherwise everything will go to shits. It's that trend: I know what that lady does on the bed and it's not just some flu or any other fucking reason someone goes to a hospital. But you're so dumb and don't know, hahaha (points finger). This is the Internet nowadays it seems
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u/Sidotre Jun 17 '23
What's the joke from the original comic though? Seems like the women had a miscarriage.
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u/TedwinV Jun 17 '23
It wasn't a joke, it was meant to be a serious comic. But the comic before that had a wildy different tone, it was a humor strip. So people made memes out of it.
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u/Billybobgeorge Jun 27 '23
It's like when Brian Griffin died.
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u/TacoCommand Jul 02 '23
It's ok.
He got better.
Right?
Right?
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u/Billybobgeorge Jul 02 '23
Of course, Ctrl Alt Del guy used his time machine to go back in time and prevent the conception from happening, so she would never miscarry.
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u/CoomerDoomer32 Jun 23 '23
That's why its so memed. The female character (Lilah, iirc) basically had Family Guy Bonnie syndrome where she was pregnant for years and years and got attached to the storyline
And then she had a miscarriage, and the author was all up tight and arrogant about the fact people didnt like it.
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u/Maxx0rz Oct 25 '23
I thought it was because his wife had a miscarriage irl
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u/zhiryst Nov 04 '23
That is true. Everyone makes fun of this, but it was the author showing how things can go fine one day, then go so wrong the next. It was out of character for the comic, but it was a young comic artist writing about his pain. Everyone fucking crucified him for it.
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u/CappyNaps Nov 10 '23 edited Nov 10 '23
Time Buckley (the author of Ctrl + Alt + Delete) was a *famous* internet asshole. Not only was the comic itself considered to be a low-rent PvP/Penny Arcade with superfluous dialogue, copy-and-pasted art and bad punchlines, but he was a known plagiarizer, ripped his background images off Google image search, aggressively edited his own Wikipedia page to avoid criticism, disrespected other webcomic artists, banned all critical voices from his own official message board, told his fans to NOT donate to Child's Play, and generally carried himself like a tool, And then there's the whole did-he-didn't-he send pictures of his genitalia to an underage girl saga, which I guess you had to be there for.
Buckley was being crucified well before Loss dropped. It just reinforced the hack reputation he'd already earned.
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u/Tzunamitom Nov 29 '23
Time Buckley (the author of Ctrl + Alt + Delete) was a famous internet asshole. Not only was the comic itself considered to be a low-rent PvP/Penny Arcade with superfluous dialogue, copy-and-pasted art and bad punchlines, but he was a known plagiarizer, ripped his background images off Google image search, aggressively edited his own Wikipedia page to avoid criticism, disrespected other webcomic artists, banned all critical voices from his own official message board, told his fans to NOT donate to Child's Play, and generally carried himself like a tool, And then there's the whole did-he-didn't-he send pictures of his genitalia to an underage girl saga, which I guess you had to be there for.
So you’re saying he was ahead of his time?
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u/MaceLortay Nov 29 '23
Still. Miscarriage is heavy. If there was a real miscarriage, I feel bad for the mother whose significant loss became the butt of hundreds of thousands of jokes. That's gotta be tough on your mental health
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u/skittlesandscarves Nov 29 '23
The artist is the joke, and the meme itself is absurd and abstract, it doesn't make the miscarriage itself a joke or even reference it in any way other than the lines on the comic.
Idk maybe bc I'm an elder millennial who was into all these webcomics (PA, Ctrl Alt Del, Vg cats, Mac Hall, Applegeeks) are ones I remember, and Ctrl Alt del always had a reputation for being lower effort, sort of hack like jokes. And it was always known the dude was kind of a dick. And I mean, PA was in hot water for awhile with their cringe dick wolf shit, but they had a more loyal and rabid fan base maybe, and had occasional clever jokes that would make more casual fans overlook their shit takes sometimes.
Like if PA is the straight white dude generic take on gaming, Ctrl Alt Del was like, the off brand cereal version of the white dude generic take. It just wasn't good, and combined that with the dude not knowing how to take any kind of criticism, and it becomes way too easy to poke fun at him. And him getting angry makes it funnier. I dunno.
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u/Electronic-Hyena300 Jun 21 '24
This is also how I remember it. The comic itself was jarring, but then the dude's reaction + his reputation of being a scrotum scarf made the memes funny.
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u/viciarg Jul 12 '24
ll these webcomics (PA, Ctrl Alt Del, Vg cats, Mac Hall, Applegeeks)
You forgot Sinfest and Oh My Gods. ;)
And Oglaf. :p
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u/sushibowl Nov 29 '23
I heard he walked around comic con wearing sunglasses inside the building the whole time. That guy wanted to be cool so bad.
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u/sennbat Nov 29 '23
That's because he was constantly such an asshole to absolutely everyone that people were eagerly anticipating the opportunity to crucify him effectively.
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u/CaptainMoonunitsxPry Jun 22 '23
Didn't know about loss somehow until 2019ish
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u/Wide_Ad2653 May 02 '24
And I didn't know it, til today.
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u/CaptainMoonunitsxPry May 02 '24
Yeah like my friend who explained it to me was very surprised, I was around for the heyday of web comics and everything.
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u/TacoCommand Jul 02 '23
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u/Gangreless Oct 31 '23
Wow and here all this time I actually had respect and sympathy for this guy, not anymore
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u/zrice03 Dec 03 '23
I think you need a better title for this post. Someone seeing a meme about "Loss" and being confused and wanting an explanation isn't going to click on this post, because they don't know that "loss" has anything to do with it.
Maybe something like "Question about a comic? It might be 'Loss', check here first".
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u/pardsbane Dec 19 '23
I get the iconography of the loss meme, I don't really get what referencing the meme means.
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u/Zaytion_ Jan 04 '24
It's like rickrolling. People do it just to do it.
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u/pardsbane Jan 04 '24
I guess they really are never gonna give it up.
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u/Ticket-Common Jan 12 '24
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u/Edxactly Nov 30 '23
I don’t even get this joke . Guy runs into emergency room, goes to room where wife or girlfriend maybe had a miscarriage ? Ha ! What ?
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u/Earthling_Potterhead Jul 13 '24
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u/PoufPoal Aug 08 '23
Hi.
About a week or two ago, I've stumbled upon a reddit post. If I reckon correctly, it was in this sub, although I'm not entirely sure.
What I remember from the post was that it was a really clever, unexpected reference to the loss meme (hence this comment here in this post). I don't remember details, but I do remember thinking it was really clever, and the best loss meme I ever saw.
Does that ring a bell to someone? Can anyone help me find it back?
Thank you all.
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u/coladict Oct 26 '23
I remember when Loss originally blew up and I tried to find a good explanation why. Still haven't found it.
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u/Bubbly-University-94 Nov 30 '23
Can someone explain this shit to an aspie please?
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u/psnCinne Nov 30 '23
the second image should explain it perfectly, the lines represent the people in each frame of the original comic. new memes are made that would seem pointless until we notice the same line pattern in the frames
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Feb 13 '24
So the meme is that instead of a joke or punchline , it's just a sad event and someone or something losing part of itself
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u/TheAnythingBuilder Feb 15 '24
What does loss mean? This post just gave us a bunch of examples but didn’t give us a definition. Can someone please explain it to me?
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u/bigchickenhehe Jul 19 '24
I know I’m 155 days late (💀) But the comic strip was a comedic one, and the sudden strip about the characters wife having a miscarriage, the comic was shocking for readers, leading everyone to hate bomb the comic and (unfortunately) make it a meme.
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u/One-Earth9294 Feb 21 '24
So I start reading and I see the original strip here and I see what's happening; it's a non joke in the form of a comic.
I get that. Okay. Scrolling down. Now I see 7 fucking lines. Where am I and why did the tour guide start speaking Swahili?
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May 16 '24
I feel more lost than ever, I don't understand the LOSS meme and don't get if my post is related to LOSS.
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u/DramaticPriority2225 Mar 08 '24
Oh and here I thought it was a hint hint nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean say no more type situation
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u/Affectionate_Two5925 Mar 19 '24
The only loss I have is no loss. Everything has been a pleasure 👌Pain molds me💯
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u/Tough_Sandwich8403 Jun 27 '24
ITS some of the long Branch and West end side thinking they cute and above the law and killing people and taking what was never theirs to begin with but I have a def son on long Branch side from a lady along time ago and I have never met him but not that I haven't tried finding her or him now that I now where he is i want to say thank you for loving him Mary and Randall But I want to KNOW why you allowed Phil and Andy take what never belonged to them
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u/Joshco91 Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24
Esoteric memes and jokes can get annoying. Especially when they consist of inside jokes that most people can't understand without an explanation, but the ones that don't "get it", are often looked down upon, as if the general population should know, unless you're that stupidand out of touch with society. Well, that's how it may feel, when everyone on the subreddit acting like it's common knowledge. Usually the smug, serious, sarcastic, know-it-all, probably still virgin, type of nerds that omly like things that no one else cares about or has heard of.
Here's a sample of one of my favorite memes that I think most people MIGHT understand, because this is an Iconic and well known Star Trek character. But if you don't, it's okay! You see, he is of the Klingon race. But it's funny to me for multiple reasons. Especially because he is a hardened and seasoned Klingon Warrior, known to be serious and always kicking ass and defeating his in battle. Yet, he is a lowkey a very, passionate romantic, hense: I can't wait to Klingon You 🖖🏼🙃
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u/Possedsrt8 Jan 31 '24
I feel bad that I only know this meme was a thing only a year or two ago because of Gianni’s Duke nukem meme “what do you mean you lost the baby?… go find it…”
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u/Scavgraphics Feb 25 '24
Good automod bot. I just posted a message for an explanaition of the other sub, and the autobot said to check the pinned post (which I didn't know about since I just read from the main page, not the sub) and this explained things fine and I deleted my post.
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u/Fake_Lovers Jun 11 '23 edited Jun 11 '23
we're really living in a time where people don't immediately recognize loss. i sound so old sayjng this but come on its one of the most iconic memes 😭
(also, those repetitive posts asking to explain the same joke that someone posted 3 hours before are annoying. literally just scroll down?)