Forever Alone

UPDATE: We interviewed a flash mob victim! Click here for the video.

About

Forever Alone is an exploitable rage comic character that is used to express loneliness and disappointment with life. Creators of this variety of rage comic occasionally alter one word or both of the words “forever alone” for a more humorous effect (For example, Forever A Scone). On Memegenerator, Forever Alone is on the Demigod Tier.^[1]

Origin

It is currently unclear where the comic began, as Rage Guy mutations have been popular on not only 4chan, but Tumblr, FunnyJunk, and many other memetic hubs for quite some time. It is believe to have first appeared in April of 2010 according to the meme entry’s original poster, but no link was provided to verify this claim.

Spread

On May 28th, 2010 a Forever Alone image was posted to Funny Junk ^[2] that claims to be the earliest instance of the peculiar face on that website so far. As of September 16th, 2010, there are over 23,000 results for “Forever Alone” on Funnyjunk.com ^[3] and over 50,000 on Tumblr.^[4]

On October 4th, 2010, Geekosystem posted an article titled “Forever Alone Meme”.^[5]

Forever Alone Flashmob

Beginning on March 22nd, 2011, 4chan and Reddit users started plotting an “involuntary” flash mob event by creating fake dating profiles on OKCupid and setting up a false rendezvous for single males at the Times Square, New York City at 7:30pm on May 13th, 2011.^[6] According to Urlesque ^[7], various flyers explaining the action plan were posted in the forums and blogs like The Mainboard ^[8], NYMag ^[9], Social Spew ^[10], Skim Online Forums ^[11] and Dating Service Reporter ^[12]:

Flashmob Aftermath

What was supposed to be an involuntary flash mob turned out to be a involuntary DDoS attack against EarthCam’s website. The large number of people attempting to access the stream put a heavy strain on the company’s small server.

Earthcam was down for most viewers from 7PM to around 7:40PM. The few with access to the stream had been watching from the beginning of the event. Screenshots of many men in suits at different points in time appeared on Tumblr and 4chan.

Though few people arrived, and even fewer stayed, somebody marked the event with a Forever Alone poster on the side of a phone booth.

Flashmob Victim Interview

When we arrived at 46th and Broadway, we found this gentlemen standing at the pay phones across the street looking as if he was waiting for someone. After approaching him, it turned out he had been tricked into going there by someone from the website OK Cupid. He asked that we do not show his face, but said he was glad it happened, and was amused by the prank.

External References