In the deviantART post, Ramirez added a note revealing that he was attempting to draw a comic character known as the "Rape Rodent."

Spread

In the following months, Ramirez' drawing quick gained traction on 4chan as the universal emoticon of an Internet troll and a versatile rage comic character. For a brief time, the face became alternatively known as "the coolface" after a rage comic-style webcomic took off on 4chan and Ebaumsworld^[2], though only for a brief period of time.

Throughout the first half of 2009, Trollface quickly gained favor with Redditors and rage comic artists in particular, in part owing to the rapid growth of the /r/f7u12 subreddit around that same time. On August 1st, 2009, the first Urban Dictionary^[3] definition for "trollface" was submitted by user A Terrible Driver. Thousands of additional webcomic and photoshopped instances featuring the face can be found Tumblr^[4], Cheezburger^[5], Reddit^[6], Facebook^[7], Quickmeme and Memegenerator among many others.

Copyright Infringement Dispute

On July 16th, 2011, a screenshot of an email sent to an undisclosed recipient from a man named Carlos Ramirez claiming to be Whynne was posted to Reddit.^[8] The email stated that the use of Trollface on Reddit violated his copyright on the image and requested the subreddit to be removed from the site.

The email was reposted to f7u12^[10] in a thread titled "Looks like f7u12 is done". Then, a Redditor named Whynne^[9] reponded to the thread saying:

You know what also makes me happy? Trolling reddit and seeing a shitstorm like this develop.

The background image for the f7u12 pages was changed to a picture of trollface with the text "HEY WHYNNE… U MAD BRO?":

On March 3rd, 2015, Meme Run, an endless-running 2D platformer video game featuring a plethora of internet meme references, including the Trollface, was removed from the Wii U eShop following the issuance of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice from Ramirez as the copyright holder of the character^[16] (shown below).

Profitability of Trollface

On April 8th, 2015, Kotaku^[17] ran an in-depth interview article with Ramirez about his now-iconic rage comic character. In the article, the Trollface artist estimated that he has earned more than $100,000 in licensing fees, settlements and other payouts since registering with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2010, with monthly revenues reaching as high as $15,000 at its peak in popularity. In addition, Ramirez also offered a backstory behind the removal of Meme Run from Wii U eShop, quoted as saying:

“People message me,” he said, “‘Hey, look, your trollface was used here! You oughta sue these guys” I just say ‘Okay, I’ll look at it.’ And I look at it. If it’s a really minor thing, I can’t be bothered with it. It’ll take too much time, and let people have their fun. If they’re not making any significant money on it, it’s like, eh, not a big deal. If you’re publishing a game on a major platform and it’s using my image, it’s kind of hard to ignore.”

“It’s really troublesome when you’re making a game comprised entirely of memes,” he said. “It’s a big problem of copyright infringement, all across the board, and I guess I was the only one with enough time to go out of my way and shake it down.”

2020 Resurgence / New Wave Trollface Memes

In 2020, Trollface experienced online resurgence in ironic memes, much like the resurgence of Doge memes in 2017 and 2018. The resurgence was triggered by ironic popularity of Cover Yourself in Oil format which hailed from an original Troll Science comic posted by 9GAG^[18][19] user Gegirik on February 13th, 2020 (shown below).

Cover Yourself in Oil

Cover Yourself in Oil refers to a Troll Science meme in which a person covers themselves in oil and manages to fly in the rain due to oil being less dense than water. Originating from a 2020 9GAG post, it was interpreted by many as a repost of an older meme and was later reimagined in ironic memes.

Trollge

Trollge refers to a unsmiling Trollface partially obscured with shadow. The Trollface gained its name and popularity from to a series of creepypasta-styled countdown videos that warn the viewer about the upcoming arrival of an entity named "Trollge" and advice to seek shelter. The videos were posted in /r/196 and /r/okbuddyretard subreddits in mid-November 2020 and received further spread online through reposts.

Schizoposting

Schizoposting refers to a large subset of memes that exploit the topic of schizophrenia and mental instability. A notable subformat makes use of Trollface and rage comics to create short narratives about schizophrenia, insanity and conspiracy theories.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Search queries did not pick up until January of 2009, several months after the original deviantArt posting.

External References