About

Extra-Hell is a four-panel webcomic by Light Roast Comics that imagines a person who committed sins so terrible they get sent to "extra hell" instead of normal hell. Published in 2019, the comic gained virality as an exploitable template for memes on Reddit.

Origin

On May 30th, 2019, webcomic artist Light Roast Comics published a four-panel comic in which a mega preacher who arrived at the gates of hell claims that there's been a mistake and they are not supposed to be there. The front desk worker then escorts them to a worse version of hell named "Extra-Hell." The comic accrued over 18,000 likes on Instagram^[1] and 47,800 upvotes in the /r/funny^[2] subreddit in four years (shown below).

Spread

On the same day, users on Reddit began using the comic as a meme template, altering the line said by the person in the second panel of the comic. On May 30th, 2019, Redditor SeminoleSteel posted the earliest edit of the webcomic to the /r/dankmemes^[3] subreddit, where it gained over 54,200 upvotes before it was removed (shown below, left). On May 31st, Redditor CrispyFootsies posted a Dungeons & Dragons meme that gained over 440 upvotes in the /r/dndmemes^[4] subreddit in five days (shown below right).

In the following years, the format maintained moderate prevalence on Reddit. For example, on October 19th, 2019, Redditor notlikelyevil posted an edit that received over 18,200 upvotes in /r/memes^[5] in four years (shown below, left). On April 6th, 2021, Redditor Comprehensive_Rub356 posted a meme that gained over 17,900 upvotes in /r/memes^[6] in two years (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References