About

Poorfag or Poorfag-chan is a character inspired by the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Occasionally on /a/ "poorfag" threads will pop up or someone will use Poorfag to hijack a thread. Due to having similar origins as Moetron, she will often appear in Moetron threads.

Origin

On January 28th, in a discussion topic on 4chan's /a/ about the fourth episode of the series, one anonymous user noticed that during a clip showing Madoka's class, everyone in the classroom had laptop computers except for one girl.^[5]

The first reply to this post was, "Fucking poorfag writing on paper."^[5] which led to a huge discussion of the character and thus Poorfag-chan was born. The same day, her macro was created.^[6] Despite her being a character seen only in the background of a few episodes and frequently being left out of artbooks, Poorfag-chan gained her own popularity as a character on /a/.

Fandom

There's a lot of various theories, stories, comics, and fanworks crafted around Poorfag-chan. She is generally depicted as an innocent character who makes the best of her circumstances. A lot of Poorfag-chan threads also depict her as an orphan with her often telling stories to her mother in heaven. Another popular claim is that she lives in a cardboard box and were she to become a Puella Magi and later on a witch, her outfit would consist mostly of garbage.

Some other theories surrounding Poorfag-chan depict her as a somewhat more dark character. One more notable example of this is the video titled "Poorfag's Tale…" posted by foreverpandering^[3] on Jun 1, 2011. In his version, Poorfag is fully aware of how others view her and is secretly involved in the storyline of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Realizing the true evil nature of Madoka's friend Hitomi, she murders her in order to prevent Hitomi from reversing Madoka's wish.

Though this was originally a trend that started on 4chan, it also gained the attention of Japanese fans who call her call her 貧乏ちゃん (binbō-chan, translated as poor-chan).

To some extent, she has gained enough notoriety to be likable even to those who have never watched Puella Magi. Her use as a sub-meme extends beyond the show as she fills a niche of as a cute anime girl hobo.

Another common thing to associate Poorfag-chan with is users of 4chan's /a/ who like to poke her nose and see her blush. She is also often associated with Kaiji Itou who is a hobo gambler from the self-named anime series Kaiji or with Mami Tomoe as her secret lover.

Poorfag-chan also has an "Ask 'x' tumblr" where she answers questions using MS paint drawings (she's too poor for anything else). ^[1]

Failurefag

Another notable character who has similar origins as Poorfag-chan is Failurefag who is a student sitting infront of Madoka and clearly asleep during class. Though considered initially funny and thus spawning his own macro of "Failurefag's gonna fail", he did not gain nearly as much popularity as Poorfag-chan.

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Ask Poorfag Tumblr Blog

^[2] Puella Magi Wiki – Poorfag

^[3] foreverpandering's Channel

^[4] 4chan /a/ – Madoka Magica General Thread #92

^[5] 4chan /a/ – Madoka Magica General Thread #92

^[6] 4chan /a/ – Madoka Magica General Thread #96