About

Problems, Stress, Pain is an exploitable webcomic in which a white-colored figure is bullied by figures labeled "Problems", "Stress" and "Pain" before being embraced by a yellow-colored character representing a variety of comforts.

Origin

On April 27th, artist Superelmer posted a comic in which a character is bullied by figures labeled "Problems", "Stress" and "Pain," who is subsequently embraced by a yellow figure named "Sleep" (shown below). Within two weeks, the post gained over 138,000 shares, 45,000 reactions and 1,800 comments.

Spread

On April 28th, 2017, Redditor Breasthoflife727 submitted a version of the comic in which the character embraces a figure labeled "suicide" to /r/dankmemes^[1] (shown below, left). Within one week, the post gained over 2,500 points (94% upvoted). On May 1st, Redditor Caulifl0wer_ submitted a photoshopped version of the comic, in which the character is embraced by a web browser's "incognito mode" after being harassed by the NSA, CIA and FBI (shown below, right). Within 72 hours, the post garnered upwards of 860 points on /r/dankmemes.^[4]

On May 2nd, threads asking viewers to "label the yellow guy" in the comic were submitted to 4chan's /g/,^[5] /r9k/^[6] and /pol/^[7] boards. On May 3rd, FunnyJunk^[3] user infinitereaper posted a collection of examples taken from 4chan threads. In the coming days, several threads about the series reached the frontpage of /r/MemeEconomy.^[8][9]

Suplex Variant

On the 27th of February 2018 u/2KDrop posted a variant of the meme to r/MemeEconomy. The variant had the yellow embracing figure suplex the white embraced figure (shown right). It showed how being relaxed can turn into depression and apathy. Broadly it is used to show that something intially comforting/safe or relaxing turns into to something even worse than expected. u/Weak_Tomato posted a more compact version to r/memes on the 23rd of December 2018.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References