this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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Like idk what's so funny about a guy rushing to the hospital and a woman having a miscarriage, I've seen other random images referring to the original "loss" meme and I don't know what's so funny.

Like... even beans is a better meme than whatever "loss" is supposed to mean.

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[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 72 points 1 month ago (1 children)

There's two main parts, essentially.

First is that Ctrl+Alt+Del advertises itself as a comedic webcomic, when out of the blue it decided to have a serious arc culminating in the depiction of a miscarriage. People thought it was tone deaf and tasteless, and its inclusion in what is otherwise a lighthearted work of satire conveys the wrong message.

Second is related to the author himself, Tim Buckley. Tim has a reputation for being a bit of a scumbag, and it turns out this was an adaptation of an actual event that happened with an ex of his. In the arc, the woman depicted in Loss is being neglected by her boyfriend, who is Tim's self-insert character. Loss turns her loss into his loss, and the eventual lessons learned by the characters were how she wasn't prioritizing his needs enough.

Essentially, Tim turned a real-world tragedy for one woman into his own power fantasy, and he did so through a completely left-field turn in tone for his webcomic that left readers confused. So Loss became a meme, not because of the content itself, but because people wanted it to be something permanently associated to him and his comic that he couldn't just bury or move past.

[–] funbreaker@piefed.social 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is the best explanation of it in here

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Memeing just to spite someone

[–] LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago

At this point it's sorta become another Rickroll, where it pops up when you least expect it. The content of the comic itself isn't what's humorous; In fact it was mocked when the original comic was released for being an unnecessary plot beat in a comedy webcomic.

[–] zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/loss

It’s from a 2008 webcomic called ctrl-alt-del, it was bizarrely out of the normal tone.

[–] emb@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

I never really got why it started. But after a while, it was funny that people kept referencing it. The commitment to the bit was what eventually made it sorta humorous.

[–] eezeebee@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago

Never understood it and don't really care to. I think it's fine, even kind of neat, for there to be this big inside joke on the internet, and it's fine for me to not be a part of it.

My only complaint is how often it seems to come up and spending time looking at something only to conclude "oh, it's just this loss thing again".

[–] SandmanXC@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You might enjoy this, and it should definitely clear it up: https://youtu.be/TebCHHCw9rY

[–] Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 2 points 1 month ago

That video taught me that I'm the miscarried child.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago

I was reading the comic when the strip first went up. It didn't feel tone deaf at all - I always interpreted it as "sometimes you're bumbling along in life and then reality slaps you in the face with something hard to deal with".

Apparently the internet disagrees and so we have to put up with a very boring meme.

From what I've read Tim Buckley ain't great for a number of reasons but even putting that aside my main issue is that it's dull.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

In addition to what other users said:

The current iteration of the meme is quite removed from the original (the comic). For a lot of people, it's about hiding a specific pattern inconspicuously, so others detect it and say "is this loss?". Like hiding a triforce in an online canvas, or reminding you of the game (you just lost it BTW).

[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I've never liked it. Joking about a woman's real miscarriage is a shitty subject to make in to a meme. The criticism of the original comic was well founded, but the meme isn't about that anymore. It would be so easy to just let the meme fade away, and I wish people would.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The joke is not the miscarriage. People aren't posting the original comic and laughing at the characters.

The humor is in the subtely of the reference

[–] ada@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The original comic wasn't humorous. It was a guy trying to portray his experience when his partner miscarried. There was no humour to it. It was a story of trauma and pain. It was poorly done, because it turned his partner in to a vehicle to center his own experience, and people rightly called it out for that. But even so, the dudes pain was real. So was his partners. And the miscarriage was real.

Turning it in to a meme is just a bit of a shitty thing to do, however valid the criticism or the comic, or however "subtle the references" are.

[–] feddup@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Can you explain what you mean by the poorly done line? I was a teenager when it came out so maybe I missed it but it felt like a way of expressing something tragic that happened, just like a singer writing a song about something bad that happened.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Fridging. When a female character suffers harm purely as a plot device for the protagonist.

[–] feddup@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That doesn't feel like it applies here because it was about something that actually happened? Both are suffering and it seems genuine.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

The female character in the comic isn't the same as the real person it happened to

I don't really get it either. I think people just like making and getting references to things for no other reason than to do it.

[–] funbreaker@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago

The comic it came from was supposed to be comedic, and mid-2000s comedic at that. Seeing something serious so suddenly in it was a slap to the face.

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Don't know what you're referring to (good job not linking or posting it, smarty), but the way I picture it that's a riot of laughs.

[–] remon@ani.social 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Can you post the meme? Because I have no idea what you're taking about.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago

I don't find it funny but I know the history vaguely.

[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago

Its like frequently on the Lemmy front page.

I'm just thinking "why is this upvoted so much" and then go to the comments and they're are all "is this loss?".