If you've been browsing /bant/ for even a short amount of time you've no doubt coma across "le dank forced face", a crudely drawn face created by tripfriend and omnipresent altchan superstar coconut
while it may at first seem like just seem like a regular post ironic meme (IE. a meme that mocks the concept of internet memes) and the more specifically the concept of forced meme there's a not so readily apparent subtext that is a scathing satire of contemporary meme culture.
This second layer cannot be discerned by the meme itself, but rather it derives from how it's creator uses it. the meme artiste Coconut is often seen crudely editing his creation onto the faces of seemingly random pictures and therein lies the subtle genius of his work.
To fully appreciate this I must first briefly explain a concept in online culture that I shall hereby dub "inherent humor":you see,there exist certain concepts that in meme culture that,for varying reasons , are seemingly deemed funny just by their own merit . if you have trouble grasping what I'm trying to convey maybe some examples will illuminate you: think Garfield, Family guy or Minecraft.
These elements may have some context which elevated them to this inherit humorous status, (in the case of Garfield and Family guy it is the fact that both are considered painfully unfunny) but their usage is fully disconnected from said
context.An image of Peter griffin from Family Guy made to resemble popular character from any piece of media doesn't make any kind of statement about the shows lackluster humor that elevated it to it's inherit humorous status, yet it is still perceived as funny by the sole virtue of association.
And it is exactly this contradiction that le dank forced face seeks to lay bare.If context is irrelevant to inherit humor, why can't one simply declare anything as inertly humors? why shouldn't this crude drawing placed upon any random image in an equally crude manner be considered funny as well?
