A rage comic is a short comic utilizing a growing set of pre-made cartoon face, or meme faces, which usually express rage or some other simple emotion or activity. These comics have spread much in the same way that internet memes do, and several memes have originated in this medium. They have been characterized by Ars Technica as an "accepted and standardized from of online communication.
Rage comics popularity has been attributed to their use as vehicles for humorizing shared experiences. The range of expression and standardized, easily identifiable faces has allowed uses such as teaching english as a foreign language.
History
Rage comics originated in 2007 on the image board site 4chan and later gained prominence on the internet forum website Reddit. It experienced an upsurge in popularity in 2009. As of January 2011, the rage comic ranked among the top 20 most subscribed on Reddit.
Originally the comics were always centeres around a titular "rage guy", and was used to illustrate common frustrations of their creatiors. These comics were always drawn in a two by two grid, and they always ended with a face illustrating rage. The medium has since branched out to a variety of different formats and structures.
In 2010 the pop-culture retail chain hot topic began selling shirts with rage faces. In protest of this co-option, 4chan participants re-branded rage guy as race guy and attempted to tie hot topic to the promotion of racism. The chain pulled the shirts soon afterward.
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