For context, this paragraph is lifted from SomethingAwful's Fur Trapper Saga, a series of fictional advertisements put out by two fictional fur trappers, who are competing in business.

While one of the trappers, PB Fouke, tries to sell his business on dedication, JF Swanton sells his furs on the promise that he is so cruel of course he's going to have the best furs.

Doesn't make it less offensive, but the point being that it was written in character as a fur trapper from the 1800s who regarded himself as much more cruel than all else.

My genuine reaction to that information:

Not a fan of the negative tone of OOP, tbh.

The message here imo is less "you must be awful if women aren't fucking you" and more "looks don't matter, be chill."

Yeah, cancelling this seems like a good call.

Of course he sounded better, he had a whole band backing him up!

The Devil trying to cheat the contest is baked into the song musically.

Something else worth noting - the licks the Devil plays on the fiddle sound good but are easy to play. Johnny's licks are legitimately complex. He beat that sucker fair and square.

Context is very important here, and maybe it's impossible to find funny if you weren't there for it.

But as just my little take on an explanation, it's less funny than it is shocking, which is what makes it funnier than it is shocking.

I know that's confusing, so let me explain. CTRL+ALT+DEL is like the be all end all of snarky gamer webcomics. Week after week, Tim Buckley would have his characters make nerdy 2000s-2010s gamer puns and complain about video games. It's pretty straightforward, just basically imagine The Gamer™ stereotype and you're pretty much there.

Ex:

So then out of nowhere, Tim starts uploading comics that really focus on relationship drama, culminating in Loss. Then he dropped the idea of being serious in that manner altogether.

So this gamer comic about gaming drops an arc about a miscarriage then immediately goes back to being a gamer comic about gaming without a second thought.

It's truly shocking. So shocking that if you were enveloped in that world at the time, you couldn't help but chuckle at Tim for releasing something like this. It's that mix of shock and (if you know the comic) an utterly unexpected situation that has given Loss staying power.

Remember, a meme is not a joke. A joke is something crafted to make us laugh, but a meme is just an idea with staying power. Yes, some memes have staying power due to their hilarity (I would say maybe "2 guys walk into a bar" jokes fall in this category - the idea is simple and can be set up to end in many different ways, but the goal and the way it's remembered is comedic), but on the flip side a lot of memes have staying power because of the shock they cause (2 girls 1 cup, jarsquatter, Astolfo Monster can, Shrek is Love Shrek is Life).

An element of shock memes that increases their prevalence is the game of "getting" your friends. A lot of those shock clips were circulated through people saying something similar to "oh hey check out this cookie recipe I found" and then deviously sending a link to something horrific instead, thus tricking the victim.

Here's where Loss comes back in, because there's a third relevant category of meme here - "gotcha" memes. These memes play on the same "gotcha" value that helps spread shock memes.... but they're not necessarily shocking. People get a kick out of their friends' reactions when they see that meme, so they send it to them to get that reaction without necessarily causing real trauma by actually sending horrific pornography.

Examples of this include Loss, Rickrolling, Darude - Sandstorm, The Game, Updog. One common factor between these? They generally rely on shared cultural experiences. If you rickroll a 10-year-old they're just going to be like "uhm I think you sent me the wrong link," but it's funny to people who were there for that moment in history.

Another common factor is most of these are spread by people "getting got." If you fall for "smells like Updog in here," I guarantee the first thing you're doing is going to try that out on someone else.

In short, is Loss funny? Not really. But it's not forced either. It's widespread because people reading gamer comics got smacked in the face out of nowhere with a miscarriage plot and it was so outrageous that they spread that feeling of "what the fuck did I just see" all over the internet.

But that's just my two cents.

Counterpoint: get into a gunfight anywhere someone is trying to beat you to death and you have a gun

The Lord also gave ya'll legs and the ability to move... Maybe put a little faith in that, too.

"I just noticed he's a little guy." ~Me, on the subject of my cat, daily

going up from -22 to -3.

Honestly Walz getting a bigger poll boost isn't as much of a story when Vance got a slightly smaller boost and is still in the negative.

Horrible medical advice. You're supposed to stick it up your yeah!