At this point we’re like three jokes deep.

The original reaction to the comic was kind of a collective chuckle of “Whahahahat the fuck?” Because the comic was like discount store brand Penny Arcade, irreverent bullshit gamer humor, and then comes the sudden plotline that the girlfriend character has a miscarriage.

Like, Loss itself isn’t bad in and of itself; telling the story of the character’s journey through the hospital with no dialog, it’s competent…but it stood in such contrast to what the comic had been about for so long and the audience just wasn’t on board with it that it became a controversy. And Buckley’s clap back against it and the following drama made it memetic.

At some point, the imagery became so recognizeable even in the abstract that it became a prank to communicate the idea of the comic in as abstract a form as possible, hence the “Is this Loss” meme. Somewhere between rickrolling and “you just lost the game.”

I get to be useful!

Ceiling cat is a reference to possibly the earliest generation of memes. They mostly involved cats. Ceiling cat was a popular one of a cat poking its had down through a hole in a ceiling, captioned “ceiling cat is watching you masturbate” or something similar. The odd grammar/spelling is of the same Era, where these cat memes would be spoken in the “voice” of a cat. The most famous example is “I can haz cheezburger”

Leaving Britney alone is a reference to an early Era of YouTube video, where an actor bawling at the camera ranted about how people were being too mean to Britney Spears, a famous pop star. It was hotly debate whether the contents of the video were genuine or acting. Remember, this was before Snopes, even.

I think that was everything?

Wait, there’s actual context behind the bean memes? I’ve been missing out.