The ‘Thanks, I hate it’ subreddit is a great home for a timeless meme

Some memes are born to die. Others, like the “Thanks, I hate it” meme, can live eternally.

“Thanks, I hate it” — unlike many memes which fade as quickly as they appear — has real life force and patrons supporting its art. And thankfully there’s a whole new subreddit, r/TIHI (Thanks, I hate it), dedicated to keeping this meme alive. 

At its core, “Thanks, I hate it” is a meme that celebrates what I like to call “Internet Gothic.” Similar to Southern Gothic, Internet Gothic is composed of the grotesque: hellish images, perverse photoshops, photos suggestive of late capitalism, disturbing GIFs, shitposts, nihilist memes, and all the dumb shit we try and forget we saw on the internet.

The meme appears to have originated in the fall of 2017 on the subreddit r/FireEmblemHeroes. By the end of the year,”Thanks, I hate it”  was popping on Reddit and on Tumblr. No doubt because there’s something just so perfectly passive-aggressive about the meme: rage, made more digestible with manners. It is a deeply internet-y way of expressing aggression.  

 R/TIHI is dedicated to extending the shelf life of this meme. Typically, at this point in the social media life cycle, memes like “Thanks, I hate it” are exhausted — something only your aunt on Facebook or maybe Chris Cillizza would use.

Here’s why Markus, the founder of r/TIHI, decided to create the subreddit:

“The initial idea came from another moderator of us (u/scrumbly) on another post on r/ATBGE three months ago. He posted a comment linking to this sub and as it didn’t exist yet I decided to make it a thing,” Markus told Mashable in an email. “I wanted to create a place for all the beautiful posts that are both likable and hatable at the same time. But I wasn’t all that serious about it, as all subs I managed before were very small as well.”

The subreddit has since grown to 136,000 subscribers in just a few months. It’s been successful because it fills a deep psychological need. There’s so much repulsive content on the internet that needs to be identified, mocked, and celebrated.

There are posts that celebrate the grotesque:

A disturbing amount of finger-based content:

Perversions of daily life:

Bizarre human-animal hybrids:

Mutant animals and mutant animal products:

Absurd technological innovations:

Dark tweets:

Surreal twists on popular culture:

Disturbing food perversions:

Perversions of human anatomy:

Things that the English language could never possibly capture:

And, of course, bird content:

Content that probably wouldn’t survive anywhere else has thrived on this subreddit. And Markus is particularly excited about artists who create art specifically for sub-communities like this one:

“As a motion graphics guy it always fascinates me that creators spend hours creating and rendering content that wouldn’t make sense for most people outside of reddit. I love how passionate these users are,” Markus said.

He also wants people to know that the subreddit has a warmer cousin, too, r/TILI (“Thanks, I love it). It’s a subreddit that embraces all that is good and pure on the internet.

Like, for example, croissant dragons:

 And liquid gas putty:

But at the end of the day, there’s plenty of positive content on the internet to celebrate. What r/TIHI provides is its own kind of a beautiful space and something the web wants: A home for the internet’s most grotesque animals, mutants, hybrids, and technological failures. 

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