The 'Thanks, I hate it' meme has found its spiritual home (2024)

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, sh*tposts, nihilist memes, and all the dumb sh*t 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.