Loss has become one of the most abstract, universal, minimalistic, and long-lived memes for many years. It is remarkable by that it is a symbol meme which image is incredibly easy to remember and represent. Simple, even strict forms make it elementary and brilliant as well. Having a whole story about a human misfortune under a memorable image, it has been gaining fame and "dying" for innumerable times, then becoming popular, then leaving underground again. It is worth thinking about, but this meme exists since 2008. During its ten-year history, the Loss has traveled an incredibly long journey, from a simple joke to an abstract meme and even a new golden ratio.
To understand the whole essence of the Loss, it is necessary to dive deeper into the history of its origin. Initially, it was just a reflection of the life situation of Tim Buckley, whose girlfriend had a miscarriage. After this, Buckley drew the legendary 4 frames, but the comic triggered rather an ambiguous reaction from the public. Most people found it too ridiculous, but not because of the personal tragedy of the author. The point is in the poor composition and conflicting moods, that is the main source of humor. Nobody expects to see a sudden story of a miscarriage or another dark plot when reading a gaming webcomic.
Buckley's inexperience played a cruel joke with him, and the meme scattered over the Internet. The poses of Ethan and medical staff have been so imprinted in the mass consciousness that after a while the memers wrapped the comic in a minimalistic form, which gave it a new life, turning Loss into a whole new phenomenon. In these symbols was laid the whole story, and the "losshunting" became a thing. Excessive simplicity provided the Loss with a status of an "easter egg": artists began unobtrusively inserting it into their drawings. All this led to the fact that the Loss became a new, postmodern golden ratio. From the merely funny pictures it went into art, having experienced all the re-phrases and falling popularity, and turned into an avant-garde image, an inner joke. And the more insignificant the Loss in the picture, the better. The Loss Ratio can also enhance the humorous perception of the picture at the level of the structure itself, without direct reference, and all because of poses that contradict the composition of comics. In that sense it contradicts the very purpose of the original golden ratio, which essence is based on imperfection.
On June 2, 2018, in honor of the decade of the meme, Buckley modified the comic, changing the name to "found.jpg" and adding some appeal to the audience. Personally, I liked the
theory about the fact that Tim has found us, his audience (and certainly gained experience in comic composition). Interestingly, around this time the meme with Piper Perri became quite popular, which is in many respects similar to the Loss, but doesn't have such a rich history and background. On the other hand, it is largely based on colors, which undoubtedly expands the borders of minimalism and increases the value of this meme. I want to believe that the Loss has launched a whole line of minimalistic memes, but for now it looks like a simple coincidence caused by its increased popularity. There is also something like a Chinese Loss, the
"I want Dem all" meme. In addition, the Goatse can be considered as the first minimalist meme on the web.
In general, the appearance of such memes is one of the evidence that they smoothly flow into art. If you like speculations as much as I do, you can try to classify memes by genre. For example, old memes are classicism, modern are modernism/postmodernism, or even metamodernism. Surreal memes are obviously, surrealism with drops of futurism (because of metairony). Rage comics with its emphasis on block structure can be even considered as monumentalism. Of course, these are just silly thoughts, but they can say a lot about the memes. Perhaps in the future we will see new directions of meme art, and the boundaries between memes and art will be erased forever.
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