Where did the troll face come from?

Kyle Wong
3 min readOct 29, 2016

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Since 2008, the troll face has been an iconic meme known all over the internet. But many do not know of the actual origin of it. I will explain all about it in this post.

The troll face was originally posted on 4chan by Carlos Ramirez. He made this doodle while he was supposed be doing a college paper back in 2008, and since then has earned over $100,000 in licencing fees. He trademarked the image back in 2010 and has been licencing it out since then. Ramirez has encountered battles with many entities who are trying to profit off this brand for free.

Over the years the troll face has received many different variations which spread like wildfire over the internet. The troll face has been added to other internet rage comics which expands it’s reach. Memes are posted and re-posted all over social media and made to get a sour or laughing reaction. Also associated with the troll face is the trollolololol song. Which was popularized around the same time as the troll face.

Over the years the troll face continues to exist on the internet with less attention. Here are just a few examples:

The troll face is a rage comic character showing a mischievous smile which is meant to represents the facial expression of a internet troll. ‘Trolling’ on the internet originally came from having no accountability of anything you post. This anonymous nature allows for mischievous to go unpunished and disrupts the online community. Online trolls feed off of upsetting people by posting inflammatory, extraneous or off topic messages.

Here is a link for google trend searches of the ‘troll face’:

I just wonder what our kids are going to say when they find out about how dumb the internet culture of our generation is. I just hope they can find some humor in it. I hope that you have learned something from reading this post! As always, thanks for reading!

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