Description[]
Epic Fail Guy is a rage comics character, showing that he is meant to fail at everything in a particular situation. It originated on 4chan, later responsible for the popularity of Guy Fawkes mask and became as a preference of Anonymous users, and was also later used into YouTube.
Origin[]
In late 2006, stick-figure comics depicting a character who is bound to fail at everything he does started to appear on 4chan. The Character soon became known as Epic Fail Guy. On September 30, 2006, a thread was posted in which Epic Fail Guy found a Guy Fawkes mask similar to the one in the movie V for Vendetta in a garbage bin. From this point onward, many more Epic Fail Guy threads would appear on /b/, depicting him both with and without the Guy Fawkes mask. Exactly why Epic Fail Guy wore the mask is unknown, but Anonymous’s preference for the mask seems to have grown directly from this meme. As time went on, Epic Fail Guy began to appear almost exclusively wearing the mask.
Web usage[]
On October 15, 2006, YouTube user Chainsaw09 posted the video Epic Fail Guy on HW lan.
Through the various Epic Fail Guy threads, Epic Fail Guy became a beloved 4chan folklore figure. By 2008, a thread appeared in which Epic Fail Guy travels through time, explaining that he has always had the mask in 4chan's revisionist tradition.
Due to 4chan's numbering system utilized for tracking posts, Anonymous users has a long tradition of making a game out of the reply system. When the number begins to approach any significant hallmark, such as post ending in 000,000, an Anon will attempt to claim the post.
Project Chanology[]
By the time Project Chanology rolled around in January 2008, Anonymous chose to show up in meatspace wearing the Guy Fawkes masks, popularized by V for Vendetta as not out of tribute to the movie, but as a way of visually telling Scientology they were an “Epic Fail”.
External links[]
- Know Your Meme - Epic Fail Guy
Video[]
