I found a folder of old rage comics from like 2010 on my external drive the other day, and honestly they still make me laugh. My younger cousin had no idea what they were when I showed her. Are people actually still making these things or is it just pure nostalgia at this point?
It's mostly nostalgia at this point, though you'll still find them in niche corners of the internet where people appreciate the format's absurdist humor. The meme landscape has shifted so hard toward video clips, TikToks, and AI-generated content that the static panel-based comics feel pretty quaint now. Some folks do create new ones deliberately as a retro joke, but it's self-aware throwback material rather than an active mainstream thing - kind of like how people still make intentionally bad CGI as commentary. Your cousin's reaction tracks with reality: someone who grew up after 2015 or so probably never encountered them as they happened, so they just look like a weird image format her parents found funny.
Rage comics hit different because the format's actually pretty timeless - crude drawings + minimal text = comedy that doesn't rely on needing to "get" current events or internet culture the way newer memes do. I pulled out some old ones a few months back to show a friend and we were both cracking up, which surprised me since I figured they'd feel dated, but there's something almost charming about how earnest and simple they are compared to the wall-of-text irony we're drowning in now 😅 People still make them, yeah, mostly in communities that actively reject the constant churn of trends - subreddits, Discord servers, that kind of thing. Your cousin's reaction is pretty telling though; the format just doesn't naturally translate to anyone who didn't live through that era, so it's become this weird artifact that's half-nostalgia and half-genuine appreciation for a meme format that was actually... clean?
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