Troll Face/Cover Yourself in Oil
It is 2020 and the troll face has returned, covered in oil. But not just oil, he is drenched in blood.
Who is the Troll? A trickster, a joyful rogue, and a face from the ancient gallery. The troll face was used extensively in rage comics from the late 2000’s to the early 2010’s, His was the mask of Mischief, trickery and deceit. Why then, has he returned as a murderous, insane, and sometimes Divine figure? One whose simple tricks now turn to abominations?
To understand the symbolic value of the Troll, it doesn’t take much of a leap. In the Greek equivalent of the Troll, the Satyr, we see very similar characteristics. Satyrs are wild and tricky figures. Green Men who stalk the woods for victims to frighten, and then laugh it off with a song and wine.This mischief isn’t his alone though, he gets it from his father, Mercury. Mercury is the God of mischief, who in his first few days of life played brilliant tricks on Apollo, and went on to trick countless others. More proof of this symbolic relation is clear in tarot card memes, which intuitively grasped the Mercurial nature of the Troll face and Anonymous.
Before our big leap into symbolism, let’s take a closer look at the memes themselves.
For many of you watching, rage comics are some of the first memes you can remember, amusing life stories told through a series of stock masks. They were at their peak in 2009-2011, after this they became an object of disdain, remembered as a cringy trend and nothing more. The thing is, the rage faces never disappeared, they simply transmuted themselves into “funnier” more effective forms whenever necessary. But with these memetic evolutions, there were distinct changes in attitude, and in depth.
In my video on Doge I explored how memes evolved, and existed within the Memetic Triad, the Relatable, the Surreal and the Ironic. Doge was a progress from “relatable” and structured Advice Animals, into a more surreal, stream of consciousness. With the movement toward ironic memes, we saw Doge return, now an object of horror. This new Doge is tortured and a torturer. And with this new role we witnessed the return of top text and bottom text, now utilized as ironic tools, rather than as a format itself. The return of the Troll face in a new evil form mirrors Doge’s evolution in a significant way, both were emblematic of their initial segment of the triad, and when brought back, they returned in a far more morbid and ironic way.
Now for the significance of this phenomena, why do good things from the past return in the form of evil? This trend is responsible not only for memes like “Who is Joe?", but for the popular creepy pasta and related art style of evil “lost episodes” of children’s shows, or secret horrific elements in an innocent story.
This division between the good past and the wicked present, or future is the very source of Christian Teleology. In like a lamb, out like a Lion. Christ is split in two across time, the Christ we knew, who was a sacrificial lamb, and the Christ to come, the vengeful Lion of Judah. While this isn’t “Good and Evil” it is a clear division of self. One that Carl Jung believed ran across the very heart of Christianity.
When the magi found the child Christ, they did so using Astrology. They witnessed the precession of the aeons, an equinox of the Gods, and knew we had entered the Age of Pisces. This is why Piscean Fish symbolism runs across the story of Christ and the Church. The only issue is that Pisces is made up of TWO fish. Christ, the Good Fish, and the Anti-Christ, the Bad Fish. Equally, God and Satan, Good and Evil, etc. This division was not recognized as inherent to the nature of man, the Good side was upheld as the only side, and Evil side was repressed in our nature and projected into demons. Of course, what is repressed does not stay down forever. The coming of the Anti-Christ, the Supremacy of the Devil is promised in the upholding of Christ and Dominion of God.
While this may seem very distant, and almost ridiculous, to compare religions to silly internet memes, when we recognize the significance of symbolism, the unconscious symbolism inherent to all human expression is given a brilliance. When one thinks symbolically, or realizes the “memes matter”, they bear witness to ancient dramas occurring again and again across time, and in the most bizarre places. Man’s striving for meaning, for pleasure, for power, all are contextualized in the narrative of life. The Troll face returning in a wicked form, Christ returning as a Lion, human nature returning as Anti-Christ. All of these are expressions of one story. No matter how vulgar a joke, it tells a truth. As always, Memes Matter.