A starter pack, also referred to as a starterpack or starter kit, is an internet meme meant to describe or illustrate a stereotypical person, place, culture, object, or opinion. [1]
The starter pack meme originates back to September 27, 2014 when a Twitter user under the username of ItsLadinaPlis posted the "I Date Black Guys Starter Pack". The name, "starter pack", was originally used for sets of collectibles to start a collection; however, the name "starter kit" for usage of memes dates back to 2011 on use of "crazy cat lady" lolcat memes. [2]
Starter pack memes are now most popular on Reddit on the "r/starterpacks" Subreddit.
A starter pack is usually an arrangement of 4 or more images on a white background. The title "X starterpack" (where X is replaced with the stereotype) is written in a plain black serif font. The images are generally neutral depictions of clothing or other items the stereotype is generally seen with, but might also show locations, behaviors, or other ideas associated with the stereotype. Sometimes text in plain black serif font describes behavior or gives phrases the stereotype might say.
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque and § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist and § Other or mixed.
A typeface is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
Arial is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 3.1, as well as in other Microsoft programs, Apple's macOS, and many PostScript 3 printers.
Lucida is an extended family of related typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes and released from 1984 onwards. The family is intended to be extremely legible when printed at small size or displayed on a low-resolution display – hence the name, from 'lucid'.
Cambria is a transitional serif typeface commissioned by Microsoft and distributed with Windows and Office. It was designed by Dutch typeface designer Jelle Bosma in 2004, with input from Steve Matteson and Robin Nicholas. It is intended as a serif font that is suitable for body text, that is very readable printed small or displayed on a low-resolution screen and has even spacing and proportions.
Impact is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or grotesque style designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 and released by the Stephenson Blake foundry of Sheffield. It is well known for having been included in the core fonts for the Web package and distributed with Microsoft Windows since Windows 98. In the 2010s, it gained popularity for its use in image macros and other internet memes.
Reddit is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "communities" or "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are not Reddit employees. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.
Steve Huffman, also known by his Reddit username spez, is an American web developer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Reddit, a social news and discussion website, which ranks in the top 20 websites in the world. He also co-founded the airfare search engine website Hipmunk, which shut down in 2020.
Some communities on the social news site Reddit are devoted to explicit, violent, or hateful material, and have been the topic of controversy, sometimes receiving significant media coverage.
Doge is an Internet meme that became popular in 2013. The meme consists of a picture of a Shiba Inu dog, accompanied by multicolored text in Comic Sans font in the foreground. The text, representing a kind of internal monologue, is deliberately written in a form of broken English. The meme originally and most frequently uses an image of a Shiba Inu named Kabosu, though versions with other Shiba Inus are also popular.
Countryballs, also known as Polandball, is a geopolitical satirical art style, genre, and Internet meme, predominantly used in online comics strips in which countries or political entities are personified as balls with eyes, decorated with their national flags. Comics feature the characters in various scenarios, generally poking fun at national stereotypes, international relations, and historical events, with the balls moving about by walking or jumping. Other common features in Countryball strips include non-English countries speaking in broken English — with vocabularies of their national languages included — political incorrectness, and black comedy. Strips are generally created using Microsoft Paint or more advanced graphic art software, often made to intentionally look crudely drawn.
Kyle Edward Craven, commonly known by his Internet nickname "Bad Luck Brian", is an American Internet celebrity known for his ubiquitous photo posted on Reddit in 2012, which quickly became a popular Internet meme. Bad Luck Brian is an image macro style of meme. His captions describe a variety of unlucky, embarrassing and tragic events.
r/The_Donald was a subreddit where participants created discussions and Internet memes in support of U.S. president Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community grew to over 790,000 subscribers who described themselves as "Patriots". The community was banned in June 2020 for violating Reddit rules on harassment and targeting. It was ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.
r/place is a recurring collaborative project and social experiment hosted on the content aggregator site Reddit. Originally launched on April Fools' Day 2017, it has since been repeated again on April Fools' Day 2022 and on July 20, 2023.
Wojak, also known as Feels Guy, is an Internet meme that is, in its original form, a simple, black-outlined cartoon drawing of a bald man with a wistful expression.
r/wallstreetbets, also known as WallStreetBets or WSB, is a subreddit where participants discuss stock and option trading. It has become notable for its colorful and profane jargon, aggressive trading strategies, and for playing a major role in the GameStop short squeeze that caused losses for some US firms and short sellers in a few days in early 2021.
Karen is a slang term typically used to refer to a middle-class white American woman who is perceived as entitled or excessively demanding. The term is often portrayed in memes depicting middle-class white women who "use their white and class privilege to demand their own way". Depictions include demanding to "speak to the manager", being racist, or wearing a particular bob cut hairstyle. It was popularized in the aftermath of the Central Park birdwatching incident in 2020.
The Happy Merchant is a common name for an image depicting an antisemitic caricature of a Jewish man. The image appears commonly on websites such as 4chan or Reddit, where it is frequently used in hateful or disparaging contexts.
r/antiwork is a subreddit associated with contemporary labor movements, critique of work, corporate capitalism and the anti-work movement. The forum's slogan reads: "Unemployment for all, not just the rich!" Posts on the forum commonly describe employees' negative experiences at work, dissatisfaction with working conditions, and unionization. Various actions that have been promoted on the subreddit include a consumer boycott of Black Friday as well as the submission of fake jobs applications to the Kellogg Company after the company announced plans to replace 1,400 striking workers during the 2021 Kellogg's strike. The popularity of r/antiwork increased in 2020 and 2021, and the subreddit gained 900,000 subscribers in 2021 alone, accumulating nearly 1,700,000 subscribers by the end of the year. It is often associated with other ideologically similar subreddits such as r/latestagecapitalism. r/antiwork has been compared to the Occupy Wall Street movement due to the subreddit's intellectual foundations and decentralized ethos.
The Herman Cain Award is an ironic award given to people who expressed hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines or face masks, who later died from COVID-19 or its complications. The award is named after American businessman and political figure Herman Cain, a Republican politician who died of COVID-19 complications after attending a 2020 Trump Tulsa rally in support of then-President Donald Trump without wearing a face mask. Cain had publicly tweeted the disease was not deadly and discouraged people from taking it seriously. A text label which says "Awarded" is emblazoned on the conversation thread containing evidence and community discussions of a third party's anti-COVID mitigation positions and their subsequent death.