From Doomscrolling to Bloomscrolling

The environmentally friendly alternative to yeeting billionaires into space.

Back in the Summer of 2023 I got a bit grumpy about what had become of a certain social network for bird fanciers. It was hard to escape the fact that the same person responsible for that sad state of affairs had been something of a personal inspiration, even if the brain worms were now in the driving seat.

So much of an inspiration that like a dummy I had even bought a branded t-shirt from one of this person’s companies. Yep, with my own money. And to think I nearly bought one of their cars too… I decided to mod the t-shirt in the most appropriate way possible - by replacing the corporate brand with some silly cartoons I found on teh Interwebs, coupled with a witty (in my mind, at least) caption:

Photo of a grey t-shirt which has been modified with thermal transfer prints, completely obscuring the original corporate branding. There are two cartoon panels. One features a blue bird wearing a hat and drinking from a cup of dark liquid. Around the blue bird, fires are raging. The other panel shows a mastodon sat on would have to be quite a large chair. The mastodon is holding a plant pot and is surrounded by verdant greenery. Both panels have the protagonist saying ‘This Is Fine’, but we all know the truth. Under the cartoons is the hashtag #DoomScrolling in Comic Sans font, except the word Doom has been struck through and replaced with Bloom in bold, making the hashtag #BloomScrolling.

For this Mayke I thought I would see if I could find the origins of the This Is Fine meme. Turns out it was created by comic artist KC Green as part of their Gunshow comic strip. NPR has a great 2023 interview with KC wherein we learn that the dog is called Question Hound. We also discover that:

In the comic’s current storyline, Question Hound has disappeared into the woods in a crazed state.

And really, who can blame them?

If the This Is Fine meme has sparked joy, or at least made things a bit more bearable, you can support KC by buying stuff from their online shop or support them directly.

But where did the mastodon-themed version of the meme come from? I did a bit of digging (online, not in the garden), and it seems to have started out life as a simple transposition of Question Hound into a garden or maybe greenhouse type setting:

Question Hound, the dog from the This Is Fine meme, in the same garden/greenhouse setting as the mastodon from above. Shown in a post on a once popular social network which was aimed at the image conscious.

The creator of this revised This Is Fine meme is an artist called Shooley (shooley.art) who has a hidden shop of cute stickers and things - go check it out! You can also support Shooley directly.

Who made the Bluebird variant of the meme? Did Shooley create the mastodon variant? It’s unclear, and this post is starting to get quite long. However, I do know that the first time I saw the mastodon variant was this post by Lazarou Monkey Terror:

Mastodon post (toot) from Lazarou Monkey Terror, showing the same background but this time with the mastodon rather than Question Hound.

And at some point I came across this post by Aaron Toponce which combined the two images:

Mastodon post (toot) from Aaron Toponce, showing the Bluebird This Is Fine meme next to the Mastodon This Is Fine meme.

And it was this lovely combination that I decided to adapt for my own t-shirt hack, using the technique described in this related post.

Once upon a time this t-shirt was cursed:

Cursed t-shirt showing the words Occupy Mars next to an image of the red planet.

But now, it is blessed:

Photo shows the hacked t-shirt hanging up in front of a wardrobe. There is no trace of the original design.

Perform your own t-shirt exorcism