It's Something

2010rage comicclassic

Published September 1, 2026

It's Something is a rage comic face used to convey resigned acceptance when a bad outcome comes with a small consolation prize. The stick figure with a half-weary shrug started on a Spanish humor site in December 2010 and became one of the go-to rage faces for reacting to plan-B letdowns.

Overview

The face pairs a tilted head with a small, weary half-smile that reads as 'well, at least there is this.' Comics typically build to a final panel where a character loses out on what they wanted but receives a much smaller consolation, with the It's Something face reacting to the swap 1. Common setups range from lottery near-misses and game show losses to romantic strikeouts and disappointing gifts.

The tone leans optimistic-adjacent rather than furious, which sets the character apart from most rage faces. Instead of the anger of Rage Guy or the flat defeat of Forever Alone, It's Something works as the visual version of a shrug plus a sigh, admitting the outcome is bad while quietly settling for the plan B on offer 1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr (creation) / Cuánto Cabrón (viral spread)
Creator
rcdb
Date
2010

The stick figure was drawn by a Tumblr blogger going by the handle rcdb sometime in 2010, though the original Tumblr post and the account itself are long gone 1. The face reached a wider audience through a comic titled 'Algo es algo' (translated from Spanish, roughly 'That is Something'), reuploaded to the Spanish rage-comic site Cuánto Cabrón on December 13, 2010 2.

The strip riffs on Pasapalabra, a long-running Spanish TV word game. A contestant loses a large cash jackpot in the first panel, the host tells him he still gets a prize, and the third panel reveals it is a board-game version of the same show. The final panel introduces the new rage face to express the character's mix of dejection and mild consolation 2.

How It Spread

The face spread first through the Spanish-language rage comic scene. In February 2011, humor site Taringa! ran a batch of 'It's Something' comics that pulled reader submissions in reply. A Facebook fan page launched on March 8, 2011 and eventually pulled more than 150,000 likes across two years, and that June a Spanish Yahoo! Answers post asked what the face actually meant 3.

The jump to English-speaking rage-comic communities came later that year. One of the earliest FunnyJunk uploads dates to October 24, 2011, and on February 26, 2012 the All The Rage Faces database added an entry for the character. By November 2012 examples were showing up on Reddit, and December 2012 brought posts on Memebase and Rage Collection 3.

In January 2013 a fan-made list on 20minutos.es voted It's Something among the top 25 rage faces on Cuánto Cabrón, and by February 2013 the site hosted more than 20 pages of comics using the face 3.

How to Use This Meme

A typical 'It's Something' comic runs three or four panels. The setup shows a character hoping for a specific outcome, like winning money, getting a date, or finding a good deal, the middle panel reveals the outcome fell through, and the final panel swaps in a cheap or absurd substitute with the It's Something face reacting. Text captions often keep the Spanish original 'algo es algo' or use an English variant such as 'well, it's something.' The joke lands when the substitute is technically related to the original goal but visibly worse.

Frequently Asked Questions