Angry stick figure mob dragging yellow-shirted character past a calm bystander from Owlturd's Missed the Point comic

Missed The Point

2016exploitable comicclassic

Published September 6, 2026

Missed The Point is a 4-panel webcomic by artist Shenanigansen that flipped its own message of tolerance into a fit of rage in the last panel. Published on May 11, 2016, the strip cleared 78,000 Tumblr notes inside 48 hours1 and spawned an exploitable format that dominated political meme threads during the 2016 US election cycle.

webcomic memes exploitable templates bait and switch memes multi panel memes hypocrisy memes

Overview

The joke sits in the reversal. In the first three panels of Missed The Point, a man in a heart sweater lectures another character about defining yourself by what you love instead of what you hate, sounding earnest and preachy1. In the last panel, the other character names something the sweater guy hates, and the sweater guy has to be physically held back from attacking him2.

The original strip made that trigger word 'Donald Trump,' which is what dragged the comic straight into the middle of the 2016 US presidential race7. Once an exploitable version stripped the final panel of dialogue, anyone could drop in their own trigger3. Common edits swap the Trump line for safe spaces, a rival fandom, a video game review score, or a relative's food question. The setup stays didactic and the payoff stays violent, which is where the humor lives.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr (source) / Imgur & Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
Shenanigansen
Date
2016

Artist Shenanigansen published the strip on May 11, 2016, as part of his Owl Turd webcomic series1. In it, a character wearing a red heart sweater tries to talk a placard-holding protester into identifying with the stuff he likes rather than the stuff he hates. When the protester answers 'Donald Trump,' the final panel cuts to the sweater guy mid-lunge, being restrained by another figure7. The Tumblr post cleared roughly 78,000 notes inside 48 hours7.

How It Spread

Shenanigansen reposted Missed The Point to Imgur the same day, where it pulled around 29,000 points and 315,000 views in the next two days2. A few hours later, Imgur user EternalSession uploaded a blank template with the last panel scrubbed of dialogue, opening the door for remixes34.

Editing started immediately. On May 12, Imgur user Shining1 posted a version aimed at college safe space discourse that took more than 120,000 views and 870 points in a day5. Redditor boldfilter cross-posted the original strip to /r/The_Donald, where it collected about 1,300 votes at 86% upvoted inside 24 hours7. The next day, Imgur user Odinn ran the format with a grandma pushing more food on her grandson, picking up 1,400 points and 140,000 views in a few hours6.

How to Use This Meme

To make a Missed The Point edit, keep the heart-sweater character's tolerance speech intact in the first three panels and swap only the trigger line in panel four for whatever the target audience is assumed to hate3. The final panel typically shows him being physically restrained, so the joke reads as performative tolerance breaking on contact with the wrong opinion7.

Frequently Asked Questions