Four-panel Oney comic of New Guy chatting with purple-haired coworker who rejects his friendship

New Guy

2019webcomic character / reaction imageclassic

Published August 1, 2026

New Guy is a character from a December 2019 webcomic by artist Mallorie Jessica Udischas (sweetbeans99) who tries to temper his coworker's laughter at PewDiePie getting robbed3. After the comic went viral on Twitter in early 2020, fans reframed the mild-mannered coworker as a wholesome hero and flooded the platform with sympathetic fan art4.

webcomic memes redraw challenge memes wholesome memes dialogue edit memes tumblr memes

Overview

New Guy is the nickname fans gave to a mild-mannered coworker character in a four-panel webcomic drawn by artist Mallorie Jessica Udischas, who posts as sweetbeans993. In the strip, a purple-haired protagonist laughs about a wealthy gamer getting robbed, and the coworker, whose name tag literally reads 'NEW GUY,' interjects with 'Hey, how'd you like it if you were robbed?'3

Rather than side with the protagonist, Twitter fixated on the polite bystander. The character was quickly recast as a wholesome underdog, and edits kept the coworker's earnest dialogue while rewriting the protagonist's punchlines4. The wave of sympathetic fan art also sparked a parallel argument about whether the affection for New Guy was disguised harassment aimed at the original artist1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr (source comic) / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
Mallorie Jessica Udischas
Date
2019

The comic was published on December 8, 2019, on sweetbeans99's Tumblr, six days after PewDiePie and Marzia Kjellberg's home was reportedly robbed on December 2, 20193. Readers immediately interpreted the purple-haired lead's laughter as the author mocking PewDiePie, while the coworker's line about empathy stood out as the only sincere beat in the strip3.

The artist, Mallorie Jessica Udischas, had been drawing autobiographical-style comics under the sweetbeans99 handle for years before the strip attracted mainstream attention3.

How It Spread

The comic jumped to Twitter in late December 2019, but the breakout moment came on January 1, 2020, when animator OneyNG posted it with the caption 'I wanted to start my year good but this was the first thing I saw today,' pulling in more than 2,000 retweets and 24,000 likes2. Replies filled with redraws, and @PaladinDraws' version, in which the protagonist actually takes New Guy's advice, gained over 950 retweets and 8,700 likes5. @Oh_Turbo_Nerd added a Loss edit that cleared 290 retweets6.

Fan art quickly overtook the joke edits. @Lynthoraxs drew New Guy asking people not to attack sweetbeans99, and @sauceelf shared art by @kryanari campaigning to make him the first wholesome meme of 2020, which crossed 150 retweets and 790 likes3. Cheezburger picked up the trend the same week3.

The backlash arrived just as fast. On January 1, 2020, the artist tweeted that her mentions were overrun by users calling her ugly before locking the account3. Twitter user @aNerdskull argued the wholesome framing was cover for a Gamergate-style pile-on against LGBTQ+ critics of Oney and PewDiePie, and @casersatz called the New Guy edits 'a tad disingenuous' in a thread that topped 3,700 likes within a day3.

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How to Use This Meme

New Guy edits typically keep the original panel layout and the coworker's earnest dialogue, then rewrite the purple-haired character's lines so the strip lands as either heartwarming or absurd. A common convention is to redraw the final panel so the protagonist accepts his kindness instead of rejecting it. The character alone also works as a wholesome reaction image.

Frequently Asked Questions