# Pain Reddit and Twitter users started placing the word "pain" over melancholy photos of celebrities and fictional characters in 2019, often styled as a fake tweet or a doctor's questionnaire asking "How do you manage pain?" The format, known as Pain / How Do You Manage Pain?, peaked on July 10, 2020, when a Sad Will Smith Photoshop with a fake "pain" tweet gained over 10,000 likes on Twitter. ## Origin Redditor TrifKeske, posting to r/2meirl4meirl on September 23, 2019, uploaded the earliest confirmed survey-style post, pairing a Venom Snake image with a "How do you manage pain?" questionnaire overlay; the post gained 334 upvotes over six months [1]. Related "pain" overlay images date back to 2017, though no single first author has been confirmed [6]. - **Platform:** Reddit (origin) / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2019 ## Overview Posts in this family pair a glum photograph with the word "pain" shown as a fake Twitter screenshot, a hospital pain-scale form, or a flat text overlay [6]. Recurring subjects include Venom Snake from Metal Gear [1], ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith [5], and the Sad Will Smith paparazzi photo [8]. The extended line "Pain. Just Lots Of Pain. Smiling Through It All." became its own tagline through a January 2020 Twitter thread [3]. Templates split into two shapes. One overlays a fake "pain" tweet onto an image, as if the photo subject had posted it. The other borrows a medical pain survey layout, filling every response with "A lot" or "All the time." Both rely on the gap between a sad picture and a flat, resigned one-word confession, read either as sincere relatability or ironic self-pity. ## How to Use Creators typically overlay a one-word "pain" fake tweet or a medical-survey template onto a photo of a character known for hidden suffering [1]. Subject choice matters more than caption variation, with Venom Snake and Sad Will Smith as recurring picks [8]. Captions often stay to a single word or the "Smiling Through It All" tag [3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Pain? Pain is an image macro format pairing sad photos of celebrities or fictional characters with the word "pain," styled as a fake Twitter screenshot or a medical pain-scale questionnaire [6]. ### Where did Pain come from? The earliest documented survey-style post appeared on r/2meirl4meirl on September 23, 2019, from Redditor TrifKeske using a Venom Snake image from Metal Gear [1]. ### What does Pain mean? Posts use "pain" as a flat, one-word caption over a sad image, read as sincere relatability or ironic self-pity by viewers [3]. ### How do you use Pain? Users typically overlay a one-word "pain" fake tweet or a medical questionnaire onto an image of a character known for hidden suffering, like Venom Snake [1] or Sad Will Smith [8]. ### Is Pain still popular? Visibility peaked in July and August 2020 on Twitter after the Sad Will Smith edit gained over 10,000 likes, and the template now functions as a classic reaction image [8]. ## References 1. [https://www.reddit.com/r/2meirl4meirl/comments/d81qf2/2iamgonnafuckingdoittoday4meirl/]() 2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/dccp9u/pain_leads_to_suffering/]() 3. [https://twitter.com/ultra15151/status/1222710606110871553]() 4. [https://ifunny.co/picture/pain-just-lots-of-pain-195-smiling-through-it-all-OIS5wCWO7]() 5. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/fuq8kj/s_i_m_p/]() 6. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pain-how-do-you-manage-pain]() 7. [https://twitter.com/MightyKeef/status/1257325569311682575]() 8. [https://twitter.com/ken_glc/status/1281744614114963456]() 9. [https://twitter.com/waynethegreat51/status/1281793892950704129]() 10. [https://twitter.com/VampireSilk/status/1289657423364595713]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/pain-how-do-you-manage-pain Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library