KC Green published the comic on January 9, 2013, as Gunshow comic #648, titled "On Fire" with the alt text "The Pills Are Working"4. Green was 25 at the time, living alone in Massachusetts, far from his family in Oklahoma1. He had recently started taking antidepressants and was scared the medication would change who he was as an artist1.

"I was still struggling with myself, with getting my anti-depressants and stuff right," Green told The Verge in 2016. "You know, every now and then you have these off days where shit is worse, but you're trying to ignore it"7. The comic wasn't planned as anything special. Green had a self-imposed schedule for Gunshow updates and needed to get a strip out. "It kind of feels like you just have to ignore all the insanity around you like a burning house," he told NPR. "And the comic just ended up writing itself after that"2.

Adult Swim paid Green to animate the full comic as a channel bumper, with Dana Snyder providing the voice. They produced 10 total animated bumpers based on different Gunshow comics7. The "This Is Fine" animation aired on the network in early 2016.

The meme became a go-to reference during every major crisis of the 2010s and 2020s. SB Nation used it to caption devastating sports moments, calling it "the perfect meme for sports" because of how often athletes must accept forces beyond their control6. Dictionary.com added an entry for "This is fine" explaining its ironic usage12.

In January 2023, both NPR and The Atlantic published retrospectives for the meme's 10th anniversary. The Atlantic described it as "the meme that defined a decade" and traced how its meaning had shifted from personal self-deprecation to a broader commentary on political inaction and institutional failure13.

Green built a real business around the meme through his TopatoCo store, selling prints, shirts, mugs, and the crowd-funded Question Hound plush toy7. "I basically try to monopolize this one image, because, hey, if people want it, I could use it," he told The Verge7. A "This Is Fine" Funko Pop figure also went into production2.

The meme's shift from personal coping joke to political commentary happened in the summer of 2016. On July 25, the Republican National Committee tweeted the two panels from its official @GOP Twitter account during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, adding a shrug emoticon and the hashtags #DemsInPhilly and #EnoughClinton4. Green was not pleased. He fired back on Twitter, saying he "personally would like @GOP to delete their stupid post" and later adding "the gop account can eat me"9. His merchandise partner TopatoCo also replied: "please know that the artist is fervently against all that you support"9.

What made the moment richer was that political cartoon site The Nib had already beaten the GOP to the joke. They'd commissioned Green to draw a new version replacing the dog with the Republican elephant, and it was already hanging in a Philadelphia art gallery when the GOP tweet went out5. "When we saw the GOP's tweet going around in a pathetic attempt to be hip with memes, we saw the opportunity for a good own," The Nib's founder Matt Bors told the Observer5. The Nib's response tweet got 50 percent more retweets than the original GOP post5.

On August 3, 2016, Green published a full sequel on The Nib titled "This Is Not Fine." In this version, the dog snaps out of his calm, screams "THIS IS NOT FINE!!", grabs a fire extinguisher, and puts out the flames. "ALL of 2016 inspired this," Green told The Verge. "Every bit of insane news piece and the political climate made this follow up happen"3.

After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, indie developer Nick Kaman released a free web-based 8-bit game inspired by the comic on November 13, 2016. Players controlled the dog and used a fire extinguisher that sprayed hearts to put out flames. It got over 10,000 plays within its first month4. "I really just wanted to put something out there," Kaman said. "The entire idea came at once on election night"8. Green himself was surprised by the game: "It hit me with nice feelings. Especially when all the other little friends came in to chill with you"8.

The meme crossed into literal political speech on August 1, 2018, when North Carolina Senator Richard Burr referenced it during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian election interference. "Some feel that we as a society are sitting in a burning room, calmly drinking a cup of coffee, telling ourselves 'this is fine,'" Burr said. "That's not fine"11. The irony was thick: a senator invoked a meme during a hearing about how foreign governments had used memes to manipulate American politics10.

By the time the meme turned 10 in January 2023, Green had made peace with his creation's oversized legacy. He'd collaborated with Adult Swim on animated bumpers featuring the comic, with Dana Snyder (voice of Master Shake) voicing the dog7. A Kickstarter for a Question Hound plush toy kept selling out, and there was even a "This Is Fine" Funko Pop2. Green compared his comic to Robert Crumb's "Keep On Truckin'" cartoons from the 1960s and 70s, noting a similar spirit of perseverance in absurd times9.

But Green always wanted people to see his other work too. He completed a comic adaptation of Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio that he was proud of1. And in his ongoing webcomic Funny Online Animals, where Question Hound still appeared, he hinted at retiring the character. "It's going to have kind of an eerie, noir turn," he told NPR in 2023. "I think after that, I might lay him to rest for a while"2.

"How I'll be remembered is, again, out of my hands," Green told CBC Radio. "So if it happens to be this or any of the other number of memes that have been made out of my work, then that's just what it is, I guess"1.