Style combination · Contrasts

Internet Ugly × Korean Variety-Show Captions

Use a short outlined phrase for an immediate joke, but retain the programme's controlled lettering repertoire and clean compositing rather than adopting amateur damage or a fixed Impact image-macro template.

From the research on Korean Variety-Show Captions (Yeneung Jamak)

Mix them and make something Internet Ugly Korean Variety-Show Captions

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Internet Ugly, their arrangement from Korean Variety-Show Captions, the finish from Korean Variety-Show Captions. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular Korean Variety-Show Captions (Yeneung Jamak)

Type from Internet Ugly: All caps
Condensed display
Colour from Internet Ugly: Full polychrome
Flat fields
Form from Internet Ugly: Stylised figuration
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Korean Variety-Show Captions: Layered information
Dynamic asymmetry
Surface from Korean Variety-Show Captions: Hard offset shadow
Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Internet Ugly

Yay!

Anton, standing in for Impact (Geoffrey Lee, Stephenson Blake, 1965), set white with a black outline

Text · Korean Variety-Show Captions

An editor-authored caption voice layered over South Korean variety-show footage: outlined Hangul, selective colour, changing type styles and occasional illustrated containers turn speech and situations into comic commentary. Usually placed low in the frame or beside a performer, the words emphasise a reaction or interpret an event rather than merely transcribe it. Unlike danmaku, this is part of the edited programme, not a removable chorus of viewers' messages.

Jost; Korean Variety-Show Captions used Hangul gothic (고딕체) sans-serif lettering and Brush-like Hangul calligraphy (캘리그래피체)

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Internet Ugly, with a counter-accent from Korean Variety-Show Captions. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular Korean Variety-Show Captions (Yeneung Jamak)

#ffffff ground · 36%
#000000 ink · 14%
#00a2e8 accent · 18%
#f6d72e accent · 14%
#ff7f27 accent · 10%
#e94732 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ffffff;
  --ink: #000000;
  --accent-1: #00a2e8;
  --accent-2: #f6d72e;
  --accent-3: #ff7f27;
  --accent-4: #e94732;
  --font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular: Most meme templates are photographs of real people, often children, or licensed stock. Success Kid is Laney Griner's son: the photo has been licensed to advertisers, and in January 2020 she sent a cease-and-desist letter to a congressman whose fundraising campaign used it without permission. Distracted Boyfriend is microstock, and its photographer says use without a proper licence is not allowed. License a template or make a new picture for commercial or political work. Check what a format means now: some characters that spread through 4chan were taken up as hate symbols (the ADL listed Pepe the Frog, Matt Furie's 2005 Boy's Club character, in 2016, while noting that most uses are not hateful). Reaction images of Black people posted by non-Black users and brands read as digital blackface (Lauren Michele Jackson, Teen Vogue, 2017), and deep-fried memes came out of Black Twitter, so credit where formats come from. When brands and campaigns borrow a format, its makers often protest or drop it (Douglas).

Korean Variety-Show Captions (Yeneung Jamak): Interpretive captions are editorial statements, not necessarily words spoken by the person on screen. Keep quotations distinct from commentary, avoid turning gender stereotypes or ridicule into a default visual code, and provide separate accurate accessibility captions where needed. Programme footage, logos and commercial fonts remain subject to their own rights; this entry grants no permission to reproduce them.

The two styles

2003–present · Global / networked, North America Internet Ugly & Meme Vernacular A deliberately amateur image dialect of forums, imageboards and social feeds, named 'Internet Ugly' by Nick Douglas in 2014. Figures are drawn with a mouse in MS Paint, photos are found and crudely pasted together, and captions shout in white Impact capitals with a black outline, top and bottom, or in Comic Sans. Re-saving and 'deep-frying' wear the pixels down. The joke's setup and punchline are the layout, and every template is made for a crowd to copy; some are clean stock photos that only the labels make a meme. 1994–present · East Asia Korean Variety-Show Captions (Yeneung Jamak) An editor-authored caption voice layered over South Korean variety-show footage: outlined Hangul, selective colour, changing type styles and occasional illustrated containers turn speech and situations into comic commentary. Usually placed low in the frame or beside a performer, the words emphasise a reaction or interpret an event rather than merely transcribe it. Unlike danmaku, this is part of the edited programme, not a removable chorus of viewers' messages.