About
Le X face is a series of image macros featuring black and white drawings of popular images along with a caption following the formula “le X face”, where X is a humorous misnaming of the original image, and “face” is sometimes left out if X represents more than one word.
Origin
Over the course of 2011, /v/ on 4chan developed a big obsession with Reddit, often expressing frustration with Reddit stealing their memes and running them into the ground, and worry about whether they would steal an image there known as Feelguy, which had a great popularity on the boards. December 2nd, 2011, a rage comic was uploaded to Reddit featuring the image, along with the caption “le voldemort face”. [1], tricking /v/ users into believing the meme had been stolen.
The Reddit obsession continued, and /v/ decided to vectorize some image macros with “le”, in order to parody Reddit and see if Reddit would steal them, and some more “le X face”s were created.
Spread
The drawings spread all over 4chan, and more le X faces has been created and are still created. Le X faces can be seen all over 4chan, also referenced to purely by text, referencing well known le X faces or captions that could exist on a drawing, but does not yet exist. The formula has also been applied to the ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) smiley, giving it the name “le lenny face”, and the facial expressions commonly associated with Dreamworks movies has been called “le dreamworks face”.
Some popular le faces
le monkey face
One of the most popular le faces is le monkey face, a vectorized version of the Gorilla Munch image associated with “rustling jimmies”. It has spawned the parody image “lemon key face”, and there has also been created a Facebook page which currently has more than 15000 likes. It has also been taken into use in rage comics, but with the caption “Monkey Trouble” rather than “le monkey face”.
le happy merchant
Le happy merchant is parodying the stereotypical jew, and is often used is spurdo comics, where he is tricking Americans into thinking he is their “greatest ally”, while actually working to enrich himself and promoting pro-jewish world.
Origin
The origin of the “le” saying originated from a 2003 video entitled End of Ze World. It became popular in 2009 when a rage comic used it
External References
[1]Reddit – le voldemort face: http://www.reddit.com/r/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu/comments/myb1t/le_voldemort_face / Posted on 12-2-2011
Spread and Popularity
I’m gonna let someone else work on this bit – rukario1122