The social media project has a similar number of followers on its social media pages. 83.7k people follow it on Instagram, and 76.1k internet users do so on Twitter.

It’s the kind of cursed images content that really makes you stop in your tracks while you’re scrolling because it stands out from the crowd so much. It’s weird. It’s often less than aesthetic. And it really gets your neurons fired up as they try to comprehend the (often) incomprehensible.

Cursed photos are actually quite popular on the internet. Many pages focus exclusively on these weird pictures and memes.

Their primary goal is usually to shock or unsettle the audience and provide an alternative to all the gorgeous and cute content people are used to seeing when they go online. Cursed meme photos get a lot of attention because they contrast against conventional content that usually goes viral, like cat pics, work memes, and parenting tweets.

Know Your Meme points out that cursed photos are supposed to be disturbing to the viewer, at least on some level. So, they might feature illogical or abnormal content, and the photos themselves might be low-quality, which adds to the overall effect.

In short, if you feel uncomfortable looking at a specific meme, it’s probably ‘cursed.’ Though, of course, we all have different levels of tolerance for weird content. A photo of a bizarre doll might be just another meme on someone’s feed, but someone who’s used to the gentler side of the net might find it extremely creepy. Meanwhile, cursed animal photos and pics of insects might make most people shiver and scroll faster past all the yucky stuff.

Cursed photos are generally seen as the opposite of ‘blessed’ content (think cuteness, wholesomeness, and stuff so heartwarming it might accidentally restore your faith in humanity). Meanwhile, pics that are both cursed and blessed are dubbed ‘blursed’: images that are wholesome and unsettling at the same time.  

The term for these scary cursed photos first popped up online in late 2015 after a Tumblr blog dedicated to this style of weird content was created. These types of memes spread on the site and later jumped over to Twitter in mid-2016. That’s when cursed pics got the attention of the media, from The New Yorker to Gizmodo.

From then on, accounts dedicated to cursed meme photos started popping up all over the net, from Reddit to—more recently—TikTok. Images aren’t the only cursed stuff you’ll find online, though. For instance, any comments that are upsetting and unexpected can be called ‘cursed.’ Meanwhile, the same extends to emojis: cursed emojis are glitchy and unaesthetic, and they would probably live in Uncanny Valley if it were a real place.

For any funny meme to go viral, it must find a way to resonate with its audience. Broadly speaking, the more relatable a topic or image is, the more likely people are to ‘vibe’ with it. Adding in a big dollop of humor can help, too. After all, who doesn’t enjoy having a good, long laugh to take their mind off stress?

However, you can also stand out by going the opposite route. Instead of wholesome and funny, you have disturbing and confusing. And in a time where we’re all bombarded by countless cute memes every single day, these sorts of funny cursed photos can genuinely seem ‘fresh’ even if they make you raise your eyebrows and mumble, ‘What the everloving frick is going on?’

Tell us, dear Pandas, which of these cursed photos creeped you out the most? Which ones did you actually enjoy the most? Were there any that you genuinely would love to unsee? Are you fans of weird content, or do you prefer stuff that’s closer to being ‘blessed’ on the meme spectrum? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.