Trollface
Where it came from
Drawn in MS Paint in 2008 by Carlos Ramirez ("Whynne") and posted to DeviantArt, originally as a comic about trolling people on forums. The face quickly outgrew the comic and became the mascot of internet trolling itself.
That smug, stretched, mischievous grin is the universal symbol for "I did that on purpose and I'm enjoying your reaction." Trollface is what you post when someone's been deliberately winding people up, or when you're the one doing it and you want everyone to know you know exactly what you're doing.
It started as a crude MS Paint comic about trolling people on forums, and the face immediately outgrew the joke. "Problem?" and "U MAD?" became the whole vocabulary of early-2010s trolling, plastered over every rage comic and forum reply. For a few years it was the single most recognizable face on the internet.
Nobody uses it earnestly anymore. It died with the rage comic era, but unlike the rest of that cast it refused to fully disappear. It hangs around as a permanent icon, dragged out ironically whenever someone wants to signal old-internet goblin energy. You don't post Trollface to troll now. You post it to say "remember trolling?"
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