Absolutely. I agree. I’m not against expressing pain and personal struggle in art. Some of my favorite art pieces are exacly that and it feels extremely personal. It’s exacly as you say: the problem of loss is not that it expresses pain, suffering, etc, but that it feels weird in the sudden tone shift, style and with the funny gaming webcomic context. Not that a tone shift can never work, but i wouldn’t say it did in this case.

I’m guessing part of fhe meme being successfull is because a lot of people felt that way. It’s definitely art, but art comes with the ivitation of being up for interpretation and criticism.

In a way, the meme turned that four panel comic into a whole seperate artpiece, one that is born from and does express the awkwardness in a way.