Memes are a fascinating reflection of the world which births them. The mid-2000s saw plenty of straightforward offerings like rage comics and demotivational posters, expressing the deceptive surface-level simplicity of the time. The 2010s brought in complete and utter nonsense, both in terms of memes and just in general. Now the past 2 years have inspired some painful creativity from artists and meme creators, and aside from those being 2 concepts that frankly should never share a sentence, the pain and uncertainty of the time come through remarkably well in these mediums. Case in point, Pedro Pascal.

Pascal, whom many know from his current role as the titular character Din Djarin in the Disney Plus series The Mandalorian, is no stranger to the internet. Indeed, he throws down with the best of them on Twitter and beyond, from plenty of joke posts to heartfelt moments like his open support when his sister Lux Pascal came out as trans. But sometimes the serious stuff can give way to the more wacky hijinks, and that seems to be what happened with a virtual table read featuring Pascal and Paul Giamatti.

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The clip comes from a full cast Zoom read of the script for Kevin Artigue's play I, My Ruination, in which Giamatti plays Elia Kazan and Pascal takes on the dual role of Raphael Nixon and playwright Tennessee Williams himself. It's during a moment of dialogue between Kazan and Williams that Pascal unleashed a particularly over-the-top display of emotion that seemed to resonate with viewers. One look at the clip and it's rather easy to see why.

The internet's denizens were quick to notice that Pascal's in-character outburst basically condensed everyone's feelings about 2020 and 2021 into a poignant 10-second meme. An exaggerated laugh morphing seamlessly into mournful sobbing feels like the most on-point description of the past 2 years one could possibly give without uttering a single word.

Maybe it's Pascal's gift for facial acting that likely helped him get the role of Joel in HBO's The Last of Us, or just due to how beloved the star is, but the clip managed to touch the hearts of many, turning a moment of genuinely enjoyable acting into a piece of internet history that's sure to be forgotten along with countless other notches in meme history. It's kind of a downer to think of things like that, but then again, it's pretty on-brand for the whimpering '20s, isn't it?

People just have to find these little moments of levity when they can. In a time where happiness seems harder and harder to find, the darkest humor sometimes seems to shine the brightest. Besides, it's pretty funny. Just look at that face of his. Perfection.

The Mandalorian seasons 1-2 are now available on Disney Plus.

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Source: Ensdaw/YouTube - Tiff K/YouTube