Fsjal

2008Exploitable image / drawing fadsemi-active

Also known as: Excited Toon Link · fsjal face

Fsjal is a 2008 MS Paint character-drawing fad created by Brian Lee, featuring simple wide-eyed figures with bent arms and upward-gazing eyes that spawned countless user-generated variations on DeviantArt.

Fsjal is a series of MS Paint-style character drawings featuring a simple, wide-eyed figure with arms bent in anticipation and eyes pointing upward in eagerness. The drawing fad originated from a webcomic by artist Brian Lee in March 2008 and got its name from a random 4chan post in July 2009, spawning thousands of user-generated character sprites across DeviantArt, forums, and social media.

drawing fad memeszelda memesdeviantart memescreator credit memesms paint memes

TL;DR

Fsjal drawings follow a distinctive template: a round-headed character with stubby limbs, arms bent at the sides, and eyes looking upward with an expression of pure, dumb excitement.

Overview

Fsjal drawings follow a distinctive template: a round-headed character with stubby limbs, arms bent at the sides, and eyes looking upward with an expression of pure, dumb excitement. The style is deliberately crude, mimicking MS Paint aesthetics, and the template is "exploitable," meaning anyone can redraw it as any character, person, or object they want4. The appeal is in the simplicity. You don't need artistic skill to make a fsjal. Just the basic body shape, the upward-gazing eyes, and the eager arm pose. The result is a chibi-like caricature that works for virtually any recognizable figure, from video game characters to anime protagonists to real people.

The character traces back to artist Brian Lee, who posted comics under the handle "burgertime" on DeviantArt6. On March 27, 2008, Lee uploaded a comic titled "BROTERSTORY," a Super Smash Brothers-inspired strip created for a zine distributed at Seattle anime convention SakuraCon4. The comic was made at the request of a DeviantArt user named appletrees6. In one panel, Toon Link appears in the now-iconic excited pose, arms bent, eyes looking up, after he and Solid Snake decide to sneak around other characters to visit Ganondorf in the hospital4.

Lee was also known for his webcomic "The Adventures of Left and Right," hosted at lr-comic.com2. The excited Toon Link was just one panel in a longer comic, not intended as a standalone meme template.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt (source art), 4chan /b/ (meme naming and viral spread)
Key People
Brian Lee
Date
2008 (original art), 2009 (meme naming and spread)
Year
2008

The character traces back to artist Brian Lee, who posted comics under the handle "burgertime" on DeviantArt. On March 27, 2008, Lee uploaded a comic titled "BROTERSTORY," a Super Smash Brothers-inspired strip created for a zine distributed at Seattle anime convention SakuraCon. The comic was made at the request of a DeviantArt user named appletrees. In one panel, Toon Link appears in the now-iconic excited pose, arms bent, eyes looking up, after he and Solid Snake decide to sneak around other characters to visit Ganondorf in the hospital.

Lee was also known for his webcomic "The Adventures of Left and Right," hosted at lr-comic.com. The excited Toon Link was just one panel in a longer comic, not intended as a standalone meme template.

How It Spread

On July 25, 2009, someone posted a stripped-down version of the Toon Link character to 4chan's /b/ board. All identifying clothing and details were removed, leaving just the basic excited figure. The post carried the caption "Post ending in 69 names this meme!!!" and the reply with ID number 148492769 suggested "fsjal," a random string of letters. This GET named the character, and the exploitable template was born.

The fsjal drawing fad moved off 4chan quickly. On August 5, 2009, the first fsjal thread outside of 4chan appeared on the League of Legends forums, where users shared their own character versions and linked to Know Your Meme for context. Within days, threads popped up on Facepunch forums, the Natural Motion community, Newgrounds BBS, and Kongregate. A Facebook fan page launched on August 14, 2009, eventually collecting over 5,300 likes.

DeviantArt became the biggest hub for fsjal art. User g00dguyz uploaded the blank template to his gallery on November 30, 2009, and it racked up over 10,400 views and 20,400 downloads. A dedicated DeviantArt group called Fsjal-Club was established in December 2009, growing to 194 members with 28 pages of featured drawings. As of recent searches, DeviantArt hosts over 4,000 fan artworks tagged "fsjal," with new submissions still appearing years later.

Brian Lee himself responded to the meme's spread on August 10, 2009, posting on his DeviantArt journal. His reaction was mixed. He wrote: "WHY IS IT SUDDENLY AN EPIDEMIC ON THE INTERNET ESPECIALLY FURRIES I WOULD LIKE IT BETTER IF PEOPLE ACTUALLY KNEW WHO DREW THE ORIGINAL AKA ME." He added that while the imageboard threads with different character versions were "good fun," he got frustrated when people started making furry avatar commissions and one person tried to sell them. He also conceded: "fsjal is a pretty good name as far as memes go".

How to Use This Meme

Making a fsjal is straightforward:

1

Start with the basic template: a round head, small round body, stubby bent arms held at the sides, and short legs.

2

The key feature is the eyes pointing upward and the overall expression of eager anticipation.

3

Redraw the template as any character you want. Add hair, accessories, clothing, or color to make it recognizable as a specific person, game character, or pop culture figure.

4

Keep the MS Paint aesthetic. Overly polished versions miss the point. The charm is in the crude simplicity.

5

Post it in a collection thread or use it as a profile picture.

Cultural Impact

Fsjal was an early example of the "exploitable template" meme format that would later dominate meme culture. Unlike image macros that add text to a fixed image, fsjal asked users to redraw the template entirely, making it a participatory art project as much as a meme.

The meme also raised early questions about creator credit in meme culture. Brian Lee's frustration at seeing his art repurposed without attribution, and particularly at people trying to profit from derivative versions, foreshadowed debates that would become much more common as meme culture grew. His situation paralleled what later happened to artists like Matt Furie with Pepe the Frog, though on a much smaller scale.

In 2024-2025, fsjal saw a minor revival through cryptocurrency projects on Solana, with tokens like $FSJAL launching alongside PFP generators that let users build custom fsjal profile pictures. These projects marketed fsjal as a "forgotten legend" of early meme culture, predating even Trollface and Pepe.

Fun Facts

The name "fsjal" has no meaning. It was a random string of characters typed by an anonymous 4chan user whose post ID happened to end in 69.

Brian Lee created the original Toon Link drawing between classes and after school as a favor for a convention zine, never expecting it to become a meme template.

The DeviantArt template was downloaded over 20,000 times in under two years, making fsjal one of the most-used exploitable templates of the late 2000s.

Lee's DeviantArt journal response is one of the earliest documented cases of a meme creator publicly reacting to their work being "4chan-ified".

Fsjal predates many of the "classic" memes people associate with early internet culture. The original art is from March 2008, before Trollface (September 2008) and Rage Comics' peak popularity.

Derivatives & Variations

Fsjal-Club on DeviantArt

— A dedicated group with 194 members and pages of curated fsjal art featuring characters from Warcraft, Brawlhalla, Mortal Kombat, and more[7].

League of Legends fsjals

— Forum users created fsjal versions of LoL champions including Teemo, with dedicated threads for sharing[1].

Fsjal Meme Generator

— A template page that allowed users to add captions to the base fsjal image, though most submissions just used the blank template[4].

$FSJAL cryptocurrency

— Solana-based meme coins launched in 2024-2025, featuring PFP builder tools in a "4chan-styled lab" aesthetic[3][5].

Frequently Asked Questions

Fsjal

2008Exploitable image / drawing fadsemi-active

Also known as: Excited Toon Link · fsjal face

Fsjal is a 2008 MS Paint character-drawing fad created by Brian Lee, featuring simple wide-eyed figures with bent arms and upward-gazing eyes that spawned countless user-generated variations on DeviantArt.

Fsjal is a series of MS Paint-style character drawings featuring a simple, wide-eyed figure with arms bent in anticipation and eyes pointing upward in eagerness. The drawing fad originated from a webcomic by artist Brian Lee in March 2008 and got its name from a random 4chan post in July 2009, spawning thousands of user-generated character sprites across DeviantArt, forums, and social media.

drawing fad memes zelda memes deviantart memes creator credit memes ms paint memes

TL;DR

Fsjal drawings follow a distinctive template: a round-headed character with stubby limbs, arms bent at the sides, and eyes looking upward with an expression of pure, dumb excitement.

Overview

Fsjal drawings follow a distinctive template: a round-headed character with stubby limbs, arms bent at the sides, and eyes looking upward with an expression of pure, dumb excitement. The style is deliberately crude, mimicking MS Paint aesthetics, and the template is "exploitable," meaning anyone can redraw it as any character, person, or object they want. The appeal is in the simplicity. You don't need artistic skill to make a fsjal. Just the basic body shape, the upward-gazing eyes, and the eager arm pose. The result is a chibi-like caricature that works for virtually any recognizable figure, from video game characters to anime protagonists to real people.

The character traces back to artist Brian Lee, who posted comics under the handle "burgertime" on DeviantArt. On March 27, 2008, Lee uploaded a comic titled "BROTERSTORY," a Super Smash Brothers-inspired strip created for a zine distributed at Seattle anime convention SakuraCon. The comic was made at the request of a DeviantArt user named appletrees. In one panel, Toon Link appears in the now-iconic excited pose, arms bent, eyes looking up, after he and Solid Snake decide to sneak around other characters to visit Ganondorf in the hospital.

Lee was also known for his webcomic "The Adventures of Left and Right," hosted at lr-comic.com. The excited Toon Link was just one panel in a longer comic, not intended as a standalone meme template.

Origin & Background

Platform
DeviantArt (source art), 4chan /b/ (meme naming and viral spread)
Key People
Brian Lee
Date
2008 (original art), 2009 (meme naming and spread)
Year
2008

The character traces back to artist Brian Lee, who posted comics under the handle "burgertime" on DeviantArt. On March 27, 2008, Lee uploaded a comic titled "BROTERSTORY," a Super Smash Brothers-inspired strip created for a zine distributed at Seattle anime convention SakuraCon. The comic was made at the request of a DeviantArt user named appletrees. In one panel, Toon Link appears in the now-iconic excited pose, arms bent, eyes looking up, after he and Solid Snake decide to sneak around other characters to visit Ganondorf in the hospital.

Lee was also known for his webcomic "The Adventures of Left and Right," hosted at lr-comic.com. The excited Toon Link was just one panel in a longer comic, not intended as a standalone meme template.

How It Spread

On July 25, 2009, someone posted a stripped-down version of the Toon Link character to 4chan's /b/ board. All identifying clothing and details were removed, leaving just the basic excited figure. The post carried the caption "Post ending in 69 names this meme!!!" and the reply with ID number 148492769 suggested "fsjal," a random string of letters. This GET named the character, and the exploitable template was born.

The fsjal drawing fad moved off 4chan quickly. On August 5, 2009, the first fsjal thread outside of 4chan appeared on the League of Legends forums, where users shared their own character versions and linked to Know Your Meme for context. Within days, threads popped up on Facepunch forums, the Natural Motion community, Newgrounds BBS, and Kongregate. A Facebook fan page launched on August 14, 2009, eventually collecting over 5,300 likes.

DeviantArt became the biggest hub for fsjal art. User g00dguyz uploaded the blank template to his gallery on November 30, 2009, and it racked up over 10,400 views and 20,400 downloads. A dedicated DeviantArt group called Fsjal-Club was established in December 2009, growing to 194 members with 28 pages of featured drawings. As of recent searches, DeviantArt hosts over 4,000 fan artworks tagged "fsjal," with new submissions still appearing years later.

Brian Lee himself responded to the meme's spread on August 10, 2009, posting on his DeviantArt journal. His reaction was mixed. He wrote: "WHY IS IT SUDDENLY AN EPIDEMIC ON THE INTERNET ESPECIALLY FURRIES I WOULD LIKE IT BETTER IF PEOPLE ACTUALLY KNEW WHO DREW THE ORIGINAL AKA ME." He added that while the imageboard threads with different character versions were "good fun," he got frustrated when people started making furry avatar commissions and one person tried to sell them. He also conceded: "fsjal is a pretty good name as far as memes go".

How to Use This Meme

Making a fsjal is straightforward:

1

Start with the basic template: a round head, small round body, stubby bent arms held at the sides, and short legs.

2

The key feature is the eyes pointing upward and the overall expression of eager anticipation.

3

Redraw the template as any character you want. Add hair, accessories, clothing, or color to make it recognizable as a specific person, game character, or pop culture figure.

4

Keep the MS Paint aesthetic. Overly polished versions miss the point. The charm is in the crude simplicity.

5

Post it in a collection thread or use it as a profile picture.

Cultural Impact

Fsjal was an early example of the "exploitable template" meme format that would later dominate meme culture. Unlike image macros that add text to a fixed image, fsjal asked users to redraw the template entirely, making it a participatory art project as much as a meme.

The meme also raised early questions about creator credit in meme culture. Brian Lee's frustration at seeing his art repurposed without attribution, and particularly at people trying to profit from derivative versions, foreshadowed debates that would become much more common as meme culture grew. His situation paralleled what later happened to artists like Matt Furie with Pepe the Frog, though on a much smaller scale.

In 2024-2025, fsjal saw a minor revival through cryptocurrency projects on Solana, with tokens like $FSJAL launching alongside PFP generators that let users build custom fsjal profile pictures. These projects marketed fsjal as a "forgotten legend" of early meme culture, predating even Trollface and Pepe.

Fun Facts

The name "fsjal" has no meaning. It was a random string of characters typed by an anonymous 4chan user whose post ID happened to end in 69.

Brian Lee created the original Toon Link drawing between classes and after school as a favor for a convention zine, never expecting it to become a meme template.

The DeviantArt template was downloaded over 20,000 times in under two years, making fsjal one of the most-used exploitable templates of the late 2000s.

Lee's DeviantArt journal response is one of the earliest documented cases of a meme creator publicly reacting to their work being "4chan-ified".

Fsjal predates many of the "classic" memes people associate with early internet culture. The original art is from March 2008, before Trollface (September 2008) and Rage Comics' peak popularity.

Derivatives & Variations

Fsjal-Club on DeviantArt

— A dedicated group with 194 members and pages of curated fsjal art featuring characters from Warcraft, Brawlhalla, Mortal Kombat, and more[7].

League of Legends fsjals

— Forum users created fsjal versions of LoL champions including Teemo, with dedicated threads for sharing[1].

Fsjal Meme Generator

— A template page that allowed users to add captions to the base fsjal image, though most submissions just used the blank template[4].

$FSJAL cryptocurrency

— Solana-based meme coins launched in 2024-2025, featuring PFP builder tools in a "4chan-styled lab" aesthetic[3][5].

Frequently Asked Questions