YMMV / Virgin vs. Chad

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Naturally, with there being no official "canon" and so many people making memes:
  • Are Virgins pathetic and creepy, or are they normal guys who lack confidence? Further, some memes depict the "Virgin" having sex, albeit in a way that the creator sees as uncool.
  • Is Chad a cool, Lovable Jock? A bully? Or a crazy exaggeration of the incel perception of a "Chad"?
  • What is the two's relationship to one-another? Does Chad bully Virgin? Does Virgin resent Chad? Are they friends? Lovers?
  • Some fans theorize that Gizzard, the Chadiverse equivalent of the Devil, only carries out his plans to get Gad to notice him.
  • Whether a behavior or person is Virgin or Chad will, naturally, depend on the content creator's worldview and whether they're trying to be ironic or sincere.
  • Lad is sometimes a step up from Thad, though he's most often "too much of a good thing taken too far" and a loser or a completely delusional or malevolent psychopath.
    • In the latter, is he a Obliviously Evil Cloud Cuckoo Lander who is completely out of touch with reality or The Sociopath who is a gleefully psychotic Laughably Evil Ax-Crazy maniac? Note that this isn't actually controversial, it just a case of whatever you think is funnier for the context of the particular meme you are making.
  • Which characters are individuals, and which are a "type of person"? Most fans agree that there are many Virgins and Chads, but dispute if there is more than one Lad. Gad, being a singular diety, is commonly accepted to be one dude.
• Broken Base: Fans of the meme can be roughly divided into two camps: those who prefer the classic style, where Virgin is a normal behaviour and Chad is completely absurd; and those who are okay with memes where Virgin is bad and Chad is unironically good.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The classic form of the meme depicts the Virgin doing a normal thing, and the Chad doing a completely absurd inverse of the normal thing, with any additional characters being more insane.
  • Whenever a meme uses the Lad, you can expect him to do something hideously obscene and unethical, to the point that the narrator will be horrified, which will still be a funny punchline because of how shocking it is.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Lad started off as just another extra character, but his hilarious Crosses the Line Twice antics made him one of the most popular characters.
  • Shlad started out as a parody of the new, low-effort OCs people kept adding to the sub. He quickly became a beloved character in his own right and it's hard to find a comments section where he's not mentioned.
• Fanon: If a Virgin is given an actual name, it is most commonly agreed to be Virgil or Daniel.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • The Brad is often depicted as a narcissistic prick who in truth feels deeply emotionally insecure about himself and desperately needs someone to talk to.
  • The Incel is sometimes portrayed as this in more sympathetic or nuanced depictions. He's rightfully reviled as a hateful little shit who blames everyone but himself for his problems, but it's also suggested that he's dealing with some serious depression, self-hatred, and social isolation, and that bullying during his formative years has left him convinced that he's in a world that hates him.
• Misaimed Fandom: The original meme was supposed to parody regular people's insecurity and awkwardness as being "shameful", while "cool guys" would be rude and not even listen to music. The meme is often used by some as a plain "bad vs. good" meme where the Virgin is something they don't like and the Chad is something they like. Some posts invert that formula, putting something popular and well-liked as the Virgin and something unpopular as the Chad, but it's still using the format as a "good vs. bad" meme, albeit in a less straightforward way. However, both uses of the meme received backlash from some people, who accused it — along with other similar memes such as Creamsicle — as a form of gatekeeping, and responded with the "Gatekeeping yuri/yaoi" meme; subverting the Right Way/Wrong Way Pair formula of said memes by shipping both characters together, thus representing harmony between two opinions or two different forms of self-expression.
  • There's also the occasional addition of the Basic, intended to be the middle ground between the Virgin and the Chad in representing an ordinary person - despite the fact that the entire joke was that the Virgin was supposed to be, essentially, describing an ordinary person as opposed to the idealized impossible Chad.
• Narm Charm: Chad's surname is Thundercock. It would normally be a sucky name, but considering how over the top Chad is, it fits him like a glove.
• The Scrappy: The Basic gets a sizeable amount of hate and isn't used very much, due to being boring. He has a reputation as being "the Virgin, for people that don't want to call themselves virgins". If used, he is a side character to demonstrate how insane the main characters are behaving or present as an Anti Joke in the middle of full cast memes.
• Ugly Cute: The whole point of the Wraith.
• The Woobie: The Virgin, naturally. He's not grotesque like the Wizards or a Jerkass like the Incel or Neckbeard, but he lacks confidence and fails at most romantic endeavors. He's still a jerk sometimes, but is usually given a level of sympathy regardless.
  • All of the characters get this, mainly Chad, who is often depicted as very sad and alone and parties to distract from the void in his life.

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