Res ipsa loquitur: What Does The Image Say About Itself?

There is meaning that comes from the image because of its component parts.  The Care Bears and Hellraiser franchises are both contained in this picture, so understanding the effect of this picture comes from knowing these franchises.  However, even without knowing what a Care Bear or a Hellraiser (sic) is, let's look at the image itself.

There are two very cute bears in this picture, one with a cartoon heart on his belly.  Both have cartoon hearts as noses.  One is a familiar brown while the other is a light blue, a color we sometimes associate with infants.  The pins and the odd cube in the light blue bear's belly don't fit and the brown bear looks concerned for his friend's well being.  He cares, after all.  The cartoon heart shows he has feeling.  Of course this is all dependent on the viewer knowing what a cartoon heart is, but even so, the bears are round and furry and look soft.  The light blue bear looks afflicted with something because of those awful looking pins in his head.

These bears look like teddy bears, the soft, furry animal toys that kids take to bed to protect them from nightmares and monsters under the bed.  Named for President Theodore Roosevelt, the idea came from a political cartoon drawn to lampoon then-President Roosevelt's participation in a bear hunt, in which everyone in the party killed a bear except him.  His aides, knowing Roosevelt's reputation as a big game hunter, decided to find, beat up, and tie up a bear for Roosevelt to get an easy kill.  However, Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear, feeling that it was unsportsmanlike.  News spread quickly of this and Clifford Berryman drew this cartoon:

Cute fella, ain't he?
Found here

Notice how cute the bear is?  This gave an idea to a Brooklyn toy maker to make the first teddy bear.  In a way, this story gave birth to a toy that gave us the first cute bear meme in stuffed animal form.

The Internet loves to subvert the cute and innocent, however.  The idea of cute bears used in mash-ups where their cuteness is rendered "un-cute" has many examples.  For instance, Pedobear is an image that came from 4chan that moderators used to identify possible child pornography and that took on a life of its own.  Pedobear is both a symbol for and against pedophilia, depending on who has appropriated the image.  Winnie-the-Pooh is also not immune from being treated as a bloodthirsty flesh eater.

In a weird cyclical way, the bears that Teddy Roosevelt would have hunted because they are considered vicious and wild have now past cute and boomeranged back to their roots.  However, they are not the same wild animals anymore.  They are now depicted with some form of human evil or cruelty.  

Doing things for the lulz usually does that and the Internet is full of lulz.

Click here to learn more about how the forms in this image work together.