About
Just Coffee. Black is an exploitable[1], single-panel comic by Jeff Bacon in which a man repeatedly orders black coffee as a barista offers him a variety of specialty drinks, including a soy latte, macchiato and frappe, the woman behind the man exclaiming, “For cryin’ out loud make up your mind and order!” The comic was published in 2012 and garnered viral spread online in the 2020s as the subject of reactions and as an exploitable meme format, in which the captions are altered to change the context. The comic is often the subject of anti-meme[2] edits and has been criticized for depicting a situation that has never happened before, but suggesting it is a relatable scenario.
Origin
In 2012, illustrator Jeff Bacon published a comic in his Greenside Cartoons series on the Broadside website archive. The comic has since been deleted. In the comic, a man in a military uniform tries to order a black coffee at a coffee shop. Every time he says, “Just coffee. Black,” the barista offers a more complicated drink. A woman behind the man says, “For cryin’ out loud make up your mind and order!” The comic was reposted to the Curtis Lowe WordPress site on April 27th, 2012. This is the earliest known live upload of the comic online.
Spread
The comic was reposted online numerous times over the following years, usually in the context of making fun of the comic.
For example, on August 13th, 2022, Redditor[3] u/KITTYKOOLKAT35 reposted the comic to the /r/boomershumor subreddit, garnering over 3,100 upvotes in three years. The top comment, left by u/fortunatevoice, refutes the idea of the comic, reading:
I worked in coffee shops through high school and college. The funniest part is that we would love when people ordered black coffee, because it’s so little work for us during the morning rushes. That was more true for sbux [Starbucks] than for the local places, but definitely none of us would complain about black coffee haha.
Later that day, the comic was reposted to the /r/terriblefacebookmemes with the title, “CaN’t EvEn OrDeR a CoFfEe AnYmOrE[4],” garnering over 36,000 upvotes in three years.
On August 14th, Redditor u/RawHamSalad posted a meme using the comic to the /r/bonehurtingjuice[5] subreddit, garnering over 10,000 upvotes in three years. This is the earliest known meme to use the comic.
On August 15th, 2022, Tumblr[6] user Thyrell posted the undedited comic, writing, “I love when boomers complain about shit like this because as a fast food worker I would literally rather walk out into the lobby and shoot myself in the head than suggest more than one menu item to a customer,” garnering over 113,000 notes in three years. The post was screenshotted and shared to the /r/tumblr subreddit on August 18th, garnering over 43,000 notes in the same span of time.
On September 28th, 2025, Redditor u/mayoyoyoyoyoyoyo posted an edit of the meme to the /r/AntiMemes subreddit that gained over 1,700 upvotes in about a week.
On September 30th, Redditor u/causualbtd6user posted another edit to the /r/antimeme subreddit that gained over 6,800 upvotes in a week.
On October 3rd, 2025, Threads user and author @jasonkpargin posted the unaltered comic, writing, “I seriously don’t think anything like this has ever happened even once anywhere in the world,” garnering over 6,900 likes and 330 shares in five days.
On October 5th, Pargin posted a video about the comic to his TikTok page, @jasonkpargin, garnering over 800,000 views in three days. In the video, he repeats the claim that this situation has never happened, and neither has the concept behind the comic. He goes on to talk about what might have motivated the artist to draw the comic, pointing out that nobody has taken black coffee away from him. Pargin says:
“All that happened is the range of options for other people expanded and he perceived that as persecution […] this is not political, this is a human nature thing. Most people are not satisfied to simply have the option to live their life the way they want. They also want to feel normal […] and see that most people have made the same choice they have made.
@jasonkpargin[7]
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
References
- ^ exploitable (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ anti-meme (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Redditor (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ CaN’t EvEn OrDeR a CoFfEe AnYmOrE (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ /r/bonehurtingjuice (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ Tumblr (knowyourmeme.com)
- ^ @jasonkpargin (www.tiktok.com)
- ^ ♬ original sound – Jason Pargin, author (www.tiktok.com)