People hide this pattern called "loss" in unrelated context to confuse people. And people who recognize it feel smart, or angry, or disappointed. It's a form of mild trolling, there is not much more to it. The meme originates from a comic but this is completely irrelevant.
Why do you think it's obsolete? I suppose nowadays we can use AI generative models to explain the difference between the easy and the virtually impossible, but it still can be hard.