When you get angry, you can lash out or seethe inside.

Or you can head to the Web to assemble and publish a cartoon to share some of that rage. Many people with little to no artistic ability — but with some pretty funny tales — do that in something called rage comics.

They have created a genre of Internet humor that, unlike the Keyboard Cat or Rickrolling, two famous Internet memes, continues to grow nearly five years after its obscure beginnings. Today, thousands of rage comics are posted daily. Most are the creations of anonymous people seeking not fame, but an audience with whom they can air their dark wit. Popular themes are public embarrassment, private shame in the bedroom or bathroom, and most of all, the unbearable burden of dealing with other people’s stupidity.

For example: Two female heads on a white background are talking. One asks the other if she has read “The Hunger Games” books. “I don’t think so,” the other replies, “but I’m glad you finally realized that you need to start a diet!” The stark fourth panel has no dialogue. It is just the first woman’s face — alone, weary and resigned to her friend’s vapidity.

Despite the growing number of cartoonists, rage comics have maintained a consistent recognizable style: stock art of faces, some twisted in rage or frustration. What holds the genre together is a combination of browser-based editing tools that encourage authors to stick to a predefined set of images and text styles and Web sites where readers can “upvote” strips to the top of the slush pile.