With the exception of Varsity Blues, James Van Der Beek and his towering, Exeter-like forehead slipped into obscurity following his role as Dawson on “Dawson’s Creek.” Now, the Internet only remembers him for his blubbering bitchface and “I don’t want. Your life.”

All of that has changed with the existence of James Van Der Memes, a single-serving Tumblr blog comprised entirely of animated GIFs of Van Der Beek emoting. It’s fantastic. It shows that he’s able to poke fun at his past while also displaying more range than he ever showed on “Dawson.” And something tells me I’ll be using that “Oh no you dih’n't!” GIF sometime in the very near future. Probably in regard to TLC programming.

[via The Clearly Dope]

UPDATE: Here’s Van Der Beek’s Funny or Die video promoting the website:

As Comic-Con came to a close yesterday, Joshua Jackson hijacked some attention away from sci-fi/comic book geekery and redirected it towards late-’90s precocious teen schmaltz.

A small group of people were gathered on the lawn a distance from the convention center. They were standing around Joshua Jackson from ‘Fringe’, he was staging his own “Pacey-Con”, giving out fan fiction he wrote and getting pictures with the women, all while the “Dawson’s Creek” theme music played on a boom box. [Non-Sport Update via shimmery shine]

I have to say, I’m impressed that Jackson was willing to embrace the fact that everyone still calls him Pacey, especially since everyone else from that show is now a shell of their former self: Katie Holmes is a prisoner of Scientology, Michelle Williams is raising Heath Ledger’s orphan, and James Van Der Beek works for the U.S. government at the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border, where his forehead serves as a barrier to prospective illegal immigrants.

This is episode 1 of “Weiner Falls,” a “Dawson’s Creek” parody that doesn’t really parody “Dawson’s Creek” so much as infuse it with lots of phallic pranks.  Which is fine with me — force me to choose between satire and dick jokes, and I’ll take dick jokes every time.  (There’s more, too: Episode 2 is also excellent, though Episode 3 felt kinda flaccid.)

What’s up with spelling it “Weiner,” though?  I always thought “weiner” was pronounced whiner, whereas “wiener” was for hot dogs and penis jokes.  Can I get some German-American dickological humorists to weigh in on this one?  I’m a dickological humorist, but my linguistic concentration is French.  Suck my coq! **waves rubber chicken**

Tom Kapinos, the writer and executive producer for “Californication” who cut his teeth as a show runner on “Dawson’s Creek” a decade ago, opened up about the horrible experience of working on the hit that propelled Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, and Michelle Williams to stardom and James Van Der Beek to one role in a movie by MTV Films.

“The experience was miserable,” he continued about Dawson’s. “But it was a four-year boot camp. It was like going to TV grad school and learning how to run a television show. Anybody on that show who could make a decision was allowed to run it at some point. I inherited the very awkward college years, and I almost ran the show into the ground. But I learned everything that I needed to know about how to run a show.”

When the panel moderator asked, “What was it specifically that made it such a challenge?” Tom dropped this bomb: “It was the four monstrous actors at the core of it.”  The audience erupted in laughter as Tom continued, saying: “They were very young, and they got very famous, and they made life miserable for any writer or producer on the show.” [E Online]

I’ll tell you what the real monster is.  Van Der Beek’s forehead.  ZING.  Or should I go with Katie’s husband?  What’s more likely to devour an American city?  Tom Cruise or that glacial cranium?  I can’t decide.