These are examples of characters breaking_the_fourth_wall, i.e. demonstrating awareness that they exist inside a fictional medium:

post #3387968 post #3527767

These are examples of characters merely talking_to_viewer, i.e. the viewer is assumed to be present in the scene:

post #3502821 post #3490557

These are examples of characters overlapping the borders of comic panels, breaking the third wall at best:

post #3018306 post #3241956

These are completely normal drawings of characters with no implied medium awareness whatsoever:

post #3486713 post #3448814

This is literally just a character taking a selfie:

post #3483726

The tag desperately needs a massive purge and I don't want it to reach 1k posts in its current state.

IMO the tag could use being broken down. I could see it get split between medium_awareness (for acknowledging things like page counts or panels and such), breaking_out_of_frame (for uses of partial backgrounds and/or transparency to make it look like the character is coming out of a smaller image), offering to viewer/talking_to_viewer and possibly screen_tap/screen_lick.

I don't know how many people actually read the wiki but I thought the breaking_the_fourth_wall wiki entry could be confusing, so I took a stab at making it more precise.

post #3241956 might be legit? It's not immediately obvious whether the viewer is supposed to be present in the scene or to be the "player" as such. Granted, I haven't read the descriptions for the whole pool.

Essentially, there is the DIALOGUE-based medium awareness:
post #3387968 - "look are we going to get this comic going or not"
post #2707005 - "ask him over there" *points to depiction of actual artist*
post #984406 - "seems like we're gonna all cum together--just like a very bad porno"

...and then there's all the VISUAL gags that get the tag, which is a bit more complicated than simply "breaking out of frame":
post #3241956 post #1618136 - breaking out of frame
post #606507 post #3021455 post #1600082 - screen interactions: belly_on_glass, licking_screen, literally breaking the screen
post #305688 post #3241985 post #26921 post #3030720 post #339733 - UI elements or art tools

I agree that breaking_the_fourth_wall definitely needs to be broken up somehow.

I agree that breaking_the_fourth_wall definitely needs to be broken up somehow.

I'm not volunteering - still doing mass tagging of old posts with (other) specific themes, hehe.

Yeah, if a decision is made, I can help with random page number of them or something. By that time, I might be done with these others. I'm still about half-way through my current search tab's list of candidates.