Despite efforts by our family, I wasn’t really there for the pre-Eternal-September Internet, but I still remember its fallout. And the early 2000s “4Chan” internet makes Eternal September look tame. During Eternal September, it was mostly just cluelessness. Early 2000s internet made deliberately being an asshole and overt bigotry major aspects of internet culture. And a lot of Gamergate and similar jackasses are people who are annoyed that there are enough people paying attention to the internet now that people complain when they act like that and want their echo chamber back.
It’s only going to get worse, Dark Power 451. Soon they’ll invent memes, and then lolcats, and then the earth will only be cleansable with the power of ten thousand suns.
I always try to mentally categorize these jokes the same way I do those Pepe Le Pew cartoons, or how ridiculous cartoon violence happens without comment, but, yeah, it’s starting to weird me the hell out.
Legit not trying to come off like some MRA douche, but is there anything on why cartoon violence happening is perceived as okay, but not the events of this strip?
I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but if I were to hazard a guess I’d say it’s probably due to the perceived reality of any given strip? Whereas exaggerated violence like dropping an anvil on your coworker is funny because of the sheer absurdity, in real life it just wouldn’t fly. You could maybe get away with jostling elbows at the water cooler, max, without getting your ass fired.
Stuff like this, while still taken to a ridiculous degree in pursuit of a laugh, is a little too tangible to be entirely… funny. The real world repercussions feel more accessible because the toned down version of this strip is just a kind of awkward dude hitting on his coworker in an aggressive manner with no repercussions–which we see all too often in real life.
Because sexual assault is a huge problem in the actual military, and the reaction to this information is typically “well of course they were raped, what did you think would happen” (like Alex is doing, content to just blame AOL rather than intervene) instead of “hey maybe we should try to get people to stop raping each other.”
One common answer is that women in your audience are far more likely to have suffered sexual assault, or know someone who has, or in general, to fear it, then anyone in your audience is to have suffered generic violence, especially extreme violence or murder. There’s more of the sexual assault and it’s more evenly distributed.
I guess it’s like, when Walky gets the shit kicked out of him it’s usually done with enormous buggy eyes, cracked teeth and that dizzy swirl thing cartoons always do, but this strip is just straight up a guy jumping on Dina. So even if it’s played for total comic effect, it’s still a joke about something so many women have experienced.
Beyond the other answers, there’s also the factor that US entertainment takes a very relaxed attitude toward violence, but that’s no longer applied so much to sexual assault jokes (whether violent or otherwise).
Also, cartoon violence is more… equal? Part of the problem with sexual violence is the one sided perception of it. (Some) men see it and find it funny, and don’t realise why women (and others) would feel intimidated.
If the violence was showing someone being slammed in the face with a frying pan, that’s more universal. (Almost) everyone who watches that would realise that whilst it may be funny, it’s not the sort of thing you should do to another person.
(Where I’m weired out is in the DoA comments section. I get that there are a lot of hot topics in that comic, but I’m disturbed by the number of people talking about murdering characters. It always seems less funny and more “disturbingly bloodthirsty”. I pretty much hate Donald Trump, but I wouldn’t write that I want to see him brutally killed.)
It seems worth noting that “Ruth / Danny + Truck +- ??? = Profit” formula jokes are probably less due to bloodthirst (…except where some people bloodthirst for Danny perhaps) and more to the memetic nature of the incident. I mean, it was dark and dramatic in it’s context, albeit a bit of a weird setup (“I’ll shove you out of the way with my car! Which only kills me for some reason, and not you”), but just randomly adding trucks and violence to things, plus Ruth’s personality (femurs, etc) can result in some pretty silly mental imagery.
Oh, no, those things don’t bother me at all. Or people making jokes about femurs or things like that. It’s more situations like the current DOA storyline about Becky’s dad, and the comments saying things like “I just want to push him off a cliff and watch him die”. It’s either said crazily over the top, or in a matter of fact manner, both of which worry me.
(Of course, I’ve never been in a situation like Becky’s or met anyone like her dad, so people that have probably have more right to be emotionally involed.)
I LOATHE DoA Mary because I’m actually Trans and have had to deal with piles of assholes like her, though most of mine are “nominally feminist”, not “awful Christian.” People like that can literally endanger my life. So, yeah, I do want to see her dead, and for fairly solid reason.
That’s supposed to be me, more or less, yeah. There’s basically two or three things happening here:
1. “HOT HOT SEXENGS” and “KILL MY LONELY” and etc. were a mutual injoke with myself and the rest of the #wiigii! crowd at the time, more-or-less based off of stereotypical broken-english porn spam of the era. These days it’d be closer to “L@@K G3T C1AL1$ C-H-E-A-P!!!!!” or Nigerian Prince scams or whatever.
2. At the time, I was in a revolving door of relationships, so it alternated between “Hoop has another girlfriend he won’t shut up about” and “Hoop won’t shut up about how single he is”, and I think that sort of informed the character as well.
3: Back when I was bugging David about drawing me into the strip, I was on a huge Evil Dead/Army of Darkness kick, and Ash was a very intentional influence here, at least on my end. Chainsaw, smirking one-liners, etc.
The end result is this kind of fucked up Pepe Le Pew guy and it has not aged well. Boy.
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So, is there a reason the guy based on a real guy is acting like… that?
I’m assuming it’s biographical, in which case uh
I’m assuming it’s David screwing around with his friend, but picking a “joke” that he shouldn’t have picked.
Wow. Has the memory of Eternal September faded so quickly from the internet?
Did I just out myself as the oldz?
Eternal September has a wikipedia page. I learned about it in high school.
Despite efforts by our family, I wasn’t really there for the pre-Eternal-September Internet, but I still remember its fallout. And the early 2000s “4Chan” internet makes Eternal September look tame. During Eternal September, it was mostly just cluelessness. Early 2000s internet made deliberately being an asshole and overt bigotry major aspects of internet culture. And a lot of Gamergate and similar jackasses are people who are annoyed that there are enough people paying attention to the internet now that people complain when they act like that and want their echo chamber back.
hah in both of your comics dina has to deal with a creepy asshat, too bad for dina
Do you mean Becky’s father? At least Hooper doesn’t look like a giant toe with a pornstache.
And at least Becky’s father doesn’t try to tackle-hug her.
(No, I mean it, that would be terrifying.)
Thanks for finally answering for me whether “Toedad” was because he kinda looks like a toe, or a play on “toerag” because he’s awful.
What a coincidence, huh?
Hooper is sure the ladies man.
I kinda want I am Hooper. Kill my lonely! to be the first book title.
T-t-t-topical!
Fun fact: AOL still exists for some reason.
Hell, I still use one!
The browser, or the email service?
The coaster.
It’s only going to get worse, Dark Power 451. Soon they’ll invent memes, and then lolcats, and then the earth will only be cleansable with the power of ten thousand suns.
And it will all be your fault. Yours and those of your ilk.
We didn’t know… We didn’t know!
Hooper is here for what reason? other than to assult Dina?
I should know who he is but dont’?
He was also the one mysterious silhouette sent after Head Alien.
Release the Raptor Dina! Release the Raptor!
I always try to mentally categorize these jokes the same way I do those Pepe Le Pew cartoons, or how ridiculous cartoon violence happens without comment, but, yeah, it’s starting to weird me the hell out.
Legit not trying to come off like some MRA douche, but is there anything on why cartoon violence happening is perceived as okay, but not the events of this strip?
I have absolutely no evidence to back this up, but if I were to hazard a guess I’d say it’s probably due to the perceived reality of any given strip? Whereas exaggerated violence like dropping an anvil on your coworker is funny because of the sheer absurdity, in real life it just wouldn’t fly. You could maybe get away with jostling elbows at the water cooler, max, without getting your ass fired.
Stuff like this, while still taken to a ridiculous degree in pursuit of a laugh, is a little too tangible to be entirely… funny. The real world repercussions feel more accessible because the toned down version of this strip is just a kind of awkward dude hitting on his coworker in an aggressive manner with no repercussions–which we see all too often in real life.
But again, zero evidence, just my two bits.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_States_military
Because sexual assault is a huge problem in the actual military, and the reaction to this information is typically “well of course they were raped, what did you think would happen” (like Alex is doing, content to just blame AOL rather than intervene) instead of “hey maybe we should try to get people to stop raping each other.”
One common answer is that women in your audience are far more likely to have suffered sexual assault, or know someone who has, or in general, to fear it, then anyone in your audience is to have suffered generic violence, especially extreme violence or murder. There’s more of the sexual assault and it’s more evenly distributed.
I see.
I guess it’s like, when Walky gets the shit kicked out of him it’s usually done with enormous buggy eyes, cracked teeth and that dizzy swirl thing cartoons always do, but this strip is just straight up a guy jumping on Dina. So even if it’s played for total comic effect, it’s still a joke about something so many women have experienced.
To be fair, it’s a guy making a four foot leap into the air whilst shouting “hot hot sexengs!!!”, so we’re not in totally in realistic world here.
Beyond the other answers, there’s also the factor that US entertainment takes a very relaxed attitude toward violence, but that’s no longer applied so much to sexual assault jokes (whether violent or otherwise).
Also, cartoon violence is more… equal? Part of the problem with sexual violence is the one sided perception of it. (Some) men see it and find it funny, and don’t realise why women (and others) would feel intimidated.
If the violence was showing someone being slammed in the face with a frying pan, that’s more universal. (Almost) everyone who watches that would realise that whilst it may be funny, it’s not the sort of thing you should do to another person.
(Where I’m weired out is in the DoA comments section. I get that there are a lot of hot topics in that comic, but I’m disturbed by the number of people talking about murdering characters. It always seems less funny and more “disturbingly bloodthirsty”. I pretty much hate Donald Trump, but I wouldn’t write that I want to see him brutally killed.)
It seems worth noting that “Ruth / Danny + Truck +- ??? = Profit” formula jokes are probably less due to bloodthirst (…except where some people bloodthirst for Danny perhaps) and more to the memetic nature of the incident. I mean, it was dark and dramatic in it’s context, albeit a bit of a weird setup (“I’ll shove you out of the way with my car! Which only kills me for some reason, and not you”), but just randomly adding trucks and violence to things, plus Ruth’s personality (femurs, etc) can result in some pretty silly mental imagery.
Oh, no, those things don’t bother me at all. Or people making jokes about femurs or things like that. It’s more situations like the current DOA storyline about Becky’s dad, and the comments saying things like “I just want to push him off a cliff and watch him die”. It’s either said crazily over the top, or in a matter of fact manner, both of which worry me.
(Of course, I’ve never been in a situation like Becky’s or met anyone like her dad, so people that have probably have more right to be emotionally involed.)
I LOATHE DoA Mary because I’m actually Trans and have had to deal with piles of assholes like her, though most of mine are “nominally feminist”, not “awful Christian.” People like that can literally endanger my life. So, yeah, I do want to see her dead, and for fairly solid reason.
Hooper was later tried in the Hague for crimes against Lonelies.
Stop violence against Lonelies. It’s no laughing matter.
Who let this asshole in?
oh man, i missed this comic going back up.
Yeah, uh, so about that.
That’s supposed to be me, more or less, yeah. There’s basically two or three things happening here:
1. “HOT HOT SEXENGS” and “KILL MY LONELY” and etc. were a mutual injoke with myself and the rest of the #wiigii! crowd at the time, more-or-less based off of stereotypical broken-english porn spam of the era. These days it’d be closer to “L@@K G3T C1AL1$ C-H-E-A-P!!!!!” or Nigerian Prince scams or whatever.
2. At the time, I was in a revolving door of relationships, so it alternated between “Hoop has another girlfriend he won’t shut up about” and “Hoop won’t shut up about how single he is”, and I think that sort of informed the character as well.
3: Back when I was bugging David about drawing me into the strip, I was on a huge Evil Dead/Army of Darkness kick, and Ash was a very intentional influence here, at least on my end. Chainsaw, smirking one-liners, etc.
The end result is this kind of fucked up Pepe Le Pew guy and it has not aged well. Boy.
Ha ha ha, this is awful.
try being the dude the strip is about
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry