The LOLcat phenomenon. This is where it will end up.
(via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, obviously.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
The LOLcat phenomenon. This is where it will end up.
(via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, obviously.)
Yeah, not only did I not find this funny, I thought it was fairly offensive and triggering. Was hoping it wouldn’t make the rounds of FTB, but alas.
So that was supposed to be funny, eh?
Really, Nepenthe? I’m curious as to why.
@Stacy
Are we supposed to laugh because the “cat” can’t afford medical treatment and becomes increasingly desperate in his attempt to stay alive? While that doesn’t mirror my experience, it’s likely to mirror my future experiences and I know it’s a distinctly unfunny situation many people are in.
Or maybe we’re supposed to laugh because the “cat” is forced to prostitute himself for money to pay for dialysis? (Though I suppose it was an encounter between two consenting adults, so I should shove down the nauseated feeling that arises when certain memories are triggered, in this case by the emotions displayed by the “cat”. The “cat” did get fairly compensated for his labor, after all. offs shut up nepenthe)
Or maybe we’re supposed to laugh when the “cat” commits suicide after being bullied by a bunch of doucheweasel kids? Is the funny part how the “cat” continues to be degraded even after death?
I guess I just don’t get it.
I’ve been there, and I have friends who’ve been there. The reality isn’t funny at all.
It’s dark humor, and I can see how it would be triggering. Especially the prostitution scene.
I find it funny, because it’s a juxtaposition of lighthearted lolcat squee (which I love, btw) with the harshest of realities.
(I don’t think the kids at the end were bullying–they were just clueless. Wanted pictures of the celebrity–didn’t notice his despair. The theme throughout was exploitation.)
Didn’t do anything for me. Not a titter, nor even an imagined half-smile.
Old SMBCT videos like this one are so great. Their last season with its supposed higher budget is feeble crap, beginning to end.
Pretty much what Nepenthe said. I find it more than a little creepy that people would make a skit like this.
@ otranreg
You really don’t get it do you?
@9 Exactly! What the fuck were they thinking when they put a lolcat in the sketch! It should have been a sad clown, or at least Hitler!
What a waste of bandwidth that was.
I suppose it was trying to be mordant and sardonic, or something elevated like that.
Apparently, the conceit is that being a reified meme whose only utility is to be exploited is such an unhappy life that it would make that reified meme kill itself, but the kicker is even that would not stop the exploitation.
I found that pretty amusing, in a “the world is awful, let’s laugh at it to keep from going insane” sort of way.
I can definitely understand why someone less fucked up than me might not, though.
I really wish I hadn’t watched that :-(
Not remotely funny.
I’m really kind of disturbed by this. I mean, I love dark humor and laughing at things that are morbid. But this just feels wrong, problematic, and triggering.
And I can’t believe I’m saying that about a SMBC video. Thats’…just weirdly wrong.
The only part I found at all funny was “Invisibl Self-Loathing” but beyond that, none of it even made me smile, I just watched with… disgust.
Too many people are going through the sort of thing shown in the video. There are people in the real world who have to choose between food and medicine.
Nope, not funny.
Oh good, I thought I would be alone in finding it dire, tedious and dull. Although most of my issues with it are with the construction and maintenance of the joke, and poor scripting; not so much with the subject matter, ’cause dark humour in itself doesn’t bother me.
Douchey. Completely fucking douchey. Thanks DoodBros.
no, no, what’s funny is that the lolcat thinks dialysis is for liver problems! Hahaha!
(plus, who cares if it’s funny or not if it annoys Coyne?)
On the plus side, I can see now that I’m not missing much by not watching these SMBC videos.
I.. No, not funny.
I’ve been disabled and on a fixed income for 10 years now, and it’s hard enough to hold my life together and get any joy out of it as things are. After spending myself near penniless -and- going without for two months, I only just this last week got the first new delivery of medication that I need to survive. After months of distress and pain, and more money than I wanted to spend, I -should- have it taken care of for the rest of the year. The exact same thing will happen again next year, just as it did last year. (Whoever came up with the notion of the Medicare “Doughnut hole” should be SHOT!)
One of the most difficult-to-survive things that going without medication causes me is total apathy – I hurt like hell and I just don’t care about -anything-. I don’t eat, don’t sleep, basically turn into a shambling zombie in a haze of pain, just trying to get through each day. I lost whole *years* before we found medication that was any help at all.
I’m coming out of that now that I am back on track, but.. Thanks in part to that pain and apathy, I was one day late filing some paperwork with the bank. That’s the excuse they’ve been waiting for, and they yanked us out of the refinancing program we’ve been trying to get through for the past *7 fucking months*. (THEY don’t have to worry about how long they delay with paperwork or calling us back, and they always seem to manage to wait long enough that I have to get all new paperwork every month, because they -just- miss the deadlines, or come up with some new form that they never so much as -mentioned- before.)
And for the first time in 13 years, this month we’re behind on our mortgage payment. I haven’t yet been able to pull aside the people in my family that I need to talk to individually about this, and as you might guess, I’m really dreading that conversation – but it HAS to happen today. As long as I don’t mind spending every penny I’ve managed to save, as well as going just a little deeper into credit card debt, I can fix this problem. This time. I think.
If only it were as simple as selling myself, but most people don’t even have -that- option. So I’m with that cat up on that ledge right now, in spirit if not in fact. I’ve been there at least part-time for nearly a decade. Every day is a battle not to take the easy way out – and leave my family in the lurch by so doing. I’ll endure what pain I have to. I’ll go into debt as far as I have to to keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. As long as I can convince myself that I’m helping them, I can hang on. But what will happen when I can’t convince myself of that anymore? I’m not at rock bottom yet, but it’s just a tiny, tiny stretch away after this fiasco.
To say the least, I couldn’t really see the humor in this one. Not today. Maybe not ever.
Whew. Even with the major problem(s) still to be dealt with, it can help a lot to talk them out with the people you love. I hated to have to share painful news, but it was one of those things that you HAVE to share. After a cathartic but decidedly necessary conversation, I’m at least ready to deal with the week ahead without gibbering or throwing up. Wheee!
Don’t mind me dumping my guts here, that was just a little more triggering than I could handle today. …Sorry ’bout that, but trust me, it was a lot more emotional in person!
[meta]
Ermine, you’re welcome to dump here.
Really.
@Ermine- Obamacare will fill the Medicare donut hole, if it survives the Supreme Court. If it doesn’t, I will be throwing myself on the tender mercy of the Veterans’ Administration for medical care. Happy Memorial Day to me!
Not funny. I will never criticize the Alberta medical system again. It ain’t perfect, but it seems to work better for a larger fraction of the people than your system.
What the fuck, PZ. Fail.
And Jason “Ally” Thibeault fails too. Possibly even worse, because he knew it’d be triggering for some people, but he had to post it anyway for the lulz.
Also, Chas, could you please fuck off already, like you’ve promised to?
no, I’m sorry, I probably won’t be complying with your request.
But I could quit, any time time I wanted to!!
Wow, that was kind of…depressing.
Wow, PZed, I love you madly, but you really fucked this one up bigtime. Not cool. Seriously not cool.
Considering how good you usually are about feminism, disability rights, and all that keen stuff, what the fuck were you thinking, man? Were you thinking? I mean, I can dig the idea of a lapse, I’ve been out of my head on medication for most of the past ten days or so, but I think you owe the Horde a big, big apology collectively, and specific apologies to the people who were triggered. :(
What with the open casket?
I’d imagine that after that fall – feet or no feet – the reconstructive work would be expensiver than the liverdialysis.